Nine Things About the Movie "Big Hero 6"

Nine Things About the Movie "Big Hero 6"

1. This is the most pleasant surprise I've seen at the movies in 2014. From the cutesy trailer and the stupid title, it's like Disney doesn't want anybody to know what the movie really is.

2. It's about a 14-year-old genius named Hiro Hamada who lives in the city of San Fransokyo. He's out of high school, bored, and thinks college is for nerds. He spends his time in the city's battle robot underground. Hiro's older brother, Tadashi, is a robotics engineering student who has invented a new kind of robot named Baymax that specializes in health care.

3. After some bad things happen, Hiro reluctantly teams up with Baymax and Tadashi's friends to stop someone from stealing Hiro's own invention of swarming microbots. But that quest opens up bigger problems.

4. There are themes of death and loneliness in the film that aren't obvious from the way the movie is marketed. I was more emotionally invested in the movie than I expected to be.

5. The filmmakers consulted about six universities and robotics research labs for help on this movie. I'm pretty sure this is the only animated film I've ever seen that uses the term "tungsten carbide".

6. The character of Baymax was inspired by actual research in a new field called "soft robotics". And the swarming microbots in the film are also based on real research and inventions. Of course, the movie takes those ideas and then leaves reality behind.

7. The animation in this film is so incredibly detailed that some scenes look almost like real life. The 3D is also worth the extra price, if you like that sort of thing.

8. The movie unabashedly promotes science, technology, engineering, and education.Read more

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series, No. 17)

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series, No. 17)

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series, No. 17)

Thousand Faces  The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series, No. 17) Paperback – March 1, 1972

Joseph Campbell was one of the great souls of our age. I've read this book twice, first on my own and the second for a class in "Myth, Religion & the Mythic Imagination." I read the paperack to tatters, literally, marking each illuminating, exhilirating insight. "Dry"? "Not a fun read"? What book did YOU read? Campbell is unlike other writers on myth; he looks not at an entire myth but at its parts. By the end of the book, he has essentially created the Ultimate Hero Myth, which takes bits of every hero myth from virtually every culture (heavy on Native Americans). Campbell was not a dispassionate academic--this was his gospel, and he lived by it. This book is alive and inspiring like no other book I know. One unique aspect of it at the time it was published was its approach to Christianity. For Campbell, Christ's life had to be seen as a myth. Before him, most Western scholars wouldn't have dare to say such a thing. Others had written on that, but in a skeptical manner. Campbell's view is that the Virgin Birth, miracles, Resurrection, etc have meaning only because they ARE myths. Look, there'd be no "Star Wars" without this. No "Sandman" comics from Neil Gaiman. No "Watership Down." This book is for the intellectual who wants to LIVE, not just to sit sterile at the desk. Recommended like mad.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series, No. 17)

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The Hero with a Thousand Faces 

The Hero with a Thousand Faces 

Thousand Faces  The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series, No. 17) Paperback

Joseph Campbell's classic cross-cultural study of the hero's journey has inspired millions and opened up new areas of research and exploration. Originally published in 1949, the book hit the New York Times best-seller list in 1988 when it became the subject of The Power of Myth, a PBS television special.

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The Hero with a Thousand Faces