{"id":524703,"date":"2026-03-09T14:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/524703\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T14:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:41:09","slug":"even-pixars-originals-are-starting-to-feel-like-sequels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/524703\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Pixar’s originals are starting to feel like sequels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not to damn it with faint praise, but Hoppers is one of Pixar\u2019s best originals in years<\/a>. Under Daniel Chong\u2019s direction, Hoppers has a frenetic sense of humor, lush animation, and a squish-worthy Insect Queen voiced by Meryl Streep. It\u2019s a poignant story, written by Luca<\/a> scribe Jesse Andrews, about political powerlessness and resilience as its plucky teen activist, Mabel (Piper Curda), faces the classic Pixar problem of being too small in a world that\u2019s too big. More importantly to Disney\u2019s bottom line, Hoppers has enough cute creature designs to power Disney\u2019s Parks And Plushies sector for years to come. The only thing Hoppers isn\u2019t is original.<\/p>\n

Firmly in its sequel era, Pixar has been alternating between follow-ups and originals for more than a decade. After years of inconsistency that worsened during COVID, CEO Bob Iger confirmed the strategy in 2024, saying<\/a> that the studio would be \u201cleaning on sequels\u201d to balance out originals that were not performing as well as established IP. But somewhere along the way, the balance has begun to tip. Recycled ideas, jokes, and character types have become part of the routine, as if Pixar had fed all those Pixar Formula blog posts<\/a> into an AI and simply hallucinated its later films.<\/p>\n

To its credit, Hoppers isn\u2019t trying to hide the influence of other Disney properties. During a crucial bit of exposition regarding the film\u2019s brain-hopping technology, Mabel exclaims, \u201cIt\u2019s like Avatar!\u201d A defensive Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy) responds, \u201cIt\u2019s nothing like Avatar!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe Dr. Sam is one of those \u201cAvatar had no cultural impact\u201d types, but the story of a human infiltrating a different species using an artificial body to prevent human-derived ecocollapse is a bit like Avatar, a film that has itself felt the ire of Fern Gully<\/a> fans for nearly two decades. The tossed-off shorthand for explaining the film\u2019s manic premise clangs throughout the rest of the movie, as one recycled Pixar trope, theme, or design after another hops on screen. A young girl transforming into a red mammal? Check out the superior Turning Red<\/a>. Secret hierarchical societies hiding under humanity\u2019s nose can be found throughout the Pixar oeuvre, from Toy Story<\/a> to Elio<\/a>. Not to mention, Hoppers is just the latest Pixar to use a dead or dying grandma as character motivation. By the film\u2019s end, as if to answer the nagging, \u201cHaven\u2019t I seen this before?\u201d question on its audience\u2019s mind, Dr. Sam reveals her next invention: A dog collar that translates dog speech. It\u2019s like Up!<\/p>\n

Depending on one\u2019s opinion of Cars, Pixar\u2019s first 15 years are as flawless as a movie studio could ever hope for. Unsurprisingly, as Pixar churned out masterpiece after masterpiece, its competitors churned out pretenders to the throne. Bug\u2019s Life had Antz; Finding Nemo had Shark\u2019s Tale. With a little distance, DreamWorks looped back around to make Megamind to mirror The Incredibles and Turbo for Cars. Pixar set itself apart not only through its superior technical prowess but also through its original and effective story construction. Each new Pixar film was a chance to see something entirely new. Now\u2014perhaps more embarrassing than getting bested by DreamWorks\u2014IMDb users<\/a> are noticing that the premise of Hoppers is very similar to that of The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature, which also follows woodland animals saving their home from an evil mayor.<\/p>\n

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, DreamWorks left Pixar perpetually blushing. More recently, though, Pixar\u2019s been more content to flatter itself and the wider Disney Vault. We wouldn\u2019t be the first to notice the story similarities between Pixar\u2019s two afterlife romps, Coco and Soul, separated by about four years, nor to see Elemental as a reskinned Zootopia. (Speaking of which, the proximity of Hoppers\u2018 release to the talking-animal juggernaut Zootopia 2 isn\u2019t doing the former film or its creature designs any favors, which is going to be a nightmare for overworked and slightly confused parents everywhere.)<\/p>\n

None of these familiar elements prevent Hoppers from being a fun\u2014even good\u2014movie, and even at its most repetitive, Pixar can reach creative highs. Coco and Soul have no problem finding meaning in different versions of the afterlife, showcasing Pixar\u2019s various strengths by flexing different muscles. But beneath Hoppers\u2018 motormouthed humor and flying sharks is a film that\u2019s too reliant on what has worked in the past. It comes in a likable enough package, but we should expect more from Pixar, a company that used to set standards of quality, not struggle to meet them. If the script has to use shorthand akin to Office Space\u2018s Michael Bolton explaining his scheme as \u201clike the plot from Superman III,\u201d it\u2019s time for a rewrite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not to damn it with faint praise, but Hoppers is one of Pixar\u2019s best originals in years. Under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-524703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}