Adaptation Displacement: Similar to Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the comic book remained relatively unknown until it was announced that Disney was doing an adaptation of it. However, Marvel has completely abandoned the original source, saying there will be no reprints nor any future stories of the original series. The movie adaptation is now the definitive interpretation of Big Hero 6.
Hiro is clumsy, awkward, messy-haired, shy, and loves to build robots. The slight gap in his teeth only adds to his charm.
Tadashi is proven to be a huge dork when Baymax's video shows how happy he is after finally activating Baymax (after 84 tries), prompting him to run around in delight and kiss Baymax.
Honey Lemon definitely embraces this, being a cute and perky science nerd.
Aunt Cass has an almost child-like glee whenever she gets excited. It's just so cute.
Callaghan's expression at the end when he's arrested is up as a matter of debate, mainly over whether he feels guilt over his actions as Yokai or disappointment at being sent to prison and separated from the daughter he tried to avenge, or possibly both.
With the amount of information given to the audience about the Silent Sparrow project (fairly little) it's impossible to tell if Callaghan was right about Krei cutting corners, or if Abigail was simply the victim of a horrible accident resulting from testing a hazardous new technology and Callaghan wanted someone to blame.
Callaghan dismisses Tadashi's bravery and willingness to run into the burning building to save him, calling it a "mistake." Is he being a heartless monster so wrapped up in his own pain that he doesn't care about anyone else? Or is he reflecting on the fact that his daughter willingly participated in the portal experiment knowing the risks and her bravery resulted in her death — a "mistake" he wishes she hadn't made, and is mad at Tadashi for doing the same, especially considering Tadashi's actions would have been at best a Stupid Sacrifice even if Callaghan weren't the Big Bad?
Did Callaghan start the fire in the science fair, or did he just take advantage of it to steal the nanobots? The film seems to imply he started it, but it's never officially said either way.
Two aspects from Alistair Krei regarding his villainy:
He tries to walk off with a single micro-bot. Wanting a head start on trying to copy new tech is industrial espionage, but it isn't evil. On the other hand, he's just had an intense but veiled verbal confrontation with Callaghan, and it's possible he was rattled by the exchange and legitimately forgot he still had the microbot. Then, following the latter interpretation, when it's pointed out to him by Tadashi, his ego prevents him from admitting the mistake in front of Callaghan with a sincere apology.
Then there's the transporter failure. "We've picked up a slight irregularity." "It's well within the parameters." "You knew it wasn't ready." Given that Callaghan obviously thought the machine was ready when he hugged his daughter just before she entered the capsule, the balance of evidence indicates that Callaghan is being unreliable here, and that Krei was simply doing his job, which in this case is to proceed with the demonstration, given the machine appeared to be within its safety limits. Thus, the accident was regrettable, but part of the risks associated with testing new, cutting-edge technology.
Is Fred's father really a superhero, or just a zany old man full of hero worship (not unlike his son)? There's no mention of other heroes in the setting, and the man is clearly an...interesting piece of work, as his underpants scene demonstrates. However, it's revealed in the follow-up TV series that he was an actual superhero.
Aluminum Christmas Trees: Projection keyboards, such as the one Hiro is seen typing on during the Baymax power-up montage, are very real.
Angst? What Angst?: Unlike Hiro, Aunt Cass takes Tadashi's death surprisingly well, even though she had raised him singlehandedly since his childhood. However, one can chalk it up to Aunt Cass hiding her grief very well.
Ass Pull: Baymax's "death" is particularly frustrating, because rewatching the scene in the portal dimension reveals that there is absolutely no window of opportunity for Baymax to have removed his health care chip and slipped it into his rocket glove without Hiro's knowledge.
Honey Lemon. While she has plenty of fans for her energetic, adorable personality and cool superhero outfit, others are turned off by her strong resemblance to Rapunzel, which many perceive as Disney getting lazy with character designs, or because she has "too light" skin (even though that leads into the debate about Hispanic people being widely varied in appearance).
The movie's villain, Professor Callaghan, has fans who praise his cool, sinister design and his powerful and versatile abilities, sympathize with the grief that consumes a good man and drives him to villainy, and find him to be an excellent Evil Counterpart to Hiro. Others decry that he's the third Disney villain in a row who turns out to be a pre-established good guy, don't believe the radical personality shift he undergoes, and/or feel that his tragic backstory falls flat because of him trying to kill the heroes just for getting in his way and for callously dismissing Tadashi's death as his own mistake.
Broken Base: Some critical fans see the return of Abigail and Baymax as a detriment to the film’s message of loss. Others, however, have made the point that Abigail being alive perfectly matches the point about how death and loss affects people. This is a notable distinction since her survival doesn't change how the Big Bad chose to handle their grief on the belief that they're dead. The message of loss isn't really lost because of this. Baymax's return is a bit more contentious to some even then, especially in light of how it's handled, though others feel that it also fits just fine as is.
Captain Obvious Reveal: The Yokai isn't Krei. The problem is the film throws so many "clues" towards Krei being the villain throughout that by the time Fred proclaims that the Yokai has to be Krei, it's basically confirmed to the audience that the Yokai must be someone else, simply because the story tries so hard to convince the audience that the misdirection becomes incredibly telegraphed (it doesn't help that the twoprior Disney films also had twist villains). Sure enough, the Yokai is actually Callaghan, who faked his death as part of a revenge plot against Krei.
Cargo Ship: Many shipped Baymax with soccer balls as soon as the first trailer was released.
Cliché Storm: The general consensus is that it's a good story backed by some nice visuals, but pretty by-the-books when it comes to superhero films, containing nothing that hadn't already been done before.
Since the release of Inside Out, many Hiro/Riley ships have arisen, for instance this fanfic.
Ever since Coco was released, fans have taken a liking to pairing Hiro with its protagonist Miguel.
Likewise, Hiro gets shipped a lot with Peni Parker, since both are young teens who have a Robot Buddy. The fact that both are technically owned by Marvel and have travelled to Another Dimension before also helps.
Also, due to their similarities, some fans ship Hiro with Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon.
A number of people often ship Hiro and Varian, also due to their similarities.
There are a quite decent number of fanarts shipping Hiro with Penny from Bolt.
Tadashi and Elsa from Frozen for having the common thread of being very popular older siblings that come close to overshadowing their respective younger siblings, both of whom are the protagonists of their movies!
Tadashi has become popular, even though he's only around for the first act, due to being a very likable Nice Guy whose death is a huge loss for both the main character and the audience.
Aunt Cass was popular just based on looks before the movie came out; after its release, her adult Genki Girl personality and loving relationship with Hiro and Tadashi cemented her dark horse status.
Judy, Krei's secretary. Yes, really, likely due to her looks. She even returned for the series.
Mochi, the pet cat and "hairy baby" of the Hamada household. He also returns for the series.
Gogo's been given the nickname "Ryuko Matoi" due to her similar character design. Another nickname is "Speedy Queen".
Big Hero 6 are known by the fans as "the dorks of San Fransokyo" and "Baby Hero Squad".
Honey has been nicknamed "Honey Bun" after fans saw her with her hair tied up. Another nickname is "Chemical Queen".
When onscreen and/or mentioned together, Hiro and Tadashi are referred to as "Hamabros".
Slaymax for the killer-bot version of the pudgy health care companion.
Also Baemax.
Tadashi is often affectionately called "Tada-nii", a portmanteau of his name and onii-chan, the Japanese word for "big brother."
AILF Cass, for fans that really like Aunt Cass.
Fanfic Fuel: In addition to the green (healthcare) and red (attack mode) chips, there's a blue and a yellow one on Hiro's table. It makes you wonder what they would be used for (and the same scene shows Baymax has enough slots for all four!)
There have been many alternate fanfics written about Tadashi surviving the fire and losing his memory in some way. Many Tadashi Survival fics usually have him take the role of Sunfire, the leader of the team in the original comics.
Several AU fics have been written where Hiro was the one who died in the fire. It's even sparked a Fan Nickname for the concept: Alive!Tadashi AU.
A popular fanfic topic has Hiro meeting a girl his age and (sometimes) falling in love with her.
With Frozen. Fans of the movie feel like it was a victim to Tough Act to Follow, and that Frozen overshadowed it.
After beating How to Train Your Dragon 2 for the Best Animated Feature award at the Oscars, there was resentment from fans of the latter movie who saw it as an unfair Award Snub.
Since Honey and GoGo are only known by their nicknames, fans have speculated that their respective real names are Aiko Miyazaki and Leiko Tanaka, much like their comic counterparts. This is highly unlikely, due to their Race Lifts to Latina and Korean respectively, and in GoGo's case, it was Jossed when Jamie Chung stated on Twitter that her first name was Ethel.
Much of the fanfiction and fanart out there depicts Tadashi as being alive with severe burn scars, but not much more, due to his Ensemble Dark Horse status. It's become a joke within the members of the fandom that the movie's canon must have been false. Tadashi's obviously just in some hospital healing, and will definitely be back in the sequel, if there is one. Alternatively or additionally, he'll return as Sunfire.
Honey Lemon being a Disney princess, or even being descended from Rapunzel (which would make her a Disney princess by lineage anyways).
Hiro is frequently portrayed as claustrophobic, often having this revealed by jerks at the university shoving him in a locker and him being discovered by one of the team. If any explanation is given for the phobia, it's usually that Hiro was stuffed in lockers during his high school days, or, rarely, because he was in the car when his parents died and got trapped in his car seat.
Due to the manga adaptation and Hamadas' nationality, it's fairly common to find stories where the two speak to each other almost entirely in Japanese or use Japanese words intermingled with English, despite the fact that neither of them do so at all in the movie.
Fred's full name is Frederick Lee — because his dad is Stan Lee.
It's generally assumed that, like her nephews, Aunt Cass' last name is Hamada. note This is despite the fact that Cass is Caucasian, as well as a photo of Hiro and Tadashi's (Japanese) father and (Caucasian) mother implying that Cass is their maternal aunt. So unless Cass also married into the Hamada family like her sister, her last name being Hamada is unlikely.
On the more meta side, a lot of fans like to put the movie's setting in the same continuity as the localized version of the Ace Attorney series, sometimes jokingly and sometimes not. Besides the obvious Americasia similarities, both also involve alternate histories where Japanese Americans weren't persecuted during and after World War II in America.
With Marvel Cinematic Universe fans. The two have come up with possible crossovers that involve Hiro joining S.H.I.E.L.D. or Baymax greeting the Avengers.
Despite living under its shadow, the Big Hero 6 fandom gets along with the Frozen fandom surprisingly well.
With How to Train your Dragon, as many fans have pointed out the similarities between Hiccup and Hiro such as their personalities and both being inventors.
With Moral Orel, due to both series featuring a character voiced by Scott Adsit. Fans have even made fanart of Clay and Baymax meeting, with hilarious results.
When Hiro and Baymax are in the half-portal realm trying to save Abigail, you may notice the beautiful rainbow fractal landscape in the background as it constantly shifts between shapes and colors. This is a Mandelbulb set, a three-dimensional analogue to the Mandelbrot set.
Yokai's kabuki mask has red streaks on it. In kabuki theater, red symbolizes passion, alongside anger and cruelty. This makes much more sense after Yokai is revealed to be Callaghan, whose crimes are driven by passion for revenge, angered by his daughter's death. In addition, white, the main color of his mask, is almost exclusively reserved for evil characters and villains, due to its association with death in Japanese culture.
He's Just Hiding: It's become a fandom Running Gag to pretend that Tadashi survived the fire somehow. Not surprising, considering the other victim of the fire turned out to be just fine. And the real villain.
Discussed in-universe in the manga adaptation where Tadashi was sucked into a portal during a failed attempt to bring Abigail back. It's theorised that he could still be alive in another dimension.
Ryan Potter wasn't previously known for his dramatic acting chops, but he gets to show them off when Hiro becomes consumed by hatred for Callaghan after learning Callaghan let Tadashi die, and when Hiro is forced to say goodbye to Baymax when it becomes clear Baymax won't make it out of the portal.
Who knew that James Cromwell could play a villain so well? Cromwell also perfectly portrays Callaghan's anger, pain, and newfound remorselessness once Callaghan is revealed to be a Tragic Villain.
Baymax is a white inorganic creature that gives warm hugs. The previous year, we got Olaf, who is a white inorganic creature that likes warm hugs.
The film takes place in San Fransokyo, a combination of the cultures and city structures of Tokyo and San Francisco. Quite similar to a certain Japanifornia,don't you think?
Fred and Fredzilla's character designs strongly resemble Jared and Mr. Fish from Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. Fredzilla was also a joke once used by Colin Mochrie on Whose Line Is It Anyway? during a game of Scenes from a Hat.
In Iron Man 3, Tony Stark reveals he still had a nanny when he was fourteen years old. Given that a nurse bot is a futuristic nanny, that pretty much describes Hiro.
Season 2 of Avengers Assemble introduces Arsenal, a robot whose primary function is to serve as a companion and who eventually goes on to heroically sacrifice himself, only to get rebuilt by the lead protagonist. Doesn't that sound a lot like Baymax?
In the episode "The Age of Tony Stark", a de-aged Tony looks a lot like Hiro.
Stan Lee's cameo as a retired superhero is this, when you remember that in the The Amazing Spider Man video game, he's a playable character, and his gameplay is the same as Spider-Man.
This isn't exactlythe first time that a girl has supposedly died in another dimension, resulting in her loved one turning evil and beginning a quest to avenge/retrieve her, even if it means throwing away his morals and harming countless innocent lives. Well, at least not to the extent of threatening Armageddon...
Tadashi dies. The movie's marketing pretty much promoted this.
Also, thanks to Memetic Mutation: Callaghan faked his own death and is the true identity of Yokai.
Jerkass Woobie: The Big Bad. Callaghan tries to murder his former students, steals government property, and destroys Krei headquarters, but everything he does is driven by the grief of losing his daughter.
Just Here for Godzilla: According to many fans, the sole reason they watch this movie is for the attractive Aunt Cass.
Baymax is a Cute Machine example of this. He's very friendly and huggable, by design.
Aunt Cass is already easy on the eyes, but she's a hardworking restaurant owner, a great baker, a loving mother figure, and a Genki Girl. She's essentially a bubbly teenager in a 30-something body, and that's adorable.
The accusations of Callaghan being Unintentionally Unsympathetic. Some people, including several reviewers, think that just because he has a sympathetic motive, the writers want the audience to 100% feel sorry for him. The "That was his mistake" line has often been used to demonstrate why he's unsympathetic, but they seem to forget that his callousness towards Tadashi is presented as an in-universe Kick the Dog moment, as Hiro snaps and tried to kill him in response. This has gotten to the point where some people wish Hiro really did kill him, despite that potentially making him the very thing Callaghan was criticized for.
On the flip side, some people are giving Callaghan too much sympathy. They seem to be forgetting the fact that Callaghan is callous towards Tadashi's death, and attempts to murder his students on multiple occasions. Besides, Hiro was targeting only one person, instead of putting innocent bystanders in danger like Callaghan does, so they feel the parallel may be more convincing than the writers intended it to be.
There are some fans who argue that Tadashi’s ultimate fate could have been handled differently, such as being put into a coma, losing his limbs, or being kidnapped by the villain, or actually being the villain, all being the main subjects of various Fix Fics. They ignore that it wouldn't match well with the movie's theme of losing loved ones, and Hiro and his team's entire arc is to learn how to move on yet live in honor of Tadashi's memory.
My Real Daddy: While the original comic version of the team by Marvel has a cult following, it is widely agreed upon by critics and fans that Disney's reimagining of the team for this film is far more defintive and superior, due to Disney greatly fleshing out the team and giving them more of a distinctive identity, on top of veering away from the more problematic aspects of the original comic, such as the use of Japanese stereotypes and its sexualized depictions of women.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Let's be honest: did you REALLY think Disney was going to hire James Cromwell to voice a character for less than a dozen lines of dialogue, then kill him off in the prologue?
One-Scene Wonder: Stan Lee as Fred's father — and he's a superhero to boot!
Popular with Furries: Fred's Fredzilla outfit has drawn Kaiju fans thanks to the outfit's badass yet adorable design. Fred's bedroom room can also get this reaction with all the fantasy creature models he's fond of.
Ron the Death Eater: A strange variation with Tadashi. While he's rarely an outright villain in fanfic, his protectiveness of Hiro is often twisted into a disturbing and sometimes even violent Yandere-like obsession, especially in darker Hidashi fics.
Self-Fanservice: While Aunt Cass is not at all a bad-looking woman, fanartists tend to ramp up her curves in order to make her look more like a MILF. A particular edit done by fanartist Rastifan of a screenshot featuring her in order to give her more prominent cleavage caught the attention of quite a lot people.
Shipping: It runs rampant in the fandom, as there are no canon couples in the movie. Hiro and Honey are particularly popular in this field.
Wearing your underwear forwards and backwards and inside out just moves the sweaty, yucky bits around.
Where does GoGo get so much gum? She doesn't. The junior novelization implies that she keeps chewing the same gum for days to weeks on end, and that not even being on the dashboard of a car and having been dunked in the San Fransokyo bay will not stop her from putting it back into her mouth.
Like Hiro, Varian from Tangled: The Series is a teenage inventor who got lost in revenge after having a loved one (big brother and father, respectively) tragically die in situations that could've been avoided.
In the original Marvel comics the movie is inspired by, the team was based in Tokyo and everyone was Japanese. Disney's decision to change most of the characters' races is the biggest point of controversy (only their superhero names are still the same), and there's also the setting being moved from Tokyo to the entirely fictional hybrid city San Fransokyo.
While most characters being changed from innately superpowered to just relying on technology seems to have been accepted overall, most fans of the comic didn't particularly like Fred being changed from actually turning into a Kaiju to just wearing a monster suit.
Hiro and Baymax's teammates don't really get much development and have rather one-note personalities, but the film would probably go in a very different direction without their inclusion, especially since they were able to stop Baymax from killing Yokai. Thankfully, they get more development in The Series.
Abigail Callahan doesn't have much dialogue or screen time after her life is saved, when maybe a reunion/confrontation between her and her dad would have been nice.
Hiro is holding the kabuki mask when he gets angry at Callaghan. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if he put it on.
Many fans wished it was Hiro who died in the fire and not Tadashi, to the point that it’s a Fandom-Specific Plot. Several reasons for this is Tadashi would have much more baggage over his grief, Callaghan’s betrayal would’ve been a bigger stab in the heart considering their student-mentor relationship, and his friends would have more developed personalities. Instead, it went down to the "young protagonist loses older loved one, must learn to navigate the world without them" cliche.
The illegal bot fighting rings throughout San Fransokyo. Only one scene is dedicated to it, and that's the opening of the movie, and it's never mentioned again. It ends up getting revisited in Big Hero 6: The Series, though.
Too Cool to Live: Tadashi was a good older brother, a noble worker, and intelligent student. Which in Disney terms, means he's a definite goner.
Tough Act to Follow: While the movie itself is far from a failure, it does tend to get overlooked, because it was released in between the cultural juggernaut Frozen and the enormously popular Zootopia, both of which made over a billion dollars at the box office. It also leads into the problem of optics: Frozen and Zootopia were sleeper hits that weren't expected to make anywhere near as much money as they did, while Big Hero 6 was a superhero movie made during a golden age of superhero movie profitability, so while its $657 million gross does make it one of the biggest movies ever for Disney Animation, it also made it the lowest-grossing major superhero film of 2014.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Mochi the Hamada family cat has a calico fur pattern, and real calico cats are almost always female, but Mochi is confirmed to be male despite never being referred to with any gendered pronouns in the film.
The Woobie: Hiro, especially in any scenes relating to Tadashi's death, as well as when he loses Baymax.
