Psycho's Movie Reviews #258: Big Hero 6 (2014)

Big Hero 6 is a 2014 American computer-animated superhero film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Loosely based on the Marvel comics of the same name created by Man of Action, the film is the 54th Disney animated feature film. Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, the film tells the story of Hiro Hamada, a young robotics prodigy, and Baymax, his late brother Tadashi's healthcare provider robot, who form a superhero team to combat a masked villain who is responsible for Tadashi’s death. The film features the voices of Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, James Cromwell, Maya Rudolph, and Alan Tudyk.

Big Hero 6 is the first Disney animated film to feature Marvel Comics characters, whose parent company was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2009. Walt Disney Animation Studios created new software technology to produce the film's animated visuals.

Big Hero 6 premiered at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival on October 23, 2014, and at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival on October 31; it was theatrically released in the Disney Digital 3D and RealD 3D formats in the United States on November 7, 2014. The film was met with both critical and commercial success, grossing over $657.8 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing animated film of 2014. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the Kids' Choice Award for Favourite Animated Movie. It also received nominations for the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, but lost to The Lego Movie. Big Hero 6 was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on February 24, 2015.

A television series, which continues the story of the film, aired from 2017 to 2021 on Disney Channel and Disney XD. Another series, Baymax!, is set to premiere in mid-2022 on Disney+.

Plot

Hiro Hamada is a 14-year-old high school graduate and robotics genius living in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo (a portmanteau of San Francisco and Tokyo, rendered in kanji as 奏京) who spends much of his free time gambling in robot fights. To redirect Hiro, his older brother Tadashi takes him to the research lab at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, where Hiro meets Tadashi's friends - Go Go, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred, his creation Baymax, an inflatable healthcare robot, and his mentor Professor Robert Callaghan, the head of the university's robotics program. Amazed, Hiro decides to apply to the university. At the school's showcase, he presents his project: microbots, swarms of tiny robots that can link together in any arrangement using a neurocranial transmitter and Callaghan accepts him into the school. When a fire breaks out in the school and Callaghan is said to be still inside, Tadashi rushes in to save him, only for the building to explode, killing them both.

Two weeks later, Hiro, now depressed and mourning Tadashi's death, inadvertently activates Baymax. The duo find Hiro's only remaining microbot and follow it to an abandoned warehouse. They discover that someone has been mass-producing the microbots. A man wearing a Kabuki mask attacks them with the microbot swarms. Hiro suspects that the fire that claimed his brother may not have been accidental and was started by the masked man to cover the theft of his microbots. Seeking to bring the masked man to justice to avenge his brother's death, he equips Baymax with armour and a battle chip containing karate moves and they track the masked man to the docks. Tadashi's friends arrive, responding to a call from Baymax, and the masked man pursues the group. They narrowly escape to Fred's mansion, where they team up to combat the villain. Everyone works with Hiro to weaponize their own inventions/expertise.

The group tracks the masked man to an abandoned Krei Tech laboratory that was used for teleportation research until there was an accident where a test pilot disappeared in a portal during the first test. The masked man attacks, but Hiro knocks off his mask, revealing him to be Callaghan, who used Hiro's microbots to fake his death. Shocked and enraged of the realization that Tadashi died in vain, Hiro removes Baymax's healthcare chip and orders him to kill Callaghan, but Honey re-installing the healthcare chip at the last second prevents him from doing so. Callaghan escapes and the group becomes upset with Hiro for taking such an extreme step.

Back home, Hiro tries to remove the healthcare chip again, but Baymax blocks his access port, explaining that this is not what Tadashi had envisioned when he created him. As Hiro cries that Tadashi is gone, Baymax shows him a video of Tadashi running numerous tests during Baymax's development as a demonstration of Tadashi's benevolence and dream of helping others. Hiro remorsefully apologizes to his friends, who reassure him they will stop Callaghan properly. Video footage from the lab accident reveals that the lost test pilot was Callaghan's daughter, Abigail, meaning that Callaghan is seeking revenge on Krei. Callaghan attempts to destroy Krei's headquarters using Krei's teleportation portal; the team manages to defeat Callaghan but the portal remains active and unstable.

Baymax detects Abigail alive inside and leaps into the portal with Hiro to rescue her. They find Abigail in hyper-sleep but Baymax is struck by debris, disabling his thrusters. With no other option, Baymax asks Hiro to deactivate him. Hiro tearfully agrees and Baymax fires his rocket fist before deactivating, propelling Hiro and Abigail back through the portal before it is destroyed. Callaghan is soon arrested for his crimes, but is relieved to know that his daughter is safe.

Some time later, Hiro discovers Baymax's healthcare chip clenched in the rocket fist. He rebuilds Baymax and the duo reunite. The university awards Hiro a grant and dedicates a building in Tadashi's honour, and Hiro, Baymax, and their friends continue protecting the city as a team of high-tech superheroes known as the Big Hero 6.

A post-credits scene shows Fred at his manor talking to the portrait of his father, expressing sadness that he is unable to share his accomplishments as a superhero due to his father always being away. He inadvertently opens a secret door to a room filled with superhero clothing and equipment. Fred's father returns and reunites with his son, saying they have a lot to talk about.

Production

After Disney's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009, CEO Bob Iger encouraged the company's divisions to explore Marvel's properties for adaptation concepts. By deliberately picking an obscure title, it would give them the freedom to come up with their own version. While directing Winnie the Pooh, director Don Hall was scrolling through a Marvel database when he stumbled upon Big Hero 6, a comic he had never heard of before. "I just liked the title," he said. He pitched the concept to John Lasseter in 2011, as one of five ideas for possible productions for Walt Disney Animation Studios, and this particular idea "struck a chord" with Lasseter, Hall, and Chris Williams (Director of Bolt).

In June 2012, Disney confirmed that Walt Disney Animation Studios was adapting Marvel Comics' series and that the film had been commissioned into early stages of development. Because they wanted the concept to feel new and fresh, head of story Paul Briggs (who also voices Yama in the film) only read a few issues of the comic, while screenwriter Robert Baird admitted he had not read the comic at all.

Big Hero 6 was produced solely by Walt Disney Animation Studios, although several members of Marvel's creative team were involved in the film's production including Joe Quesada, Marvel's chief creative officer, and Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel Television. According to an interview with Axel Alonso by CBR, Marvel did not have any plans to publish a tie-in comic. Disney planned to reprint the Marvel version of Big Hero 6 themselves, but reportedly Marvel disagreed. They eventually came to agreement that Yen Press would publish the Japanese manga version of Big Hero 6 for Disney.

Conversely, Lasseter dismissed the idea of a rift between the two companies, and producer Roy Conli stated that Marvel allowed Disney "complete freedom in structuring the story". Disney Animation Studio President Andrew Millstein stated: "Hero is one example of what we've learned over the years and our embracing some of the Pixar DNA." Regarding the film's story, Quesada stated, "The relationship between Hiro and his robot has a very Disney flavour to it but it's combined with these Marvel heroic arcs." The production team decided early on not to connect the film to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and instead set the film in a stand-alone universe.

An inflatable vinyl robotic arm that helped inspire Baymax's design, from the researchers in the new field of soft robotics at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.

With respect to the design of Baymax, Hall mentioned in an interview, "I wanted a robot that we had never seen before and something to be wholly original. That's a tough thing to do, we've got a lot of robots in pop culture, everything from The Terminator to WALL-E to C-3PO on down the line and not to mention Japanese robots, I won't go into that. So I wanted to do something original." Even if they did not yet know what the robot should look like, artist Lisa Keene came up with the idea that it should be a huggable robot. Other sources of inspiration cited by the team include Japanese anime, such as Hayao Miyazaki films (including Spirited Away and The Wind Rises) and Pokémon, as well as Shogun Warriors toys. Mecha designer Shigeto Koyama, who previously did design work for mecha anime such as Gunbuster 2, Eureka Seven, Gurren Lagann, and Rebuild of Evangelion, worked on the concept design for Baymax.

Early on in the development process, Hall and the design team took a research trip to Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, where they met a team of DARPA-funded researchers who were pioneering the new field of 'soft robotics' using inflatable vinyl, which ultimately inspired Baymax's inflatable, vinyl, truly huggable design. Hall stated that "I met a researcher (Chris Atkeson) who was working on soft robots. It was an inflatable vinyl arm and the practical app would be in the healthcare industry as a nurse or doctor's assistant. He had me at vinyl. This particular researcher went into this long pitch but the minute he showed me that inflatable arm, I knew we had our huggable robot." Hall stated that the technology "will have potential probably in the medical industry in the future, making robots that are very pliable and gentle and not going to hurt people when they pick them up."

Hall mentioned that achieving a unique look for the mechanical armour took some time and "just trying to get something that felt like the personality of the character". Co-director Williams stated, "A big part of the design challenge is when he puts on the armour you want to feel that he's a very powerful intimidating presence at the same time, design-wise he has to relate to the really adorable simple vinyl robot underneath.". Baymax's face design was inspired by a copper suzu bell that Hall noticed while at a Shinto shrine.

According to Conli, Lasseter initially disliked Baymax's description (while low on battery power) of Hiro's cat as a "hairy baby", but Williams kept the line in anyway, and at the film's first test screening, Lasseter admitted that Williams was correct.

According to Williams, Baymax was originally going to be introduced rather late in the film, but then story artist John Ripa conceived of a way for Baymax to meet Hiro much earlier. The entire film became much stronger by establishing the relationship between Hiro and Baymax early on, but the filmmakers ended up having to reconstruct "a fair amount of the first act" in order to make that idea work.

About ninety animators worked on the film at one point or another; some worked on the project for as long as two years. In terms of the film's animation style and settings, the film combines Eastern world culture (predominantly Japanese) with Western world culture (predominantly California). In May 2013, Disney released concept art and rendered footage of San Fransokyo from the film. San Fransokyo, the futuristic mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo, was described by Hall as "an alternate version of San Francisco. Most of the technology is advanced, but much of it feels retro. Where Hiro lives, it feels like the Haight. I love the Painted ladies. We gave them a Japanese makeover; we put a cafe on the bottom of one. They live above a coffee shop." The house that Hiro's family lives in is based on a Victorian house at the corner of Haight Street and Masonic Avenue in the Haight-Ashbury. According to production designer Paul Felix, "The topography is exaggerated because what we do is caricature, I think the hills are 11⁄2 times exaggerated. I don't think you could really walk up them. When you get to the downtown area, that's when you get the most Tokyo-fied, that pure, layered, dense kind of feeling of the commercial district there. When you get out of there, it becomes more San Francisco with the Japanese aesthetic. (It's a bit like) Blade Runner, but contained to a few square blocks. You see the skyscrapers contrasted with the hills."

The reason why Disney wanted to merge Tokyo (which is where the comic book version takes place) with San Francisco was partly because San Francisco had not been used by Marvel before, partly because of all the city's iconic aspects, and partly because they felt its aesthetics would blend well with Tokyo. The filmmakers' idea was that San Fransokyo is based on an alternative history in which San Francisco was largely rebuilt by Japanese immigrants in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, although this premise is never stated in the film.

To create San Fransokyo as a detailed digital simulation of an entire city, Disney purchased the actual assessor data for the entire city and county of San Francisco. The final city contains over 83,000 buildings and 100,000 vehicles.

A software program called Denizen was used to create over 700 distinctive characters that populate the city. Another one named Bonzai was responsible for the creation of the city's 250,000 trees, while a new rendering system called Hyperion offered new illumination possibilities, like light shining through a translucent object (e.g. Baymax's vinyl covering). Pixar's RenderMan was considered as a "Plan B" for the film's rendering, if Hyperion was not able to meet production deadlines.

Development on Hyperion started in 2011 and was based upon research into multi-bounce complex global illumination originally conducted at Disney Research in Zürich. Disney, in turn, had to assemble a new super-computing cluster just to handle Hyperion's immense processing demands, which consists of over 2,300 Linux workstations distributed across four data centres (three in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco). Each workstation, as of 2014, included a pair of 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon processors, 256 GB of memory, and a pair of 300 GB solid-state drives configured as a RAID Level 0 array (i.e., to operate as a single 600 GB drive). This was all backed by a central storage system with a capacity of five petabytes, which holds all digital assets as well as archival copies of all 54 Disney Animation films. Cinematographer Robert Richardson was brought on as a visual consultant to assist in the creation of realistic lighting.

The emotional climax takes place in the middle of a wormhole portal, which is represented by the stylized interior of a mandelbulb.

The post-credits scene was only added to the film in August 2014, late in production, after co-director Don Hall and his crew went to see Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy. He stated that "it horrified us, that people were sat waiting for an end credits thing, because of the Marvel DNA. We didn't want people to leave the movie disappointed."

Soundtrack

Henry Jackman composed the score for the film. The soundtrack features an original song titled "Immortals" written and recorded by American rock band Fall Out Boy, which was released by Walt Disney Records on October 14, 2014. The soundtrack album was digitally released by Walt Disney Records on November 4, 2014, and had a CD release on November 24. While not part of the soundtrack, a brief instrumental section of "Eye of the Tiger" plays in the film. For the Japanese release of the album, a previously unreleased English version of Japanese-American singer Ai's single "Story" was released as a single by EMI Records and Walt Disney Records exclusively in Japan. The song was used in promotional videos and the film's credits for the Japanese release.

All music is composed by Henry Jackman (except "Immortals", performed by Fall Out Boy).

Release/Reception/Box Office

Big Hero 6 premiered on October 23, 2014 as the opening film at the Tokyo International Film Festival. The world premiere of Big Hero 6 in 3D took place at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival on October 31, 2014. It was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on November 7, 2014 with limited IMAX international showings. Theatrically, the film was accompanied by the Walt Disney Animation Studios short, Feast.

For the South Korean release of the film, it was retitled Big Hero, to avoid the impression of being a sequel, and edited to remove indications of the characters' Japanese origin. This is owing to the tense relations between Korea and Japan. For instance, the protagonist's name, Hiro Hamada, was changed to "Hero Armada", and Japanese-language signage onscreen was changed to English. Nonetheless, the film caused some online controversy in South Korea, because of small images resembling the Rising Sun Flag in the protagonist's room.

The film was released in China on February 28, 2015.

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 90% based on 227 reviews and an average rating of 7.40/10. The site's consensus states: "Agreeably entertaining and brilliantly animated, Big Hero 6 is briskly-paced, action-packed, and often touching." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 from top reviews from mainstream critics, has calculated a score of 74 based on 38 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film 3.5/4 stars, writing that "The real appeal of Big Hero 6 isn't its action. It's the central character's heart." Maricar Estrella of Fort Worth Star-Telegram gave the film 5 stars, saying it "offers something for everyone: action, camaraderie, superheroes and villains. But mostly, Baymax offers a compassionate and healing voice for those suffering, and a hug that can be felt through the screen." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating, "The breakthrough star of the season is here. His name is Baymax and he's impossible not to love. The 3-D animated Big Hero 6 would be a ton less fun without this irresistible blob of roly-poly, robot charisma." Kofi Outlaw of Screen Rant gave the film 4 out of 5 stars or "excellent", explaining that "Big Hero 6 combines Disney wonder and charm with Marvel awe and action to deliver a film that exhibits the best of both studios." Alonso Duralde of The Wrap gave the film a positive review, calling it "sweet and sharp and exciting and hilarious" and says that the film "comes to the rescue of what's become a dreaded movie trope—the origin story—and launches the superhero tale to pleasurable new heights." Calvin Wilson of St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave the film 3.5 of 4 stars, writing that "the storytelling is solid, propelled by characters that you come to care about. And that should make Big Hero 6 a big hit."

Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic gave the film a positive review, writing, "Directors Don Hall and Chris Williams have made a terrific movie about a boy (Ryan Potter) and his robot friend, who seek answers to a deadly tragedy," calling it an "unexpectedly good treat". Soren Anderson of The Seattle Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying that "Clever, colourful, fast on its feet, frequently very funny and sweet (but not excessively so), Big Hero 6 mixes its myriad influences into a final product that, while in no way original, is immensely entertaining." Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, saying that "the funny and heartwarming story about the bond between a teen tech geek and a gentle robot represents another can't-miss proposition by Walt Disney Animation Studios." Jon Niccum of The Kansas City Star gave the film 3.5 out of four stars, writing that while it "may hit a few familiar beats inherent to any superhero 'origin story,'" it is still "the best animated film of the year, supplying The Incredibles-size adventure with a level of emotional bonding not seen since The Iron Giant", and that it "never runs low on battery power". Elizabeth Weitzman of the Daily News gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, calling it a "charming animated adventure", saying that with "appealing 3D animation" and a smart and "sharp story and script", it is "one of the rare family films that can fairly boast of having it all: humour, heart and hug ability". Rafer Guzmán from Newsday gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying that "Marvel plus Disney plus John Lasseter equals an enjoyable jumble of kid-approved action", with "rich, vivid colours and filled with clever details".

Big Hero 6 earned $222.5 million in North America and $435.3 million in other territories for a worldwide estimated total of $657.8 million. Calculating in all expenses, Deadline estimated that the film made a profit of $187.34 million. Worldwide, it is the highest-grossing animated film of 2014, the third-highest-grossing non-Pixar animated film from Disney, and the 16th-highest-grossing animated film of all time. By grossing over $500 million worldwide, it became the fourth Disney release of 2014 to do so; the other titles being Guardians of the Galaxy, Maleficent, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Budget $165 million

Box office $657.9 million

My Review

I am a huge fan of CGI films. I think that Big Hero 6 is definitely a welcome film to the genre. Why? Because the film is absolutely beautiful, as the graphics are just amazing. Additionally, while I also think there have been way too many superhero movies, this one is different enough to make it worth seeing.

The film is about a brilliant young man named Hiro. Hiro, though incredibly bright when it comes to robotics, is directionless until his older brother introduces him to his research facility at the local university. To win a scholarship to the place, Hiro creates an amazing robotic system--one so amazing that someone is willing to kill to get it. And, once they've stolen it, Hiro uses his brother's medical robot, Baymax, to help punish the baddie and restore justice and niceness to the world.

While the film DOES feature the usual sort of finale (the weakest part of the film--though I do understand why it's there), so much of what leads up to it is nice. I liked the characters, the back story and the writing. It's really very clever in places--such as their wonderful use of Stan Lee in his cameos since this one is so unusual AND he appears twice in the film (so stay and watch ALL the film or you'll miss it). Well worth seeing.

Big Hero 6 is not among the best that Disney has ever done and it isn't flawless. But it is still very good and one of their best easily since the Renaissance. It did feel a little rushed at times and felt like it tried to do a little too much in the storytelling, as a result some ideas that were introduced like the science-is-good message gets lost. If it slowed down and explored a little less areas it would have improved things. The villain felt underdeveloped and his reveal came over as very obvious and forced as well.

However, the animation is outstanding with lots of rich colours and textures, backgrounds that are incredibly detailed and sweet (but not in a cloying way) character designs. One of the best-looking recent Disney films definitely. The catchy and upbeat yet atmospheric and emotion-filled soundtrack and smart script are other things to like, as are the brisk (when not rushed) pacing and rousing if not exactly inventive action. While the story is not flawless, on the most part it's still a winner. Whatever originality it may lack, it more than compensates for that with fun and heart. There are plenty of funny moments (i.e. Stan Lee), and of the laugh-out-loud witty kind and even better is the emotional impact Big Hero 6 has. The brother-brother relationship is handled very affectingly, like between Anna and Elsa in Frozen it was Disney trying to explore a different kind of relationship than they did before and it succeeds in that respect.

Sure Big Hero 6 sometimes takes a dark tone but not in a heavy or inappropriate way, there's no reason why anybody should be disturbed by that. The characters are not the most developed ones there ever were and as said more should have been done with the villain, but they're still engaging. Hiro is a very flawed but still likable main protagonist and his relationship between brother Tadashi is beautifully done. The most memorable character for me though was Baymax, he has to be one of Disney's most adorable characters, along with Maximus (Tangled) and Sven (Frozen) he has one of their cutest since the Renaissance. As well as being beautifully designed he displays a lot of laughs and a wide range of emotions, literally the film's heart and soul. The voice work from all (I just wish that James Cromwell had more to do) is very good, with particular mention going to Scott Adsit and his voice is a good match with Ryan Potter's deeply felt Hiro. All in all, not one of Disney's best but one of their better ones of the past 15 years. Haven't seen all the Best Animated Feature nominees but while this viewer did prefer How to Train Your Dragon 2 and the un-nominated Lego Movie they still felt that Big Hero 6 was still a good enough film to merit an Oscar nomination. 8/10

{I love Fall Out Boy, 'Immortals' is the best thing about this film!}