Big Hero 6 (2014)

Rotten Tomatoes gave this cute, dark, and tragic story based off a Marvel comic an impressive 89% and it had received praise for it's tear jerking story-telling and a multicultural cast of characters which are said to be the first for any Disney film.
In a Rotten Tomatoes review of the Oscar-winning Disney animated take on a complicated
Marvel comic, Big Hero 6 has been heavily praised for it's tear-jerking story which was completely different from some of Disney's previous animated films like Frozen, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, and The Little Mermaid. This Disney film does not involve princesses and evil royals, but involves a grief-stricken child prodigy and his robot companion. It has also been praised for being plot-twisting, funny, sweet, adorable, and of course, tear jerking. It would go on the win the Academy Award for Best
Animated Feature Film in 2015.

Big Hero 6 tells the story of Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter), a 14-year old robotics prodigy who resides the the futuristic city of San Fransokyo with his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) and their aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph). When he is tricked into developing a desire for a higher education by his brother after being arrested for taking part in an illegal bot fight, Hiro comes up with the most brilliant invention that all of San Fransokyo or in this case, the entire Disney cinematic universe, has ever seen-microdots, tiny little robots that fuse together to build anything one's heart desires. He then, shows off his new found invention at science fair where Tadashi's professor and mentor Robert
Callahan (James Cromwell) accepts Hiro into his science program after showcasing them. However, the celebration is tragically cut shot when Tadashi is killed in a deadly fire while trying to save
Callahan, leaving Hiro and the people of San Fransokyo into mourning. Still grieving his brother’s death, Hiro begins to isolate himself from all of his friends and family while giving up all dreams of attending school at the same time. But then, he activates his brother's robotics project Baymax (Scott
Adsit), a personal healthcare companion who eventually becomes Hiro's surrogate brother. It's then the two unlikely friends discover a sinister plot that was hatched by a masked villain named Yokai (who later turned out to be Callahan himself) to steal Hiro's microbots in order to use them for a vengeful act against a former colleague (Alan Tudyk). At this point, Hiro and Baymax team up with Tadashi's four friends Fred (TJ Miller), a hippy-looking fan-boy son of a wealthy entrepreneur, Wasabi (Damon
Wayan Jr), a physics student who just happens to be paranoid about everything around him, Honey
Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez), the sweet, optimistic fashion loving chemist queen, and Gogo (Jamie
Cheung), the engineering student who just happens to be a woman of a few words who eventually becomes a mother-figure to Hiro. Together, they seek justice for their fallen friend and brother by ridding the city of the evil that has come upon it.

What a lot of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes have been saying about this film that I completely agree with is that this story is so centered on grief, a topic that is rarely done on film, especially in western animated films where the subject seems to be to harsh for younger audiences. In one scene of the movie for example, the grief-stricken Hiro tried to turn Baymax into a murderous robotic killer after learning that Callahan had killed Tadashi in the fire. But the problem with this reprogramming itself is that goes against everything Tadashi himself hoped for Baymax when he first built him for he had visioned Baymax to be healer who cares for the sick, the injured, the grief-stricken, and the depressed. In a twist of events, Hiro discovers a video containing a series of tests (all 84 of them)
Tadashi has done to program Baymax into the healthcare companion he would eventually become to
Hiro. The emotions in the scene are truly raw and real and you can tell that the voice actors were really putting their hearts into connecting with the audience. However, to understand this scene a little more, let's break down the scene:

1. Hiro has fallen into a dark place after learning that his late brother's beloved mentor was the one who was responsible for his death and because of his lack of remorse, Hiro becomes angry and seeks vengeance against him.

2. As far as Baymax goes, however, he is the driver of both the scene and Hiro's story. He asks questions to Hiro but those questions are so pointed that he becomes to uncomfortable to answer any of them, making waves for more anger and emotion on his part. Finally after
Baymax tries to explain to Hiro that he was programmed to heal, he finally breaks downs admitting to the loss of Tadashi being his reason for his anger.

3. When Baymax tells him that “Tadashi is here”, that is when the video begins to play. This video is about Tadashi's trial and error of trying perfect Baymax, private moments that were not allowed to be seen by anyone but yet, it's filled with light, humor and it helps break some that dramatic tension because it makes things more emotional to see Tadashi being in a goofy place.
Hiro sees that and before long a little smile comes across with face along with a few tears. This scene humanizes Tadashi because it is him who the audience sees in control as he did not give up on Baymax in those eighty four attempts he had tried to activate him.

4. Despite the video being nothing more than just a recording of Tadashi and his crazy trial and errors, Hiro finds the video to be very soothing to him for Tadashi is saying some of the things he needed to hear at that moment and there's a feeling of true interaction with his brother. It allowed Hiro to grow to admitting that he was nothing like Tadashi at all.

5. This is where Gogo has an important role in this scene. Naturally as a woman of a few words, she can be slightly harsh in nature at times, but at this moment, her motherly instincts allows her soft side to be revealed when she comes in comes in and give Hiro a warm hug by letting him off the hook for a bit. This moment does allow Hiro to receive forgiveness because Gogo is known to be the hardest of hard. Yet, there is empathy from not just her, but also the other characters because they all understand what Hiro is going through and nothing in the world can ever replace his beloved brother. The way how this scene is played out is so powerful and realistic, that it makes some audiences start thinking that Tadashi might be talking directly to audience as well, not just to Baymax due to how his video is set up in the scene. Yet at the same time, it brings a lot of emotion to the story to the point where the audience, including myself may need to reach for those tissues.

When it comes to the voice acting in this film, there no denying that all the voice actors took their roles so seriously, it's no wonder the audience connected to all the characters so well. Ryan Potter brings out the heart and soul of the film as protagonist Hiro. The way he acted out this character is so realistic that it makes you think that he may have been really emotional during some of line recordings.
Sure Hiro does not sound like your typical Disney character, but he's real at heart with no fake bone in him, especially during emotional moments where you really connect to him when Potter's performance is at it's highest peaks. On a side note, it has actually been reported that Potter did literally “mourn” during some his sessions that the directors had to briefly stop them despite Potter insisting it was all
“acting” on his part. Scott Adist really did Baymax so much justice all together. While Baymax is the only character in the entire film that expresses no emotion Adist's performance of the character did help make Baymax show his own emotions without ever expressing it physically since he's a robot after all.
In addition, his lyrical lilt lends comedy to cute little phrases like “hairy baby” and “we jumped out a window. One last thing that was mentioned by all the the critics on Rotten Tomatoes regarding Big Hero
6 is how beautifully animated the film is all together. For example, I loved how they blended the geography of San Francisco with the sights and sounds of Tokyo along with a few iconic sights that made the northern California city famous in order to create the futuristic city of San Fransokyo. The animators even created a back story for this city as well. In a parallel universe, San Francisco is devastated by the 1906 earthquake and Japanese immigrants rebuilt the city before renaming it San
Fransokyo. They made every character look and feel realistic as well as the city they live in. When I was looking up on how they beautifully animated the movie, I was shocked to learn that they used an entirely new software program called Hyperion. I really loved how they were able to use that new programming to create some of the film's most beautiful cinematic images and dept as well as capture some of the gorgeous lighting that can be found in the movie. It's really safe to say that it's probably the most beautifully animated movies Disney has ever done that if it were a 2D film, the animation would be spectacular.

So anyway, I truly agree with what the critics had to say about Big Hero 6 not only is this film beautiful on every level, but it is one of the most down-to-earth superhero themed films that has even been developed for film. This is because comic books are very difficult to adapt into a well-written film because the characters and the plot can change from time to time which can make it very challenging to make all the characters relate to the audience who would want to like them on every level. Disney, however, has managed to take on this story very well by writing a lesser version of the bleak tale by making focused on two brothers and a robot that symbolizes their love for each other. As one of the best films Disney has put out there since Tangled, it's no wonder it won the Oscar for Best Animated
Feature Film.