Finding Nemo
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| Finding Nemo | |
|---|---|
 Promotional Poster For Finding Nemo | |
| Directed by | Andrew Stanton Lee Unkrich (co-director) |
| Written by | Andrew Stanton (story/script) Bob Peterson (script) David Reynolds (script) |
| Produced by | Graham Walters |
| Starring | Alexander Gould Albert Brooks Ellen DeGeneres Willem Dafoe Brad Garrett Allison Janney Austin Pendleton Stephen Root Vicki Lewis Joe Ranft Nicholas Bird Andrew Stanton Bob Peterson Eric Bana Bruce Spence Elizabeth Perkins |
| Cinematography | Sharon Calahan Jeremy Lasky |
| Edited by | David Ian Salter |
| Music by | Thomas Newman |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Pictures |
Release dates | May 30, 2003 |
Running time | 100 min |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $94 million |
| Box office | Domestic: $339,714,978 Worldwide: $864,625,978 |
Finding Nemo is an Academy Award-winning computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released to theaters by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. It was released in the United States/Canada on May 30, 2003, in Australia on August 28, 2003, and in the UK on October 10, 2003. The movie is the fifth Disney/Pixar feature film and the first to be released during the summer season.
The movie was released on a two-disc DVD on November 4, 2003 in the United States and Canada, and in Australia on January 16, 2004. It went on to become the best selling DVD of all time at 28 million copies sold.[1]
Plot
Marlin (Albert Brooks) is a widowed clownfish who lives on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia [2] with his son Nemo (Alexander Gould}, who has a fin smaller than the other (his "lucky fin"). After losing his wife Coral (Elizabeth Perkins) and all his children except Nemo to a barracuda, Marlin is now an overbearing, almost agoraphobic parent who tries his best to keep Nemo safe from every danger that the ocean offers.
On Nemo's first day of school, Marlin is horrified to learn that the class is going to the edge of the reef, the place where the barracuda attack took place. He follows and insists that Nemo is not ready for school yet. Nemo, tired of his father's overprotection, swims out to a boat anchored off the edge of the reef and touches it, on a dare from his friends. Nemo is caught in a scuba diving dentist's net, the boat speeds away, and Marlin swims after it in vain.
Marlin bumps into Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang who suffers from short-term memory loss and who claims she saw the boat Marlin is chasing. Meanwhile, Nemo has been put in an aquarium in a dentist's office in Sydney where he meets several other fish and Nigel (Geoffrey Rush the pelican. Nemo is horrified to learn that the dentist intends to give Nemo to his niece Darla, who has a reputation for killing her pet fish.
With some difficulty, Dory and Marlin find the dentist's diving mask, which has his address written on it. Dory memorizes the address and leads Marlin to Sydney, Australia, meeting many different fish and joining a group of sea turtles in the East Australian Current on the way.
Meanwhile Nemo and his co-inhabitants in the dentists' tank formulate a plan to escape, which involves stopping the tank's filter. The next morning the escape plan is foiled and the dentist puts Nemo in a bag to give to Darla, who arrives accompanied by the "slash" music from Psycho.
Marlin and Dory, who are still searching the harbor for the dentist's boat, are suddenly attacked by a pelican but are rescued by Nigel. He shakes off a flock of seagulls (voiced by Andrew Stanton} and takes Marlin and Dory to the dentist.
Nemo pretends to be dead so that he will be flushed down the toilet and into the ocean. Nigel flies into the dentist's office and in the resulting bedlam, Marlin sees Nemo belly up and fears the worst. After the dentist forces Nigel out the window, Gill, one of the aquarium fish, manages to get Nemo down the drain of the chair-side sink, and Nemo makes his escape.
Nigel leaves Marling and Dory at the edge of Sydney Harbour, and Marlin swims away, leaving behind a crestfallen Dory. Nemo, after following the drains to the ocean and escaping a sewage pipe, finds Dory, who eventually recognizes his name and reunites him with Marlin. After nearly being swept up in a giant net full of trout, the trio return to the reef.
Box office
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. However, in less than four weeks of release, Shrek 2 surpassed Finding Nemo's domestic gross. By March 2004, Finding Nemo was one of the top ten highest-grossing films ever, having earned over $850 million US.
Totals
- Budget: $90,000,000
- Opening Weekend Gross (Domestic): $70,251,710
- Total Domestic Grosses: $339,714,978
- Total Overseas Grosses: $524,911,000
- Total Worldwide Grosses: $864,625,978
Voice actors and characters
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Additional voices provided by Jeff Pidgeon, Jessie Flower, Aaron Fors, Leland Grossman, Bradley Trevor Greive, Jess Harnell and Marc John Jefferies
Wider effects
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 and saltwater aquariums are notably tricky and expensive to maintain.[1] As of 2004, in Vanuatu, clownfish were being caught on a large scale for sale as pets, motivated by the demand.[2]
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, "water always passes through a turbine before leading to the ocean."[citation needed] Of course, in the case of Sydney, much of the sewer system does pass directly to outfall pipes deep offshore, without a high level of treatment (although pumping and some filtering occurs).[3]
The 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. [4] [3] 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 intended to file an appeal on October 5. [citation needed]
Tourism in Australia strongly increased during the summer and autumn of 2003, with many tourists wanting to swim off the coast of Eastern Australia to "find Nemo." [citation needed] The Australian Tourism Commission (ATC) launched several marketing campaigns in China and the USA in order to improve tourism in Australia many of them using Finding Nemo movie clips. [4] [5] Queensland, Australia also used Finding Nemo to draw tourists to promote its state for vacationers. [6]
Inaccuracies
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- Female clownfish are bigger than the males.
- The cleaner shrimp is the best food for a pufferfish and thus would not be good tankmates.
- A whale's blowhole is not connected to its mouth.
- Though several scenes are set near Sydney, Australia, the seagulls and pelicans depicted are of the wrong species. The Silver Gull common in the region has a red bill (not the yellow bills of the gulls in the film); Nigel and Gerald are given the coloration of a Brown Pelican with an orange bill, but the actual Australian Pelican is black and white with a pink bill.
- The address of the dentist's clinic is given as being in Circular Quay, Sydney, which is on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour. However, the view from the window (towards the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge) would instead place it on the northern shore, near Kirribilli.
Awards
The film received many awards, including:
- An Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
- Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards for Favorite Movie and Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie, Ellen Degeneres.
- Saturn Awards for Best Animated Film and Best Supporting Actress, Ellen Degeneres
- Seven different Annie Awards in multiple categories
Finding Nemo was also nominated for:
- Three additional Academy Awards (Original screenplay, Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson and David Reynolds; Achievement In Music Written For Motion Pictures (Original Score); Achievement In Sound Editing)
- Three additional Saturn Awards
- Three additional Annie Awards
- A BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay
- A Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
- Two MTV Movie Awards
Sequel
Since the great box office response to Finding Nemo in 2003 there have been rumors about a sequel. Now that Disney has purchased Pixar, there will likely be additional pressure from Disney for a Finding Nemo 2; however, one aspect of the merger agreement was that Pixar would be given back the rights to determine which of the Disney/Pixar films released to date would be made into a sequel. Pixar would also be tasked with creative responsibilty and control for the making of any and all sequels.
Circle 7 Animation, an in-house CGI production house started at Disney largely to create Disney sequels to Pixar movies, was disbanded shortly after the merger was announced. No substantive information is available as of October 2006. [5]
Finding Nemo - The Musical
- Finding Nemo - The Musical opened 12 November, 2006 in the Theater in the Wild at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World.
- Composer/lyricists Robert Lopez (2004 Tony Award for Avenue Q) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
- Director, Peter Brosius, (artistic director of The Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis, winner of the 2003 Regional Theatre Tony Award.) The Broadway "A Year With Frog and Toad," nominated for the Best Musical Tony Award, originated at Children's Theatre Company.
- Production combines dancers, acrobats, animated backdrops. and theatrical puppetry of Michael Curry, who designed the richly detailed character puppets seen in the Broadway version of Disney's The Lion King
- Set Design by George W. Mercier
- Projection/Video Design by Jan Hartley
- Costume Design by Helen Huang
- Lighting Design by Beverly Emmons [7 Tony Award Nominations]
- Marlin, Dory and Nemo are depicted by actors holding larger than life puppets while other characters utilize a number of puppetry styles.
- Finding Nemo is produced for Walt Disney World Resort by Disney Creative Entertainment ( other productions around the world, include "Disney's Aladdin" (at Disneyland Resort in California), "The Lion King" (at Hong Kong Disneyland), "Twice Charmed" (on the Disney Cruise Line), and "The Golden Mickeys" (at Hong Kong Disneyland and on the Disney Cruise Line).
- Musical numbers include: "(In The) Big Blue World", "Fish Are Friends, Not Food", "We Swim Together", "Where's My Dad?", "Just Keep Swimming" and "Go With the Flow".
Cultural references
In Finding Nemo
As usual with Pixar movies, Finding Nemo has many subtle references and sight gags.
- 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 (which was also released by Walt Disney in 1954) and The Mysterious Island.
- During the scene with Marlin, Dory, and the school of fish, when the fish turn into the ship, they say "oh, it's a whale of a tale, I'll tell you lad...," a reference to the Walt Disney film adaptation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
- PeTA has a reference in which "Fish are friends, NOT food." is stated.
- Mr. Ray sings a song, The Zones of the Open Sea (about the different biological regions of the ocean), which is a pastiche of Gilbert and Sullivan's Major General's Song.
- Mount Wannahockaloogie ("wanna hock a loogie") is the "mountain" in the dentist's aquarium. "Hock a loogie" is American slang for expectoration, a common occurrence in a dentist's office.
- 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 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.
- While Marlin and Dory are in a whale, Marlin calls the whale Moby, a reference to Moby Dick.
- 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..."). Unsurprisingly, this lobster was voiced by Stanton himself.
- Two of Dory's several misnamings of Nemo are "Chico" and "Harpo," references to the Marx Brothers. She also calls him "Elmo", the name of a popular Sesame Street character and St. Elmo the patron of sailors, and "Fabio," likely in reference to Fabio Lanzoni, the Italian male model.
- The first patient seen in the dentist's office is a Mr. Tucker. Tucker was the last name of a member of the storyboard team.
- Recurring use of the number 42, such as in P. Sherman's address ("42 Wallaby Way, Sydney") and the time it takes the dentist to use the restroom (4.2 minutes), is likely a reference to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, in which the number 42 is supposedly the answer to the question of "Life, the Universe and Everything".
- The Great White Shark's name is Bruce, which may be a reference to the name given to the mechanical shark used to film the movie Jaws supposedly named after Steven Spielberg's lawyer. The writers were also aware that Barry Bruce, an Australian shark researcher with CSIRO, was radio tagging white sharks. Alternatively, Bruce may just be considered to be a stereotypically Australian name. The name 'Bruce' may also be a reference to the sketch in Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, entitled Bruces' Philosophers Song, in which Eric Idle and other Python members portrayed staff of the University of Woolloomooloo's philosophy department who all called each other 'Bruce' in over-exaggerated Australian accents.
- Bruce the shark has a scar on his nose in the shape of a four, this is a tribute to JAWS for which they made three mechanical sharks all named Bruce. This makes the shark in Finding Nemo the fourth Bruce.
- Several references to Monty Python's Flying Circus:
- The krill and Bruce shouting "Swim away!" during various scenes is a reference to the recurring line "Run away" in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- Marlin forbidding Dory to sing is reminiscent of a scene in the Swamp Castle of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- In the scene where Bruce tries to eat the protagonists, Bruce says "Here's Brucie!" with his face showing through the door, alluding to Jack Nicholson's "Here's Johnny!" line in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining.
- "Hop inside my mouth, if you want to live" is a reference to The Terminator series - it is used, in both Finding Nemo and The Terminator series, where a seemingly dangerous character is actually an ally.
- A notable portion of the production crew were Filipino, and the name "P. Sherman" was chosen because it sounds like how one with a Filipino accent would say the word "fisherman."[verification needed]
- The scene where Nemo defies his father and touches the bottom of the boat as Marlin continually warns him to stop is arguably reminiscent of the ice cream scene in Kramer vs. Kramer.
- In the sunken submarine wreck, Dory sees an escape hatch with the word ESCAPE on it and says: "Esscoppay...looks like the word escape!" Dory's initial pronunciation of escape is really the Spanish pronunciation of escape.
- The seagull calls have been confirmed to be "Mine! Mine!" but many audiences hear them as saying "Mate!" in an exaggerated Australian accent.
To other Pixar films
There are several references to previous and forthcoming Pixar films.
- One of the toys that can be seen in the dentist's office is a Buzz Lightyear action figure from Toy Story.
- During Gill's outline of the escape plan:
- An M is for Monsters book is lying on the table, an obvious reference to Monsters, Inc..
- In the dentist room, an art project is featured hanging from the ceiling. This same handmade art piece is in Monsters, Inc., as it is made by the character Boo, and gets stuck to Sully's foot when he exits her room.
- Mike Wazowski, the green one-eyed monster from Monsters, Inc., swims across the screen as the credits roll.
- A patient in the dentist's office is reading a Mister Incredible comic book based on the then-forthcoming Pixar movie The Incredibles.
- The mermaid from "Knick Knack" can be seen on the ship's bow in the fish tank.
- One of the boat names is "For the Birds", a reference to the Pixar short For the Birds.
- There are several objects around the dentist's office, including a small device that says on the bottom, "Engineered by a bunch of Pixar TDs," with the alien from Toy Story next to it; this is a reference to the technical directors who create these objects for the sets. A diploma in the waiting room that shows the alien in the middle says "Pixar High School of Dentistry."
To Finding Nemo
- Pixar's previous film, Monsters, Inc., features three references to Finding Nemo, which was in production at the time of Monsters, Inc.'s release:
- At the Harryhausen's sushi restaurant, on the wall behind the octopus chef is a Finding Nemo wallpaper.
- When Boo is showing Sulley some of her toys, one of them is a Nemo squeaker toy.
- In the film Underclassman, Nick Cannon's character is scuba-diving and comes back up to the surface and says "I think I swallowed Nemo!"
- In a short scene near the start of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Bugs is fishing and says, "Hey, I found Nemo!"
- The movie trailer for Flushed Away includes a scene where the main character Roddy is flushed into the sewer pipes and meets a small fish who asks, "Have you seen my dad?"
- During a scene in The Home Teachers, the main character Greg is trying to stop the flow of an overflowing toilet. He says, "Yeah, find the ocean. Find Nemo."
- The movie was parodied on The Wrong Coast as the animated version of The Search For Spock titled Finding Nemoy.
- On the Food Network television show Ham on the Street, George Duran, after accidentally making dumplings that look like fish, he exclaims, "They're like edible Nemos!"
- In 2005, the movie was alluded to in the TV series Lost. One of the characters in the show, Shannon, is asked to translate some notes that are written in French. She later recognizes some of the notes as lyrics from a song played in the credits of a "cartoon fish movie." The song is Charles Trenet's "La Mer", the French original of Bobby Darin's classic "Beyond The Sea." She then proceeds to sing the song, confirming the connection, although she only refers to it as "the fish song" from that point on.
- In 2006, the film was also mentioned on House when a seemingly overprotective mother explained that she knew that her sickly daughter needed to have some freedoms — "I need to loosen up... I saw Finding Nemo, I get it, I don't need another story," she quipped in frustration. Several episodes later, House made another reference to the movie, explaining that a little girl had gratification disorder by saying she was "marching the penguin... ya-yaing the sisterhood... finding Nemo."
- In an episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, when Jimmy is looking at a list of the greatest films in the universe, a scene from Finding Nemo can be heard.
- At the beginning of Brother Bear, during Great Spirits, when the mammoth, which Kenai rides on, knocks all the fish down with its trunk, you see Nemo. [7]
- In the Simpsons episode "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner" one of the movies on the list of movies currently showing is called "Eating Nemo".
- In an episode of Desperate Housewives, Tom Scavo wants to be romantic with Lynette Scavo. He comes down the stairs saying "We have exactly 40 minutes before the boys actually find Nemo"
Trivia
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- Finding Nemo was originally to be released in November 2002. [citation needed]
- The tikis in the tank are caricatures of three Pixar employees. The employees are Peter Sohn, Nelson Bohol and Ricky Nierva, who are responsible for character and art design.
- This film was the first Pixar film to have a advisory warning put on its G rating in Australia, which said "Some scenes may frighten young children." [citation needed] This is obviously referring to Dory and Marlin's encounter with the hideous deep-sea anglerfish and Bruce the Shark's feeding frenzy. [citation needed]
- The movie was dedicated to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar Animator who died of Melanoma in October 2002.
- The royal gramma in the tank, Gurgle, is not actually addressed by name in the film script. The name of this character was worked out by fans though a process of elimination of the character list in the movie credits.
- The face of Gill was specifically designed to resemble Willem Dafoe who provided the voice.
- The small hut in the fish tank wherein Nemo sleeps in is called a "kubo", a nipa hut commonly found in farms and other agricultural areas in the Philippines. The animator of the kubo in the film is a Filipino.
- An internet pictorial joke, which circulated within a year after the film was released, bore the title "They found Nemo" and featured a typical group of sushi rolls with clownfish stripes, and Marlin's head sticking out of the one closest to the top.
- Anchor the hammerhead shark has a mouth where a real hammerhead's neck should be.[citation needed]
- Director Andrew Stanton not only voices Crush, but is credited in "additional voices". Other characters he voices include the flock of seagulls, the lobster, and, if Lee Unkrich is to be believed, a large number of other characters.
- Mount Wannahockaloogie is also a reference to Philippines' Mt. Mayon because some of the animators of the movie were Filipinos. The name refers to the school prank of "hocking a loogie" into a drinking fountain (spitting into the drinking fountain).
- A school of clownfish is always built into a hierarchy with a female fish at the top. When she dies, the most dominant male changes sex and takes her place. Thus Marlin would become Marla in the sequel, if there were one.
Attractions
- Walt Disney World's Epcot: The Seas With Nemo And Friends
- Walt Disney World's Epcot: Turtle Talk with Crush
- Disneyland: Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
- Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom: Finding Nemo - The Musical
Attached short film
The theatrical and video/DVD release of this film includes Knick Knack, a Pixar short made in 1989.
References
- ^ Jackson, Elizabeth (29 November, 2003). "Acquiring Nemo". The Business Report. Retrieved 2006-11-10.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Corcoran, Mark (9 November, 2004). "Vanuatu - Saving Nemo". ABC Foreign Correspondent. Retrieved 2006-10-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Coastal sewage treatment plants operated by Sydney Water". Sydney Water. unknown date. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) North Head and Bondi would be the closest sewage treatment plants to the location of the film. Further explanation of "primary" sewage treatment can be found here. - ^ Willsher, Kim (28 December, 2003). "Disney 'copied my idea for Nemo' claims French author". Telegraph. Retrieved 2006-11-10.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Mitchell, Peter (3 June, 2003). "Nemo-led recovery hope". The Age. Retrieved 2006-10-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Dennis, Anthony (11 August, 2003). "Sydney ignores Nemo". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2006-10-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ http://disney.wretch.cc/Joke/c43.htm
See also
External links
- Articles lacking sources from January 2007
- 2003 films
- Pixar feature films
- Films featuring anthropomorphic characters
- Films about animals
- Fish out of water films
- Best Animated Feature Academy Award winners
- Annie Award winners
- Kids' Choice Awards winners
- American films
- Computer-animated films
- English-language films
- Children's films
- Hugo Award Nominee for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form