Animated movie turns Godzilla

New Hollywood film 'Big Hero 6' had Disney animators spending more than three years transforming a scary-looking bit player from an obscure comics series, into Baymax, a lovable button-eyed sidekick. They visited robotics labs and spoke with counsellors about how kids handle grief — a central theme of the film.
“We were on the hunt for something unique, but also appealing and huggable,” co-director Don Hall told Bombay Times during the recent Tokyo International Film Festival, where Big Hero 6 was the opening film.Hall came up with the idea for the film while trolling a wiki page during his lunch hour.
Big Hero 6 is based on a 1998 comic-book in which Baymax was a dragon-like robot bodyguard. The team put up images of every movie robot they could think of, from C-3PO to lesser-known Japanese designs. Hall toured robotics labs from Tokyo to Cambridge, Massachusetts, searching for inspiration. At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, US, Hall found engineers working on inflatable robots, in particular nurses who could comb hair or feed patients.
In the movie, Baymax is a ‘personal healthcare companion,’ programmed to scan humans and administer aid. He becomes much more after being adopted by Hiro, a teenage robotics prodigy who sets out to battle a villain who has stolen his big invention. The directors brought in grief experts to learn how kids deal with loss. The idea for Baymax’s soft, round eyes came on a trip to Japan, after Hall saw bells in a Tokyo temple. Hall added, “There’s something so peaceful and calming about that."
Watch: Disney's Big Hero 6