I think most generations believe they grew up in the golden age of animation. I was born in 1989, ostensibly making me a 90’s child, wherein I got to grow up with timeless classics like The Lion King, Aladdin, and the earliest days of Pixar. This would give me some pretty significant ground to argue my case. Children of the 2000’s got Pixar in its prime, though, not to mention Dreamworks’ favorites like Shrek.
It’s too soon to evaluate the 2010’s, but I think it is worth noting that between The Lego Movie and Big Hero 6, animated movies have been some of my favorites of 2014. (And I have yet to see How To Train Your Dragon 2, one of the highest rated films of the year.) What most excites me, though, is that these two films excite me theologically more than most of the films I’ve seen.
Big Hero 6 does an incredible job of exploring the superhero genre without bowing to the common and implicit destructive values of that genre. The main hero, the lovable, inflatable and hilarious “Baymax” is programmed as a doctor, and it is against his programming to inflict harm on any human being. This is an unprecedented move for a superhero movie and actually becomes a problem for the film’s protagonist Hiro. Hiro wants revenge for the death of his brother and goes so far as to rewrite Baymax’s programming to become a killing machine. We also learn that the film’s villain is actually motivated by the same thing – revenge for a lost loved one.
Big Hero 6 is the kind of “kids’ movie” that makes me wish I had children right now. The brilliance of this movie’s central tension is that the good guys are not simply good and the bad guys just bad. The hero and the villain are both in the exact same situation – one chooses revenge and the other reconciliation. This is what makes a hero and a villain. Ultimately, these values have to play out somehow in the climax. Where many films would present extreme circumstances to justify use of force (like Man of Steel), Big Hero 6 manages to maintain its ethic and still deliver an exciting, action-packed finale. One final surprise in the film shows the hero vindicate a past wrong that set all of the events in motion. Another lesson is imparted to those willing to engage: heroic sacrifice can deal not only with present evil forces, but can press further to right the wrongs that create evil in the first place.
On top of the aforementioned moral explorations, the movie also features welcome cultural diversity and an empowering female character. “Gogo Tomago” tells characters throughout the movie to “Woman up!”, takes the wheel from a man during a car-chase, and refuses a hand-up the when she is first learning to balance in her super-hero costume. This is a refreshing display and a step in the right direction, while managing to not feel forced.
This simple, hilarious children’s movie has enough layers to teach lessons to even a stubborn adult. Intuitively, we might assume the opposite: heavy themes should be saved for adult movies, and children should be taught quick, easily digestible black-and-white moral lessons until they’re old enough to handle the real stuff. Instead, animated movies like Big Hero 6 ask deeper existential questions and reward their viewers, young and old, for letting themselves be taken on the journey.
Children may not be are smarter today than they once were, but I think we can all admit they are being exposed to more, earlier than ever before. Technology makes it all but impossible to shelter children from the harsh realities of the world, and more than ever they need safe places to work out some of those realities in fun but compelling ways. The movie theatre is evolving into a place that does that. Can the Church? The Bible begs us to take our children seriously, who are mentioned twice in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6 and frequently by Jesus himself.
Our children deserve the type of complexity, diversity, and counter-culture in Big Hero 6. We all, the Church included, owe our children a creative, engaging, and thoughtful way to explore some the things they see on the internet, hear from their friends at school, and generally absorb in the world around them. This movie, among any others, offers a great starting place for talking to children about difficult things. In addition, it challenges our adult notions of how to resolve conflict and what a hero really is. While it wasn’t a perfect film, its successes in these areas make it one of my favorites of the year, and a movie I could recommend to anyone.
You might also find these reviews of Big Hero 6 helpful:
Christianity Today
Decent Films Guide
Reel Gospel
Tinsel (Rebecca Cusey)
