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Wish List: 20 Extravagant Gifts Over $500, From Sleek Watches to Muscle Cars

Lazy Suzi 66 | $525 Invite some whimsy to the dinner table with this psychedelic food-spinning centerpiece designed by Kelly Behun. Just watching it spin affords endless pre-meal entertainment. Quick, put the Christmas ham on it before your guests fall into a deep, deep sleep... Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Patagonia Women’s Tres Down Parka | $529 Snuggle into the Tres Parka's quilted, down-filled inner coat on frigid days and the chill will disappear. If the forecast calls for sleet, add the outer shell. In the warmer spring showers, wear the shell by itself. The 3-in-1 construction will make you the queen of all seasons. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Sage Accel Fly Rod | $595 Fly fishing rods can be described by their "action," the speed with which they respond to your movements. Some anglers like fast action, others like it slow. Sage's new Accel is designed for those who want something in between. It's quick enough to set a hook, but not so rapid that the overenthusiastic among us pluck the fly from the fish's mouth. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Transporter | $730 Liven up your stage show with one of magic's most enduring tricks. The key to performing the illusion of "The Transported Man" is this electronic device designed by Nikolai Tesla. It ships in its own discreet, trapezoidal box to keep it hidden from snooping rivals. Stephanie Gonot

Stephanie Gonot

MartinLogan Crescendo Speaker | $800 This 100-watt wedge of sonic perfection gives you six ways to play: Bluetooth, AirPlay, USB, wired Ethernet, optical, and a 3.5mm jack. Whatever method you choose, your tunes are beautifully presented by the 5x7-inch woofer and two folded-ribbon tweeters. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Mission Bicycle Company Lumen | $1300 and up For an urban cyclist, nighttime visibility is paramount. The retro-reflective coating on the frame and rims of Mission Bicycle's Lumen bike contain microscopic spheres that reflect light outwards when blasted by a set of headlights. Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Fujifilm X-T1 | $1199 Fuji's shooters are beloved by purists for their manual controls, excellent color reproduction, and advanced digital viewfinders. The X-T1 combines all of those attributes in a handsome, weather-sealed body. Choose from a bevy of interchangeable lenses to snag the perfect shot. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Fender 60th Anniversary Commemorative Stratocaster | $1500 When Leo Fender's new guitar debuted in 1954, nobody could have predicted the depth of its impact on modern music. The chosen axe of countless revolutionaries -- Hendrix, Holly, Dylan, Clapton -- the Strat's legacy is unassailable. Aren't you next on the list? Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Paradigm Soundscape | $1500 A cramped apartment is no reason to suffer poor audio. This soundbar's built-in amp pushes out 50 watts of peak power to its four woofers and three tweeters. The result is punchy and immersive soundtracks for your movies and TV shows that rivals many multi-speaker home cinema setups. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Teenage Engineering OD-11 Cloud Speaker | $900 Swedish audio engineer Stig Carlsson is responsible for some of the most iconic speakers from the '60s and '70s. This resurrected version of his up-firing OD-11 has been modernized with new internals and the ability to stream music. Stick it in a corner, call up your favorite Spotify playlist with the free app, and soak in the scandinavian hi-fi sound. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Hamilton Khaki Pilot | $945 Before microprocessors conquered the cockpit, astronauts relied partly on wristwatches to get home safely. The simple utility of the aviator's watch is exemplified by this Hamilton timepiece. The self-winding movement is resistant to magnetic fields and works even in zero gravity -- even if you're jumping through wormholes. Stephanie Gonot

Stephanie Gonot

Breville Oracle Espresso Machine | $1999 Pulling a perfect shot of espresso takes practice. Pulling a perfect shot of espresso consistently takes even more practice. Thankfully, the Oracle automates the tricky bits -- grinding, dosing, tamping, and milk texturizing -- leaving you free to concentrate on your latte art. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

SMEG Fridge | $2000 LED lights, touchscreens...Evernote? Modern fridges have come down with a serious case of feature bloat. Not the SMEG. This refreshing dose of '50s simplicity has only the most sensible modern additions (adjustable shelving, an inner freezer, an energy-efficient design) and none of the wacky ones (a baby monitor). SMEG

SMEG

Milkman Creamer Amplifier | $2600 Partly based on a 1960s Fender Princeton Reverb—a legendary single-speaker amp—the 20-watt Milkman is wired and assembled by hand, and sounds damn near perfect. It has all the tone of its 40-year-old cousin (including improved vibrato and reverb controls) but with the quality and reliability of a modern machine. Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

McIntosh Headphone Amplifier | $4500 Wander into the listening room of any well-to-do audiophile and you’re bound to encounter the soft blue glow of a McIntosh. And while it’s nice watching the VU meters on this headphone-dedicated amp do their hypnotizing decibel dance, it’s nothing compared to hearing the amazing clarity the company’s hand-wound components and onboard digital audio converter inject into all your music. Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards

Top | $5328 The current record for the longest amount of time a spinning top has stayed in motion is 7 hours, 1 minute, and 14 seconds. And while this top is quite pricey, it could be your ticket to fame: Under the correct circumstances, it will stay spinning forever. Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Little Guy Trailer | $7168 There is only one real solution to the road-tripper’s crippling fear of bedbugs: BYOBed. But that doesn’t mean you need to tow a tour bus. The Little Guy is … little. Small enough that a Smart car can haul it around. Inside, there’s a full-size bed, and you can add comforts like a mini kitchen and A/C. Little Guy

Little Guy

Sony VPL-VW600ES Projector | $15000 Thought Star Trek Into Darkness was just OK? Obviously you didn’t see it in 4K. Bring out all the sharpness and color depth in your favorite flicks with Sony’s cinema-quality 4K projector. It outputs a supernova-bright 1,700 lumens and has a 200,000:1 contrast ratio for blacks as deep as antimatter. 1080p content gets upscaled automatically. Spock’s sideburns never looked so pointy. Sony

Sony

A. Lange & Sohn Saxonia Automatic | $20,000 When watch nerds argue about the world's best timepieces, Lange is always in the conversation. The Saxonia is a good example of why. Inside the 7.8-millimeter-thick case is a hand-built, self-winding movement that’s only 3.7 millimeters tall. Outside, the design is all class—it doesn’t scream “HEDGE FUND” but still slides neatly under a bespoke French cuff. Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Stephanie Gonot | Set By Adi Goodrich

Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat | $60,000 Every automaker in the world hates Dodge right now. Why? The Charger SRT Hellcat. The four-door family sedan packs a supercharged V-8 good for 707 horsepower and 204 mph. Those are Ferrari numbers, but that’s not what’s sticking in everyone’s craw. The $60,000 sticker price is. It’s the best horsepower-per-dollar ratio on the road. Chevrolet

Chevrolet

A Tactical Boot Made for Civilians That’s Hard-Core Enough for Marines

The Shadow tactical boot from LALO footwear in the company's "Black-Ops" color. It also comes in a desert tan.

The Shadow tactical boot from LALO footwear in the company’s “Desert” color. The 2015 version will also be available in black, gray, and brown. LALO

As a Navy SEAL, Nathanael Roberti saw plenty of action, including choppering in to Taliban-infested mountains to retrieve the bodies of the soldiers killed in the “Lone Survivor” raid. As if the bullets and bombs weren’t trouble enough, he always had another complaint: his boots. Whenever they got wet, Roberti’s standard-issue footwear would get so heavy and noisy that he’d have to change into a dry pair mid-mission.

For the sake of the feet of his fellow soldiers—and civilians who want to feel like them—Roberti has launched a new company, Lalo Tactical, selling his own line of boots and shoes. Designed to stay wearable in every kind of terrain, the patented footwear is quick drying, ultra-lightweight, super-grippy, and equipped with extras like titanium cleats and blade-resistant ceramic toe caps.

Roberti says the Marines have already ordered several thousand pairs, and other military branches are interested. Maybe change is afoot.

The Shadow boot comes in two varieties: the $325 standard version and a $350 “Amphibian” version with a water-shedding lining and a design that lets water drain out of the boot quickly. In addition to the Shadow tactical boot, Lalo also makes running shoes, water shoes, and a few different cross-trainers.

What is Beyond Apollo?

An M6 flare on the Sun. NASA

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that occasionally I “reintroduce” it. I do this because its underlying concept is sufficiently strange to confuse some people. Beyond Apollo is a space history blog, but with a difference; it looks at space plans that did not happen.

The plans that did not make it often represent aspirations. When set in context, they help to flesh out space history as it actually happened. A 1969 plan for Apollo 16 through 20 landing sites and experiments, for example, throws new light on the winnowing process and efforts to salvage advanced exploration capabilities that occurred after Congress, the White House, and NASA itself began to cut back the Apollo Program and its planned successor, the Apollo Applications Program, a process that commenced at least two years before Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon in July 1969.

Beyond Apollo sometimes illustrates things that are not very pleasant. Concepts that might have moved us forward have often been shut out because of rivalries between NASA centers. Proposals that sought to avoid trouble before it happened (for example, Shuttle redesign or replacement plans) have often been ignored or actively torpedoed. Pioneering individuals have been deprived of the credit which is their due. Geopolitics have as often as not replaced scientific or technical merit in the selection and execution of space goals. NASA and its contractors have on occasion been wildly optimistic, or have assumed a blank check for their proposals, helping to undermine the credibility of space exploration as a whole.

On the other hand, some of the plans that did not make it (or, at least, have not made it yet) show breathtaking ingenuity and foresight. Some evoke what someone once called a “sense of wonder.”

A proposal to survey Saturn’s glorious and complex rings close-up over a period of years is one example; a study of a a prolonged Galileo spacecraft-style tour of the mysterious Uranus moon system is another. Some might disagree, but I would argue that plans to explore via telepresence and teleoperated systems throughout the Solar System should raise goosebumps, for they promise to reduce cost, pioneer important technology with valuable Earth-based applications, and, when coupled with propulsion just a little more advanced than is currently available, enable meaningful, comprehensive astronaut exploration of worlds throughout our Solar System.

Coming up soon on Beyond Apollo: a look at Mariner 2, the first successful planetary probe (it flew by Venus on this day in 1962) and the advanced Mariner missions it replaced; a survey of candidate equatorial Earth launch sites designed to maximize payload mass in Earth orbit; a description of a mission to tour the ancient, dark, and mysterious trojan asteroids of Jupiter; a Sun probe plan; several unusual Space Shuttle designs, most of which helped to shape the basic design that flew from 1981 to 2011; the vexatious history of ion drive; an in-depth multi-part look at the U.S. failure to launch a mission to Comet Halley; plans for outposts and observatories at the Earth-moon and Earth-Sun L points; and, much, more more. I hope that you’ll check back regularly for new posts.

What is Beyond Apollo?

An M6 flare on the Sun. NASA

On the other hand, some of the plans that did not make it (or, at least, have not made it yet) show breathtaking ingenuity and foresight. Some evoke what someone once called a “sense of wonder.”

While You Were Offline: Hollywood Gives You More Reasons to Hate It

Even for those not dealing with terrible weather this week, there’s been a lot going on over the last seven days. So much so, in fact, that you’ve probably been prioritizing what needs your attention and what can just slide. That is why we’ve come up with this short guide to what’s been happening on the Internet over the last week, in case someone suddenly demands your opinion on Justin Bieber’s new hair and you have no idea what they’re talking about.

Oh, spoilers: Justin Bieber has new hair. It’s blonde.

Stephen Colbert Takes A Victory Lap

What Happened: As The Colbert Report prepares to wind up its nine-year run, its host is suddenly appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as the cast of The Hobbit, and the President is taking over his show (temporarily).

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

via Tumblr

What Really Happened: Following Monday’s Colbert Report in which President Obama hijacked the traditional “The Word” segment—renaming it “The Decree”—ahead of a straight-up interview, Stephen Colbert ended up on three different covers of the latest Entertainment Weekly , cosplaying as Bilbo, Legolas, and Gandalf, respectively. A sign of a grateful nation recognizing Colbert’s contribution to America’s strength just before the Report comes to an end? Maybe so, maybe no—but considering the speed at which the images (and behind-the-scenes footage in GIF format) spread across Twitter and Tumblr, we feel confident saying Colbert’s approval ratings are definitely on an uptick this week.

The Takeaway: If this is how a nation chooses to celebrate a hero at an important crossroads in his life, then it’s an odd choice, but let’s be honest: he deserves this and probably more.

Sony Leak Proves Your Hollywood Preconceptions Didn’t Go Far Enough

What Happened: As a result of last week’s Sony hack, private emails and memos from Sony’s movie division went public, revealing plans that never came to fruition and the way movie executives talk to each other.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces

What Really Happened: As expected, the fallout from the Sony hack is continuing to … well, fall out. This week, we found out that the studio had discussed Spider-Man showing up in Marvel’s movies, and also a crossover between the 21 Jump Street and Men in Black movie series, but what caught more attention were emails between studio executives in which Angelina Jolie was called “a minimally talented spoiled brat,” President Obama’s movie tastes were discussed in a pretty racist manner, and Aaron Sorkin suggested there aren’t an Asian movie stars, closing out a banner week for the increasingly besieged writer (see below). There are, doubtlessly, many more such emails to be discovered amongst the leaked dump to date, but the short version is, Sony is clearly as dysfunctional as you might have suspected.

The Takeaway: As much as everyone is upset by the more outrageous things said in the emails, it’s worth pointing out that Sony shouldn’t be singled out as the one studio where all the bad people work. It’s simply the one studio that’s been unfortunate enough to have its private correspondence leaked so that we know these conversations are taking place.

The Newsroom Goes Out With The Wrong Kind Of Bang

What Happened: An episode of Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series provoked a lot of response from viewers—and from one former member of the show’s writing staff.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, media thinkpieces, blogs

What Really Happened: In addition to a part in the embarrassing Sony leak, Sorkin got into more hot water this week after “On Shenandoah,” the latest (and penultimate) episode of The Newsroom, aired and featured a plotline about an alleged rape on a college campus.

The Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg wrote that the show had become “the sourest, most staid series on television,” while Time’s James Poniewozik called the installment “a terrible episode even by the standards of the series’ earlier, most terrible ones.” The Atlantic’s David Sims described it as “the kind of down-in-flames wreck that sets the Internet to red alert,” and judging by the pushback on social media, he wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t just those outside the show who took exception to it, however; Alena Smith, who’d been on the writing staff for the show this year, took to Twitter to share her experience of the writing of the episode, saying, “So when I tried to argue, in the writers’ room, that we maybe skip the storyline where a rape victim gets interrogated by a random man I ended up getting kicked out of the room and screamed at…” (She later deleted the tweets.)

Sorkin released a statement in response to Smith’s comments, in which he characterized the writers room response as “passionate debate,” and wrote, “I heard Alena’s objections and there was some healthy back and forth. After a while I needed to move on (there’s a clock ticking) but Alena wasn’t ready to do that yet. I gave her more time but then I really needed to move on. Alena still wouldn’t do that so I excused her from the room.” Elsewhere in the statement, he said that Smith gave the final scene “her enthusiastic support,” and said he was surprised “she had so casually violated the most important rule of working in a writers room which is confidentiality … I’m saddened that she’s broken that trust.”

Speaking at a public event later, Sorkin would go on to suggest that people’s problems with the episode were born of specific animosity against him personally, saying that if he’d written the series “under a pseudonym, the reaction would’ve been different.”

The Takeaway: Saying “Aaron Sorkin needs an editor” sounds like the setup for a joke, considering his renowned verbosity. Given the episode itself—which seemed curmudgeonly and self-righteous even to Sorkin fans—and his response to the subsequent criticism, maybe it would be better to say that he needs a handler. Or, you know, a long, long break to reflect on some stuff.

How To Get Away With Humbly Accepting Awards

What Happened: The creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder was given the Hollywood Reporter’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, and went on to quote Beyoncé in front of an appreciative crowd.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs

What Really Happened: Shonda Rhimes received the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award during this week’s Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment Breakfast, in recognition of her work and, in her speech accepting the award, proved once again why she is worthy of our adoration. “Getting an award today because I’m a woman and an African-American feels … I was born with an awesome vagina and really gorgeous brown skin,” she said at one point. “I didn’t do anything to make either of those things happen. To get all Beyoncé about it, people: ‘I woke up like this.'”

Later, she suggested that she didn’t deserve the award. “I have not broken through any glass ceilings,” she said. “If I had broken through any glass ceilings, I would know. If I had broken through a glass ceiling, I would have felt some cuts, I would have some bruises. There’d be shards of glass in my hair. I’d be bleeding, I’d have wounds.” Instead, she argued, she was simply building on the work of her forerunners. “My sisters who went before me had already handled it,” she said. “I just hit at exactly the right time in exactly the right spot.”

The Takeaway: Rhimes’ speech went viral, as expected, thanks to the good humor and humility on display. In a week when the fickle, brittle side of the entertainment industry was on full display, it provided a welcome reminder of the other side.

Justin Bieber Bleaches His Hair, Internet Explodes

What Happened: Continuing the impressively-lengthy trend of being as famous for his hair as for anything else in his life, Canadian pop moppet Bieber went public with his new peroxided ‘do this week. It turns out, a lot of people cared.

Where It Blew Up: Twitter, blogs, media thinkpieces

What Really Happened: Justin Bieber dyed his hair and the Internet was, surprisingly, very interested to know why. Beyond the obvious Twitter backlash (sample tweet: “Justin Bieber’s new blond hair makes him look like Screech, the time he wore a blond wig & pretended to be Zack to trick Penny Belding, no?”), websites asked the important questions: Did he do it to look like Miley Cyrus? Was he channeling his inner-Eminem? (Oh God, please no.) Was he trying to get Selina Gomez’s attention? (If so, it didn’t seem to work.) Perhaps he was merely trying to point the way for his entire gender; the sight of a blonde Bieber prompted the Daily Telegraph newspaper to suggest “every man should experiment with his hair,” which is just mean for those of us who are bald.

The Takeaway: Sometimes, the Internet has too much time on its hands.

Stan Lee’s Surprise Scene in Big Hero 6 Almost Didn’t Happen

Chris Williams, co-director of Big Hero 6. courtesy Walt Disney Animation Studios

Disney’s new hit film Big Hero 6 , loosely based on the Marvel comic of the same name, features a charming post-credits appearance by none other than Stan Lee. The film’s directors Don Hall and Chris Williams had long discussed creating such a “button” for their movie, but weren’t sure they could spare the time or resources to produce one. The notion took on greater urgency, however, when the pair attended opening-night screenings of Guardians of the Galaxy , and saw how the audience remained glued to their seats during the credits, waiting for that final scene.

“That Monday morning we basically ran toward each other and we were like, ‘We’ve got a problem,'” says Williams in Episode 128 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “Because yes, it’s a Disney film, but everyone knows there’s a Marvel connection. So what if people sit and wait through the credits, and there’s nothing?”

Williams hastily storyboarded the button, and together he and Hall recruited a small team within Disney who could produce the scene without alerting the rest of the crew, whom they were hoping to surprise. This involved secret meetings, secret knocks, and secret folders on the company network. It also meant recording Stan Lee’s lines at an off-site studio. But Hall and Williams discovered to their dismay that the studio could only be reached by climbing a long staircase, a task they were reluctant to inflict upon the 91-year-old Lee.

“We said, ‘We cannot be responsible for killing Stan Lee,'” says Williams. “Because then we would be marked men.”

Fortunately the ebullient Lee proved to have more than enough energy to climb the stairs and record his lines. The resulting button was added to the film just in time for the movie’s wrap party, where the finished product was screened for the crew for the first time. As the credits ended people began to stand, only to sit back down, whispering with excitement, as the final scene began to play.

“I knew we’d actually kept the secret,” says Williams. “And that was one of the most thrilling moments of the entire production.”

Listen to our complete interview with Chris Williams in Episode 128 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast (above), and check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Chris Williams on the origins of Baymax:

“Don [Hall] had gone off to Carnegie Mellon, I believe, and done a bunch of research. He’d gone to a lot of different robotics schools and things, but he had a real epiphany there where he was introduced to the idea of inflatable robotics. And they did say that it’s something that would have practical applications in the medical field, because, you know, they are what they are, they’re soft and they can’t hurt people, and also they’re not intimidating-looking like robots can sometimes be, and so people are very comfortable with them. And so really a lightbulb went off for Don at that point, and when he came back from that research trip he talked about this idea of an inflatable robot, and for us that was a real ‘hallelujah’ moment, because if you work at Disney animation—and certainly if you work for John Lasseter—and you embark to tell a story that features a robot, he’s going to ask you to put up an image of every iconic robot that’s ever existed in movies or TV shows or anything, and then say, ‘Give me something new.’ … And when Don came back from that trip and he had these sketches and these ideas, we all realized that we’d found a very special version of a robot, and once we had that character, design got resolved pretty quickly.”

Chris Williams on San Fransokyo:

“It came about because the original source material, Big Hero 6, was a Japanese superhero team, and so that’s why that was in our heads. And at the same time, one of the things that we love to do is create new worlds, and so we wanted to be not on our Earth as we know it. And so that got the creative juices flowing, and I think it was Don Hall, the other director, who first conceived of this idea of San Fransokyo—this hybrid, this blending of East and West, of San Francisco and Tokyo—and everyone got really excited about it. It’s cool, it’s different, but one of the things I like most about it is it’s a visual indicator of something that’s very important in the movie, which is this idea of synthesis, of a coming together of things. Because we knew that this movie was going to be a blending of what Disney is and what Marvel is and what the superhero genre is, and this coming together of East and West. And one of the things that I was very mindful of was that even genre-wise we had a melding of two things. We had a superhero origin story but we also had a ‘boy and his dog’ or a ‘boy and his robot’ story, and we had to tell these stories without telling one at the expense of the other—they needed to come together. And so I like that San Fransokyo seems to sort of fit with those other ideas.”

Chris Williams on making nerds cool:

“Working at Disney animation, this is sort of a mecca of nerddom in its own right, and a lot of us grew up spending a lot of time in our bedrooms writing stories and drawing pictures and sort of lost in our own heads, and so I definitely consider myself a nerd, and among nerds. And so the idea of celebrating nerddom certainly comes naturally, I guess. We started from a point where we wanted to have Hiro and his brother both be really intelligent, and we knew that Baymax was going to be designed and built by Hiro’s older brother Tadashi, so we knew we were going to be dealing with really smart characters. So it just naturally made the college setting right for us. And we knew that we wanted to have our heroes not be powered by superpowers or magic or anything like that, it was going to be something that was using technology. … One of the things that is most satisfying is when I hear people say that they saw the movie with their kids, and their kids were excited and inspired, and told their parents they want to go to college, and making that cool, making being smart and curious cool. If we can contribute to that, that’s great.”

Chris Williams on iterating the story:

“There was a scene where Hiro and Baymax fly through the city together. We call that scene ‘First Flight.’ And it’s really dynamic and cinematic, and that’s really let a lot of our departments really show their stuff in that scene—the lighting and layout and everything is just fantastic. And then after that in the movie there’s a very quiet scene between Hiro and Baymax. Initially in the reels that scene didn’t just have Hiro and Baymax on top of the wind turbine, it had the entire team, all six of the Big Hero 6. And it was more of a comedic beat, you know, we wanted to get the team more involved in that part of the movie. And I was convinced that was the right thing to do. I felt we needed to hear the team’s voices again and get them more engaged, and structurally it seemed very sound to me, but when we put the whole movie up, you just felt that there was something missing from Hiro and Baymax’s relationship, and so at that point we looked at that scene again and realized it would be much stronger and serve the movie much better if it was a much quieter and sweeter scene just between Hiro and Baymax. And that was a pretty late change in our schedule, and it ended up being huge. I think it paid huge dividends.”

Chris Williams on Fred’s underwear:

“Because we spend years on these things, we debate everything, and we go into the minutiae, and that line and his exact methodology actually did evolve. I can’t remember what it was, there was a different order of events, for his front-back-inside out and all that. I think we had written a few different versions of it. At one point T.J. Miller, who plays Fred—he’s a master ad libber and he’d come up with some of his own versions of it. I remember at one point even John Lasseter, who goes from being engaged on a macro level to a very micro level at times, gave his point of view on what he thought the line should be. So it did evolve quite a bit. And so I can’t remember exactly when we landed it, but it certainly went through some growing pains.”