Big Hero 6: A First Glimpse
As we enter the arrivals room we’re greeted with the smell of croissants and an array of sushi. Weird? Not if you’re here to see preview shots of Disney’s new feature Big Hero 6 set in the colourful, and yet somewhat fictional city of San Fransokyo.
Producer Roy Conli was on hand to steer us through a selection of clips from the upcoming film that centers around the story of a 13 year old boy called Hiro and his robot Baymax. After the loss of his brother Tadashi in a fire, he struggles to come to terms with life without his best friend. It’s Tadashi’s nurse bot Baymax who becomes a surprising companion, programmed to focus on making him feel better. As well as the loss of his brother in the fire, Hiro also loses his groundbreaking nano technology, seemingly to the wrong hands. Along with Baymax and his new friends they must battle to find answers to all their problems, both emotionally and on a world scale.
The shots, directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, were stunningly well-crafted and the city of San Fransokyo is a tour de force, making you want to dive right in and explore it all for yourself. Always pushing technology, Disney have developed a brand new way of rendering lighting and it really shows through. After the boundaries of light were propelled in Frozen, BH6 takes a subtler approach, though equally elegant and inviting. Beyond this the scenes weren’t pushing any more boundaries, with the characters lacking any real charisma and displaying a lot of stereotypical personalities. The plot looks intriguing and the way in which Hiro’s nano technology assembles and morphs itself is worth popping to the cinema for. Big Hero 6 is not a conventional film in terms of what we’ve come to expect from Disney over the last 100 years. Conli expressed that this was a great opportunity to really run with new ideas and develop the story and characters from the ground up. Just the fact that the film is set within an urban landscape is a huge leap and not something that has been done since the mediocre Bolt.
It will be a huge gamble for Big Hero 6 to be a success, especially after the monumental popularity of Frozen. Disney need to continue their winning streak to compete with the likes of Dreamworks and other major studios. From the preview shots it looks promising. Let’s hope they have more originality in the script to come and can win over a younger audience without the use of catchy sing-a-long songs.
