Big Hero 6: Latest Disney hero a modern Marvel

Hiro Hamada and robot Baymax team up to fight a masked villain in the city of San Fransokyo in Big Hero 6. Photo / AP

‘Healthcare companion’ robot and Japanese boy make unlikely pair in animated Boxing Day blockbuster.

We are used to Hollywood superheroes being fearless and showing off ripped abdominal muscles and biceps.

Disney's new superhero is different. He's fat. He's also gentle. And, if you have a medical ailment, with just a quick scan he'll detect it - and prescribe you treatment - for free.

His name is Baymax, a plus-sized inflatable robot designed as a "healthcare companion", but in the new 3-D animated film Big Hero 6 he ends up battling a mysterious masked villain wreaking havoc over the hybrid city of San Fransokyo.

The inspiration for creating a hero who looks more like a marshmallow than Superman is credited to the not-so-skinny John Lasseter, the man known as Disney's modern-day Walt Disney. Lasseter first transformed the Pixar animation company with a conveyer belt of hits including the Toy Story, Cars and Monsters Inc franchises and was recruited to become Disney's chief creative officer.

"One of the things about working here at Disney Animation for John Lasseter is if we embark to make a movie with a robot in it he is going to say, 'Put up all of the iconic robots that have ever existed in movies and stories and give me something I have never seen before'," Big Hero 6 co-director Chris Williams said.

With that in mind, the film's other co-director, Don Hall, embarked on a research trip to Carnegie Mellon University and found researchers dabbling in soft robotics. Hall also received Lasseter's blessing to scour the vault of Marvel Entertainment, which Disney bought in 2009.

Hall came across Big Hero 6, a comic series he had never heard of, but he liked the title and its Japanese influences. "I loved Disney animation as a kid and I loved Marvel Comics as a kid, so we had this unique possibility where we could do a mash-up of these two things," he said.

Big Hero 6 centres on Hiro Hamada, a 14-year-old genius wasting his talents by creating robots to fight in underground bouts. His big brother Tadashi is a robotics student.

When tragedy strikes, Hiro is introduced to Tadashi's robotic creation - Baymax - and the pair take on the masked villain.

Big Hero 6 opens in cinemas on Boxing Day.

- AAP