The Plot Of A New Pixar Movie Is Almost Exactly James Cameron's Avatar (But Cuter)

We're in a bizarre place where animation is more successful than ever yet also on the brink of disaster. There's the constant threat of AI, studios pushing for outsourcing, and the general reliance on IP and known franchises over creative ambition. This, in turn, means that whenever a studio does come out with an original idea, it's cause for celebration.

Take Pixar, one of the most beloved American animation studios of the past 30 years. From the moment it debuted the first computer-animated feature film to get a major release, the studio has balanced big franchises like "Toy Story" and "The Incredibles" with one original movie after another. Sure, there have been misfires, but it's about that experimentation — because the more cartoons get made, the more cartoons get made.

This brings me to this year's big Pixar presentation at the 2025 Annecy Animation Festival, where the studio's Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter, unveiled its slate for the next couple of years. Though a lot of the attention was naturally put on "Elio," its next release, it was Pixar's next movie after that, 2026's "Hoppers," that earned even more cheering from the already ecstatic festival audience. "Hoppers" is another sci-fi film for the studio, specifically a cute adventure movie about a girl who — in order to save forest animals from having their home destroyed by greedy, invading humans — decides to hop into an animal avatar and raise allies to fight back.

That's right: Pixar is essentially remaking James Cameron's "Avatar" and making it cute. And reader, Eywa is with Pixar, it seems, because this movie looks great.

Docter didn't try to hide this, either, as he referred to "Hoppers" as "'Avatar' but cute" at least three times during the presentation. Daniel Chong ("We Bare Bears") is directing the film, which is set in a world where scientists have developed the technology to transfer their consciousnesses into robotic animal bodies so they can study animals more closely. The film centers on Mabel, the previously-mentioned young heroine who steals the technology to hop onto the body of a beaver and try to warn the animals of a nearby pond of the dangers posed by a local highway construction project.

Much like in "Avatar," when Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) infiltrated the Na'vi in order to help the inhuman RDA corporation destroy the natural forests of Pandora to mine unobtanium before ultimately switching sides and fighting for the locals, Mabel learns that the (animal) natives have a complex society with plenty of rules and traditions. No, she does not exactly fly an ikran in "Hoppers" (at least not in the footage shown at Annecy), but she does learn that there are rules to the pond. They all help each other, but "when you've got to eat, eat." King George (a beaver played by Bobby Moynihan) has created a sanctuary for animals who've lost their homes, but this is still nature, so predators are free and expected to just kill whatever they have to for sustenance. Mabel learns this the hard way when she comes across a bear who is about to devour another beaver. When Mabel interferes and saves the beaver, they both act disappointed and confused by her actions — yes, even the beaver, who seems perfectly fine with his doom. It's weird, it's hilarious, it is all as Eywa wills it.

The film deals with Mabel trying desperately to gather allies and start a revolution to lead the pond animals to freedom by driving the humans away ... just like Jake did in the first "Avatar" when he became the legendary Toruk Makto. The footage ended with an image of several animals wearing crowns like George's (as though they come from different Na'vi clans).

Live-action remakes of animated movies are a big source of money for the major Hollywood studios (save for the exceptions like "Snow White"), despite the sheer amount of criticism they receive from both audiences and critics alike. Yet, no mater how much, and how loudly, certain folks protest, everyone else keeps going to see them anyway, which is obviously the reason Hollywood refuses to stop churning them out. Unfortunately, these retellings also implicitly carry a troubling message with them — namely, that live-action is the only medium that truly matters and these stories are more important now because they're being retold in this fashion (rather than in cartoon form).

What makes this ludicrous is that if studios were to do the opposite, the pros would far outweigh the cons. The act of translating a story from animation to live-action intrinsically leads to something being lost because live-action simply can't accomplish the kind of visuals animation can. Take a live-action movie and turn it into an animated one, however, and the sky is the limit. We've already seen just how much better the "Spider-Verse" movies are than other live-action superhero films simply because of the opportunities afforded to them by being animated. A Pixar movie inspired by "Avatar," or at least sharing a lot of ideas with the James Cameron sci-fi epic, is nothing if not an opportunity for greatness. Studios, take note. Every big live-action movie could be improved with an animated "remake."

"Hoppers" opens in theaters on March 6, 2026.