Baymax Bonding

Art by River Hennick 

While the cast of “Rent” may measure life in seasons of love, I measure mine in movies. Name a time in my life, I’ll name a movie.

Christmas break 2016? “While You Were Sleeping.”

Finals week junior year? My ‘earth-shattering’ rewatch of “Hercules.”

Spring of 8th grade? “Simon Birch.”

The 2010 Labor day car ride home from St.Louis when I was sick with strep? “Scooby Doo 2.”

Movies are better than therapy ( I’ve never had therapy, but maybe I need it if I resort to movies to deal with my emotions). Maybe I’m just easily manipulated by the media, but my mood matches the movies I watch. Being thrown into another world, even if it is just “Scooby Doo 2,” entrances me.

The people I watch the movies with and the conversations cultivated from the movies resonate with me. Movies create dialogue that otherwise wouldn’t be had.  Recently my friends and I chatted outside amc for a hour after seeing the movie “Eighth Grade” and comparing our own cringey eighth grade moments.

I am a big believer that there is so such thing as a favorite movie, but if I could go back in time and rewatch a movie again for the first time it would be “Big Hero 6.”

If I had to select a movie off the metaphorical DVD shelf that encapsulated my childhood relationship with my sister, I would walk on over to the B’s (this metaphorical DVD  shelf is alphabetized) and dust off the dvd with the giant squish-mellow robot on the front.

I had to watch “Big Hero 6” with my little sister. In my 14 year old mind I was way too ~mature~ for Pixar movies— I mean I was over 13 so PG -13 only thank you very much! I was slumped on the futon with a scowl, my Pinterest DM’s pulled up on my iPhone 5s and ready to ignore the movie to spite my sister. One issue though — Pixar is always good. Always.

The dynamic of the brother duo Tadashi and Hiro mixed in with the Baymax’s absolute adorableness and a dash of the classic Disney-friendship comradery made me feel every emotion possible. The way Tadashi looked out for Hiro at every turn and then created Baymax for him made me want to up my big sister game. I had to leave the room at certain points because I was blubbering so much — a fact my sister won’t let me live down.

Four years later some of the plot points are a little fuzzy, but this is one of the only movies where I remember exactly how I felt during — and after —the movie. I can pinpoint my emotions to the scene. But most of all my peak level of gratitude for my sister in my life, so far.

What can I say? Sappy Disney sibling moments got the intended reaction out of me.

I watched this movie at the end of my eighth grade year. I entered high school and my sister entered middle school. We watched fewer and fewer movies together. I now entice her with popcorn among other treats but the roles have flipped and now she’s the eighth grader that’s too cool to watch movies with her senior sister.

We have both changed a lot since our “Big Hero 6” viewing four years ago, but our relationship was at its most wholesome when we were watching “Big Hero 6.” A nostalgic-simpleness that’s hard to recreate. Even though we share microwave popcorn less frequently, we still have a plethora of “Big Hero 6” inside jokes that are still in rotation to this day.

Until I get a real life Baymax, my security blanket will always be movies. But it’s more than movies. It’s the people (and the popcorn).