Big Hero 6 The Series: It could have been better

Hello, friends. Today, I will be analyzing a TV series based on a movie that I fell in love with for its colourful themes, deep plot, compelling characters, great CGI and memorable messages. Before I get into it, I want to take a moment to say that I have quit doing videos. They are too big of a pain in the petunia to make and I write better than I speak, so I will stick to writing essays, reviews and more. Anyway, onto the analysis.

All I can say about Big Hero 6 the series is that it had a great concept, it presented some great ideas and tried hard to be a cartoon of the times, but it could have and should have been a lot better. The show’s downfall all centers around trying too hard to be kid friendly which makes the shame sting all the more because Big Hero 6 was already kid friendly even with its dark themes, sharp edges and intelligent writing. If anything, even the brightest kid friendly cartoons (Steven Universe, She-Ra, etc.) had those things and actually benefitted from them. By needlessly trying too hard, character development got scrapped, the edges were all smoothed out, storytelling was subpar, the humour was too silly and the executive meddling in the end produced a dismal final season. However, I don’t want this analysis to be one lengthy negative rant about how awful the series was because in its defense, awful is an unfair word. It did have potential and ideas which are worth carrying over to a reboot that I hope will be done someday in the future. Also, we should root for a reboot because Big Hero 6 would not be the first story that needs it before striking gold. Just look at how many times Spider-Man was rebooted in film before MCU found the version that worked. Anyway, I will list all the things in Big Hero 6 that could have been better in my opinion;

1- Go easy on the laughs and be more generous with the action. - I love adding comedy to my own writing because I think a good sense of humour makes everything better, but Big Hero 6 is not a stand up comedy routine. It is a superhero story where we expect action, suspense and life or death situations that are to be taken seriously first. The comedy should be for relief and with the right timing. Also, the chibi cutscenes and having characters act like fools aren’t funny. Ren and Stimpy are the exception not the standard and their way of making you laugh doesn’t fit an action series. In a show as big as Big Hero 6, real life physics and danger matters.

2- Make the villains menacing and gritty. - I admit that after having a movie villain like Yokai who was the stuff of nightmares, it is going to be a challenging act to follow, but it was obvious that the writers were trying especially with some villains who could have easily gone into some dark relatable territory. For example, Mr. Sparkles (the gentleman in the photo above) embodies social media and Internet personalities. Right off the bat, you have a long list of things which embody the dark side of that like scams, fraud, using social media to dox or harass, driving people to suicide, online predators, the Internet personalities being very depressed people in real life, and much more horrifying things. When you stop and look at it, Mr. Sparkles even looks like the Joker which hints how dark and scary he could have been if the stops were removed. The same goes for enemies like Hardlight who embodies online gaming, Liv with cloning, Obake an amoral and insane scientist, and Trina and Noodle Burger Boy (more on him later) being evil robots. Globby especially should have been painted and written in much darker colours rather being played off for laughs because he has many parallels with Clay Face. The only two villains who I can say were supposed to be campy, charming and comical were Baron Von Steamer and Supersonic Sue because they were a satire of the Adam West style villains.

The rest of them needed to be dark and threatening including Mr. Sparkles. In fact, I would love a rebooted version of Mr. Sparkles who gives me the heebie-jeebies. Going back to Noodle Burger Boy, I must confess that I was actually excited when I heard that he was going to be the main villain of the final season because I thought he was going to fulfill his master’s final wish and as a reminder, Noodle Burger Boy was based on a super robot for military purposes.

It would have been fantastic if Noodle Burger Boy was upgraded into a full military war machine with a new threatening look. For that, I think all of the villains deserve to be rebooted and have their full potential unlocked for better or for worse.

3- A show about geniuses merits genius level art quality. - I am usually forgiving towards art styles, but in the case of Big Hero 6, the oversimplified style with minimal details and lack of textures did not suit the show. The characters blend in with the background which makes them look flat and the special effects were extremely dulled down. I also know for a fact that Disney can do a lot better than this because I saw how superbly Tangled the Series was drawn.

You can see and almost feel the difference in quality, the number of layers and level of detail between the two styles. I think there was no excuse Big Hero 6 was not done in the same style and at the same level if not better as Tangled.

3- Don’t dumb down or flanderize amazing characters. - I absolutely detest it when characters are flanderized because it makes them one dimensional and grating. For example, Go Go is tough as nails and extremely calm, but she is not cold or hesitant towards helping her friends. She doesn’t require very special episodes for us to know that. If anything, the movie version of Go Go reminded me a lot of Garnet in how she deconstructed the broody character. She isn’t cold or emotionless. Just calm and mature. Another good example was how Honey Lemon was rewritten to be overly positive to the point of toxicity, naïve and oblivious with a juvenile obsession with stickers. Then you have poor Fred who was rewritten to be an incompetent fool. The spark that makes Big Hero 6 shine is that they are a team of geniuses meaning they are all intelligent. Even Fred is genius in his own way just not a scientific one. He has a vivid imagination, he is resourceful and can get himself out of tight spots. Please, don’t turn characters into dummies especially if their intelligence is a part of them. It doesn’t make them better or funnier. It ruins them.

4- Tadashi needs closure and honour. - I am all for Hiro making peace with the loss of his brother, but Tadashi is to the Big Hero 6 team what Uncle Ben was to Spider-Man. His loss was the catalyst if not the reason. He should never be forgotten. Moreover, there was never any true closure to him especially with the possibility that he may still be alive up in the air. After all, like Callaghan, his body was never found and it turned out that Callaghan was still alive.

With that said, who is to say that Tadashi was not secretly still alive and just hiding or being hidden? This is something that Disney really needed to clear up if not for the fans, then at least as a service to such an important character. Never just forget about them.

5- The format can only be episodic with a deep plots, continuity and character development. - Random episodes with a mere monster of the day is an outdated format which doesn’t fit Big Hero 6′s modern and bright setting. In seasons 1 and 2, when the episodes were plot heavy with character development, the series shined brightest. It also helped move the story along, but with the final season, plot was removed, closure was abandoned or poorly written if any was given, and characters were disallowed from growing. A good example at how plot and character development could have made this series and its characters better was the relationship between Hiro and Megan. Would it have truly survived or would they have broken up?

Would Richardson Mole have eventually lost interest in his obsession with besting and bullying Fred or would his obsession consume him compelling him to become a super villain? I do see quite a few similarities between Mole and Reverse Flash.

Then you have Karmi who is in my opinion, the biggest wild card of the bunch. She was intentionally introduced as an arrogant, prickly and unlikable yet complex character who rivaled Hiro bitterly.

Yet had a huge crush on his alter ego and as time went on, started to grow up and even form a friendship with Hiro. What would have happened further down the road with her? Would she have become a super hero herself? Or maybe even another love interest for Hiro kind of like how Black Cat is for Spider-Man?

Is Obake really gone?

What does the future hold Diana (Liv’s clone), Liv herself or the Sycorax the genetics company?

Is Alistair Krei going to become an ally to Big Hero 6 or an antagonist? There is also the issue at how little we know about the other Big Hero 6 characters other than Fred, Hiro and Baymax. What are Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Go Go’s backstories? These questions matter and while not every mystery can be solved, leaving none of them solved is lazy writing.

6- Executives, kindly stay out of the writing and any other part of the creative process. - I’m sorry, execs, but there is no nice way to say it. History itself proves that every time executives got involved in the creative process of any media, it got worse not better. Leave the writing to the creative team and the execs should only handle the legal stuff. Please. We understand that TV is a business, but writing itself is not. It is an art which you just don’t have a talent for. Let the creative people do their thing with the freedom necessary and you do your thing, deal? Deal.

7- Focus on Hiro and Baymax. - The are the main characters so keep them at the heart of the series no matter what happens around them. That is all I can say.

And that sums up all the things that could have made Big Hero 6 the series better, but this is all just my opinion. What is yours?

PS: I am well aware that the Big Hero 6 series is being retconned because a new series called Baymax is in the works as well as the long awaited sequel to the first movie. I am looking forward to both with an open mind. PPS: I also am aware that some people liked this show the way it was including the art style and I am cool with that. An analysis for art that includes cartoons is never right or wrong. It is solely based on opinion. I may have thought this series could have been better, but there are people who make arguments that it could have been worse.

I've finally caught up with WandaVision and TFATWS and I need to talk about it. I think you may have written something about it before but I can't find it now and I'm curious for your thoughts. I personally loved WV and was a bit disappointed by TFATWS which was surprising because I didn't even like Wanda in the movies and didn't care about the romance with Vision - and now I love them both and would have loved to watch another 9 eps of just Wanda's broadcast. And Elizabeth Olsen is just so pretty:) oh, and I think I'm also lowkey shipping her with Monica now. Agnes being this superwitch was the only thing that felt a bit out of the blue.

As for TFATWS I was hoping for a buddy cop comedy and the dark gritty action movie that it turned out to be is not really my thing. And there were too many people there that I don't care about taking up screen time. My favorite parts were Sam and Bucky repairing the boat and having a heart to heart and then the celebration at the docks at the end. Wish there were more quiet moments like these.

So yeah, what did you think?

Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a nice ask! People don’t come and talk at me much about MCU - but I’m so glad when they do!  

I really enjoyed WandaVision! I grew up with a lot of that old television - so the nods to that felt really inspired and fun.  And it was neat to see the MCU momentarily step away from what can be a tired structure.  I think both Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany did a lot to really make their characters shine -- especially being so underdeveloped in the movies.  

It’s funny that Agnes felt out of the blue for you since, maybe being around comic culture a little more, I totally figured this was going to be a thing, so it didn’t feel out of nowhere to me, lol.  :) 

I do agree that TFATWS was a little more hit and miss.  I was kind of hoping for a little more of that antagonistic vibe to work through regarding Sam and Bucky - but they had such a big plot to get through, that they couldn’t do much of it.  I agree, though, that a lot of the smaller moments are what really worked.  I do feel, overall, that this kind of felt like a stepping stone to get both Sam and Bucky to where they needed to be to go on to do more movies -- as well as address the idea of a black man taking on Captain America.  I think the last one was done well, and was one of the better aspects of this particular show.  I kind of wonder if they needed another episode or two to really flesh out a few things -- such as the actual villain.  I can’t say that I fully followed what was going on there.  

Have you been watching the other MCU shows? 

Loki was excellent - and I’m so intrigued by where they go next with the stories across the board.  It’s was such a captivating show, and I’m excited to see more of it eventually, as well as seeing the repercussions of the multiverse. 

I have some mixed feelings about the What If...?  I mean - it’s staying true to the comics it derives from.  What If comics were maybe a little bit lower in quality, and always had a sour ending because, hey, the main universe is really the one you should be rooting for.  Don’t get me wrong - the animation quality is fantastic, and the stories are well done.  Just.. .it’s depressing more often than not.  With the exception of the first one -- all the universes are so bleak.  They could really use a few episodes that aren’t so dark.  

(Also, I’m side eye-ing the whole ‘Tony dies in every universe’ thing -- though it seems really purposeful at this point.) 

And, the trailer for the Hawkeye show just dropped.  And it’s looking really good! 

It’s interesting how this post-Endgame landscape is really trying to move newer characters into position to take over what’s left of the original Avengers crew, and move the whole universe forward into something new.  It’s pretty cool in a lot of ways (even if I’ll always miss the old favorites).  

May I please ask if the showings in JUSTICE LEAGUE 2017 have had any impact on your various Rankings? (I was rather delighted by the film - at one point I actually thought "so this is what it's like to be ten years old again" or words to that effect - especially after learning of the various, quasi-Biblical tribulations inflicted upon this particular production and nobly endured ... also, I can't keep it in any longer, Jason Momoa as Aquaman - My Brother, My Cap'n, My King - was OUTRAGEOUS!).

Not for Superman or Batman - Affleck remains a well of untapped potential, and I need to see more of Cavill. In the movie itself, it goes for me Batman (a little overcorrected and lacking a complete arc)

So with this, all the comic book movies of this year have come out, so I can finally rank those (with the exception of Wilson, which I haven’t seen):

10. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: When I walked out of Justice League, one of my first thoughts was “neat, a year of all good comic movies!” But then I remembered this particular turd in the punch bowl - visually breathtaking, but a dead, limp, lifeless plot with insufferable non-characters that squanders Dane DeHaan’s considerable talents, as well as what I understand was highly regarded source material. Apparently making this was one of the great dreams of Luc Besson’s life, and if we weren’t collectively on the tail end of the second in a row of what the scientific community has formally classified “hell years”, that’d be one of the saddest things I’d have heard in this one.

9. Kingsman: The Golden Circle: Without the base of Mark Millar’s respectably entertaining original comic to work on and flying free beyond the premise of “what if James Bond had trained his cocky underprivileged nephew as his successor?”, this doesn’t attempt to pull together the stitches of a message it has, nor does undoing one of the central emotional moments of the original flick amount to much of anything, but it’s a fun, well-directed time nontheless.

8. Atomic Blonde: Our other spy-fi entry, this time on the more traditional end of brooding people muttering a little too quietly too be heard properly about too many names and conflicting entities to recall, with an endgame twist that doesn’t recontextualize the movie so much as render if that much more incomprehensible. But you know what? The point is that it’s a bunch of beautiful people in lovely or seedy places (or indeed lovely seedy places) whispering conspiratorially at each other - except MacAvoy’s unhinged deep-cover agent - interspersed with murdering and fucking each other in equally lovely ways, and on that front it entirely succeeds.

7. Thor: Ragnarok: Yeah, I’ll be the bad guy on this one. I dug the hell out of it, it’s hilarious and stylish and epic, but the actual *story* it tries to build between its comedy and action setpieces feels half-formed and ill-served.

6. Wonder Woman: I’m not quite as beaming on it as I was when it came out, but it’s still by far one of DC’s best efforts, with chemistry among its colorful leads and supporting players, a real sense of moral conviction, and the standout action sequence of the year. It would be higher if not for Paradise Island itself being presented as an agonizing black hole of tired exposition that swallows the first chunk of the movie whole, with it only truly getting going once Diana and Steve leave for man’s world.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: One of the most remarkable cinematic turnarounds I’ve ever seen, with the smirking, soulless, self-parodying trashbag mediocrity of its predecessor blown absolutely to hell by a follow-up that’s somehow stylish, funny, and weird as hell in all the best ways even though it’s by all the same people; while some characters don’t get their full due, it’s anchored by the central story of awful fathers and the scope of how bad they fail their kid, with Rocket trailing in its wake as he learns to be a little bit less of a dickhead.

4. Justice League: I know, I know, and if it wasn’t about characters I’m so predisposed to love I almost certainly wouldn’t put it this high, but it was and I did and I’ll stand by it. It’s exciting and satisfying and lean and tied together by a set of enjoyable characters arcs, somehow a perfect expression of the middlebrow popcorn sensibility this Snyder/Whedon hybrid freakshow ended up aiming for.

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming: Finally, a Spider-Man movie that’s both good and recognizably about Spider-Man. It’s awkward and quirky and silly and heavy in ways none of its MCU contemporaries were quite willing to get, and because of that it’s near the head of that lot as their biggest hero finally comes close to living up to his premise of feeling like the hero – who could be you!

2. The Lego Batman Movie: I never thought I’d see a kids film where a substantial part of the emotional core is Batman and Joker implicitly arguing about the boundaries and commitments of their open relationship, but that’s the world we’re living in. It’s the kind of parody that could only truly work for a character as embedded in the global cultural consciousness as Batman, playing off the popular understanding of him and bit by bit forcing that particular brand of unwittingly absurd avenger forever howling in the wind to grow up and become something like how Batman works at his best. It’s wild, and I absolutely loved it.

1. Logan: Some of if not the only real competition The Dark Knight has for title of absolute best superhero movie, this was absolutely next-level work on just about every level, and I’m honestly not sure that we’ll ever see the likes of it again, so unique and unlikely was its conception as a hard-R pseudo-post-apocalyptic depressing western character study with the guy with knife-fists; it’s a miracle that it worked at all, nevermind as well as any of these things ever have. It doesn’t seem to be kicking off a new wave of grim-and-gritty superhero shit - the catastrophic wake the DC movies have left behind them made that impossible - but I have to imagine this’ll have an influence, so here’s hoping it’ll be more of its contemporaries being willing to branch out into unconventional territory and commit with all they have the way this did.

To be honest, I just don’t have the motivation to see any more movies from 2016 anytime soon. I know I missed out on a lot, but I’m really looking forward to checking out some older movies as soon as I can. So, with the Oscars coming up tomorrow, here are my top 10 films of 2016: 10. Captain America Civil War: If The Dark Knight is the pinnacle of crafting a masterpiece with a comic book source material, Civil War is the pinnacle of representing the medium of comic books. The best film in the MCU since Winter Soldier, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The action was great, the characters were entertaining, and the film is so remarkably reminiscent of a comic book in the best possible way. By no means the masterpiece that The Dark Knight is, I still had a lot of fun with this movie. 9. Deadpool: With the major influx of comic book films, many of which were filled to the brim with disappointment, it’s nice to see Deadpool try something new for a change. It was an exceedingly funny movie with great action sequences and a decent satire of the medium of comic book films as a whole. Yes, it falls under a lot of those same tropes, but at no point did that take me out of the movie. Despite being a bit overrated, I genuinely recommend it. 8. The Lobster: Probably one of the most original and strange screenplays to find a mainstream audience in a while. I really loved The Lobster’s deadpan humor and overall delivery of its message. Despite its seemingly flat Story and characters, the film is not without its moments of genuine emotion and disturbing undertones that left me genuinely invested in what was going on. It’s weird, it’s different, it’s very funny, and it's my #8 pick. 7. The Conjuring 2: As someone who did not think too highly of the first film, I did not expect too much going into this. But my God, I was blown away with what I got. Not to say this film is some profound masterpiece of horror like The Shining or Rosemary's Baby, but that's not what it's trying to be. It knows exactly what it is, a simple ghost story, and it excels at that. Every moment of suspense is well earned, and the characters are incredibly likable, a feat that most modern day horror films seem to forget. I was incredibly entertained throughout the entire runtime of this film, and I am more than glad I saw it. 6. Arrival: Once again Denis Villeneuve brings us another fantastic film, and behind Enemy this one may be my favorite by him. The recent trend of vapid and uninteresting science fiction films has come to a halt, as Arrival is genuinely a great movie. I have a hard time describing what I love about this movie without spoiling it, and while it is far from a perfect movie, it is definitely an exceptional one that I do recommend. The less you know about this film going into it, the better. 5. La La Land: Only someone like Damien Chazelle can get me excited for a modern day musical, and my god did he ever deliver the goods on this one. Though not quite as fantastic as Whiplash, La La Land is still an invigorating and consistently entertaining film with incredible music and production design. I absolutely love the story and characters, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are immaculate in the film. I really love this movie, I might actually see it again before it leaves theaters. It's old fashioned style is so perfectly realized in this film that there were times where I thought I was watching this film via 35mm projector, it's that perfect. Can't wait to pick it up on Blu Ray, I'm positive that La La Land will go down in history as one of the greatest musicals ever made. It's actually kind of incredible that it took this long for a musical this perfect to come out. My God, this film is something special. 4. The Witch: One of the more excellent horror films to come out in recent memory, The Witch is a movie with massive replay value and a uniquely fascinating style. One may think that the descent into madness Story has run its course throughout cinema, but The Witch proves that there is still so much more than can be done with it. Perfectly blending reality and surreality, tied together by bleached out cinematography to give the film it's dower and depressing tone, it's hard to believe that this was helmed by a first time filmmaker. 3. Elle: Paul Verhoeven continues to impress with this thoughtful, disturbing, and surprisingly humorous character study. After a 16 year hiatus, Verhoeven delivers a film so bold and original that it is just as good, if not better, than his excellent work on Starship Troopers. Despite its horrifying and downright disgusting and outlandish implications, the film presents itself in a very grounded and realistic way, which is a new area for Verhoeven's style of filmnaking and it surprisingly worked exceedingly well. Not for the faint of heart, but if you can stomach some absolutely fucked up Shit, then I can't recommend Elle enough. 2. The Nice Guys: I am in awe at how fantastic this film is. In this age of vapid and uninteresting comedies flooding the mainstream, as well as taking a genre that has never been anything more than slightly above average in any movie that has tackled it before, The Nice Guys is something to be treasured. I never thought a buddy cop film paying homage to 1970's filmmaking could be this funny, this well written, and work so incredibly well as a stand alone film, but here we are. Shane Black tops his work on Lethal Weapon to an extent I did not think possible. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe have tremendous chemistry together on screen, and just about every joke hits. Atmospherically this film works so well simply for how fun it is. This is an original film with great characters, and it deserves a sequel. If you didn't see this one in theaters, please, spend money to see it. Watch it on demand, or better yet buy it on Blu Ray, tell studios that this is the kind of film Hollywood should be producing. It's not too late to turn this into a much needed franchise. 1. The Neon Demon: Well, here we are. My number one pick, my absolute favorite film of the year. Nicholas Winding Refn is a director I have some pretty mixed feelings on. While I absolutely loved Drive and Bronson, I was not a huge fan of Only God Forgives, and I have a feeling I wouldn't take too kindly to Valhalla Rising either. But The Neon Demon was special in that it did something I never thought could be done: it made style over substance filmmaking work. Is it a gorgeously vibrant film that has an outlandish story with flat characters and incredibly obvious symbolism/statements? Yes. Yes it absolutely is. So then, why does it work so well? Because the film is about vanity, the very definition of style over substance. See, a films style should be something that compliments the overall themes and tones of the rest of the film. A Clockwork Orange is very expressive, gritty, claustrophobic and colorful because that highlights everything the film is saying. The Neon Demon gives off the illusion that it's style and substance are two completely different beasts, when in reality they harmonize perfectly. Still, it remains a thoughtful and challenging film in its ambiguities as to whether vanity is even a bad thing at all, and who are we to deny that it resides within us all? I absolutely loved everything about this film. The cinematography is consistently beautiful and interesting, and it perfectly works to propel the plot through immaculate visual storytelling. The score by Cliff Martinez is also very exceptional, and the acting for this style of experimental filmmaking is incredibly well realized. The Neon Demon is like the love child of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, and still it has it remains purely a Nicholas Winding Refn film. This film has ensured that I will be keeping a watchful eye on Refn's future films, and I can't wait to see what he has to offer in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if 20 years from now, people look back at this film as something of a misunderstood masterpiece. If not, I at least have confidence in saying that I loved the hell out of it.