The Fusion of Disney With Marvel
In 2008, the release of Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe in spectacular fashion. After years of DC Comics heroes like Batman and Superman dominating the cinematic landscape, Marvel was suddenly everywhere you looked and The Walt Disney Company wanted a piece of the action. In late 2009, CEO Bob Iger purchased Marvel Entertainment for a staggering $4 billion and the studio subsequently acquired the distribution rights for future Marvel Studios films. After the acquisition, Iger encouraged the entire company to explore Marvel’s properties for adaptation concepts, particularly more obscure characters unfamiliar to mainstream audiences. While the live-action department began looking at lesser-known properties like Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Guardians of the Galaxy, animation director Don Hall stumbled across Big Hero 6, a late-90s Marvel comic created by Steven Seagle and Duncan Rouleau that centred on a young Japanese superhero team.
In late 2011, Hall pitched the concept to Disney’s Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter, who loved the idea of combining Disney animation with a Marvel Comics property, especially one that could be marketed towards a younger audience. In June 2012, Walt Disney Animations officially announced it was adapting Big Hero 6 into an animated feature, with Hall enlisted to co-direct with Bolt director Chris Williams. Lasseter felt Williams was perfect for the project, given Bolt was inherently rooted in the superhero genre. While the film would ultimately keep key characters and elements from the original comic series, Hall and Williams wanted their adaptation to feel entirely fresh and unique. As such, they instructed head of story Paul Briggs to only read a few issues of the comic to get a feel for the overall scope of Seagle and Rouleau’s comics before creating his own original narrative and concept. By the end of the screenplay’s creation, screenwriter Robert Baird would actually admit to never having read a single Big Hero 6 comic. Despite Disney making continual inroads with building the interconnected Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hall and Williams decided early in production to essentially ignore the broader Marvel world and allow Big Hero 6 to exist as a stand-alone film without any reference or connection to any other Marvel films or characters. To further this film’s distance from its fellow Marvel films, which were generally set in real-life locations like New York or California, Big Hero 6 would be set in the fictional city of San Fransokyo, a futuristic mashup of San Fransisco and Tokyo. The setting of San Fransokyo allowed the animation team to blend Eastern and Western cultures in a style that paid tribute to both traditional Disney animation and the Marvel comics’ Japanese origins. While it was not specifically mentioned in the film, the filmmakers’ created an alternate history for the birth of San Fransokyo, in which the city of San Francisco was largely rebuilt by Japanese immigrants after the devastating 1906 earthquake, with the architecture evolving over time to something more akin to the neon-drenched streets of Tokyo.
THE STORY
Hiro Hamada is a 14-year-old prodigy, a high school graduate, and robotics genius living in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo (a portmanteau of San Francisco and Tokyo). He spends much of his free time participating in illegal 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. Baymax, the inflatable healthcare robot that Tadashi created, and Professor Robert Callaghan, the head of the university's robotics program. Amazed, Hiro decides to apply to the university. To enroll, he signs up for the school's showcase and presents his project: microbots, swarms of tiny robots that can link together in any arrangement imaginable using a neurocranial transmitter. At the fair, Hiro declines an offer from Alistair Krei, CEO of Krei Tech, to market the microbots, and Callaghan accepts him into the school. As the Hamada family leaves to celebrate Hiro's success, a massive fire suddenly breaks out in the showcase hall and Tadashi rushes in to save Callaghan, the only person left inside. The building explodes moments later.
Two weeks later, Hiro, mourning Tadashi's death, inadvertently reactivates Baymax. The two find Hiro's only remaining microbot and follow it to an abandoned warehouse. There they discover that someone has been mass-producing the microbots. A man wearing a Kabuki mask attacks them with the microbot swarms. After they escape, Hiro suspects that the fire that claimed his brother may not have been accidental and in fact started by the man in the kabuki mask to cover the theft of the microbots. Seeking vengeance, Hiro equips Baymax with armour and a battle chip containing various karate moves and they track the masked man to the docks. Go Go, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred arrive, responding to a call from Baymax, and the masked man chases the group. The six escape to Fred's mansion, where they decide to form a high-tech superhero team to combat the villain.
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Unlike most animated films of the 21st century, Hall and Williams had little interest in casting A-list celebrities to voice the characters. The process of finding the right actor to voice Hiro was complicated, due to the character often displaying typical snarky and jaded emotions of a teenage boy, which an audience could easily find unlikable. After auditioning dozens of young actors, Hall and Williams found their Hiro in Ryan Potter, who was able to take the edge off the character in a way that made him authentically petulant but somehow still appealing.
Given the total lack of emotional expressions of Baymax, it was key to find the right actor to make an audience feel the robot’s emotions through nothing more than his voice. After television actor Scott Adsit auditioned for the role, Hall and Williams knew he was the perfect choice for the character, with Adsit able to create an endearing voice that still sounded robotic and mechanical. Adsit also brought more humour to the role than originally intended, with the actor ad-libbing through numerous recording sessions, gifting the filmmakers with numerous choices for the final dialogue.
MY VERDICT
This film is equal parts old and new. The design of San Fransokyo is pretty unique, pulling on the best that both cities have to offer. The human characters, while slightly cliched in places, are still really strong. However, the best thing about this whole movie is BAYMAX, the robotic doctor who will attend to your every need, whether physical or mental. Aside from being an ingenious creation that I hope one day might be available to everyone in the real world, he is equal parts hilarious and positively whimsical. Whenever he says a line in that robotic monotone, or, in fact, does anything, I either crack up or feel incredibly warm and comforted.
Is Big Hero 6 a Disney Classic? In the six years since its release, the popularity of Big Hero 6 has barely diminished. Baymax merchandise is still a regular feature of Disney theme parks and toy stores. The film was given a hugely popular spin-off animated series. And many fans have been clamouring for a necessary sequel, which surely must be on the horizon. However, it’s probably a little too early to call this one a Disney Classic. Yet.
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