Big Hero 6 is one of those movies that you appreciated but unlike Toy Story and Frozen, haven’t been milked to death.
In fact, I quite like it that way. Because good memories can then stay as, well, as good memories.
Therefore, when they announced a new series with Baymax, I was sceptical and worried. I was worried that they would ruin the good feeling that still lingers inside me from time to time once and for all.
Turns out, the series was a series of 6 shorts. Which, for me, was a relief. Still I tried to avoid it initially, telling myself that I will wait until I ran out of interesting stuff I wanted to watch on Disney+ (for the time being). Eventually, the inevitable came, and I jumped in.
As the series was just a series of 6 shorts, it was not hard to digest.
The series surrounds how Baymax tried to go around the neighbourhood trying to help people with their medical needs, in a pretty much persistent manner, that eventually changed these people’s minds. Hiro, who was the main protagonist in Big Hero 6, is just a supporting character.
While it was fun to see how Baymax pursued those who are in need of clinical help, what surprised me though, was that the series actually handled quite serious issues in our society, with its usual quirky world view of course. This more ‘easy to understand’ approach to these serious issues makes the whole premise a lot more consumable, and maybe for some viewers, a lot more approachable. Disney has tried to tackle more social issues nowadays with their main productions too, but a lot of time still shy away from head-on discussion about them. It is good that they stick to their guns when being challenged, but for a lot of those scenes and stories in their blockbusters, they were still some ‘look away and you miss scenes’, which gives critics a platform to dismiss them as storms in a tea cup. So, with Baymax dedicating full episodes dealing with them in full on 11 minutes episodes, it was a completely different experience.
The series talked about grief, puberty, family expectation, sexuality and even abandonment. None of these topics are easy to handle in our current complicated,and sometimes overly complicated society, but from Baymax’s innocent AI point of view, the pure clinical approach with a touch of innocence, helped all those in need to shed new lights on who they are and who they want to be eventually. The last episode for me was a typical Disney wrap up of any series, but it was the previous 5 episodes that got me hooked and moved. And to have this done to by pure computer animation and genuinely authentic voice acting, it was quite an accomplishment in my humble opinion.
It is really hard to write about six interconnected shorts of 11 minutes each without spoiling it, but for me Baymax is a breath of fresh air from all the recent blockbuster hitting or aiming productions from Disney+. Not that all the other stuff are bad, they are not, at least for me, but watching Baymax is like a relaxing visual holiday from the hustle bustle of the MCU and other gigantic animated worlds that Disney had been building in the last few years.
At the end of the day, who would expect that 6 11 minutes shorts about an inflated clinical robot that needs to self band-aid from time to time would have that much impact on a streaming platform full of blockbusters?
Baymax is now streaming on Disney+
