Cinemablography@gmail.com
Cinemablography
  • Home
  • About
  • Journal
    • Existentialism in Film >
      • The Existential Philosophy of Melancholia
      • The Philosophy of Camus in The Dead Don't Die
      • The Existentialist Subtext of Dear Evan Hansen
      • An Existentialist Reading of "The Turin Horse"
    • A Woman's Perspective: Gender, and Identity in the Romanian New Wave
    • Film Theory Issue 1
    • Film Theory Issue 2
    • Science Fiction
    • Science Fiction Issue 2
    • Pan's Labyrinth
    • Kathryn Bigelow >
      • Opening Scene
      • Supermarket Scene
      • Round Table Discussion
  • Blog
  • Articles by Category
  • Contributors
  • Videographic Essays
  • Our Work
    • Links

Of Machines and Men: Big Hero 6 is both fun and thoughtful

11/11/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Written by John Snyder

In
Big Hero 6 (Hall & Williams 2014) we are introduced to San Fransokyo: a futuristic, dual culture city where American and east Asian cultures have morphed together. It’s a vibrant, action packed place for our aptly-named protagonist Hiro (Ryan Potter) to live as a child prodigy, spending his genius hustling the local “bot-battle” champions with his disarming youthfulness and ingenious robots.  His older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) goes to the city’s technical school and is building a “health-care assistant” robot called Baymax (Scott Adsit). Tadashi frowns upon Hiro's bot-battling and encourages his younger brother to use his mind for something bigger.  When Tadashi takes Hiro to visit his school and see the imaginative and fascinating work that he and his classmates do, Hiro realizes that going to the “nerd-school” and applying his mind to something productive might actually be a lot of fun. Tadashi convinces his younger brother to enter into a robotics competition, sponsored by the school.  Hiro invents “microbots”— centimeter long creations, that are controlled by a transmitter that reads the brainwaves of the human operator.  He wins the competition, but as they are leaving to go home, the building catches on fire. Tadashi runs back inside to save his professor, and an explosion kills them.

            Throughout, the movie explores some classic science fiction questions about robot/human cohabitation.  The most obvious is the idea of robotic companionship.  Can humans connect with/be in relationship with artificial intelligence as they can with humans?  After Tadashi dies, Hiro is extremely distraught, and Baymax begins attending to his needs
--particularly his emotional healing.  Baymax is a character who, because of his programming, is totally devoted to Hiro’s needs and is completely transparent about everything (“I can not do X, I am a robot!”).  Baymax is fully aware of his purpose and of his being a robot, which gives him a childlike naïveté and innocence, leading to many entertaining sequences and some unexpectedly touching interactions between this big fluffy “marshmallow” robot and a suffering human child.  Throughout the story they grow closer.  Baymax is unswervingly loyal and cheerfully self-sacrificing, and though Hiro initially uses him (and his loyalty, which by the biblical definition could be called “love”) to pursue his ends, by the end their relationship becomes much more mutual so that we could arguably call them “friends.” Of course, you could argue that this isn’t really love or friendship because Baymax isn’t initially programmed to do anything else (although you could also argue that he’s programmed to be a healing machine, not a human who has free will, but I digress).

             Related to robot/human companionship is the idea that artificial intelligence is a key to becoming immortal.  An AI can 'survive' as long as its program exists somewhere in some accessible memory storage.  In the movie this is compared/contrasted to human life as other characters try to console Hiro, saying that Tadashi “will be here as long as we remember him.”  And going off of another definition of the word “immortal,” the movie also suggests that advanced technology is a path to transcendence.  When one of the characters feels powerless to stop the evil villain she says, “what can we do? We’re just nerds.  We’re just us,” to which Hiro replies, “No, we can be so much more!” and they go on to create super-suits that give them special abilities.  This paints technological pursuit in light of the human condition; it reveals the feeling (and the reality) of inadequacy in humans, and that the search for something greater is driving technological advances and exploration.  It is an essentially theological pursuit.   

         Not all Disney movies can claim the thoughtfulness and craft of
Big Hero 6.  While some parts of the movie seem a little rushed, overall the world of San Fransokyo is exhilarating and inspiring. The topic of artificial intelligence and its impact on “real life” is an important topic for ours and future generations to think about, and this movie offers a lovely platform to do so.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.