Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo is a computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released to theatres on May 30, 2003 by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution.

Finding Nemo set a record as the highest grossing opening weekend for an animated feature, making $70 million (surpassed in 2004 by Shrek 2). It was, for a time, the highest grossing animated film of all time, eclipsing the record set by The Lion King. (In less than four weeks of the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, it surpassed Finding Nemo's domestic gross.) By March 2004, Finding Nemo was one of the top ten highest-grossing films ever, having earned over US$850 million. The film received an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2004. The film also received a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award in 2004 for favorite movie.

The title character's name alludes to Captain Nemo, the submarine captain in two of Jules Verne's novels: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island.

The movie was released on a two-disc DVD on November 4, 2003.

Plot

The film tells the story of a widowed clownfish named Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks). Because of an incident that killed his wife Coral and all their children except Nemo, Marlin is an overprotective and restrictive father to his only son. Because of this, Nemo ventures out into open water to prove to his father that it is safe to do so. Marlin, in this case, was correct, as Nemo is scooped up and taken to an aquarium in a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia. Thus it is up to Marlin and his newfound guide, Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang fish suffering short-term memory loss, to bring Nemo back.

Marlin is forced to venture into an unknown and dangerous world which he never dreamed of entering. Dory helps Marlin realize he has been too restrictive on his son and must make amends. Nemo, meanwhile, gets involved in a plot with the other fish in the aquarium to escape from the dentist's office and return to the ocean.

Performers and Characters

• Albert Brooks - Marlin
• Ellen DeGeneres - Dory
• Alexander Gould - Nemo
• Willem Dafoe - Gill
• Brad Garrett - Bloat
• Allison Janney - Peach
• Austin Pendleton - Gurgle
• Stephen Root - Bubbles
• Vicki Lewis - Deb/Flo
• Joe Ranft - Jacques
• Geoffrey Rush - Nigel
• Andrew Stanton - Crush
• Elizabeth Perkins - Coral
• Nicholas Bird - Squirt
• Bob Peterson - Mr. Ray
• Barry Humphries - Bruce
• Eric Bana - Anchor
• Bruce Spence - Chum
• Bill Hunter - Phillip Sherman, the Dentist
• Lulu Eberling - Darla, Sherman's niece
• Jordy Ranft - Tad
• Erika Beck - Pearl
• Erik Per Sullivan - Sheldon
• John Ratzenberger - School of Moonfish
• Rove McManus - Crab
• Andrew Stanton - Seagulls

Other characters

(all voices unknown)

• Sandy Plankton - a classmate of Nemo
• Jimmy - one of Mr. Ray's students who utters "Oh my gosh! Nemo's swimming out to sea!"
• Bob - Sheldon's father
• Ted - Pearl's father
• Bill - Tad's father
• Barracuda - the fish that killed most of Marlin's family
• Beanie - the timid fish Anchor brings to the meeting
• Barbara - P. Sherman's secretary
• Anglerfish - the "monster" of the sea
• Chuckles - Darla's first fish; killed by Darla
• Mr. Turtle - Crush's father and Squirt's grandfather
• Gerald - Nigel's clumsy friend
• Dolphins, lobsters, and swordfish - spread the word about Nemo
• Davy Reynolds - one of P. Sherman's favorite patients (a take on David Reynolds, one of the writers of the movie)
• Mike Wazowski (of Monsters Inc.) - cameo appearance

Other Voices

(all characters played unknown)

• Caroline Kindred
• Jeff Pidgeon
• Jessie Flower
• Aaron Fors
• Leland Grossman
• Bradley Trevor Greive
• Jess Harnell
• Marc John Jefferies

Wider effects of the film

The film's prominent use of clownfish prompted mass purchase of the animals for children's pets in the United States (even though the movie portrayed the use of fish as pets negatively). At the same time, the film had a central theme that "all drains lead back to the ocean." (A main character escapes from imprisonment by going down a sink drain and ending up in the sea.) This allegedly caused many children to flush their living fish down toilets in imitation of the picture. Major sewage companies teamed with Disney to release press statements that attempted to address the situation with humor. "Although all drains DO lead to water," they read, "said water always passes through a turbine before leading to the ocean. As such, in real life the film would more accurately be titled 'Grinding Nemo'" [1] (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/06/05/state2022EDT0148.DTL).

French children's book author Franck Le Calvez sued Disney, claiming that the story and the characters were stolen from his book Pierrot Le Poisson-Clown (Pierrot the Clownfish). The idea of Pierrot was protected in 1995 and the book was released in France in November 2002. Franck Le Calvez and his lawyer, Pascal Kamina, demanded from Disney a share of the profits from merchandising articles sold in France. Le Calvez and Kamina lost the lawsuit on March 12, 2004, but intend to file an appeal on October 5.

Fish featured in the film

The following species feature prominently in the film

• Marlin, Coral, and Nemo: Clownfish
• Dory: Regal Tang, Blue Tang, or Blue Hippo
• Bruce: Great White Shark
• Chum: Mako Shark
• Anchor: Hammerhead Shark
• Crush and Squirt: Sea Turtle
• "Monster": Anglerfish
• Nigel and Gerald: Brown Pelican

In the tank

• Gill: Moorish Idol
• Bloat: Pufferfish
• Bubbles: Yellow Tang
• Deb: Four-Stripe Damselfish
• Gurgle: Royal Gramma Basslet
• Jacques: Cleaner Shrimp
• Peach: Starfish

The Class

• Mr. Ray: Spotted Eagle Ray
• Tad and Bill: Tropical Fish
• Pearl: Flapjack Octopus
• Ted: Octopus
• Sheldon and Bob: Seahorse

Cultural references

As usual for Pixar movies, it is packed with subtle references and sight gags:

• Mr. Ray sings a song, "The Zones of the Open Sea" (about the different biological regions of the ocean), which is a pastiche of Tom Lehrer's periodic table song.
• Mount Wannahockaloogie ("wanna hawk a loogie") is the "mountain" in the dentist's aquarium. "Hawk a loogie" is American slang for expectoration, a common occurrence in a dentist's office. When Nemo jumps through the "Ring of Fire" at the summit of Mount Wannahockaloogie, he earns himself the new name Sharkbait.
• The obligatory A113 inside joke: the scuba diver who briefly blinds Marlin uses a camera with model code "A-113".
• There are two nods to director Alfred Hitchcock:
  • The overhead shot of the seagulls gathering to dive for Marlin and Dory stylistically echoes a similar gull scene in The Birds.
  • In the dentist's office, two shots of dangerous brat Darla's face are accompanied by the shrieking violin chords from the shower scene in Psycho.
• The dentist's office has a picture of "Motif Number 1" hanging on the wall, a tribute by director Andrew Stanton to his hometown of Rockport, Massachusetts.
  • Another nod to Stanton's roots: When the story of Marlin's journey is being spread throughout the ocean, one of the creatures telling the tale is a lobster with a Boston accent who uses the common local adjective, wicked. ("It's wicked dahk down there, you can't see a thing...") Not surprisingly, this lobster was voiced by Stanton himself.
• Two of Dory's several misnamings of Nemo are "Chico" and "Harpo," references to the Marx Brothers.
• One of the toys that can be seen in the dentist's office is a Buzz Lightyear action figure. There is also a Mister Incredible comic book based on the then-forthcoming Pixar movie The Incredibles.
• The great white shark's name is Bruce, which is also the name given to the mechanical shark used to film the movie Jaws. Bruce speaks with an Australian accent, so he is also likely a reference to a Monty Python sketch about a group of Australian college professors, all of whom are named Bruce.
• In the scene where Bruce tries to eat Dory/Marlin, Bruce says "Here's Brucie!" after popping through the door, in a reference to Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining.