BACKGROUND
Although the 2010s at Disney Animation started with a typical princess musical (Tangled (2010), the movies that followed would be a mixture of new ideas and different styles, from the video-game based Wreck-It Ralph (2012) to the comic book style of Big Hero 6.
Previously, Disney had tried to move away from their fairy-tale musicals but with little success. The 2000s spanned almost an entire decade of non-musical films, with many being classed as “adventure movies”, however, the majority of these movies flopped at the box-office with Treasure Planet (2002) even being such a financial disaster that it caused the Disney executives to ban the making of any further 2D animated movies – for a time, anyway.
Luckily, in the 2010s, non-musical Disney animated movies did resonate with audiences. That could be because audiences of today are more open to seeing a different genre of movie from Disney, or it could just be that viewing preferences have simply changed amongst younger age groups. Either way, I’m glad that Disney did, and continue, to move away from just the one format of film, and have the freedom to take us to new worlds.
I don’t read comic books and I don’t like superhero films. I’ve never seen any movie related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the only films I like that are at all related to superheroes are Sky High (2005) and The Incredibles 2 (2018). So, you’d think I wouldn’t like Big Hero 6 – but actually, I really do.
I think my problem with superhero movies is that all of it seems so far away from reality that I can’t get interested in it. This is where Big Hero 6 is different. The villain isn’t some supervillain with a plan to take over the world or destroy it, and the superheroes are just normal people using science and technology as their superpowers, using things that really exist, instead of relying on super-strength, or invisibility, or other powers that they’ve somehow gained through some bizarre event or incident. Big Hero 6 just feels real.
Big Hero 6 was a big step for Disney, as it was the first animated film by Disney to use a Marvel property, after Disney purchased Marvel in 2009. Disney had numerous live-action films based on Marvel characters in the works at this time, a full slate spanning about a decade, but making an animated film based on a comic book or a superhero character was unlike most superhero films that had existed before.
It was a risk, but one that paid off.
PLOT
Big Hero 6 is set in the city of San Fransokyo, a hybrid of the cities of San Francisco and Tokyo. Hiro Hamada is a fourteen-year-old boy who is incredibly intelligent. He graduated high school at the age of thirteen and is wasting his potential by hustling people at “bot fights”, using a small but sophisticated robot to defeat his opponents. His brother, Tadashi, is a student at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology and tries to encourage Hiro to do something more fulfilling with his life. He takes Hiro to his research lab to show him what he could be doing. Tadashi has built a healthcare companion, basically a robotic nurse, called Baymax, who looks like a giant walking marshmallow. Hiro warms to the idea of researching and studying, before deciding wholeheartedly that he must go to this school.
To do this, Hiro creates an invention to take to the Institute’s Showcase, showcasing his idea of microbots that can do anything that the mind wants them to do, via a neurotransmitter. Robert Callaghan, the professor at the Institute, loves the microbots and invites Hiro to join the school. Hiro accepts, despite Alistair Krei, CEO of Krei Tech, wanting to buy the microbots. However, just as Hiro and Tadashi are about to celebrate with their friends and Aunt Cass, who raises them since their parents died when they were young, a fire breaks out in the building and Tadashi runs in to save Professor Callaghan. Tadashi doesn’t survive, causing Hiro to go into a deep depression. Callaghan is presumed dead too.
One day, Hiro hurts himself while in his room, and Baymax activates, alerted by Hiro saying “ow”. Hiro doesn’t want anything to do with Baymax, but finds one of his microbots from his presentation, which is moving, seemingly attracted to the other microbots Hiro created for the Showcase. Hiro assumes its broken as the other microbots were destroyed in the fire, but Baymax follows where the microbot wants to go, to try to help Hiro feel better. Hiro and Baymax end up outside an abandoned warehouse. Breaking in, they find a whole production line of Hiro’s microbots, and have to escape an attack from a black-cloaked man wearing a Kabuki mask. Scared, Hiro reports the incident to the police, but is ignored.
Hiro decides to fight his attacker, upgrading Baymax with martial arts moves and 3D printed armour, and goes back to the warehouse, but it’s empty. They track the man to the nearby docks, using the microbot again as a tracker. Tadashi’s friends from the Institute, who are trying to encourage Hiro to attend school despite his grief, show up just in time to help Hiro and Baymax escape the guy for a second time.
Hiro decides to get the four friends involved to attack the guy together. Each friend creates their own superpower, based on their scientific research. Baymax can now fly, and him and Hiro fly up to a wind turbine to scan the city to find their attacker. They track him to an island, and all of them go so they can attempt to take the mask, to stop their attacker’s control over his microbots. They discover that the island was used for a teleportation experiment by Alistair Krei. The experiment went wrong, leaving a woman missing and the government shutting down the island. Suddenly, the group are attacked. Hiro knocks off the mask revealing that their attacker is – Robert Callaghan! He had used Hiro’s microbots to shield himself from the fire at the Institute that night, meaning Tadashi died for nothing. Enraged, Hiro removes Baymax’s healthcare chip, leaving only Hiro’s attacking one, and orders Baymax to kill Callaghan. The others stop this, returning Baymax’s chip, but Hiro is furious and leaves the island with Baymax.
Hiro tries to get Baymax to kill Callaghan but he reminds Hiro that Tadashi wanted Baymax to help people, showing Hiro videos of Tadashi testing Baymax. Hiro apologies to his friends, who forgive him, and tell him that they found out that the woman who went missing in Krei’s experiment was Abigail Callaghan, Callaghan’s daughter, so he must be trying to enact a revenge plot on Krei.
Sure enough, they find Callaghan at the opening of Krei’s new campus. He has rebuilt the portals from Krei’s original experiment, and uses them to destroy the building, before planning to throw Krei in too. The group help to save Krei and stop Callaghan by getting the majority of the microbots sucked into the portals through clever distractions. Eventually, Callaghan doesn’t have enough microbots to continue attacking the group.
Baymax then detects life from inside the portal. Hiro, assuming it to be Abigail, goes in with Baymax to retrieve her. On the way out though, Baymax is damaged by floating debris. The only way to get Hiro and Abigail out is to use his rocket fist, which Hiro designed, to push them out, but Baymax cannot go with them. Hiro accepts this is the only way and tearfully says goodbye to Baymax. Hiro and Abigail are return safely, and Callaghan is arrested. Hiro then decides to go back to the university with his friends, and finds Tadashi’s original healthcare chip for Baymax in the rocket fist that Hiro kept. He rebuilds Baymax, inserts the chip, and gets his friend back. The six of them continue to protect the city as a team, calling themselves “Big Hero 6”.
CHARACTERS & CAST
The movie Big Hero 6 starts out with Hiro Tamada “bot fighting” in the slightly dodgy streets and back allies of San Fransokyo. Hiro is quite cocky at this stage and the team at Disney knew they needed the right balance of cockiness and vulnerability to match Hiro’s age. If the balance edged too much towards cocky, I presume the audience would not have found Hiro likeable and wouldn’t have been bothered by his story, but luckily, they got it just right[1]! Hiro doesn’t think anything of hustling much older, and bigger, men than him, who no doubt have connections in this underground arena. That’s how he gets himself into trouble and has to be rescued by his older brother, Tadashi.
Tadashi clearly doesn’t approve of Hiro’s choices in life; he wants him to live up to his potential and continue to improve the world with his genius ideas and inventions, because Hiro is very intelligent. Tadashi shows Hiro what he could be doing with his time instead, and by showing Hiro Baymax and all the work he’s put into that goes a long way to convincing Hiro to use his talents for good. Their parents died about ten years before, so they are very close and protective of each other. They are being raised by their Aunt Cass, living above the Lucky Cat Café, that Cass owns and runs, with her cat Mochi. Cass is concerned she isn’t raising the boys well, especially when they end up being arrested for being involved in illegal bot fighting, but she is very supportive towards them and so proud of what they’ve accomplished in life. Mochi was actually not a part of the original script for Big Hero 6, however, story artist Kendelle Hoyer wanted Hiro’s family to have a pet. She continued to draw the cat in her storyboards and eventually it was decided that the cat could stay[2]!
Tadashi Hamada is voiced by Daniel Henney, who is currently cast in the Amazon Prime fantasy series The Wheel of Time (2021-present) as al’Lan Mandragoran. Aunt Cass is voiced by comedic actress Maya Rudolph, known for her roles in movies such as Grown Ups (2010) and its 2013 sequel as Deanne; Bridesmaids (2011) as Lillian; and Disenchanted (2022) as Malvina. She rose to fame as a cast member on the sketch show Saturday Night Live from 2000 to 2007. Rudolph currently stars in the AppleTV+ comedy series Loot (2022-present) as Molly Wells.
When Tadashi unexpectedly dies in the fire at the Institute, Hiro sinks into a deep depression which Cass tries hard to get him out of, by encouraging him to register at school. Not that Hiro really listens, until he meets Baymax. Baymax is the best character in the whole movie, in my opinion. He is the funniest, mostly because he has no filter, and doesn’t understand how people act. Like the “fist bump” scene. Hiro tries to teach him how to “fist bump”, so he can mimic what him and Tadashi used to do; it was their “thing”. However, Baymax doesn’t quite get it right, and after the “fist bump”, wriggles his fingers a bit and goes ‘ba la la la’, so not quite the same thing! The Disney team knew this would be a funny moment in the movie, so built in more opportunities for the audience to see it. Another hilarious moment is seeing low-power Baymax, who could also be called “drunk Baymax” if this weren’t a Disney film. I’m sad there aren’t more moments of this in the movie. Baymax is a great companion for Hiro, at a time when he needs someone most. Obviously, Baymax is a “personal healthcare companion”, so wouldn’t want Hiro to be in anyway unwell, but he goes above and beyond what would be expected to help Hiro grieve and come to terms with his brother’s death – like fighting bad guys, for example! I think everyone that watched Big Hero 6 came away from it wanting their own Baymax in their lives – I know I did, and still do.
To create Baymax, the face was inspired by a traditional Japanese bell called a Suzu seen at a temple in Tokyo whilst the Disney team were on a research trip there. On the surface of the bells, there are two circles with a line in the middle, exactly like Baymax’s face. The idea for Baymax to be a “huggable” robot, instead of the traditional robot that can be found in the comic series, came from a different research trip to technological institutes, specifically Carnegie Mellon, where the team saw work on “soft robotics” including a vinyl arm. They knew that was the perfect look for Baymax[3]. Baymax’s movements were influenced by real and movie robots, and even koala bears, as well as babies and penguins. Penguins have similar body dimensions to Baymax, as in long torso and short legs, so they were a good choice to look at how Baymax would walk[4].
Scott Adsit voices the lovable Baymax. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Pete Hornberger in the comedy series 30 Rock (2006-13). Hiro is voiced by Ryan Potter, who made his acting debut as Mike in Supah Ninja (2011-13) for Nickelodeon. For Disney XD, Potter was cast as Riker in Lab Rats: Elite Force (2016). After that, he appeared as Gar Logan / Beast Boy in Titans (2018-23), then voiced the character of Kenji Kon in Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020-22).
Then there’s rest of the “Big Hero 6” team, Hiro and Tadashi’s four friends from the Institute. First, there is Go Go. She is a bit reserved and quite sarcastic; she doesn’t say much. Go Go is researching maglev wheels, wheels which are magnetically suspended, so not attached to anything, and these become her superpower, allowing her to speed-skate with them on her feet, and be able to throw them at opponents. Go Go is voiced by Jamie Chung, who has appeared in movies, such as Grown Ups (2010) and The Hangover Part II (2011), and in the television series such as Once Upon a Time (2011-18) in the role of Mulan, after being a cast member on reality show The Real World: San Diego in 2004.
Honey Lemon is the other girl in the group. She is bubbly and enthusiastic, almost too much so. Her speciality lies in chemistry, and her superpower is about creating balls of potent chemicals, which can change form, plus be shot out at speed. Genesis Rodriguez provides the voice for Honey Lemon. Rodriguez began her career with roles in telenovelas such as Prisionera (2004) and Dame Chocolate (2007) before moving in to roles in the later series’ of Entourage (2004-2011) and, most recently, she played Sloane Hargreeves in Season 3 of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy (2019-present).
For the guys, there are Fred and Wasabi. Fred is the school mascot, so not a science student, though he is interested in science so hangs out in the lab frequently. He is also a comic book enthusiast, and spends a lot of time thinking about superpowers even before the group is formed. For his superpower, as the school mascot is a dragon and he doesn’t have any science talent, he has a super suit that can breathe intensely hot fire. Fred is childish and kind of gross – we hear about how many times he wears one pair of underwear, for example – but he is friendly, and not bothered by what people think of him. It also turns out that Fred has very rich parents and lives in a mansion. In an End Credits scene, we see that Fred’s dad is actually a superhero himself – and looks and sounds like Stan Lee. Nice comic-related Easter egg there! Comedian and actor T.J. Miller voices Fred. He had voiced the character Tuffnut Thorston in How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and its 2014 sequel, as well as some of the earlier spin-offs, and voiced the character of Gene in The Emoji Movie (2017). Miller also portrayed Weasel in Deadpool (2016) and its 2018 sequel. On television, Miller received a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2015 for his role as Erlich Bachman in Silicon Valley (2014-17). In recent years, Miller has been replaced in many of his recurring acting roles due to police matters.
Wasabi, on the other hand, is the complete opposite to Fred. He is incredibly organised, overly cautious, and reluctant to be involved in the group to begin with. Fred gave him the nickname “Wasabi” after he got some wasabi on his shirt one day – something that Wasabi finds annoying as it only happened one time. His superpower is based on his research around lasers, making plasma blades that are razor sharp and can cut through nearly everything. Wasabi is voiced by Damon Wayans Jr., known for starring in Happy Endings (2011-2013) as Brad Williams and for having the recurring role of Coach in New Girl (2011-2018). He also recently starred as Adam in the film Players (2024) for Netflix.
Then, there is the villain, “Yokai”, then found to be Professor Robert Callaghan, in one of those surprise villain moments that Disney and Pixar started doing in the mid-2000s. At the start of the movie, he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He’s a bit stand-offish, and doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t seem evil, though it is clear he is one to hold a grudge; when he spots Alistair Krei at the showcase, he makes it quite obvious that he doesn’t like Krei at all, and warns Hiro away from him. It turns out Krei was the reason his daughter disappeared in a failed experiment, which seems like a fair enough reason to hold a grudge, really! Then, we see “Yokai”, who is not at all concerned that he could’ve killed all these kids who are actually his students. He is blinded to everything except his revenge plot and doesn’t care who might get hurt if they get in his way. Even when he is revealed by Hiro to be Callaghan, he isn’t apologetic at all and continues on with his plan. By the end of the movie, when he is thwarted by “Big Hero 6”, and his daughter is found to be alive, Callaghan just looks sad, as he is put into the police car. Maybe he shouldn’t have become so consumed by hate. Like most villains, Callaghan never saw himself as the villain of the piece; he felt that he was enacting some sort of justice. He is grieving in much the same way as Hiro is, and even Hiro almost resorts to violence when he sees how unfair it is that Tadashi died for no reason, and Callaghan doesn’t even care. It just shows what grief can do to a person. Hiro comes to terms with his, thanks to Baymax, who won’t allow Hiro to go down the dark path of hatred and revenge, unlike Callaghan[5].
Callaghan is voiced by James Cromwell. In recent years, Cromwell has had a recurring role in the drama series Succession (2018-23), receiving three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Guest Actor. He also had a recurring role in Season 3 and 4 of Boardwalk Empire (2010-14). In the second series of the American horror anthology series, American Horror Story: Asylum, Cromwell was cast as Dr. Arthur Arden; he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries for his performance. In film, Cromwell has appeared in a range of films, including Babe (1995) as Farmer Arthur Hoggett, for which he was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category at the Academy Awards; I, Robot (2004) as Dr. Alfred Lanning; The Queen (2006) as Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh; The Artist (2011) as Clifton, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) as Benjamin Lockwood.
Well-known Disney voice artist Alan Tudyk voiced Callaghan’s nemesis Alistair Krei. Tudyk had previously voiced King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph (2012) at this time, and has since gone on to have a voice part in every Disney animated feature since, including Duke of Weselton in Frozen (2013), Hei Hei in Moana (2016), and Valentino in Wish (2023), amongst many more Disney and non-Disney projects, Iike the series Resident Alien (2021-present).
PRODUCTION
The story of Big Hero 6 goes right back to the group of writers who created the original comic. The group all met while working at Marvel in the 1990s. They had been working on the X-Men series’, however, when Marvel went bankrupt, they moved over to DC Comics and worked on Superman. After a while, they decided they wanted to work on their own franchises instead, and set up their own company called Man of Action Entertainment, a writer collective. They had a big hit with Ben 10, which aired on Cartoon Network in 2006, and continued in some form, whether in television or gaming, until 2021. Man of Action were surprised to find out that Disney were making a movie based on Big Hero 6 but they were delighted with the final result[6].
When Don Hall had finished working on Winnie the Pooh (2011) as co-director, he decided to pitch an idea for an animated movie based on a Marvel property. He had always wanted to make a Disney movie based on a Marvel comic, and now that Disney had bought Marvel, he knew he had the opportunity. Hall stumbled upon Big Hero 6, which he hadn’t heard of before, but liked the style of. The characters from this obscure Marvel comic book called Big Hero 6 first appeared in a 1998 three-issue miniseries called Sunfire and Big Hero 6. They would then appear again in a 2008 five-issue miniseries called Big Hero 6. Both of these comic series use the same characters, but the second one would mostly be the basis for the Disney movie. However, Disney did not generally use much information from the original comic, apart from the character names[7]. They were told by Marvel to make it their own, so they used the original characters, but changed the story quite significantly. One of the first changes was for Baymax to be built by Hiro’s brother, Tadashi, who was created for the movie, instead of by Hiro’s father, so they could have a storyline about brothers. Hall held a “brothers’ summit” to learn about his team’s experiences with their brothers.
Much like with many Disney animated movies, the film was screened every twelve weeks to collect feedback and reaction, meaning that scripts had to be rewritten and new scenes would have to be drawn, and others thrown out. For example, some of the deleted scenes include a prologue which would’ve recounted Hiro’s journey as a prodigy child, skipping grades at school and graduating early, before making robots and new technology with his brother. Baymax was also originally going to be presented at the showcase by Tadashi, with Fred being used as the patient, however, Disney felt Tadashi introducing Hiro to Baymax in his lab would make it more of a special moment for the brothers, strengthening their relationship. The first introduction of “Yokai” was going to be more menacing too[8].
In terms of the location, the team wanted to use the US geography of San Francisco and combine it with the cultural feel and vibe of the city of Tokyo, especially as this would represent Big Hero 6’s comic anime style. This made the city of San Fransokyo, which was created as a futuristic thriving metropolis full of people. The team spent around three years developing a rendering tool called Hyperion, to provide realistic lighting effects to the scenes, and give huge levels of detail and artistry in each shot. They also developed software called Denizen to create their characters, as they had 14 main characters to bring to life, the largest cast of main characters in a Disney film at the time, as well as over 700 unique supporting roles, more than any other Disney film that had come before. The Visual Effects team was expanded to tackle the numerous anime-influenced action sequences, going from thirteen on Tangled (2010) to forty for Big Hero 6.
As well as recreating the cities closely, by using Hyperion to generate the 83,000 distinct buildings, and include additional touches such as 215,000 street lights, specific details, like milk bottle boxes being stacked on the sides of buildings in Tokyo, alongside all the characters, to make San Fransokyo to feel like a heavily-populated area, the Effects team spent an entire day sat on top of 555 California Street in San Francisco, the second highest building in the city, to study the light’s effect on the city and the landscape, as it progressed from sunrise to sunset[9].
MUSIC
For the music, Henry Jackman composed Big Hero 6’s score. Jackman had composed music for both action films and Disney films prior to Big Hero 6, including Kick-Ass (2010) and its 2013 sequel; Captain Phillips (2013); Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and its 2017 sequel, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and its 2019 sequel. For Disney, he had composed the score for Wreck-It Ralph (2012), for which he won the Annie Award for Music in an Animated Feature Production in 2013, prior to Big Hero 6, and went on to compose for Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) and Strange World (2022).
As the movie only contains the one song, Jackman’s score really had to sing here. The piece “First Flight” is particularly good, and accompanies the scene of Baymax and Hiro flying over San Fransokyo for the first time, after Hiro’s upgrade to Baymax, mimicking Hiro’s initial fear of flying for the first time before settling in and enjoying the ride. Disney knew they always wanted this scene to exist, even from the very start of production[10]. The piece “I Am Satisfied with My Care” is my favourite though, which plays as Baymax and Hiro say goodbye before Hiro leaves the portal with Abigail and says the heart-breaking line “I’m satisfied with my care”. Disney scores just have a way of making endings even more emotional with the music they use.
The only song in the movie and soundtrack is called “Immortals”, performed by American rock band Fall Out Boy. It’s quite out there for Disney, using a rock song, though it’s more electronic and pop than hardcore rock. It’s a great song, and gets stuck in my head often, but very different to most Disney songs, which is probably what they were looking for as Big Hero 6 is different to most Disney films. It suits the action feel of the movie well. It plays during the scene of the group testing out their strategies and superpower skills before they face “Yokai”.
RECEPTION
Big Hero 6 was released in November 2014, but debuted as the opening film at the Tokyo International Film Festival on 23rd October 2014. In theatres, Big Hero 6 was released alongside a new Disney short, Feast (2014), about a dog and his owner’s shared love of food and how that changes with the owner’s new relationship.
Despite Big Hero 6 being quite a shift away from what audiences expect from Disney Animation, the movie did very well both at the box-office and with critics. It grossed over $650 million worldwide, making it the fourth Disney release of 2014 to do so, with the others being solely live-action films: Guardians of the Galaxy, Maleficent, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Three out of the four of these films were “superhero movies”.
Big Hero 6 also became the highest-grossing animated film of 2014, which is quite an achievement considering DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon 2 was also released that year, as were The Lego Movie and The Book of Life. Within Disney records, in 2015 Big Hero 6 became the third highest-grossing Disney animated film release in the US and Canada, after Frozen (2013) and The Lion King (1994) for a time.
Critics were impressed with the action-packed storyline, but were also pleasantly surprised to find that Big Hero 6 dealt with difficult topics, like grief and emotional healing, so it didn’t just appeal to superhero fans, but was universally relevant. It was also funny and Baymax as a character was a huge hit with audiences.
Big Hero 6 won Best Animated Feature at the 87th Academy Awards, which was good for the Disney Studios to see as, apart from Frozen (2013) winning the category the year before, Disney Animation had not won ever since the category began in 2001, with Pixar having a great track record there instead. Big Hero 6 also won five awards at the Visual Effects Society Awards; won Favorite Animated Movie at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards; and won an Annie Award for Animated Effects in an Animation Production. It sadly was not able to win Best Animated Feature at the Golden Globes or the BAFTAs, though, with those wins going to How to Train Your Dragon 2 and The Lego Movie, respectively.
LEGACY
But this reaction to Big Hero 6 showed just how much of a success the movie had been, and continued Disney’s run of animated hit films. In terms of what came next, there have been talks about a theatrical sequel to Big Hero 6 since its release, however, nothing has been confirmed so far.
Still, Big Hero 6 did get a spin-off television series called Big Hero 6: The Series, which took place right after the events of the film, and ran from 2017 until 2021. Many of the voice actors reprised their voice performances for the series. This then spanned a comic book series. The film also inspired a Japanese manga adaptation. Then there was the series Baymax! released on Disney+ in 2022, which consists of six ten-minute shorts detailing Baymax’s encounters with other citizens of San Fransokyo and his attempts to help them. I just watched them this week; they were funny, cute, and sweet – I loved them. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to get a second series.
At the Disney Parks, just after the release of Big Hero 6 in 2014, Baymax and Hiro were meeting guests at The Magic of Disney Animation at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort. At Disneyland, the two were seen in Tomorrowland, where a sneak peek of Big Hero 6 was also been shown at the Magic Eye Theater.
These meet-and-greets later closed, but Baymax could still be seen at Walt Disney World at Epcot Character Spot from 2015, however this area closed around 2019 as part of Epcot’s big refurbishment plans for its 40th anniversary, so currently at Walt Disney World, there is nowhere that you can meet Baymax or any of the Big Hero 6 group.
Luckily, Disneyland have much more respect as they have a whole area dedicated to Big Hero 6, when they refurbished the Pacific Wharf area of Disney California Adventure and transformed it into San Fransokyo Square. It opened at the end of August 2023. Here, you can meet both Hiro and Baymax, and even go to Aunt Cass Café or the Lucky Fortune Cookery for some food. There are also shops such as San Fransokyo Maker’s Market, however, there are no rides or attractions here. Also at Disneyland, in 2023 a fireworks show debuted called Wondrous Journeys, which included a real Baymax flying over the castle, but when it returned in 2024, Baymax had been removed from the show. Yokai was seen as part of the Disney Villain franchise at the Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween Party in 2023. He was also seen during Disneyland After Dark: Villains Nite in 2021.
At Tokyo Disneyland, they do have an attraction, The Happy Ride with Baymax, which is a whip-around ride, much like Alien Swirling Saucers at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida, and Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree at Disneyland. During the summer season 2024 at Tokyo, there will be a roughly 30-minute performance where Baymax will be riding in a parade float spraying mist and water to cool down guests. Tokyo Disneyland seem to have a lot of these types of events during their summer season, and Baymax seems to have been involved in a similar show in 2023. It doesn’t look like Baymax has a dedicated meet-and-greet location here though.
Shanghai Disneyland doesn’t seem to either, but in recent years, there has been a stage show called Baymax Super Exercise Expo where Hiro and Baymax lead a mini exercise or dance class for guests. It is unclear if this is still going, but I’m thinking not. At Hong Kong Disneyland, Baymax and Hiro have met guests previously, but it would seem not recently.
Strangely enough, though Disneyland Paris does not have a dedicated meet-and-greet for Baymax, him and Hiro were seen at Disney+ Day in 2022, and in 2018 for the FanDaze event all six members of Big Hero 6 were seen, and so was the villain Yokai. For Halloween 2018, there was also a show called Big Hero 6: Yokai’s Revenge!
Merchandise for Big Hero 6 is quite popular, with items such as Funko POP figurines, mugs, pins and clothing being available previously. As 2024 is the 10th anniversary of the movie, I’m sure more items will be released towards the end of the year.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Big Hero 6 is a movie with a lot of compassion, many strong characters, and an interesting and exciting plot. It was a new direction for Disney, and continued their long line of successes in the 2010s. When Big Hero 6 was released, it’s quite clear there was a lot of hype around it, especially given the fact that it was based on a Marvel property, after Disney’s heavily-publicised purchase of Marvel, and that it was Disney Animation’s first superhero movie. However, I feel like after a few years, it was overshadowed by other Disney hits, and hasn’t been given as much credit as it deserves.
It is a movie that talks about friendship and being able to do anything you want, being free to use your imagination to create anything. Like Disney wanted, it tells the audience that technology and science provide hope for the future. But mostly, the theme around loss and grief is what gives Big Hero 6 its heart.
As we see Hiro deal with his grief at losing his brother, we learn the most important message, which can be difficult to remember in the moment: that nobody is ever truly gone; your loved ones will always be with you as long as you remember them. Something I’m sure many people need reminding of from time to time.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘Deconstructing “Big Hero 6”’, Oscars.org (online), 2014, date unknown.
[2] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Big Hero 6’, pp. 160-162.
[3] Credit: Disney, The Origin Story of Big Hero 6: Hiro’s Journey (2014).
[4] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Big Hero 6’, pp. 160-162.
[5] Credit: Disney, The Origin Story of Big Hero 6: Hiro’s Journey (2014).
[6] Credit: Dorothy Pomerantz, ‘Meet The Guys Behind The Original ‘Big Hero 6’’, Forbes (online), 7th November 2014.
[7] Credit: Joshua Rivera, ‘’Big Hero 6’ strays far from its source material – – and that’s great’, Entertainment Weekly (online), 10th November 2014.
[8] Credit: Disney, The Origin Story of Big Hero 6: Hiro’s Journey (2014).
[9] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘Deconstructing “Big Hero 6”’, Oscars.org, date unknown.
[10] Credit: Disney, The Origin Story of Big Hero 6: Hiro’s Journey (2014).
The Disney Purist 