the more you care the more you can hurt and to an extent it feels like if life has no meaning then at least it doesn't hurt which of course is the great paradox if you avoid caring to avoid hurting then you also avoid healing some people freak out because they're like how do i find out how do i discover that how do i learn who i am yeah you create it you decide it you choose it so instead of having an existential crisis the only question you need to ask yourself is who do i want
to be and in the case of grief how do i honor the departed with who i am you're going to help so many people buddy so many it will be all right there there i am satisfied with my care [Music] welcome to cinema therapy i am alan c wright professional filmmaker who needs therapy and i'm jonathan decker i'm a licensed therapist who loves movies and i've just spent the past three minutes watching alan just trying to say what he just said it took so long guys what are we doing what's going on i would like
to have you react to a film today okay this is a disney i would call it a classic yeah also marvel big hero 6. here's the thing i wasn't expecting when i first saw this i wasn't expecting it to break me and it broke me yeah there's a lot of grief and a lot of i'm sure this is gonna be a bit more difficult for you because you've lost someone closer to you than i have yeah but uh it's a lot yeah it's a lot to unpack so if we're talking about big hero 6 i
want to talk about process of grieving and how to mourn a loss healthily we're going to get into the stages yes we'll get into the stages of grief the stages and uh some other things let's do this hey dude [Music] this is what i've been working on hello i am baymax your personal healthcare companion i was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said ow nurse on a scale of one thing oh man like how his legs swish together when he walks instead of the legs well we'll get to more of it later
on this is not a super comedic bit but scan complete just like you were saying tadashi leading hiro into like a thing tadashi knows he would want to do yeah but hero's too stuck in his own perspective too it's a bummer i'm actually allergic to that you are not allergic to bacitracin you do have a mild allergy to peanuts look at that you've done some serious coding on this thing huh uh-huh programmed them with over ten thousand medical procedures this chip is what makes baymax baymax green smiley face happy chip yep final yeah going for
a non-threatening huggable kind of thing looks like a walking marshmallow i am a robot i cannot be offended special cameras yep [Music] huh what i love is none of this is real it's all animated but it's look at like the attention to detail of what it would be like inside baymax the noises that it makes what the textures feel like yeah i don't even know anything about animation and i'm still just in awe thousand pounds because you really feel like you could touch him and you could hug him boy have a lollipop i cannot deactivate
until you say you are satisfied with your care and here comes your i just my care [Music] he's going to help a lot of people there's some just brilliant screenwriting there the setting up the i am satisfied with my care bit which is going to come back horde later [Laughter] and we do see right here that tadashi already knows who he is and what he's all about i mean tadashi is in his early 20s he's a tech genius like his brother and he's using his gifts to help people and that's his whole mission like baymax
exists to help a lot of people yep hiro right now uh is also a wonder kid or is it wonder kind can we fix that with editing no we're live but hiro doesn't really have a purpose which is fine he's a kid yeah but his brother knows exactly who he is right what this film is about is hero's process of grief is also discovering who he is and what he's about and that's what helps him to heal right because as long as he doesn't have a foundation of who am i and what am i about
then when he loses his anchor which is his brother he's just reeling but we'll get to that speaking of horde that ominous sound design there yeah i'm okay but but professor i don't know if that was sound design or if that was the composer doing something weird but it was really interesting obviously here the music comes in to callahan's in there someone has to help yeah that's tadashi's whole thing is someone has to help yeah [Music] i know people who don't watch animated movies because they're for kids and they are missing out because animated movies
explore very real things i mean not losing your friend in a building explosion that doesn't happen to a lot of us but or your brother but losing people does and that's just that's just some beautiful direction the fade out to white on both of those on the explosion and then on tadashi's hat yeah um you know you would think you'd go to black because he's leaving but it's it's going out to white to me that suggests you know going into the light like there's there's something unsettling about it that it because it just plays against
expectation a little bit it's really smart direction yeah yeah the university called again it's uh been a few weeks since classes started but they said it's not too late to register okay thanks i'll think about it so he's detached and the reason he's detached is because if you care you can lose something if he cares about his friends you know that's it it hurts too much to lose it he doesn't care about his studies he doesn't care about his dreams anymore like he's detached from everything because the more you care the more you can hurt
we just wanted to check in and see how you're doing we wish you were here buddy hero if i could have only one superpower right now it would be the ability to crawl through this camera and give you a big hug we'd rather not try and lose something or someone else yeah [Music] and to an extent it feels like if life has no meaning then at least it doesn't hurt you know which of course is the great paradox is when you care you hurt but if you avoid caring to avoid hurting then you also avoid
healing yeah you avoid everything yeah it has to be felt it has to be faced it has to be moved through you have fallen you think [Music] oh on a scale of one on a scale on a scale from a scale of one to ten on a scale of one every time it's just such a robotic oh it's so great i cry no no no it is all right to cry thank you baymax i feel you bud so we talk about the the stages of grief denial anger bargaining depression and acceptance yep but the fact
is they don't always happen in that order and you don't always get all five i don't always get all five yeah and so he was never in denial because he saw it happen yeah it's hard to deny the thing that happened too yeah i mean it knocked him over denial usually happens in the case of uh you hear the news and you're denying that it happened or you're going to lose someone gradually and you're desperately seeking a solution yeah someone gets a cancer diagnosis right yeah in this case he's not going to deny we're going
to see anger show up later there's no bargaining because he's not trying to keep it from happening but he does he just starts he starts right off in depression yeah and he stays there most of the film until his his sadness translates into anger and that's something that we talk about in our fight list connect more class which you can watch on our membership site uh is that every time you feel anger it's actually something else in disguise right and so we'll get there with him but right now he's in the depressed stage and he
doesn't want to be bothered out of it and of course baymax being a robot doesn't really pick up like this isn't picking up on social cues but there are people who are well-meaning and they will ignore your social cues and it could be the biggest pain in the butt and then they're exactly what you need it can also be very healing they're like i'm going to love you back into life and i'm not taking no for an answer thanks people on the spectrum that's true we love you for this reason what are you crunching on
over there i've got cheddar flavor cauliflower crackers from thrive market thrive market that's the online grocery store that is the one they've got tons of healthy organic products i really love it they're cheaper than the regular grocery store cheaper if you find the same products for a lower price anywhere they will match it wow what else have you got in there let's see organic giggles oh these are the like skittle things yeah jalapeno lime have you had these chips before these are amazing these are so freaky you open one and we're gonna eat some they
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a free gift worth over fifty dollars when you join thrive market today that was a mic drop is the nut drop you dropped your nuts corn it's puffed corn tadashi what tadashi is here no people keep saying he's not really gone as long as we remember him [Music] still hurts i see no evidence of physical injury it's a different kind of hurt why do you cry it's very terminator i would like to help you can't fix this one buddy uh what are you doing i am downloading a database on personal loss database downloaded treatments include
contact with friends and loved ones i am contacting them now no no no i i don't your friends have been contacted now what are you doing other treatments include compassion and physical reassurance okay really you will be all right there there thanks hey max the uh sorry about the fox i am contacting your friends friends contacted just reminds me of hanging out with jono that's pretty much just our relationship why is that you mentioned that in your life you have friends who will help you and damn the consequences is that me for me that is
jono that's this guy like several times in my life it's just been like hey buddy i was thinking about you oh that's nice and we're going out and we're having fun we're going to a movie and we're going to a restaurant and we're doing this and these six people are coming it's like i don't know that i want to do that i'm outside your house right now okay i didn't realize this about life let me put on some shoes he's like i brought some you like those moccasins look in your closet there's a pair for
you don't like them then neither do i get the hell out of here ever see a guy say goodbye to a shoe yes once i have not never he's never brought me that would be that would be top game right there though if you bring me shoes it's not just a women thing okay you should see this man's closet it's embarrassing i have a lot of shoes i have no problem with being baymax yeah why do we want to stay depressed because when you are depressed yeah you like want to stay in it even though
like cognitively you know most of the time we know like i'm depressed this isn't healthy yeah i don't want anything else i just want this i want to be in my darkness here's my theory especially when it comes to grief i think if we're happy we feel like we're betraying the departed huh like if the more we suffer the more they meant what has helped me when i'm dealing with people who are grieving especially if they feel some sort of guilt about the loss that it was in some way their fault or that not that
the loss was their fault but that they wish they had said this or done this or had this experience with that person before they they went i want you to imagine that person in the room right now right now if you believe in spirits okay imagine or invite their spirit here if you believe that they're gone gone then let's just do this as a psychological exercise what would they say and i've yet to meet the person who believes that the departed would say to them yes you suffer stay depressed yeah every single time every single
time they say they would want me to be happy they would want me to live my life right when we push away experiences that might help us feel better or people that might help us feel better or not help us feel better but just help us not feel alone while we feel like garbage yeah that instinct to to not allow that to happen we need to override that because we're not honoring the departed and we're not doing ourselves any favors professor callahan the explosion you died no i had your microbots [Music] just let him die
give me the mask hero he went in there to save you that was his mistake oh cal how we hate you baymax destroy my programming prevents me from injuring a human being not anymore so hiro has turned baymax into a superhero fighter and his friends is not what i was made for and he's armored him up instead of being soft and squishy and huggable because he's meant to comfort he's turned him into a fighting he's a weapon yeah he's a weapon so now all heroes friends are trying to stop this from happening that's so intense
such a great shot [Music] and all hero sees right now is justice revenge hatred anger and the people that he cares about are means to an end he's formed this kind of superhero squad to avenge his brother all he cares about is the revenge and i love the filmmaking choice here to for that whole scene to play the emotion with the music instead of the action in the sound design yeah my healthcare protocol has been violated [Music] i regret any distress i may have caused how could you do that i had him well you just
did we never signed up for we said we'd catch the guy that's it i never should have let you help me baymax find callahan my enhanced scanner has been damaged ah wings hero this isn't part of the plan here why so if we're not careful grief can lead us to a very selfish place a very bitter place my pain is the only thing that matters my anger my desire for vengeance or my desire for justice sometimes after a loss we can get into a place where all that matters is trying to numb the pain but
the only thing that numbs the pain is connection and the only thing that numbs the pain is acting out of compassion and honor and hero's not there yet i'm right you were talking about playing the emotion instead of the action yeah so tell me about it well the score is a a counterpoint to that right because it's playing a tragic heroes theme right there's a lot of there's brass in it and there's other things so it's it sounds like it's this big sweeping thing but it's all in a minor key and it's downbeat and it's
just playing this slow legato yeah sadness yeah of you know the the the scene is showing you like what is happening here is not good yeah this is a sad thing this is not a happy thing this is not an exciting thing this is not a powerful strong thing yeah this is hero breaking yeah here losing himself yeah the the music is hero's internal damage yeah that's all it is yeah my purpose is to heal the sick and injured baymax open your access port do you want me to terminate professor callahan just open will terminating
professor callahan improve your emotional state yes no i don't know open your access is this what tadashi wanted it doesn't matter tadashi programmed me to aid he's finally confronting so i would push back maybe a little bit on your denial thing he knows that tadashi is here no obviously he knows tadashi died but he hasn't accepted in his heart maybe yeah he's completely and this is the first test of my robotics project hello i am baymax that's a very real thing yeah like people obviously you can't deny what's right in front of you this person's
dead sure so you'll accept the reality of it but not the emotion of it not the emotional reality you just want to move forward say okay they're gone that's tough life sucks we're gonna keep going 33rd test the magic of movies is tadashi is here and then you can have this recording of tadashi failing over and over again and this is not subtle metaphor for him raising his brother this is what he did yeah with hiro people need you to get back to work tests what do you say fake guy hello i am baymax your
personal healthcare companion it works and this is how tadashi feels when hiro accomplishes things you know you knew it i knew it how proud he is i can't believe i can't because he's looking in uh baymax's camera scan me but he's looking at hiro right now your neurotransmitter levels are elevated this indicates that you are happy i am i really am oh man wait till my brother sees you you're gonna help so many people buddy so many that's all for now i am satisfied with my care and there's number two i'm going to talk about
one little animation technical thing yeah that is near and dear to my heart hero tears up there and how do you do that in animation it it took a long time for people to figure out how to do this especially when people move to computer animation yeah you know your eyes tighten up a little bit and do a couple of things but it never really works until you get the thing that i'm doing right now which is you get too much tears in your eyes like more than normal and you get a little line right
along the bottom eyelid of extra tears and so you get that little glint of light off that line of extra liquid yeah and that just putting that in takes it from like this is a nice animated moment to allen is crying yeah you see it at the end of coco when he's with his grandma you see it in frozen two when she sees you know the spirit of her mother you know these these types of things it's yeah i that's a very subtle detail and i i knew that it worked but i didn't know why
it works yeah it's it's one of those things that you never think about in real life because you just don't have to think about it thematically i look at this as hiro tried to remake baymax you know after his image of of uh of a fighter into basically an iron man suit yeah well because at the beginning he's creating these fighting robots this is what hero is all about yeah and tadashi is all about helping people and so hiro tries to like remake baymax into a fighting robot and it doesn't work and he says will
terminating professor callahan improve your emotional state yes no i don't know the path that hero's taking isn't going to bring in peace and it's not going to help him heal right what's going to help him heal is embracing what tadashi was all about which was helping people here we're talking about grieving but what about helping someone who's grieving check out my mended life video right here what do i do with my grief i do this right i do i do counseling i do cinema therapy like my the way i honor my mother is you know
i feel a very similar thing because her mission was helping people and so when i do that i'm keeping her alive which is what kind of where hiro lands the other thing you talk about the miracle of he's talking to baymax but he's also talking to hiro is we live in such an incredible age of you could preserve people on camera not just in pictures but their their voice their face their mannerisms on video my sister sent a family video from 25 years ago when we were teenagers of us just goofing around and she sent
me this video and i'm watching it i'm laughing and in the middle my mom shows up and it was like she was back from the dead you know she walks in and she and i remember all these little mannerisms about her that aren't part of my daily life anymore all these little inflections all these little things that made her her and i don't really have a point that i'm building to i mean i i sobbed for 10 minutes as my wife helped me uh especially because i didn't i didn't see it coming i'm just like
oh fun family video for 25 years ago i'll watch it and then like um but now there's always at least one voicemail from my dad that i save right i may replace it with a newer one once in a while but there's always at least one because at some point i'm going to lose him and i want to make sure that i have i got something yeah that i could just pull him up and listen to him [Music] so they've gone and rescued callahan's daughter which was his reason for you know turning bad and doing
all the stuff he was doing just grab hold [Music] and baymax just saved them from getting smashed to safety [Music] i cannot deactivate until you say you are satisfied with your care no no no wait what about you you are my patient your health is my only concern stop no i'm kind of fighting are you satisfied with your care no there's got gotta be another way i'm not gonna leave you here i'll think of something there is no time are you satisfied with your care please no [Music] i can't lose you two hero i will
always be with you [Music] [Music] i'm satisfied with my care [Music] another time where they go mild on the sound to go a little bigger on the music that could have been a big noise when he pushed off yeah and they kept it really subtle and just focused on those strings why did you want to include that scene other than to torture yourself i like crying on camera that's why i don't like it i just do it it will be all right there there i am satisfied with my care and watch movies so i mean
thematically it's it's not super subtle uh i can't lose you too is hero saying i can't lose you again yeah because baymax is an extension of tadashi yeah i mean his heart literally has tadashi around it well when he says i'm always with you in this case it's literal because he's he puts his chip in the in the glove and so he can be brought back because this is a disney film and at the end so you have to yeah yeah mirabelle rebuilds the house right yeah there's always he gets a new robot well and
sometimes we want that in our entertainment because we don't get that in life right and we experience things vicariously through our entertainment sometimes we need to grieve sometimes we need to cry sometimes we need the happy ending that we're the or the clean happy ending we're not going to get in real life you know have lunch with alan and i we've got a game online that you can play for fans of the show uh link is below and the winner every month will have a sit down with alan and i will do lunch either in
person if you're here or wherever you are we'll we'll sit down online cameras naked nope nope nope not promising that but the the statement i will always be with you is very true i used to think it was trite you know the the idea that we carry our loved ones with us and then if we remember them they're never truly gone the ones that love us never really leave us i always thought that was not the greatest comfort there's a cold comfort i'm like yeah but they're dead they're dead so but the the longer i
go and the longer i live i realize just how beautiful and powerful that is we grieve best and we heal best you know it's all wrapped up in that one scene you need connection with family and friends you need compassion and physical comfort you know and yeah like we basically need those three things and we also need to know who we are and and the thing about knowing who you are that some people freak out they're like how do i find out how do i discover that how do i learn who i am yeah you
create it you decide it you choose it wow and so instead of having a panic attack about an existential crisis the real the only question you need to ask yourself is who do i want to be and in the case of grief how do i honor the departed with who i am the good thing is my brother wanted to help a lot of people that's what we're gonna do and those are the two questions i would meditate on who do i want to be and how do i honor the departed with who i am and
then start to make choices that line up with that well i got nothing to add to that that was pretty much just a mic drop moment so until next time la la la la [Music] wow i didn't realize how hard you were gonna go for that i'm so robot drunk [Music]
