Well tomorrow on Toonami we have what I believe will be the finale of Hellsing followed by a Full Metal Alchemist movie. I don't really care about Hellsing, and as much as I love Full Metal Alchemist, I've already posted on the series and I haven't seen the movie yet. For now, i'd liek to talk about another movie, Big Hero 6, which I finally got to see last weekend.
Before I get to Big Hero 6, I want to talk abou the short that comes before it, sure to win the Oscar, "Feast". The entire short focuses on a dog named Winston and how his life basically revolves around table scraps. But, in a style we've come to expect from Pixar, it tells so much more. First a puppy finds a french fry on the ground and is adopted by the man who dropped it. The dog is named Winston as we can see on his dog dish and he eats like a king. He even gets to sit at the table like one time at a cafe where a vey nice waitress patsWinston on the head and says "Let me know if you need anything." Then Winston's owner starts dating her and she wants him to eat healthier and replaces all the fun tasty food with vegetables. Winston is not happy, he does not like this woman or her vegetables at all. Then the woman leaves(we don't know exactly why) and the man starts eating junk food again immediately, which makes Winston happy. This is a rather dark turn for the story, as while the focus seems to remain on Winston who loves the junk food his master is eating, we can see in the background that the owner is clealrly depressed. This leads to the turning point of the story, the man opens a take-out carton of pasta and there's a sprig of parsley garnish on top. Winston growls at the parsley, remembering how the woman put that on food and made it yucky. The man picks up the parsley and stares at it longingly remembering his girlfriend. Winston realizes his master is sad and wants to make him happy again, so he grabs the parsley and runs out the door down to the cafe to find the waitress again. His owner follows him and meets the waitress, and they get together and get married. Winston s back to just eating kibble, but at least his master is happy, so he is too. Then a meatball rolls across the floor, Winston looks up to see a baby in a high chair, the child of his master and his wife. The baby drops another meatball, and then finally we flash to a birthday party where Winston gets cupcakes. Clearly, the dog lives happily ever after.
Big Hero 6 isn't nearly as nuanced as Feast, but still a must see for anime fans...and Marvel fans, and pretty much everybody else. The movie focuses on Hiro Hamada, a boy genius who is very good with robots and uses them in street fights to hustle money. His brother Tadashi tries to convince him to put his talents to better use at the university where he goes by taking him to the lab to see his recently completed project. Along the way they meet Tadashi's friends, Go Go Tamago who is working on magnetic wheels to reduce friction and enhance speed, Wasabi who is working with lasers and plasma to perfect precision cutting technology, Honey Lemon who is experimenting with chemistry to figure out just how many chemical reactions she can synthesize, and Fred, the mascot who gives everybody else nicknames and dreams of somebody figuring out how to turn him into a fire-breathing monster(yes, Fred is wierd, but he makes sense later). Tadashi's big project is Baymax, a medical robot that does manage to impress Hiro. Hiro takes on the challenge of trying to get into the science program and develops micro-bots, which any sci-fi fan will recognize as nanotechnology, but whatever, the point is it's good enough to get Hiro in. Unfortunately, there's a fire in the lab after Hiro's big presentation, Tadashi's mentor is stuck inside and Tadashi goes back in after him, only for an explosion to end his life. Hiro is depressed and does nothing but sit in his room for days. Then when he's finally forced to actually do something, he stubs his to and says "Ow!" which activates Baymax. While trying to put Baymax away, Hiro falls down and notices that his last microbot is moving around in his jacket pocket. Baymax offers to figure out what is going on which Hiro dismisses at firs, but when Baymax fails to understand Hiro's sarcasm, he begins to wander around town, following the microbot until he reaches a warehouse where he and Hiro discover someone has been mass producing the microbots. Hiro tries to report the situation to the police, but it seems so implausible the police officer doesn't take him seriously, so Hiro decides to upgrade Baymax into a combat robot so they can take care of this situation themselves. Despite programming Baymax with karate moves and fitting him with armor, he is still no match for the microbots. Fortunately, Bymax had also called Tadashi's friends in an attempt to form a support group to help with Hiro's depression, and they show up in time to drive the getaway car to escape from danger. In a rather convenient turn of events, Fred turns out to be rich and has a mansion where everybody can crash while they figure out their next move. Fred's obsession wiht comics inspires Hiro to make gear for everyone to become superheroes so they can fight the microbot thief and thus becme the team Big Hero 6. Everybody uses some variety of their own technology and they even come up with a monster suit for Fred that allows him to jump and breathe fire. They practice to make sure they can use all of this stuff without hurting themselves. They go after the bad guy, searching for him with Baymax's upgraded medical scan, and find him on an island off shore. At first they believe it's the Mr. Krei, owner of Krei industries who wanted Hiro's microbots, however it turns out to be Dr. Callaghan, Tadashi's mentor who was believed to have died in the explosion with Tadashi. Enraged, Hiro commands Baymax to destroy Callaghan which Baymax refuses as it is against his prgramming and Hiro removes his medical chip leaving him with only his combat programming and baymax goes berserk. The others stuggle to stop him beleiveing their mentor deserves better than this execution, and manage to reinsert the chip that stops him, giving Callaghan a chance to escape. We then find out that Callagahn's daughter died during one of Krei's experiments with a teleportation portal and he's out for revenge. The team goes after him again, this time with the plan to neutralize whatever damage he's gong to do, which turns out to be opening the portal to swallow up the entire Krei corporate compound. After stopping Callaghan and saving Krei, Baymax discovers signs of life within the portal and finds Callaghan's dauther inside. Hiro and Baymax go and rescue her, but Baymax is lost in the process. In the end, Hiro finds that baymax had given him Tadashi's chip and he was able to rebuild Baymax, reforming the team which continues to help people. The biggest surprise though is the truth about Fred, which you have to stay untl after the credits to see...
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