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Finding Nemo

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Finding Nemo
Original theatrical poster
Directed byAndrew Stanton
Lee Unkrich
Written byStory:
Andrew Stanton
Screenplay:
Andrew Stanton
Bob Peterson
David Reynolds
Produced byGraham Walters
StarringAlbert Brooks
Ellen DeGeneres
Alexander Gould
Willem Dafoe
Brad Garrett
Allison Janney
Austin Pendleton
Stephen Root
Geoffrey Rush
Nicolas Bird
Erica Beck
LuLu Ebeling
CinematographySharon Calahan
Jeremy Lasky
Edited byDavid Ian Salter
Music byThomas Newman
Robbie Williams (end credits song, "Wax My Cheeks")
Distributed byWalt Disney Pictures
Release dates
United States Canada May 30, 2003
Philippines July 1, 2003
Australia August 27, 2003
United Kingdom October 10, 2003
Running time
104 min
Countries United States
 Australia
 Philippines
LanguageEnglish
Budget$94 million[citation needed]
Box officeDomestic:
$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 27, 2003 and in the UK on 10 October, 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 2-disc DVD on November 4, 2003 in the United States and Canada, in Australia on January 16, 2004, and the UK on February 27, 2004. It went on to become the best selling DVD of all time, with 28 million copies sold.[1] Time magazine listed it #10 as one of the top best 100 films ever made.[2]

Plot

[spoiler] In the beginning of the film Marlin (Albert Brooks), a clownfish, loses his wife, Coral (Elizabeth Perkins), and all but one of his unborn children to a marauding barracuda. He promises that he will never let anything happen to the remaining egg which he names Nemo, because that was one of Coral's favorite names.

Years later, Nemo (Alexander Gould)- born with a deformed fin- begins his first day at school and is frustrated and embarrassed by his overprotective father. This is taken to such an extreme that Nemo deliberately disobeys his father by swimming out into open water. In the process he is captured by a diver, who immediately leaves on a speedboat.

Marlin chases after the speedboat, but soon loses it. Asking for directions, he meets Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang with "short-term memory loss". She helps him find out Nemo has been taken to Sydney and the two of them travel there on the East Australian Current. During their time together Dory teaches Marlin to be more carefree.

Meanwhile Nemo is placed in a fish tank in a dentist surgeon's office. He discovers that he is to be the birthday present of the dentist's niece Darla (LuLu Ebeling) who is "a fish killer" according to the other fish in the tank. It appears that she simply gets over-excited and shakes the fish bag too much. Gil (Willem Dafoe), one of the fish in the tank, proposes an escape plan involving Nemo jamming the filter in the tanks, which Nemo attempts, but initially fails at.

Meanwhile, Marlin and Dory encounter several adventures during the journey. On the way, Marlin meets fish-friendly sharks, escapes an anglerfish, charges through a school of jellyfish, travels with sea turtles on the East Australian Current and gets swallowed by a whale. The tale tavels faster than Marlin by way of gossip among the sea creatures and eventually Nemo hears it from Nigel a brown pelican (Geoffrey Rush) who occasionally comes to visit the fish in the tank. Upon hearing all of his Dads adventures, Nemo is inspired to attempt to jam the filter again. This time he is successful. The tank begins to "get really really dirty." At this point in Gil's plan, the dentist would take the fish out of the tank and into small plastic bags. The fish would then roll out the window, onto an awning, across the street and into the convienently situated harbour. However, the dentist installs a laser filter which cleans the tank while the fish are sleeping.

Marlin and Dory meet Nigel who agrees to take them to the dentists office. While they are en route, the dentist puts Nemo in a bag to give to his niece, but Nemo gets the idea to pretend to be dead so that the dentist will flush him down the toilet, which will take Nemo to the ocean. Marlin, Dory and Nigel arrive at the office and, seeing Nemo dead, believe that it is true. Gil saves Nemo from getting thrown in the trash can instead of the toilet, and helps Nemo escape via the dentist's sink.

Marlin and Nemo find later find each other, but moments later they find that Dory is caught in a fishing net. Nemo has a plan to save her but Marlin is reluctant to let him go for fear he will lose him again. Marlin realizes he must let him go and Nemo's plan succeeds. They return home and Nemo leaves for school with Marlin telling him to "go have an adventure".

As epilogue, the fishes in the dentist's fish tank are shown to succeed—after a fashion—in their last escape attempt. However they are still in their plastic bags, floating in the water. In the credit it is shown they have left their bags.

Production

The movie was dedicated to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar Animator who died of melanoma in October 2002, seven months before the film was released.

Characters

See List of Finding Nemo characters

Reception

Finding Nemo set a record as the highest grossing opening weekend for an animated feature, making $70 million (surpassed in 2007 by Shrek the Third). With a total domestic gross of $339.7 million, Nemo was, for a time, the highest grossing animated film of all time, eclipsing the record set by The Lion King. However, about a year later, 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 worldwide.

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 that saltwater aquariums are notably tricky and expensive to maintain.[3] As of 2004, in Vanuatu, clownfish were being caught on a large scale for sale as pets, motivated by the demand.[4]

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, ending up in the sea.) Since water typically undergoes treatment before leading to the ocean, the JWC Environmental company quipped that a more realistic title for the movie might be Grinding Nemo.[5] However, in 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.)[6] Additionally, according to the DVD, there was a cut sequence with Nemo going through a treatment plant's mechanisms before ending up in the ocean pipes.

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. [1][7] Queensland, Australia also used Finding Nemo to draw tourists to promote its state for vacationers.[8]

File:Pierrot and nemo.JPG
The similarities between the two creations sparked a long and expensive lawsuit between Pierrot author Franck Le Calvez and Walt Disney Pictures.

In late 2003, the French children's book author Franck Le Calvez was angered by 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.[9] Franck Le Calvez and his lawyer, Pascal Kamina, demanded from Disney a share of the profits from merchandising articles sold in France. In March 2004, Le Calvez and Kamina lost the lawsuit.[10] Two years later, in February 2005, a New Jersey dentist named Dennis G. Sternberg filed suit against Disney/Pixar, alleging they had plagiarised his concept for a film entitled Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish, which he had discussed with Andrew Stanton in the 1990s.[11] Sternberg soon dropped the lawsuit, saying he could not afford to lose.

Awards

The film received many awards, including:

Finding Nemo was also nominated for:

Finding Nemo - The Musical

File:NemoTurtle.jpg
Larger-than-life puppets in a scene from the stage adaptation of Finding Nemo at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

The stage musical Tarzan Rocks! occupied the Theater in the Wild at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida from 1999 to 2006. When, in January 2006, it closed, it was rumored that a musical adaptation of Finding Nemo would replace it.[12] This was confirmed in April 2006, when Disney announced that the adaptation, with new songs written by Tony Award-winning Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, would "combine puppets, dancers, acrobats and animated backdrops" and open in late 2006.[13] Tony Award-winning director Peter Brosius signed on to direct the show, with Michael Curry, who designed puppets for Disney's successful stage version of The Lion King, serving as leading puppet and production designer.

Anderson-Lopez said that the couple agreed to write the adaptation of "one of their favorite movies of all time" after considering "[T]he idea of people coming in [to see the musical] at 4, 5 or 6 and saying, 'I want to do that'....So we want to take it as seriously as we would a Broadway show."[14] To condense the feature-length film to thirty minutes, she said she and Lopez focused on a single theme from the movie, the idea that "The world's dangerous and beautiful."[14]

The half-hour show (which is performed four times daily) went into previews at the Theater in the Wild on November 5, 2006, and opened on January 24, 2007. Several musical numbers took direct inspiration from lines in the film, including "(In The) Big Blue World," "Fish Are Friends, Not Food," "Just Keep Swimming," and "Go With the Flow." In January 2007, a New York studio recording of the show was released on iTunes, with Lopez and Anderson-Lopez providing the voices for Marlin and Dory, respectively. Avenue Q star Stephanie D'Abruzzo also appeared on the recording, as Sheldon/Deb.

It is unknown whether the show will be expanded and transfer to Broadway, though Walt Disney Parks & Resorts executive Ann Hamburger has said that "she would love for that to happen."[14] Nemo is notable for being the first non-musical animated film to which Disney has added songs to produce a stage musical.

Attractions

Cameo appearances

  • During the preview of the escape plan, the Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story drives past.
  • During the closing credits, Mike Wazowski of Pixar's Monsters, Inc. snorkels by.
  • A boy in the dentist's waiting room is reading a Mr. Incredible comic book.
  • The dentist office waiting room includes a Buzz Lightyear toy on the floor.

See also

References

  1. ^ Snider, Mike (2005-01-05). "DVD continues spinning success". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-03-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ http://www.time.com/time/2005/100movies/the_complete_list.html
  3. ^ Jackson, Elizabeth (29 November 2003). "Acquiring Nemo". The Business Report. Retrieved 2006-11-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Corcoran, Mark (9 November 2004). "Vanuatu - Saving Nemo". ABC Foreign Correspondent. Retrieved 2006-10-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Company Warns of 'Grinding Nemo', FoxNews.com/AP, 2003-06-06.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ Mitchell, Peter (3 June, 2003). "Nemo-led recovery hope". The Age. Retrieved 2006-10-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ Dennis, Anthony (11 August, 2003). "Sydney ignores Nemo". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2006-10-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ 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)
  10. ^ "Author loses against Disney's 'Nemo'". USA Today/AP. 2004-03-15. Retrieved 2007-03-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "NJ diving dentist says 'Nemo' film was his idea" (reprint). Newsday. 2005-02-16. Retrieved 2007-03-21. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ Finding Nemo - The Musical, Walt Disney World Magic.
  13. ^ Hernandez, Ernio. "Avenue Q Composer Lopez Co-Pens Musical Finding Nemo for Disney," Playbill.com (2006-04-10).
  14. ^ a b c Maupin, Elizabeth (2006-11-26). "Swimming with big fish". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 2007-03-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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