Big Hero 6, the latest animated feature from Disney Studios, is an action-packed comedy-adventure about robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada, who learns to harness his genius—thanks to his brilliant brother Tadashi and their like-minded friends: adrenaline junkie Go Go Tamago, neatnik Wasabi, chemistry whiz Honey Lemon and fanboy Fred. When a devastating turn of events catapults them into the midst of a dangerous plot unfolding in the streets of San Fransokyo, Hiro turns to his closest companion—a robot named Baymax—and transforms the group into a band of high-tech heroes determined to solve the mystery. 

If you’re a regular moviegoer, you probably already know all of this, as the films’ been teased and previewed quite frequently over the past several months in theaters and on the internet. What you may not know is that Big Hero 6 is a very, very, very, very loose adaptation of a Marvel Comics miniseries of the same name, ’cause you know, Disney now owns Marvel’s very soul. As is par for the course in movie adaptations of comic book stories, the Mouse House has taken their fair share of liberties with the story, making it a comics Big Hero 6 in name only. 

This is NOT a  review of the movie; I won’t be reviewing Big Hero 6 here because a) we don’t do movie reviews on Twinsanity and b) I haven’t seen the film yet. (Big Hero 6 won’t debut in theaters until Nov.7th.) This is just a brief list of some of the differences between the comic book miniseries and the movie; just some interesting factoids that I’ve compiled as a pop-culture trivia geek that you may find interesting coming into the movie:

• The biggest difference between the film and the comic is that in the comic, all of the team members were Japanese. In the movie only Hiro and Go Go are Japanese. Also, in the comics, all of the team members except for Hiro were adults; in the film they’ve all been turned into teens. As ThatGuyWithTheGlasses reviewer The Blockbuster Buster put it, the movie seems to be a sort-of mash-up of The Iron Giant and Glen Murakami’s Teen Titans. Basically, Hiro=Robin, Honey Lemon=Starfire, Go Go=Raven, Wasabi=Cyborg, Fred=Beast Boy and Baymax is, well, I don’t think I have to say which one Baymax is.

 

• In the comics version of the story, Hiro lived with his parents. In the film, he lives with his aunt and older brother (in the comics, Hiro was an only child). In the books, it is Hiro’s father who dies, not his older brother, and in the books it’s Hiro who builds Baymax; rather than being a hospital assistant robot built by Hiro’s bro, Baymax was built by Hiro to be his personal bodyguard, butler and chauffeur, using the brain engrams of his dead father, so for all intents and purposes, the comics’ version of Baymax was the reincarnation of Hiro’s dad, functioning as Hiro’s best friend and father figure, and staying by his side nearly every hour of every day. Baymax also felt a deep attachment to Hiro’s mother, which will obviously be omitted from the film.

• The comics’ Big Hero 6 was home based in Japan. Here, most likely as a way to justify the multi-ethnic, multicultural cast, the movie is set in the fictional city of San Fransokyo, a meshing of Eastern and Western architecture, populace and cultures, which is admittedly a pretty cool concept.

• In the comics, the team members aside from Hiro and of course Baymax each had actual super powers. In the films they are each given power-granting technosuits designed by Hiro.
• In the comics, Honey Lemon was Aiko Miyazaki, a top special agent in possession of a Power Purse (also known as the “Nano-Purse”) which contained a series of miniature, artificial, inter-universe wormholes, granting her limited access to an indeterminate number of worlds and dimensions. It was basically like Felix the Cat’s magic bag of tricks: need something? Reach into Hammerspace and pull it out.
• In the books, Hiro had a crush on Honey Lemon, but there doesn’t seem to be any signs of such feelings in the movie, despite them being closer in age here.
• For a time it was rumored that Honey Lemon was the same girl playing the Fix-It-Felix, Jr. game in Wreck-It Ralph who first notices that Ralph is missing, but now that just seems to be a meaningless coincidence that the 2 characters share similarities in design.
• The comics version of Go Go Tomago was a street urchin who possessed a voice-activated battle suit that absorbed and amplified kinetic energy, enabling her to temporarily transubstantiate her body mass into thermochemical energy simply by uttering the trigger words “Go-Go Tomago”. This transformation could be either partial or total. It remains to be seen whether or not she’ll possess similar abilities in the movie, but she does possess cool blue streaked hair.
• The comics version of Wasabi-No-Ginger was a chef, hence the name. He was also a skilled swordsman who could give form to his Qi-Energy, usually materializing it as throwing knives that can paralyze opponents.
• The comics version of Fred was nicknamed ‘Fredzilla’, due to his being Ainu in origin and his ability to manifest a huge ‘solid’ kaiju (monstrous creature) aura resembling Godzilla around his body. In the film, Fred merely wears a suit that resembles a kaiju.
• The movie is very consciously pro-science.
• Fred is voiced by comedian T.J. Miller, who’s been racking up his share of geek cred as of late; not only is he a regular on HBO’s Silicon Valley but he also appeared in Transformers: Age of Extinction. This will be Miller’s second time playing second banana to a robot.
• Movie Baymax bears a notable resemblance to the title character in Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Tuturo.
• In Japan, the movie will apparently be released under the title Baymax.

So there you have it; some little food for thought for when you go see Big Hero 6 (if you’re planning to see it, that is; I am). Will Big Hero 6 be Disney’s next big thing or just a homogenized sawed-off Avengers wannabe for kids? You decide.

Back in March, we did a first look at one of Disney’s newest upcoming animated series, The 7D, a new series starring ‘modernized’ versions of Disney’s Seven Dwarfs, which was originally slated as a preschool show set to run on Disney Junior, but is now going to be an all-ages series airing on Disney XD. The Mouse House is being rather closed-mouthed about this show (or maybe I just don’t watch that much Disney XD–possibly both), so I haven’t seen a lot of promotion for it, but I recently came across some more media for the series. First, let’s get this out of the way….

“OMG!! THE SEVEN DWARFS HAVE BEEN REDESIGNED! THEY LOOK DIFFERENT! THEY DON’T LOOK LIKE THEY DID IN THE MOVIE! IT’S WRONG! IT’S AN ABOMINATION AGAINST GOD AND NATURE!! WALT MUST BE SPINNING IN HIS GRAVE!! THEY’VE RUINED MY CHILDHOOD!!!!!! WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH!!!!!!!!”

-Now that we’ve done that, check out this promo:

Cartoon Network recently announced their lineup of upcoming new series for 2014-2015. The main (heck, the only) ones which caught our interest were the 2 entries from Warner Brothers, Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!.

Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production: The hilarious, heroic and mischievous Bugs Bunny you love is back! From Warner Bros. Animation, Bugs stars in an all-new series consisting of comedic shorts that find the iconic carrot-loving rabbit matching wits against (and getting the best of) classic characters like Yosemite Sam and Wile E. Coyote. Along the way, Bugs will encounter brand-new foes and he’ll have some help from new friends like Bigfoot and Squeaks the squirrel.

Be Cool Scooby-Doo!: Be Cool Scooby-Doo! is an all-new 22-minute animated comedy series from Warner Bros. Animation. The Scooby gang is back with a modern comedic twist on the beloved classic. With high school over and one last summer to live it up, the gang hits the road in the Mystery Machine, chasing fun and adventure. But monsters and mayhem keep getting in the way.

We at Twinsanity would like to quickly give our first impressions of both of these shows, based on what admittedly little info we have on them. (BTW, we won’t be doing full reviews of either show after they premiere; if we find anything about either series noteworthy in some way, we’ll give ’em a shouty-shout or acknowledge them in some way, but we won’t be giving either of these shows a full-blown review.)

Regarding Wabbit: I’m slightly surprised that WB would embark on a new Looney Tunes series so soon after The Looney Tunes Show, but with Wabbit they seem to be returning to the franchise’s roots and going for more of a shorts feel than the sitcom style of TLTS, which will please many LT fans, including myself, who could tolerate TLTS for what is was but can also openly admit that it was quite notably flawed in some areas. The fact that the show’s title is written in Elmer Fudd-ese would seem to be a clear indication that the marble-headed hunter will be playing a significant role in this show, again a plus given how Elmer’s role on TLTS was very noticeably minor. I hope that Daffy Duck and the other LT stars will find their way into this show as well, and that if Daffy does appear, he won’t be portrayed as solely jealous of Bugs, an oblivious idiot or the worst living creature roaming the Earth. As for the prospect of new characters, I know some people will (and do) find that off-putting, but I’m at least open to the idea of adding new LT characters to the roster every so often. If they’re cool and they don’t step on any other characters’ shticks, then I’m fine with newcomers. I’m not so sure what I think of the art style, though; I’m not exactly feeling the (IMO) unnecessary details to Bugs’ design (those specks on his fur–why?), but then I actually liked Jessica Borutski’s stylized designs for TLTS back when it was going to be called Laff Riot. Of course all we’ve seen so far of this show is one image; I’ll hold off commenting further on the look of Wabbit until I see more of it.

Regarding Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!: Clearly, this series will be going for a much, much looser and straightforwardly comedic style and tone than Scooby-Doo: Mystery, Inc., thus adhering to CN’s current “dumb comedy rules!” sensibilities. That could either turn out to be very good or very, very bad. Hopefully, as we did with SD:MI, we’ll get to see some other HB stars pop up in cameos or guest star roles, like Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, Hong Kong Phooey, Captain Caveman and the like, since it’s become painfully obvious that none of those guys will be getting their own shows again anytime soon. Again, I’m not sure what to make of the art style, except that Scoob looks positively lobotomized in that illustration. He looks like a Butch Hartman character on acid. I’m almost afraid to see what the other characters will look like.

One final note: a new Tom & Jerry series was also announced, titled imaginatively enough, The Tom & Jerry Show.

We didn’t post our impressions on that show because, well, it’s Tom & Jerry. It’s what we’ve all come to expect from T&J: cat chases mouse, mouse outwits cat, lots of slapstick, violence and cartoon chaos, yada yada yada, you know the drill. But the new T&J series employs the voice talents of Jason Alexander, Grey Deslile-Griffin and Simon Helberg, never a bad thing.