Walt Disney Studios
After Guardians of the Galaxy was announced as the next Marvel team venture, much speculation was given to the potential success of the first post-Avengers franchise, due to the relative unfamiliarity of the comic. But while we’ve all been hemming and hawing and throwing out AOL keywords like “talking tree” and “raccoon with blaster gun” and “David Hasselhoff trailer dude cool,” the studio has quietly produced yet another movie that we’ve (and they’ve) let slip by the wayside.
Big Hero 6 comes to us from Disney Animation, a Marvel property that follows a kid and his robot sidekick in the futuristic society of San Fransokyo. In the Marvel comics, the Big Hero 6 is a team of state-sanctioned superheroes formed by the Japanese government to fight crime at their disposal, a handy dandy group of do-gooders and superpowers that are at their disposal to fight crime and any forces of evil that try to topple their ranks. It’s kind of the perfect solution to all of our international relation needs, isn’t it?
The Disney interpretation of the material will focus on two of the team members, Baymax (the robot) and Hiro as they meet the rest of the team – Silver Samurai, Sunfire, GoGo Tomago, Honey Lemon, Ebon Samurai, Sunpyre, Wasabi-no-Ginger and Fredzilla – for the first time to stop a criminal plot and become heroes themselves. Hiro is a 13-year-old prodigy in the field of robotics (what did you ever do in middle school, punk?) with an intelligence that would put the most beautiful and biggest of minds to shame. Baymax, his trusty sidekick, was created by Hiro as a school project (again, that shoebox diorama of the inside of a cell wall is looking real lame); after the death of Hiro’s father, the singular entity becomes his protector, friend and guardian. Of course there’s a dead parent; we wouldn’t be getting out of a Disney story without at least one.
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The first images from the film, directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams and written by Hall and Jordan Roberts, show the young Hiro and his robot buddy as they interact in what seems to be his lab. Baymax is an impressive specimen for sure, but the part of him that’s truly awe-inspiring is how human-like and warm he seems. He’s soft and rounded on the edges (almost like Eve from Wall-E); there’s nothing cold and mechanical about the model who dotes on and cares for his child creator. There’s clearly a bond between the two that transcends humans and robots.
The lab could be the lair of any brilliant scientist furiously working on their latest creation, but there’s little details in the photos that give the age of the inventor. A soccer ball here, a skateboard there – what do you think it’s like being an insanely intelligent superhero when your bedtime is 10pm?
Big Hero 6 is in theaters November 7th.
