As soon as it was released in 2014, Big Hero 6 became a beloved Disney movie thanks to its heartfelt storyline and the instantly iconic Baymax. Since then, the titular group of brainy heroes has gotten its own TV show and rumors of a sequel.
In the movie, Hiro, Go Go, Honey Lemon, Wasabi, and Fred join forces with Baymax to stop Yokai AKA Professor Robert Callaghan. He stole Hiro's mind-controllable microbot technology to avenge his daughter, lost in an experiment gone wrong. While Big Hero 6 is one of Disney's new classics, Callaghan left us asking some big questions about his villainous motivations. Here are ten things about him that make no sense.
Why Does He Set The Fire At The Exhibit Hall?
You know the one: it killed Tadashi, Hiro's older brother, in one of the saddest scenes in Disney history. Though Callaghan wanted to get his hands on Hiro's new tech, arson seemed like an extreme measure, destroying not only Tadashi but dozens of scientific works.
At the start of the movie, he notes that his students go on to shape the future. It seems wasteful to eliminate all those important projects when he could have simply stolen Hiro's microbots at home. Not to mention, wouldn't his plan have been stronger if he'd stolen something beyond a prototype? Scientists would know better than to trust a first draft. Why wouldn't he wait until it got better?
There's No Way He Would Put Kids In Harm's Way
Callaghan's motivation is centered on the loss of his daughter. When Alistair Krei's teleportation experiment goes awry, Abigail Callaghan disappears into a portal. Callaghan never forgives Krei for the tragedy. As a father, it is the worst imaginable outcome. After what happened to Abigail, it's unbelievable that Callaghan would want to harm innocents.
He even recognizes how similar Abigail and Hiro are when he remarks that his daughter also wanted to be a bot fighter like Hiro. It makes no sense, then, that he would ever try to kill children. Although they stood in his way, wouldn't he know better than to inflict that same pain on other unwitting parents and guardians? In the end, these actions make him no better than his hated foe.
Why Didn't He Take Big Hero 6 Out Sooner?
If he really needed to take them out, why didn't he do it out more easily? He was Tadashi's professor, and we can assume he worked closely with the other three students in Big Hero 6. That means he could have gotten his hands on their home addresses without much effort.
That leads to another point: he could have stolen Hiro's tech right out of his garage. In summary, Tadashi would still be alive, all that valuable technology from the other students would have been spared, and Callaghan could've found another way to fake his own death. No fire needed. (Still hung up on that.)
Why Would He Risk Being Seen In San Fransokyo?
So he goes to the trouble of faking his own death and wearing a mask to hide his identity. All this scheming flies out the window when he gives chase to a troop of students through San Fransokyo, upping the likelihood he'd get seen. He obviously went to great lengths to maintain secrecy, but being spotted by a bunch of city-goers wouldn't exactly help.
And another thing—of all the places he could have worked on mining Hiro's microbots, he settled on an empty building in the middle of San Fransokyo. For a brilliant professor, that doesn't seem like the brightest idea stay covert.
Wasn't There A Better Place To Work?
What doesn't add up is why Callaghan didn't work out of the abandoned Krei Tech Industries facility on the island off the coast of San Fransokyo. He could have easily done the work there, as it already held the portal he needed to rebuild. Instead, he was forced to drag giant portal pieces through the ocean (where he ran into Big Hero 6) to that aforementioned abandoned warehouse (where he ran into Hiro).
It seems like working on the island would have greatly reduced his odds of falling victim to the faux pas of "genius kid walks in on evil villain's operation." That's what happens when you set up shop in the center of a populated metropolis.
Did He Even Try To Save His Daughter?
There is no evidence pointing to a single staged attempt to recover Abigail. Not before the events of the movie and certainly not during the course of the movie. He even goes so far as to rebuild the portal that Abigail went through, but all he could think about was comeuppance for Krei, instead using that portal to suck up everything Krei worked for.
The man had a whole law of robotics named after him. Couldn't Callaghan have put that brain to use on a rescue attempt? No. He only had time to formulate a revenge scheme. That doesn't really make sense given how traumatic Abigail's loss was.
Wasn't There A Better Way To Bring Abigail Home?
On that note, once Callaghan had his hands on Hiro's microbots, why didn't he use them to pull his daughter out of the portal? He could have still gone on to suck up Krei's new campus, but he would've saved Abigail first (or at least tried).
In the movie, Baymax and Hiro heroically dive through the teleportation device to reach Abigail. Even then, Callaghan could have had the bright idea to utilize the microbots instead, mitigating the risk and potential casualties. He was a robotics professor, but he didn't really have the action plan to show for it.
Why Doesn't He Get The Students To Help Him?
Here's one of the biggest aspects of Callaghan that doesn't make any sense. He's a professor of prodigies. Why doesn't he use his students to a) rebuild the magnetic containment field or b) retrieve his daughter through some new-fangled technology or c) build an entirely new portal? Genius kids would love that kind of project.
Why kill them when you can give them extra credit? It seems illogical to steal Hiro's tech (and set that fire) when he could have just made Hiro work on rebuilding the portal. He wouldn't have needed to go behind anyone's back if Big Hero 6 was on his side. His story was so sympathetic that the students would have definitely understood.
Was He Always Supposed To Attack Krei's New Campus?
The timing of Callaghan's plan doesn't quite add up. Was it really the plan all along to attack Krei Tech Industries' campus the day it debuted? There was no way he could have planned his entire revenge plot around the new campus, seeing as he hadn't made any strides in his scheme until Hiro came along with the right tech.
How premeditated could his assault have been if it hinged on one kid's prototype that he didn't know even existed before the night he stole it? It could have all ended up being convenient—Callaghan might've realized Krei's new campus was fortuitously opening weeks after stealing Hiro's microbots—but mostly it doesn't make sense.
How Did He Live?
The day-to-day aspects of Callaghan's life after faking his own death don't really compute when you think about it. How was he able to fund electricity for an entire makeshift robotics manufacturing lab when he was supposed to be off the grid? How was he able to buy food? He couldn't exactly walk into the store as the recently deceased Callaghan, nor could he be seen buying broccoli as Yokai.
It wasn't even premeditated, as we just established. Callaghan couldn't have known he'd steal Hiro's prototype until that fateful night at the exhibition hall. So it's not like he was spending months stockpiling food for his evil plot. The logistics leave more questions than answers, that's all.