Big Hero 6 Information

Big Hero 6 is a 2014 American 3D computer-animated superhero comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 54th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, and is inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. Directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, the film tells the story of a young robotics prodigy named Hiro Hamada who forms a superhero team to combat a masked villain. The film features the voices of Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Daniel Henney, T. J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans, Jr., and Gnesis Rodrguez.

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 Tokyo International Film Festival on October 23, 2014 and at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in 3D on October 31, 2014. It was theatrically released in the United States on November 7, 2014, and received critical acclaim.

Plot

Hiro Hamada is a 14-year-old robotics genius who lives in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo (San Francisco and Tokyo combined) with his older brother Tadashi and their aunt Cass, and spends his time participating in illegal back-alley robot fights. Tadashi, worried that Hiro is wasting his potential, takes him to the robotics lab at his university, the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology where Hiro meets Tadashi's friends, GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, and Fred. He then shows him Baymax, a personal healthcare robot he created. Amazed, Hiro decides to apply to the school. He presents his own project"?telepathic microbots, swarms of tiny robots that can link together in any arrangement imaginable"?at an annual exhibition to gain admission. Alistair Krei, proprietor of Krei Tech, offers to produce Hiro's microbots at his company, but Hiro refuses. Professor Callaghan, head of the program, is impressed, and Hiro receives his application. Suddenly a fire breaks out at the showcase, and Tadashi rushes in to rescue Callaghan, but the building explodes and both are killed. As a result of losing his brother, Hiro pulls his application to the university.

One day, Hiro accidentally activates Baymax, who discovers one of Hiro's surviving microbots and follows it to an abandoned warehouse, where he and Hiro discover that someone has been mass-producing Hiro's bots; they are attacked by a masked man called Yokai, who is controlling the bots. Realizing this man has stolen his project, Hiro decides to bring him to justice. He upgrades Baymax with armor and a battle chip containing various karate moves. The duo then follow Yokai's trail to the docks, where he is greeted by GoGo, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred. After narrowly escaping Yokai, the group decide to form a superhero team, turning each of their university projects into hi-tech gear.

Baymax locates Yokai at a remote Krei Tech lab, which was experimenting with teleportation technology. The test went awry when the human test pilot vanished inside an unstable portal, leading the team to believe Yokai is Alistair Krei, right before he attacks them. However, Yokai is actually revealed to be Professor Callaghan, who stole Hiro's bots and used them to escape the fire. Enraged upon realizing that Tadashi died in vain, Hiro removes Baymax's healthcare chip and orders him to kill Callaghan. Now powered by his battle chip, Baymax loses all of his softness, and develops a threatening, evil aura. The team (sans Hiro) tries to stop Baymax, allowing Callaghan to escape, until the healthcare chip is reinstalled.

Angry at his friends for getting in his way, Hiro leaves them stranded and flies home, where he breaks down when Baymax asks him if killing Callaghan will make him feel better. To soften Hiro's loss, Baymax plays humorous clips of Tadashi's running tests on him during Baymax's development. Hiro then realizes that killing people is not what Tadashi created Baymax to do.

After making amends with his friends, they discover that the test pilot was Callaghan's daughter Abigail; Callaghan plans to seek revenge on Krei by using his own teleportation device to suck up his factory. The team arrives and leaps into action, saving Krei and destroying the microbots, but the portal remains active. Baymax detects life from inside the portal, indicating Abigail is still alive. He and Hiro rush into teleportation space to retrieve her, but on their way out, Baymax's armor is damaged and he realizes the only way to save Hiro and Abigail is to propel them through with his rocket fist. Hiro refuses to leave him, but Baymax insists until Hiro tearfully gives in. Hiro and Abigail make it back, while Callaghan is arrested.

Sometime later, Hiro starts attending university and discovers Baymax's healthcare chip (which also contains his entire personality) clenched in his rocket fist. Hiro immediately rebuilds Baymax's body and they happily reunite. The six friends continue their exploits through the city, staying unknown, and fulfilling Tadashi's dream of helping those in need.

In a post-credits scene, Fred accidentally opens a secret door in his family mansion and finds superhero gear inside. His father, a retired superhero, arrives and embraces him, stating that they have a lot to talk about.

Voice cast

See Big Hero 6#Team roster for more information

• Ryan Potter as Hiro Hamada, a 14-year-old robotics prodigy who has already graduated high school and the main protagonist. His older brother Tadashi inspires Hiro to gain admission to San Fransokyo's Institute of Technology. Speaking of the character, co-director Don Hall said "Hiro is transitioning from boy to man, it's a tough time for a kid and some teenagers develop that inevitable snarkiness and jaded attitude. Luckily Ryan is a very likeable kid. So no matter what he did, he was able to take the edge off the character in a way that made him authentic, but appealing."
• Scott Adsit as Baymax, an inflatable robot built by Tadashi to serve as a healthcare companion. Hall said "Baymax views the world from one perspective"?he just wants to help people, he sees Hiro as his patient." Producer Roy Conli said "The fact that his character is a robot limits how you can emote, but Scott was hilarious. He took those boundaries and was able to shape the language in a way that makes you feel Baymax's emotion and sense of humor. Scott was able to relay just how much Baymax cares."
• T. J. Miller as Fred, a laid-back comic-book fan who also plays the mascot at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, who also gave GoGo, Wasabi, and Honey Lemon their nicknames. Speaking of Miller, Williams said "He's a real student of comedy. There are a lot of layers to his performance, so Fred ended up becoming a richer character than anyone expected."
• Jamie Chung as GoGo Tomago, a tough, athletic, adrenaline junkie who is developing electromagnetic wheel axles at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Hall said "She's definitely a woman of few words...We looked at bicycle messengers as inspiration for her character."
• Damon Wayans, Jr. as Wasabi, a smart, slightly neurotic, largely built neat-freak and an expert on laser cutting at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. On the character, co-director Chris Williams said "He's actually the most conservative, cautious"?he the most normal among a group of brazen characters. So he really grounds the movie in the second act and becomes, in a way, the voice of the audience and points out that what they're doing is crazy."
• Gnesis Rodrguez as Honey Lemon, a quirky chemistry whiz at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Williams said "She's a glass-is-half-full kind of person. But she has this mad-scientist quality with a twinkle in her eye"?there's more to Honey than it seems."
• James Cromwell as Professor Robert Callaghan, the head of a robotics program at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology and Tadashi's professor and mentor and the main antagonist. He is later revealed to be the masked villain Yokai.
• Alan Tudyk as Alistair Krei, a pioneer entrepreneur and tech guru. Also one of the most distinguished alums of San Fransokyo Institute of Technology and owner of the biggest technology company in the world, Krei Tech Industries.
• Maya Rudolph as Cass Hamada, Hiro and Tadashi's aunt and guardian, who owns a popular San Fransokyo coffee shop.
• Daniel Henney as Tadashi Hamada, Hiro's older brother and Baymax's creator who dies at the beginning of the film. On Hiro and Tadashi's relationship, Conli said "We really wanted them to be brothers first. Tadashi is a smart mentor. He very subtly introduces Hiro to his friends and what they do at San Fransokyo Tech. Once Hiro sees Wasabi, Honey, GoGo and even Fred in action, he realizes that there's a much bigger world out there than what really interests him."
• Stan Lee (cameo) as Fred's father, secretly a retired superhero.

NOTE: While both Sunfire and Silver Samurai were members of the team in the comic, they do not appear in the film due to 20th Century Fox already having obtained the film rights to those characters as part of the X-Men franchise.

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 co-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. 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 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." Regarding the film's story, Quesada stated, "The relationship between Hiro and his robot has a very Disney flavor 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 set it in a stand-alone universe instead.

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 how the robot should look like, artist Lisa Keene came up with the idea that it should be a huggable robot. 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 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 who was working on soft robots. ... It was an inflatable vinyl arm and the practical app would be in the health care 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 armor 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 armor 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.

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." 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. 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 (i.e., Baymax's vinyl covering). Development on Hyperion started in 2011 and was based upon research into multi-bounce complex global illumination originally conducted at Disney Research in Zrich. Disney in turn had to assemble a new supercomputing cluster just to handle Hyperion's immense processing demands, which consists of over 2,300 Linux workstations distributed across four data centers (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. Pixar's RenderMan was considered as a "Plan B" for the film's rendering, if Hyperion was not able to meet production deadlines.

Release

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 on November 7, 2014 with limited IMAX international showings. Theatrically, the film was accompanied by the Walt Disney Animation Studios short, Feast.

Vinyl toy company Funko released the first images of the toy figures via their Big Hero 6 Funko. The POP Vinyl series collection features Hiro Hamada, GoGo Tomago, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Fred, and a 6-inch Baymax.

On September 26, 2014, Bandai America Incorporated released their Big Hero 6 toy line including action figures, role play, and plush figures based on the animated film.

A Japanese manga adaptation of Big Hero 6 (which is titled in Japan), illustrated by Haruki Ueno, began serialization in Kodansha's Magazine Special from August 20, 2014. A prologue chapter was published in Weekly Sh?nen Magazine on August 6, 2014. According to the film's official Japanese website, the manga revealed plot details in Japan before anywhere else in the world, and it is the first time a Disney animated film has been adapted into a Japanese manga. The website also quoted the film's co-director Don Hall, to whom it referred as a manga fan, as saying that the film was Japanese-inspired. Yen Press will publish the series in English.

Home media

Big Hero 6 will be released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on February 24, 2015.

Reception

Box office

As of December 4, 2014, Big Hero 6 has earned $169,418,239 in North America, and an estimated $56,900,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $226,418,239.

North America

The film earned $1.4 million from Thursday late night showings which is higher than the previews earned by Frozen ($1.2 million) and The Lego Movie ($400,000). In its opening day on November 7, the film earned $15.8 million, debuting at number two behind Interstellar ($16.9 million). Big Hero 6 topped the box office in its opening weekend, earning $56.2 million from 3,761 theatres at an average of $14,947 per theatre ahead of Interstellar ($47.5 million). It is Walt Disney Animation Studios' second best opening behind Frozen ($67.4 million) both adjusted and unadjusted; it also had the second highest animated opening of the year. In its second weekend, the film fell to number two and earned $34.7 million (down 38%), overtaken by newcomer Dumb and Dumber To ($36.1 million) for a two weekend total of $110.3 million.

Other territories

Two weeks ahead of its North American release, Big Hero 6 was released in Russia (earned $4.8 million) and Ukraine (earned $0.2 million) in two days (October 25-26). The main reason behind the early release was in order to take advantage of the two weeks of school holidays in Russia. Jeff Bock, box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations, said: "For a two-day gross, that's huge. It's a giant number in Russia." In its second weekend, the film added $4.8 million (up 1%) bringing its total nine days cumulative audience to $10.3 million in Russia and $10.9 including its revenue from Ukraine.

In its opening weekend, the film earned $7.6 million from seventeen markets for a first weekend worldwide total of $79.2 million, which was behind Interstellar ($132.2 million). It went to number one in the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. It is the second highest-grossing Disney animated film of all time in Russia, in the Philippines behind Toy Story 3, and the highest in Vietnam.

In its second weekend, the film earned $11.9 million from twenty-three markets for a two weekend international total of $36.7 million and worldwide total of $147 million. The highest debut came from Mexico ($4.8 million).

Critical reception

Big Hero 6 has received critical acclaim from critics. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 132 reviews, with an average score of 7.4/10. 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, calculated a score of 75 based on 34 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

Michael O'Sullivan of 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 Roling 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 4/5 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 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, colorful, 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 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 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: humor, heart and huggability." Rafer Guzmn from News Day 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 colors and filled with clever details."

Jesse Hassenger of Time Out New York gave the film 3/5 and described it as "derivative of better Brad Bird cartoons like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles," further describing it as "an enjoyable diversion from a studio that usually offers more."

Accolades

Awards
Award	Category	Recipients and nominees	Result
42nd Annual Annie Awards	Best Animated Feature	Big Hero 6	rowspan="8"
	Animated Effects in an Animated Production	Michael Kaschalk, Peter DeMund, David Hutchins, Henrik Falt, John Kosnik
	Character Design in an Animated Feature Production	Shiyoon Kim, Jin Kim
	Directing in an Animated Feature Production	Don Hall & Chris Williams
	Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production	Marc E. Smith
	Writing in an Animated Feature Production	Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson & Jordan Roberts
	Editorial in an Animated Feature Production	Tim Mertens
19th Satellite Awards	Best Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media	Big Hero 6

Music

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.

Video games

A video game based on the film titled Big Hero 6: Battle in the Bay was released on October 28, 2014 for 3DS and DS. Hiro and Baymax from the film are also available in Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes as Disney Originals playable characters in the Toy Box. There is also an app based on the film called Big Hero 6: Bot Fight.

See also