Fridge / Big Hero 6

Fridge Brilliance

• Stan Lee being Fred's father. Suddenly everything makes sense about the character — why he'd be super into comics and superheroes, and the fact that he has a giant collection of memorabilia (and probably why he's so frickin' rich).
  • It's also an excellent explanation for why Heathcliff is taking the whole teen superhero thing in stride. He probably went through something similar with Fred's dad.
  • Fred's also an English major; you need to be a good writer to write comic books (there's just a different approach in pacing).
  • Big Hero 6 originated as a Marvel comic, so it makes sense for Stan Lee to be in this movie.
• Baymax still being able to stay active and save Hiro without his main personality chip in (since it had put in the rocket hand before firing) makes sense when you realize that the rocket punch is probably on his fighting chip anyway.
  • Likewise, he needed Hiro to say what he did because his main personality chip is that much stronger than his fighting chip. He needed to 'fight', and to do so, he needed to shut down his caregiver chip. It also explains how/when he slipped the chip into his glove — he was literally self-overriding his programmed directive to stay with Hiro.
  • If you think about it, this is also wonderfully symbolic. The fighting chip created by Hiro was a direct response to his hatred of Yokai, because he was the cause of Tadashi's death. Once Hiro admitted that his care was complete, it allowed him to let go of the depression, anger and sorrow he had, and Baymax was ready to complete the last step of the treatment; to take the fighting chip, and all of the hatred it represented, into the void, never to be seen again.
  • There is another explanation that's also Fridge Brilliance. When Hiro removes the chip earlier, the change in personality doesn't take place until the chip-bay is closed. This lines up with computer programming, wherein the kernel generates the operating system which runs in the virtual memory, which doesn't change until the system is rebooted. As long as Baymax doesn't close the chip-bay, he won't reboot, and can function without his chip.
• Of course the group fights badly when they go after Yokai with their new gear; not only did they only train for about an afternoon, most of it was only to get used to the tech, and was done on an individual basis! They didn't learn how to fight as a team before trying to fight as a team.
• "I am satisfied with my care." For the most part, it is presented and understood as someone having been properly tended to and telling their caregiver of that fact. However, certain scenes present it with a slightly altered meaning, in the context of someone being happy with how they have taken care of someone else. When the video of Tadashi says the line, it can be taken as a symbolic way of him saying he's happy about the way he's helped raise Hiro.
• "Tadashi is here" is also literal in that his spirit of kindness and altruism lives on in Baymax. Bonus points for Baymax pointing to his 'heart' every time. Tadashi is Baymax's heart.
• Hiro and Tadashi's mixed heritage makes sense: given the Americasia setting, a lot of people in that city would have mixed heritages.
  • Though the Hamada name suggests the Japanese half is on their father's side, Cass also bears this name and appears to be wholly white.
  • She and the boys' father might be only mostly white with the name coming from a grandfather or great-grandfather. The boys' mother could also be Japanese or of mixed heritage, or Cass might have married into the family herself.
  • Don't forget that, in Japan, it's not uncommon for the husband and the rest of the family to take on the wife's family name if her family owns a large business or if they're of higher status than her husband's family, among other reasons.
  • Also, Cass doesn't actually have a canon surname — her surname being Hamada is pure fanon. Plus, the Korean version of the film shows that their mother is Japanese, while their father is white.
• Someone on Spacebattles pointed out that the reason Hiro couldn't come up with an idea for "Nerd School" from scratch is because his specialty is actually miniaturizing and building off of others' inventions and capabilities, as he does with the team.
  • Which leads to his microbots — a miniaturized version of his robo-fighting capability.
    • Which is in turn a miniaturised application of one of Callaghan's inventions.
• All of Fred's nicknames are based around food in some fashion. Wasabi and Honey Lemon are obvious, and "Tomago" is a corruption of "Tamago," a Japanese-style omelette. It seems kind of random, fitting in with Fred's personality... until you realize that Fred, being the "mascot", would likely be the one asked to do food runs for the busy students.
  • Also, for Hiro, there's a kind of sandwich called a hero sandwich.
• Tadashi staples a flier for the SFIT showcase over one of Hiro's battle-bot posters. This shows that he wants his brother to get into the university and lose interest in his destructive (and illegal) hobby, which, eventually, he does.
  • Then how would you explain the symbolism with Hiro taking down the flyer after Tadashi's death?
    • SFIT is where (and indirectly, how) Tadashi died, so Hiro, in his grief, wanted to remove all memories of that night, as he does by throwing away his acceptance letter.
• Why Hiro has Baymax get him gummy bears from the vending machine: Many modern robots aren't just tested for strength, but control as well. It's... somewhat easy to make a machine strong enough to smash concrete, but it's more difficult to create a machine intelligent enough to restrain itself. Armored Baymax is not only strong enough to karate-chop cinder blocks and knock down walls, but gentle enough to order gummi bears without breaking the machine — or carry Hiro to safety without injuring him.
  • Plus, as a candy, their high sugar content would provide fast energy, and Hiro seems to be powered by every fast sugar source he can get his hands on during Baymax's armoring. Can you blame him for needing to gas up?
• Honey Lemon is The Heart of Big Hero 6, and notice how she is the one to return Baymax's chip, or "heart", to him.
• Hiro's fight money. He clearly isn't hoarding money or buying outrageous stuff, so where's the money going to? The cafe, of course!
  • Alternatively, his inventions need a LOT of material and technology to make. He literally creates 12 65-gallon garbage cans full of microbots.
• Each of the members of Big Hero 6 have something from Tadashi, which is a subtle message that even though his brother isn't there, Hiro's friends are there in a physical, living memory of his beloved brother:
  • GoGo: Is the Tritagonist and the one to call out Hiro when he does something foolish.
  • Wasabi: Encourages Hiro to be less reckless.
  • Honey Lemon: Provides the most affection.
  • Fred: Enthusiastic about anything science-related.
  • Baymax: Shows what the world can be like when science is applied positively.
• In traditional Kabuki theatre, red kumadori, the coloured paint, represents courage and virtue, and is used for the hero’s makeup. Considering that, it’s a bit odd that Big Bad Yokai’s mask has prominent red streaks. Until you find out that Callaghan likely does not see himself as villainous, but as his daughter’s righteous avenger.
• Although his specific age is unknown (usually debated as either 18 or 21), Tadashi is a legal adult. This can be assumed because when arrested, while Hiro is placed in his own cell because he is a minor, Tadashi is placed in a regular cell with other adults. No adolescent under the age of eighteen is allowed to share a cell with an adult due to the risks of child abuse.
• When Hiro and Baymax are in the half-portal realm trying to save Abigail, you may notice the beautiful ever-shifting landscape in the background. This is a Mandelbulb set, a three-dimensional analogue to the Mandelbrot set.
• Fred's Secret File states that Honey is an excellent baker and cook. This makes a lot of sense, and not just because of the Feminine Women Can Cook trope. Baking and cooking are essentially just different kinds of chemistry, which Honey specializes in; baking especially so because the precise nature of the ingredients needed for things like breads rising and glutens binding is an everyday application of chemistry.
• The fact that Fred is both knowledgeable of comic book tropes and able to analyze them in order to form a reasonable and coherent theory about Yokai's identity makes a lot of sense when you take into account the fact that, as mentioned above, he’s an English major, most likely in order to write his own comic books someday.
• Why does Baymax give Hiro a lollipop? Because it's sugar-free and goes with his health programming!
  • It's also a common (possibly outdated though) practice of paediatricians. Tadashi probably put that in there to mess with him.
• A very dark and somewhat meta moment of brilliance: Hiro's 'Baymax, destroy' command isn't a case of Never Say "Die", it's Hiro DEVALUING Baymax, a symbol of his brother's goodwill and compassion, into just another of Hiro's toys used for self-gratification.
  • You could also read Hiro using "Destroy" both as a coping method to dance around the fact that he wants to kill someone, or a deliberate objectification of Callaghan's own life, since Callaghan claimed Tadashi's death was 'just a mistake'. Or it could be all three.
  • And another way it could be taken is that "Kill" implies that's all, that he just wants him dead — "Destroy" means he wants there to be nothing left afterwards. In that moment, Hiro doesn't just want Callaghan dead. He wants him converted into a red smear on a wall.
  • It's also the command Hiro uses in bot fights ("Megabot, destroy!"). He's trying to treat dealing with Callaghan as just another bot fight.
• Wasabi protests about his nickname because he only got wasabi on himself once. However, chances are, considering how much of a Neat Freak he is and that he Screams Like a Little Girl, he didn't earn the nickname through the spill itself, but rather... his (over?)reaction.
  • Alternatively, AS a neat freak, it would be pretty annoying to be named after that ONE TIME you weren't so neat. THE ONE TIME, you guys!
• When Baymax's battery is low, his behavior is similar to a drunk person's. While this is funny, in actuality, that's not how robotics (or technology in general) work. Realistically, Baymax would've slowly begun shutting down any functions he could in order to conserve his battery, but otherwise still work properly to the extent he was able to. In other words, Tadashi had to program Baymax to behave that way on low battery. Now, remember that it took Tadashi eighty-four tries to get Baymax to work. He tried eighty-four times to make Baymax a little fun in addition to being a healthcare robot. Most people would've probably taken that extra bit of work out, if they even made it past ten attempts!
  • Alternatively, that might've been exactly what was happening: shutting down noncritical parts of his speech, motor, cognitive, and navigation systems in order to maintain overall online status.
    • It could also be both. Tadashi could have programmed Baymax to shut down non-critical systems in a sequence to mimic inebriation, both as a method of maximizing the remaining energy and putting levity into a robot with low battery to minimize the frustration factor of losing power. Baymax' "symptoms" also mimic the effects of extreme fatigue, acting as a strong audiovisual indicator of the problem's origin.
• Yokai never talks, which just adds to his creepiness. He turns out to be Callaghan, and now his silence makes sense: if he had talked to the heroes, they would have recognized his voice, discovered his identity, and probably spoiled all his plans a lot sooner.
• Alistair can't be Yokai, his Sinister Schnoz is too big to fit into Yokai's mask!
• The Hamadas' cat, Mochi, is a Japanese bobtail, which are considered lucky blessings in Japanese culture, and calicoes are especially favored by the Japanese and cat fanciers. Aunt Cass's bakery is called the Lucky Cat Café, and its main theme is Maneki-neko, AKA beckoning cats, which are traditionally depicted as calico Japanese bobtail cats.
• Wasabi's Heroic Build makes sense when you take into account his desire to keep things orderly or as close to perfect as they can be. This doesn't just mean his science field, the law, or how he keeps his desk. It also extends to his own body.
• Why is it so easy for Yokai to curb stomp the heroes in their first battle? It's not just because they're new and inexperienced, but because they're all his students. He's worked with them and seen samples of their work for years. He knows their flaws, how they think and operate, what weapons they would be most likely to build, and how best to react and counter them.
• Why isn't Aunt Cass shown in any scene, however minor, freaking out when Hiro is out after dark? Especially the last battle, when he probably doesn't return home until morning? Well, earlier when Hiro is chasing Baymax, he lies to her and says he was registering for classes. So, she thinks that the days he doesn't come home at night are him pulling all-nighters at school trying to create a new invention.
  • Could be. He even specifically tells her that because he registered late, he has a lot of work to catch up on.
  • She also could've gone through something similar with Tadashi, especially during the nights he was building Baymax, so either of them staying out late wouldn't be very concerning for her.
• Why didn't Baymax tell Hiro that he was sending his microchip with them? There are two reasons: 1) Baymax literally had half of his brain missing, and 2) Baymax's healthcare protocol might be afraid of being violated again, so he didn't offer the information that it was possible to the person that was responsible for his violation last time.
  • Except he did tell Hiro. He said "I will always be with you." Baymax is extremely Literal-Minded. He considers his medical chip to be his proper programming, i.e. who he is.
    • Which further extends to his "Tadashi is here" speech. Most people would take "Tadashi is here" to mean here in memory or spirit. Baymax meant it literally, as in, there's a video of Tadashi right on the chip. If Hiro were a little quicker absorbing that aspect of Baymax's personality, he might have looked for a chip sooner.
• Tadashi has a surfboard on his side of the brothers' room. If Tadashi is a surfer, that would explain his strong build.
• Baymax's fist bump seems weird. Instead of imitating Hiro's explosive sound effect, he sounds more like he's trying to cheer up a child. However, that's just exactly what Baymax is. He's not built to fight — he's built as a personal healthcare companion.
  • It also could have been Baymax's voice synthesis program putting a bunch of letters together after misinterpreting Hiro's explosion sound effect as a word.
    • People might think it's weird that he can obviously make the sounds when he shushes Hiro while his battery is low, but you have to remember — in his normal operations involving healthcare, he might have to shush people. He probably won't have to make explosion noises, so he has to try to replicate the sounds from scratch, and his programming probably won't allow him to make a sound too similar to avoid confusing patients or staff.
• Why does Baymax say he'll always be with Hiro? Because he slipped his microchip into the rocket fist so he can be rebuilt, even if his body is lost forever.
• Why was Baymax in Tadashi's room rather than back in the lab? The biggest hurdle to autonomous robotics is having them navigate home environments, and it's likely Tadashi was intending to test out and tweak the big guy back home. Indeed, Baymax has a few troubles when he activates for the second time, including knocking books off a shelf and not paying attention to traffic.
  • Alternatively, they had to clean Tadashi's stuff out of the lab after the fire and Baymax's little charging station just wound up in the room.
• Why does Baymax only run out of power once? The only time he does is after running his inflation pump longer than usual, deflating and re-inflating to get in the warehouse and the comical tape scene. Most of his systems are energy-efficient, but in normal, not-infiltrating-secret-bases situations, his inflation and deflation only need to happen in his pod, where he's also being charged at the same time, so they can afford to be less energy-efficient.
  • In addition, Hiro likely added in a way for Baymax himself to charge while in all of his armored modes. Aside from their main power sources, they probably are capable of generating energy from Baymax's motion and flight, a small amount of which he can feed off of to stay topped off, which is especially convenient since all he has to do to recharge is stand on the station, so a docking station can easily be incorporated into his boots. A huge amount could come from his thrusters in his final configuration — lots of jet and rocket engines have alternators to generate electricity once they're turned on, just like the alternator in a reciprocating engine.
    • So why would Tadashi not have created Baymax with supercapacitors? Simple: heat. A supercapacitor can receive and expend energy way faster than a battery can, but a lot of that is bled in thermal energy. A LOT of thermal energy, because a supercapacitor can release the same energy as a battery in a far shorter amount of time — not something you'd want for a healthcare robot skinned in what looks like vinyl that could be prone to melting or losing strength in the seams when very, very hot.
    • That yes, but more that Baymax was never intended to be out of his charging port for very long in the first place. No need to level up the engineering cost and complexity even more when your invention is supposed to spend at most 15 minutes at a time (on hopefully rare occasions) on battery power.
• Tumblr user galaxykindsung has an ongoing list of theories and symbolism.
• Hiro makes all the gear based off their users' specialties/area of study. Thus, it's appropriate that Callaghan uses Hiro's microbots, as they were based off his own invention.
• Honey Lemon becomes extra impressive considering that she's the only member of the team who actively has to remember her academic side even on the field; everyone else can just charge in, but she doesn't need to use a cheat sheet when she codes all the different formulas into her purse. The side material even states her intelligence is the highest in the team next to Hiro.
• Krei not being the Big Bad. His big flaw is being obsessed with profit and cutting corners. An overcomplicated scheme involving starting a fire, murder, secret production in an abandoned warehouse, and hunting down children who have "seen too much" personally is too inefficient and nonprofitable. Fred misses this when deciding he's the bad guy because Cut Lex Luthor a Check is so commonly accepted.
  • This is forgivable in that of the people shown to be very interested in the microbots, six are the titular heroes and two are presumed dead. Krei is the only other one who wanted them.
  • Plus, villainous schemes don't have to be cost-efficient, and are usually a hidden part of any comic Corrupt Corporate Executive personality.
  • Yokai building more microbots in a fairly simple setup in an abandoned warehouse is also a clue that he's not Krei, who could easily afford a more secure location than just some building in downtown, and could likewise afford mass production.
    • Fred does have a good point in accusing Krei — at this point he's the only one we know has the means (his power), the motive (he demonstrated interest), and the opportunity (he was present, along with his assistant). We have the word of a trusted friend that he's greedy and cuts corners. We even see him apparently trying to casually sneak off with one of the micro-bots. It is ridiculous that he'd do it all by himself, but the idea that he's behind it is solid.
    • Adding onto this, Krei easily has the means to hide himself from public view. Corporate executive in a meeting all day, or better yet, is meeting with some investors or clients somewhere else — easy way to hide.
• Hiro's MO is taking the concept of someone else's tech and improving on it or adapting it for a different use more effectively. The most prominent example of this is how he uses Callaghan's designs to create his battlebot, and later the microbots. Hiro also ends up with the same motivation as Yokai/Callaghan, revenge for the loss of a beloved family member. The brilliance kicks in when you realize while Yokai was willing to go the whole way for his revenge, Hiro came to the conclusion that he needed to work through his grief instead of letting it take control of his actions, thus taking Callaghan's motivation and getting a better result out of it!
• Baymax learns to mimic Hiro's body language and figures of speech, which may seem extraneous to his programming. However, mimicking body language is an excellent way of building rapport, which fits perfectly with his "non-threatening, huggable" exterior — what better way to help a nervous or introverted patient than connecting with them on a personal level?
  • This also fits into the Uncanny Valley theory of robots — someone who designs robots should be VERY familiar with this theory and intentionally try to make sure Baymax can avoid it.
• When Tadashi first shows Baymax to Hiro, Hiro starts quizzing him about all the various components Baymax is made of. This knowledge comes in handy later when Hiro builds Baymax a new body.
  • Alternatively, it is likely that Tadashi, as an engineer/roboticist, would keep detailed notes and backups of the steps he took during the process of building Baymax, averting No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup.
• Baymax's body is made of vinyl to be soft and huggable. When running from Yokai the first time, we also see him use his body as an airbag for Hiro. That airbag quality works out for the armor Hiro makes for him too. The airbag acts as a cushion against any blow delivered to Baymax's armor, which gives Baymax an additional layer of protection for his carbon fibre skeleton.
• The credits show Hiro giving Officer Gerson a new tape dispenser. This symbolizes Hiro’s growth in the film. In the beginning of the movie, Hiro breaks the law without feeling bad about it. But, by the end of the movie, through the Big Hero 6 team, he’s giving the police the tools and help they need to patch the tears in society and keep it from falling apart. The tape dispenser symbolizes that help.
• Baymax first initiates the conversation about Tadashi's death by simply saying "Tadashi" repeatedly, without any other context. Why would he do this? Because Baymax is actually sentient enough to miss the company of someone who amounts to being both his parent and best friend. However, because he isn't supposed to have any emotions whatsoever, his programming doesn't allow for him to formulate the sentence "I miss Tadashi." as he isn't supposed to be able to miss anyone. The only way he can express himself is to blurt out Tadashi's name, which is meaningless on its own; technically, this behavior is a glitch.
• Why combine American and Japanese culture for the setting of this superhero movie? Because America and Japan are the two countries who make the most superhero content! They also have similar comic designs, as of recent years.
• Why does Baymax keep pestering Hiro when he says nothing hurts? He heard Hiro's exclamation of pain, and Tadashi likely programmed him with the knowledge that people often lie to their doctors about injuries they are uncomfortable with or embarrassed about, so he's pushing to ensure that proper treatment is given.
• Over the course of the film, Hiro's quest for "revenge" pushes him to upgrade Baymax, and at the same time he solves numerous problems that come up in Baymax's first scene.
  • The speed — a very slow-moving robot wouldn't be of any help to a person who is rapidly losing vital signs. The same goes for anyone suffering a terrible, sudden injury due to an accident.
  • Baymax not knowing a few basic things, such as the concept of accidents. Again, thanks to Hiro, he now understands that this kind of thing can happen to anyone.
  • The concept of death, which is sadly learned through Tadashi's death, and Hiro's mourning.
  • How to be less "robotic" when he helps. Becoming Hiro's friend and learning a few socializing tricks (like the fistbump) has greatly helped. The doctor-patient relationship loses a lot of effectiveness without this.
  • Reaction as well. When Hiro keeps hurting himself by accident, all Baymax does is sit and watch while repeating his shpiel over and over. This is both incredibly bad form, and it should be foremost in his programming to be able to react to prevent any further harm to a patient before moving on to treat them. Just as you wouldn't attempt to perform CPR on a victim who is still in the water, it is inadvisable to treat someone until they are out of foreseeable or imminent danger.
  • Related to the above, independent thought and action. Although Baymax is programmed to be an assistant, it is only logical that Baymax must also be able to think for himself to determine the best action to take to help in any situation, in the event that he has a patient in need with no higher authority present, or if he is alone with a patient who is unresponsive and in need of help. He shows some signs of this when he calls Hiro's friends and looks up information about depression when he determines this is his problem, but is only able to ascertain this after being spoken to by Hiro and taking it as part of his examination.
• Look at the somewhat Fanservicey designs of Gogo and Honey Lemon's outfits. Now, who designed those outfits? The pubescent Hiro.
• Yokai initially just chases Hiro out of the warehouse. On their second meeting, he doesn't take any overt action at first, and the team comments he's got no logical reason for hunting them unless they've Seen Too Much. In the last instant before Yokai's initial attack, Honey Lemon takes a picture of him on her phone. While the kids don't know who Yokai is, Krei would no doubt have figured it out from just that picture, leading to Yokai pressing the attack.
• Why does Baymax allow Hiro to remove his healthcare chip the first time, but refuses to open the port the next time? Simple. The first time, Baymax was unaware of Hiro's intentions, and so did nothing when Hiro opened his chip port. But the second time, he knew what Hiro intended to do, and it would go against his programming to never harm a human. So long as the healthcare chip was in place, Baymax wasn't just refusing to let Hiro remove it, he couldn't allow it.
• "Immortals" by Fall Out Boy actually makes so much sense you're almost tempted to think it inspired this movie, rather than just being picked on a whim. "They say we are what we are/But we don't have to be" is a Call-Back and contradiction to Honey's protest that they can't be superheroes because "we're just ... us." "I'm bad behavior but I do it in the best way" is a great way to describe superheroes, who often pursue justice with a certain disregard for the law. And the rest looks like it's addressed by Hiro to Tadashi. "I'm still comparing your past/To my future" and "I'll be the guard dog/Of all your fever dreams" — after Tadashi's death is when Hiro starts acting more like him (or trying to... Tadashi wanted to help people by building a medical robot, Hiro wants to help people by accosting a murderer, though there are flaws in Hiro's approach that will later be corrected). He is the "sand in the bottom half of the hourglass" — Tadashi's goals flow into his. It seems becoming Big Hero 6 is an attempt at My Sibling Will Live Through Me.
• Callaghan persuading Hiro not to sell the microbots to Krei makes even more sense later on; Callaghan prevented Krei from having them so that he could steal them for himself. It also doubles as a subtle Evil Is Petty moment — by accusing Krei of being a Corrupt Corporate Executive with no morals and depriving him of an invention that would be beneficial to Krei Industries, Callaghan is sticking it to him for what happened to his daughter.
• Why does Hiro gasp when Baymax pauses the video when Tadashi says "stop, stop, stop"? Because he's realizing, "No, killing Callaghan is not what Tadashi would've wanted". In fact, Baymax's videos is Tadashi's way of telling Hiro in spirit that even he wouldn't have wanted revenge, and would've joined his friends in stopping the rampaging Baymax earlier.
• I always thought that if the Baymax prototype becomes so popular that everyone has a personal health care assistant, it would eventually take the job of real doctors. Then I realised that Baymax may be professional in basic healthcare, but he still lacks functions that a real medic can do. For instance, he can perform CPR and apply basic first aid, but he can't patch up open wounds, relocate a broken limb, or perform complex surgeries. All those things will still need actual doctors.
• If Hiro wanted to get into SFIT, why didn't he just fill out and send a paper application instead of going to all the trouble of conceiving and building an entirely new invention to enter in the SFIT showcase? A Doylist answer is that it would be too boring and not move the film's storyline along in any way. A Watsonian answer could be that SFIT is much more than just a standard top-tier university; it requires not just intelligence and high grades, but creativity and the ability to "think outside the box". As Callaghan said, "If you like things easy, then my program isn't for you. We push the boundaries of robotics here. My students go on to shape the future." A standard college application would show that Hiro is a highly intelligent child prodigy who graduated high school at 13, but wouldn't provide an opportunity to display his real strengths in problem-solving, creativity, and developing technology.
  • Alternatively, the standard application process likely would have worked perfectly fine for Hiro if he wanted to start school next year. If he wants to start immediately, he'll need someone with

Callaghan's clout to pull some strings for him.

• ANOTHER possibility is it's another early indication of one of Hiro's core aspects. He's a showman with a bit of an ego, and a desire to be "more". He COULD go about it the normal way, do things like everyone else... Or he could come up with something flashy and theatrical to wow people and make him stand out. Fittingly, it's those same traits that both drive him to pursue revenge (seeing it as something only he could do), AND his forming Big Hero 6 (a group of superheroes in flashy, vibrant gear who make a BIG impression)

• Why doesn't Baymax have a mouth? Aside from the fact that he doesn't require one to communicate, designing a mouth for him that opens and closes in time with his speech would not serve any purpose. He has a very practical, simple design — an all-white body made up of basic shapes, fingers articulate enough to hold objects, and eyes that are just big enough to see things with the cameras behind them. Giving him a mouth would be a distraction from Tadashi's goal of making him a healthcare robot first and a friendly-looking companion second.
  • It also makes him look cuter than he would be if he had a mouth, which enhances his huggableness.
• Meaningful Name: "Baymax" is sort of inherited from the old Big Hero 6 comics, but it fits. Not just fridge ("medical bay"), but superfridge (San Francisco Bay).
• Krei's actions at the exhibition actually save him from Yokai. The fact that he tries and fails to sneak off with a microbot means that Hiro has a microbot in his possession after the fire. Without that microbot, Hiro would never have found out about Yokai's plan before it was too late to stop him.
• Making Baymax able to fly actually does make him a better healthcare provider. As extensive as his medical programming is, there's a limit to what you can fit into a single machine. If he encounters a patient that needs medical attention that he can't provide himself, being able to fly allows him to get them to a hospital more quickly and without having to worry about the sort of obstacles that would slow down a normal ambulance. If his scanners detect that he can't safely move the patient, he still has the option of securing them and then flying back with someone who can give them better care.
• Hiro's callow naivete is on display in the bot fight more than he thinks it is. No hustler would ever be that obvious with their hustle. The last thing a hustler wants is a reputation; if Hiro were older and more experienced, he'd at least try to play it off as luck instead of being so smug about it. Given that, it's a good thing his robotics experience is more than enough to get him into SFIT — he wouldn't have had much of a future as a bot-fight hustler if nobody would face him.
• Baymax has awkward pauses in his speech occasionally, usually when giving diagnoses. This can be explained by these being pre-programmed messages with certain blanks that need to be filled in and the pauses being Baymax taking time to find the words to fill in the blanks in his database.
• In Baymax's introductory scene, he asks Hiro to rate his pain on a scale of 1 to 10, to which Hero sarcastically responds "Physical or emotional?" It's not just a snarky one-liner; it's Foreshadowing the entire plot - how Baymax will eventually learn to be a provider of mental health in addition to physical health.
• Baymax initially fails to see how flight "makes [him] a better healthcare companion", but begins to understand by the end. San Fransokyo is on the San Andreas Fault, and therefore extremely vulnerable to earthquakes. One of the biggest issues in natural disaster response is many places becoming inaccessible due to destruction of roads, being stuck on the side of mountains, etc. If one were to expand his remit a little, a jet equipped Baymax would have no such issues getting to those in need, and would be a massive boon to emergency response teams, while still fulfilling his primary directive to heal. His martial arts skills (and possibly being equipped with the rest of the team's gear) would also help him do that, like getting into collapsed buildings, for instance.

Fridge Horror

• After Tadashi's death, Hiro was planning on going back to bot fighting. Based on what happened last time, he knows that he'll get himself into trouble again, but Tadashi won't be there to save him. He could've been going back to bot fighting because Tadashi's death made him lose the will to live.
  • Even if he's not suicidal, Hiro's urge to resume bot-fighting may have been the grieving boy's desire for revenge seeking an outlet, even if he didn't yet know there was anything but bad luck to blame for Tadashi's demise. Hiro's a little guy, so having his bot whale the tar out of other competitors' bots is the closest he could expect to come to beating people up in directionless, frustrated anger.
• As noted on the nightmare fuel page, the Beautiful Void beyond the portal is stunning and awe-inspiring and jaw-droppingly gorgeous with scenery porn and gorn and all... but what comes with this Beautiful Void is it being a Void Between the Worlds. It's beautiful, but that is all it is really. It's nothing, oblivion even, and while it's easy to forget in the moment, the moment you think of what this place really is, is when the moment becomes terrifying. Especially knowing Abigail could have been stuck there forever and that Baymax #1 is, though thankfully no longer alive.
  • If you consider how, in reality, the void is a dark place of blacks, purples, blues, and other cool colors, a portion of the reason that it is so beautiful is because of the mix of warm reds, yellows, pinks, etc. with these default hues... which all only show up because of the light coming from the portal. This further highlights how empty this place is; there isn't even a source of LIGHT. It's just darkness and emptiness and seemingly nonliving background.
  • On the mollification side, Baymax's persona and soul (as corny as that sounds) are not with his old body, just the mindless combat chip. There's nobody in there we know of who would actually be traumatized being stuck there.
    • Which adds much-needed humor in the form of the mental image of a still-active Baymax with no armor punching and kicking at the void stupidly and running the batteries down even faster. It's probably for the best that it didn't go down that way, as it sounds like a great way to ruin a strong scene.
  • Expanding on the point above, Baymax makes sure that Hiro tells him that he can shut down before that body drifted off into the void. Most likely, the body just immediately shut down after making sure Hiro made it through the portal okay. It's now an inactive shell, not a living thing.
    • To add to this further, Baymax effectively asks for a Mercy Kill in this scene. If he had launched Hiro and Abigail through without being deactivated (and his programming means he would have), he would have been floating there, alone and active, fully aware of his situation and the loneliness until his batteries ran out and he died.
    • To expand on this further, even inactive, his batteries would drain (something has to be active for him to activate on "Ow"), meaning no matter how aware the shell is in the void, the batteries would sputter out, and leave Shell!Baymax as floating debris.
• What would have happened if Hiro actually succeeded in killing Yokai?
  • If he wasn't stopped from Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, he quite possibly could've become a teenaged Knight Templar Dr. Wily with designs for robots based on both the microbots and Baymax.
  • That's assuming he got away with it. If he was caught? He could look forward to being arrested for murder. Between that and his previous charges, he could lose all chances of the future Tadashi wanted for him, where he used his intelligence to better the world. Also, given that Baymax is a recent invention, it's very likely that had he succeeded in killing Yokai, he would have been assumed to be some sort of killer robot and dismantled immediately.
    • And why won't he get away? Can you be arrested for murder if the person is already considered dead? Plus, they are on the secluded island. Unless his friends turned him in, nobody would find out.
    • Yes, if it's discovered the person wasn't dead after all. And remember, Hiro was about to have Baymax chase after him before Honey put the healthcare chip back in. Had Baymax gone after Yokai, their battle could've taken them away from the island and into the city.
    • He wouldn't have gotten away if Honey hadn't put the chip in, he'd have been blasted off the microbots by Baymax, which most likely would have broken bones if not outright killed him from the fall.
• So, Callaghan started the fire as cover for his theft of Hiro's microbots. Tadashi died in said fire. While it's not really addressed in the movie, you can certainly imagine that the entire time, Hiro considered himself responsible for his brother's death.
• If Yokai's plan had succeeded, he would have condemned his daughter to an eternity in the void without even knowing it. What if her hypersleep failed and she starved to death? Callaghan would have killed his own daughter without knowing it.
  • Even worse with the portal sucking up so much debris from Krei HQ, some of which would eventually have to collide with his daughter's pod.
  • Just think about what would have happened to Alistair Krei if Callaghan had succeeded in throwing him in the portal too. Abigail went into hypersleep in her pod, and Hiro has his armor and Baymax protecting him, so they at least have something. But Krei is just in a business suit, and has nothing to protect him from the debris floating around, or the obviously frigid temperatures in the void (since Abigail's breath is visible when Hiro finds her pod), which would probably cause him to freeze to death. Even if he went into hypersleep like Abigail did, he'd still be totally unprotected.
• Yama is willing to beat up, and possibly kill, a 14-year-old for hustling him. And remember, he's still alive and knows Hiro's name. Only time will tell when he gets out of jail/prison.
  • It gets even worse in the official videogame, Battle of the Bay. Yama essentially stages a San Fransokyo-wide terrorist attack by stealing Hiro's technology, making an army of battlebots, and constructing a Big Yama giant robot, all to get vengeance on Hiro. Wasabi points out that he should get serious psychological counseling.
• The two times Yokai thinks he's killed the heroes, he simply leaves, not bothering to check if they are alive. It seems like Bond Villain Stupidity at first, but with the revelation that Yokai is actually Professor Callaghan, it all starts to make sense. As much of a revenge-driven monster as he is, he probably really didn't want to see his students' dead bodies.
• Yokai's sympathetic quality becomes much more questionable when you realize that he's willing to murder all of Krei's employees. What, you think a building that big in a day that busy is empty?
  • Given the gathering beforehand, Krei seems to be presenting the grand opening of the building. The quick scene of Hiro in the building shows that the desks are devoid of papers or personal effects, so it's likely the staff hadn't moved in yet.
  • The Fridge Horror is more in the fact that he doesn't seem to mind that the building was empty — if there were people inside the campus, he's more than willing to send them off to the void.
• Do you suppose Hiro ever lies awake at night, wondering how things might be different if he hadn't mentioned both the topic of high-tech transportation and the idea of a single person nigh-instantly constructing massive structures in close succession in his microbots pitch? It wasn't his fault — there was no way he could have known — but he basically reminded Callaghan of his motive and handed him his modus operandi in one fell swoop.
  • Given that Callaghan is a genius inventor and engineer, I think it's safe to assume that he could easily figure out a way to weaponize Hiro's microbots.
• When it's revealed that Yokai is actually the professor, it makes you realize that he has few qualms about killing his own students, the very people he accepted and welcomed into the university. Either he's been driven that insane by his desire for revenge, or he never truly cared about them as much as we thought he did.
  • On the other hand, if you consider all the ways the microbot-swarm could have attacked, it's possible that Yokai was pulling his punches in some of those exchanges. Either that, or he just doesn't have a twisted enough imagination to, say, have the things engulf somebody like a giant wave and force their way into the person's trachea so they'll choke to death.
• The scene where Fred says so proudly "My name is Fred and it's been thirty days since my last—". Ha-ha, Fred's a stoner — no, wait... he's not a stoner. There's no way that Disney would even allow the joke that a junkie could be a hero. He's clearly saying he's trying to QUIT. Which is also amusing... until you actually think about how cannabis is... well, not all that dangerous, and constantly on the verge of being legalized anyway. And he's awfully proud about going thirty days. So Fred could be fighting a much stronger drug...
  • Most stoners also smoke cigarettes, which are addicting, so he might just be trying to quit smoking.
  • Plus he's the one who says "Is anybody else seeing this?" He doesn't say what he's seeing; it's just... 'this', as if he's hoping people will say "Seeing what?" When you come off strong drugs, you get hallucinations and delusions.
    • He also has a very loose grip on reality, since he's been hassling Honey Lemon to get superpowers that aren't really possible.
  • When I heard him say that line, I actually thought of "30 days since my last confession."
  • I thought of "30 days since my last fresh pair of underpants."
  • Canonically, he's a volunteer at a variety of charities, so most likely he's just making a joke to break the ice. As for questioning if everyone else sees Yokai, he most likely has an overactive imagination. It's not too much of a stretch that he's used to daydreaming superhero-related images, it's just this time the supervillain is real.
• Professor Robert Callaghan is basically Ernesto de la Cruz in the scientific field, with genuine brilliance, a lot of sympathetic qualities. and a truly pitiful end.
• In the book Hiro and Tadashi, Hiro reveals he sees his brother as "the good-looking one" (well, he's not entirely inaccurate), dubbing himself as "the small one". In the movie, he starts quoting Tadashi. What if this is just the beginning? What if his insecurity makes him behave more and more like Tadashi just because he believed everyone preferred him? What if this insecurity results in Hiro becoming Tadashi 2.0?
  • This sort of behavior has already in the film, since his only friends are Tadashi's friends and he starts to act more like his brother.
• As mentioned on the tearjerker page, what will happen when Abigail learns what her father did? She'll likely feel some kind of guilt because all of his actions were for her, and assuming she's ever able to see her father again, it'll take a long time, if not a lifetime, to repair their relationship.
  • And then there's Callaghan himself. What if his daughter never wants to speak with him again after hearing about his crimes? Worse still, he must be tormented with guilt over presumably killing one of his students. And, unlike Hiro, he has no companions to help him deal with his pain.
• Aunt Cass raised the boys presumably by herself — clearly she lost her brother/sister and sister-in-law/brother-in-law eleven years ago, but what about other relatives? Grandparents? Aunt Cass might be an orphan herself. The boys are pretty much all she has, and now one of them is gone, just like her sibling. Even further, she probably blames herself for not insisting on driving everyone back to the cafe instead of letting Tadashi and Hiro stay out a bit later. Also, while she hugs a lot, her "last hug" quirk only appears after the fire. Lastly, and this is really reaching but I saw a post on Tumblr: the necklace she is clutching after the funeral appears to be either jade or malachite, which are both stones said to protect children/protect the wearer from accidents.
  • The film barely touches upon her and her grief over Tadashi's death. She effectively lost a son. When she comes up to Hiro's room to give him breakfast, she seems cheery, but she may well be acting that way to try to cheer him up without letting on how she's feeling.
• After Tadashi's death, Hiro spent two weeks holed up in his room, refused to eat, and discarded his invitation in the trash. It makes you wonder how he would have ended up if Baymax never entered the picture...
• When Hiro takes out Baymax’s nurse chip and only leaves his fighting chip in with the intention of making him kill Callaghan, the robot’s eyes turn red. There is no reason for Tadashi to have programmed his friendly nurse bot with the ability to have scary, glowing red eyes. Meaning Hiro went to the trouble of programming Baymax’s eyes to turn red in murder mode for the extra intimidation factor, probably for the express purpose of scaring the pants off of the guy he blames for his brother’s death. This kid is scary.

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