Hoppers

In the city of Beaverton, Mabel Tanaka spends her childhood with her grandmother in a nearby forest glade teeming with wild animals. Inspired by her grandmother, Mabel grows up with a deep appreciation for nature and continues watching over the glade after her estranged parents leave town and following her grandmother's death. When Beaverton's mayor, Jerry Generazzo, announces plans to replace the glade with a freeway—claiming that all the animals have left—Mabel campaigns against the project but receives no support. Her activism causes her to neglect her college studies, drawing the disapproval of her biology professor, Dr. Sam Fairfax.

While attempting to lure the animals back to the glade, Mabel discovers that Sam and her colleagues, Nisha and Conner, have secretly developed a new technology designed to enhance wildlife research. Known as the "Hoppers" program, it allows a human consciousness to "hop" into a robotic animal and experience life as that species. Despite Sam's warnings that interfering with the animals' natural lifestyles could have disastrous consequences, Mabel—seeing an opportunity to save the glade—hops into a robotic beaver and flees the lab.

Believed by the animals to be a real beaver, Mabel is brought before Mammal King George, a beaver monarch who shelters the glade's displaced animal residents in a massive, overcrowded dam. She discovers an artificial tree emitting sound waves audible only to animals, which Jerry secretly installed to drive them away. Despite Conner's attempts to return her to the lab, she destroys the device, prompting George's subjects to begin returning to the glade. Mabel grows closer to George, who shares his past and asks her to serve as his personal advisor. She is about to reveal her true identity when the animals are driven back to the dam by Jerry, who installs more sound-emitting trees and resumes construction.

Mabel and George arrange a meeting with the Animal Council in the dam, attended by monarchs representing the Insect, Amphibian, Fish, Reptile, and Bird classes, with George representing the mammals. Initially uninterested in helping, the Council is swayed when Mabel presents the destroyed sound tree and warns that Jerry will force them from their homes as well. However, this inadvertently persuades the Council to assassinate Jerry. When she attempts to stop them, she accidentally kills the Insect Queen, making herself their next target, and she and George flee. The animals destroy the robotic animals Nisha and Conner had hopped into to help Mabel escape, untethering the scientists and exposing the deception. The Insect Prince, Titus, crowns himself king and assumes control of the Council.

Although initially upset that Mabel has undermined his authority, George agrees to help protect Jerry after she confesses how lonely and powerless she feels. With the help of three other animals she befriended, Mabel and George locate Jerry and force him to drive to the glade using text-to-speech software, hoping to stop construction of the freeway. Seagulls acting on behalf of the Council pursue them, attempting to kill Jerry by dropping a shark named Diane onto his car. They narrowly escape, but Jerry refuses to abandon his freeway project, believing the ordeal to be a ploy by Mabel to intimidate him into cooperating. Frustrated, Mabel inadvertently reveals their location to both the Council and the scientists. The scientists arrive and untether Mabel from the robotic beaver, causing her to faint and leaving George confused and saddened.

Mabel awakens tied up in Sam's lab alongside Jerry, where the Council has taken everyone hostage and forces the scientists to build a robotic clone of Jerry for Titus to inhabit. Titus plans to impersonate the mayor and use the frequencies of the sound trees to massacre the humans attending a political rally at the glade. Realizing that her anger has clouded her judgment, Mabel reconciles with Jerry, who reluctantly hops into the robotic beaver to free them both.

At the rally, Mabel attempts to reason with Titus, but he refuses to abandon his plan. Jerry, the animals, and the scientists attempt to unhop Titus, but this fails and destroys the robotic beaver. During the struggle, Mabel knocks Jerry's phone onto a sound tree and climbs it to retrieve it. She tears off the robot's face, preventing Titus from using facial recognition to unlock the phone and activate the attack. Enraged, Titus tears down the tree, revealing his intent to have the insects kill every other species, shocking the Council. The tree then collapses onto the stage, destroying the robotic body and igniting a wildfire that consumes the glade and spreads toward the city. After Titus is eaten by the Amphibian King, the Council joins Mabel, George, and the other animals in dismantling the dam, flooding the glade and extinguishing the fire before it reaches the city.

Mabel and Jerry reach an understanding. The freeway is rerouted, and the glade is restored as a protected wildlife preserve. Mabel graduates from college, and although the Hoppers program is discontinued due to her actions, she is hired as Sam's assistant. Though they can no longer communicate verbally, Mabel and George remain friends, with the latter using text-to-speech software to communicate with her.