AYJW 171: Hoppers Review | Incarnation, Animals & Truth

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ayjw171 hoppers movie poster What do you do with a movie that asks whether someone should become one of them to save them, then wraps that question in the bright, furry chaos of Hoppers? Scored by Mark Mothersbaugh, the film offers more than its cute surface suggests. In this episode, we examine the movie’s incarnation echo and how its hopping premise approaches questions of knowing and saving. We also confront the thornier issue of anthropomorphism, which only grew more bothersome the longer we considered it. From there, we question the familiar lie that everyone is good deep down, and the related promise that letting go of anger is easier when you believe you are part of something bigger.

First Impressions

Our first reaction to Hoppers was simple: we enjoyed it. It’s cute, well-paced, well-written, and polished as you’d expect from a major animated release. Eve liked that it went somewhere unexpected, even giving the original villain a path to redemption—a detail that grabs our attention. We left the theater satisfied. Trouble began later. After the credits, the movie hopped around our heads like an uninvited rabbit with opinions.

One of the more interesting things about Hoppers was its slightly older audience than the usual Pixar sweet spot. Mabel begins as a child, but the real story unfolds when she is a college student. This change gives the movie a different texture. Her activism feels familiar. That kind of restless, all-consuming zeal often appears at that age. Still, we did not think student activism was the film’s main point. It felt more like a character trait than an agenda. Even so, it signaled that this movie reached a bit further up the age ladder than the studio’s usual fare.

Both of us felt warning bells, though not all at once. Eve flagged two things early: the unexpected allegory and the unrealistic animal society. Our discomfort grew after the movie. The more we reflected, the more the anthropomorphism unsettled us—animals endowed with human intelligence, motivations, and moral weight. The film also features Japanese elements: the Tanaka family and a brief Shinto shrine. Combined, the movie seemed to carry a more pronounced naturalistic undercurrent than usual for the genre.

Even so, there was plenty to appreciate. We liked that Hoppers embraced its own identity. It didn’t just serve up studio leftovers with a garnish and a smile. The animation was strong. We especially liked the visual choice: when humans couldn’t understand animals, the creatures looked realistic and distant; as understanding shifted, they became expressive and more human. That was clever. Mark Mothersbaugh’s score also deserves mention. Ultimately, Hoppers works best if you don’t overthink it—awkward for us, since overthinking is our brand.

Becoming man (um, animal)

One of the more striking things about Hoppers is that it stumbles into a genuinely useful Christian analogy. The whole premise turns on becoming one of them in order to reach them, understand them, and ultimately help them. That is why Eve’s connection to the Parable of the Birds works so well here. In that story, the man cannot save the birds because they are afraid of him, and he realizes that if he could become a bird, he could tell them not to fear and lead them to safety. That is not the full gospel, of course, but it is a remarkably good doorway into why God became man.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…. No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him. (John 1:14, 18)

That also explains why the Hoppers hopping technology feels just plausible enough to support the movie’s metaphor. Mabel’s professor invented it so humans could observe animals in their natural habitats without causing fear. Eve noted that real researchers use animal-like robots to do the same in documentaries, such as Spy in the Ocean and Spy in the Wild. The movie draws on a real instinct: if you want closeness, observation, and trust, you must first overcome distance.

Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. For it is clear that he does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham’s offspring. Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. For since he himself has suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:14–18)

That is where the analogy with Hoppers stops working. Jesus did not become man simply to watch us, or just to feel what we feel. He became man to save us. He took on a human body so He could stand in our place, resist temptation without sin, and become the perfect sacrifice. Mabel can wear a beaver suit, as an example, to see things differently. Christ truly became human, not as a costume, and did so with complete humility and without sin.

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5–8)

To the movie’s credit, Mabel does grow. She starts from deeply personal motives tied to memory and grief. Gradually, she recognizes the larger ecosystem and broader consequences. Even that growth illustrates the limits of the comparison. By the end, Hoppers presents mutual rescue between people and animals. The gospel, however, is different: God does not need our help; we need His. Hoppers reaches toward incarnation for a moment—a moment worth noticing—but it cannot bear the full weight of what Christ actually did.

From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, ‘Be reconciled to God.’ He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:16–21)

Anthropomorphism

This is where Hoppers really lost us—not for having talking animals. That part is old hat. Animal stories, fables, parables, cartoons, and cautionary tales have existed for centuries, and nobody needs to clutch pearls every time a fox speaks. The problem is that Hoppers goes further than that. Once a human consciousness is in a robotic animal body, the animal world becomes legible, unified, and very human. From insects to bears, everyone seems to share a common language and a familiar set of human virtues and vices. The effect is that the movie drains the animals of their animal nature and fills the space with human assumptions.

That is also why the usual defense does not work. Aesop’s fables used animals to teach wisdom. Those animals stood in for human types and moral lessons. They did not erase the difference between man and beast. Eve made that point well in the discussion. A little anthropomorphism is fine when animals are used to teach a lesson. Hoppers goes far past that. Even The Wild Robot, which leaned into anthropomorphism, did a better job keeping the creatures as creatures. The robot had to learn how to communicate. The animal world was not just a furry version of human society.

That difference matters. If we use animals as metaphors, they should retain some of their nature. That was my point with the scorpion-and-frog tangent. The shorthand works when the creature still feels like itself. In Hoppers, the animals lose their distinctness. The result is not a fable or an observation. It turns the whole created order into an interchangeable social club with different body shapes.

God’s anger burned because Balaam was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand on the path to oppose him. Balaam was riding his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the path with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the path and went into the field. So Balaam hit her to return her to the path…. Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and she asked Balaam, ‘What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?’… Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the path with a drawn sword in his hand. He knelt low and bowed facedown. (Numbers 22:22–23, 28, 31)

Even that famous exception proves the rule. Balaam’s donkey is not Scripture smuggling in a theory of animal personhood. It is a moment of divine irony. God uses a beast to expose a prophet’s blindness. The point is Balaam’s failure to see, not that the donkey has secretly been carrying on a rich interior life and waiting for her chance to enter public discourse.

And that gets to the deeper counterfeit underneath all this. Hoppers keeps nudging toward the idea that man is just another mammal, another citizen of the broader animal kingdom, maybe a little confused and a little destructive, but not fundamentally distinct. Eve called out that moment where the beaver is told mankind belongs under the mammal king, and that really does give the game away. That is not merely a story convenience. It is a presupposition. It quietly asks us to view humanity through a naturalistic lens rather than a biblical one.

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.’ (Genesis 1:26)

God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.’ (Genesis 1:28)

According to Scripture, man is part of creation, but not merely one more interchangeable species within it. We are made in the image of God and given dominion, not because we are better evolved mammals, but because God assigned us a different place in the order He made. Once a story blurs that distinction, it has already started tampering with reality itself. So no, the real problem is not that the animals talk. The problem is that Hoppers quietly asks us to forget what man is.

Everyone is Good Deep Down

One of the more surprising things in Hoppers is that it actually takes a small step in the right direction here. The movie repeats the familiar line that everyone is good deep down, but then it lets a character say out loud what most modern stories are usually too polite to admit: that is not true. Eve noted in the episode that this may be the first time one of these Disney or Pixar-style movies has openly challenged the slogan instead of dressing it up in sentiment. That is worth noticing.

The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)

Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5)

American culture keeps trying to dodge this. As Christians, we know that mankind is not basically good, yet whole moral and political systems are still built on that fiction. As Eve put it in the discussion, if you build your worldview on something you already know is false, you should not be surprised when the world comes out crooked.

What makes the scene more interesting is Mabel’s reply: “Wouldn’t you like it to be?” That line gets closer to the truth than the slogan does. We are not good deep down, but we do know goodness is how things ought to be. We want the world to work that way, even while sin keeps proving otherwise.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin. For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin. (Romans 7:14–25)

It’s Hard to Be Mad If You’re Part of Something Big

This line is one of the more revealing moments in Hoppers, because it sounds profound the instant you hear it. Mabel’s grandmother connects it to stillness, quiet, and a kind of belonging within the natural world, and we can see why that would resonate. Part of the insight here is about anger. Scripture does not treat anger as automatically sinful, but it certainly does not trust it very far either. Once anger gets hold of us, it rarely stays tidy. It justifies itself, grows teeth, and usually starts reaching for vengeance long before wisdom gets its shoes on. That makes the movie’s instinct toward silence and perspective at least partially true.

A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise person holds it in check. (Proverbs 29:11)

Be angry and do not sin; reflect in your heart while on your bed and be silent. Selah (Psalm 4:4)

The phrase “something big” is where the movie gets hazier. In the discussion, Eve described it as sounding a bit like being a cog in the wheel, just one small piece in a vast machine. That fits with the movie’s sense of spiritual belonging to the cosmos, and we understand the appeal. Christians really are part of something bigger than themselves: creation, the church visible and invisible, the body of Christ, all spoken into existence by the God of all creation.

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Better to approach in obedience than to offer the sacrifice as fools do, for they ignorantly do wrong. Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:1–2)

LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I do not get involved with things too great or too wondrous for me. Instead, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like a weaned child. Israel, put your hope in the LORD, both now and forever. (Psalm 131)

When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him? (Psalm 8:3–4)

By the time this theme lands, what stays with us is the comfort of knowing that the One who made this vast creation still calls us His own and gives us a place in it as children and stewards.

Conclusion

In the end, Hoppers is a good example of why we do this show in the first place. It is entertaining, creative, emotionally effective, and even genuinely thoughtful in places, which is exactly why it deserves more than a casual shrug. We enjoyed it. We also grew less comfortable with it the longer we sat with what it was quietly assuming about man, animals, goodness, and belonging.

That does not make Hoppers worthless. It makes it worth discussing. The incarnation echo was interesting; the anthropomorphism was the biggest problem; the “good deep down” line briefly exposed a lie our culture likes to protect; and the “something big” line pointed toward a real longing, even if the movie framed it vaguely. For families especially, this feels like the kind of movie that should spark a conversation after the credits instead of ending with, “Well, that was cute.”

This is not a movie we would tell Christians to avoid. It is a movie we would tell Christians to, you know…not just watch.

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Tim

Where theology, technology, and storytelling quietly collide.

About the Author

Disciple of the Christ, husband of one, father of four, veteran of the United States Army, and geek to the very core, Tim remembers some of the 1970s and still tries to forget much of the 1980s. He spends his days working as a Unified Communications Engineer in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and too many nights in the clutches of a good story—whether found in a book, on a screen, at a gaming table, or in the essays he writes for his Substack, The Long Watch.

Hoppers – AYJW171