by Chelsea Dee, Editor-at-Large

I was surprised when I heard that this series was going to become the next Disney adventure, but I was excited too. I don’t know the comics series that well (gasp, a comic I don’t know well!), but there were a lot of things about this particular story I was thrilled to see on the screen.  Big Hero 6 is a Marvel Comics team that started in the late 90s, and it was obscure until now. I knew this comic mostly because Silver Samurai was originally in it, and as a lover of all things X-Men, it came on my radar.  This was Disney’s version of Guardians of the Galaxy, in the sense they went “hey we’re going to take material that only has a niche group of fans and rock the hell out of it.” I know some people were iffy about Disney getting Marvel, but if it leads to more of this? I’m completely fine with it. Obviously this movie did not follow the comics closely, and in this case, I think that was for the best. I’ll talk about that more after the summary.

Quick note: The short attached to this, “Feast,” is absolutely beautiful and will pull hard at your heartstrings. I loved it, definitely see it if you can find it online.

There will be spoilers for Big Hero 6 in this review (duh). You have been warned.

Hiro Hamada is the main character, a young mechanical genius who uses his brain to make fighting robots, and get into trouble. His brother, also a mechanical genius, Tadashi tries to get him back on the right track by bringing him into his special robotics lab at school. There, Hiro meets Tadashi’s coworkers and sees what incredible technology is being built. He decides to apply, feeling inspired by their brilliance, but he has to win the attention of Professor Callaghan who runs the program. He comes up with a project where microbots, hundreds of tiny robots, can form to make nearly anything the user wants, controlling it telepathically. After winning over Callaghan, Hiro feels like he’s on top of the world, but everything goes wrong. A fire starts at the building, and Tadashi dies trying to go back in and save Callaghan. Hiro loses his brother and his invention all in one swoop.

While grieving, Hiro accidentally turns on Tadashi’s personal project Baymax, a kind and gentle robot that is designed to heal people. Baymax realizes that one of Hiro’s microbots is still working, and they accidentally stumble on a mysterious villain in a mask who has taken control of all his microbots. Hiro teams up with the other genius students from the university to become real superheroes. It turns out that Callaghan survived and it was all a ruse, so Tadashi died pointlessly. Callaghan’s daughter disappeared into a portal while attempting to test out a teleportation device, and he blamed the CEO in charge of the project. He saw the microbots as his chance to get revenge by opening the portal again and sending the CEO through it. There’s a very dark turn at one point where Hiro turns off Baymax’s harmless chip and turns him into a ruthless killer, telling him to get rid of Callaghan. Whoooooa. At the end of the day, they find out Callaghan’s daughter was alive and save her, although Baymax appears to be lost in the process. The team continues on as the heroes of their city.

My main reason for loving this movie is simple: it celebrates intelligence. I love the idea that these characters were  superheroes because they use their minds. Not just their science and technology knowledge, but their cleverness and teamwork. That’s just very exciting to see, especially in a movie for kids. It has a very positive message about family and friendship, and how a positive creation like Baymax matters so much more than any weapon. On a personal note, I also like that two of the main scientists were women. I’m always supportive of more women entering the fields of science and technology, considering it’s still male dominated. I hope this makes young girls watching it think about their future, who knows, one small thing really can make a difference. This movie is also genuinely funny, all related to Baymax and his awkward sweetness. We’ve seen this type of robot before, but it’s still charming.

The animation is beautiful, and it’s quirky, I like that, it definitely has a manga/comic feel to it in certain scenes. The characters look different from Disney’s normal design, although I do know comic fans were disappointed that they also deviated from the comic design. It’s very creative and darker than I expected, what with Tadashi’s brutal death and Hiro attempting to murder Callaghan. I’d say the only weak link for me was Callaghan himself. He went pretty quickly from being the kindly old professor to wanting to murder all of his former students. Like I get him wanting revenge on the CEO, but he seemed to have one small moment of real remorse that Tadashi died trying to “save” him. But he seemed to have zero trouble trying to murder all of his other students over the whole movie. It just seemed like an obvious “OOO A TWIST” idea, without any character development background. He went from zero to psycho in like five minutes, it didn’t work for me. I’m also going to seem heartless in saying that I thought it was too easy for Baymax to come back. Yes, I know, they can’t destroy the kids like that, but I did sigh a little. They changed the comic to try and suit the audience, and on the whole I’m fine with that. I understand some fans will be disappointed, but I’m pleased they are selling positive ideas to kids in a way they can gobble up. I’ll see any sequels they make to this. Big Hero 7, 8, bring it on.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Big Hero 6 5 out of 5 Baymax fist bumps.

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