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Finding Nemo

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Finding Nemo
Original theatrical poster
Directed byAndrew Stanton co-directed by: Lee Unkrich
Written bystory by: Andrew Stanton screenplay by: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds
Produced byGraham Walters
StarringAlbert Brooks as Marlin
Ellen DeGeneres as Dory
Alexander Gould as Nemo
Willem Dafoe as Gill
Brad Garrett as Bloat
Allison Janney as Peach
Austin Pendleton as Gurgle
Stephen Root as Bubbles
CinematographySharon Calahan
Jeremy Lasky
Edited byDavid Ian Salter
Music byThomas Newman, Robbie Williams
Distributed byWalt Disney Pictures
Release dates
May 30, 2003
Running time
100 min
Country United States
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 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 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]

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould), is a young clownfish who is smothered by his overprotective father, a widower named Marlin (Albert Brooks). When Nemo tries to prove that he doesn't need all this protection, he is captured by a human diver at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef. Marlin desperately swims after the diver's boat into the open ocean but he quickly falls behind. Afraid that he is about to lose his son forever, Marlin asks for help from a number of fish before finally finding one who knows where the boat went: Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a palette surgeonfish who is suffering from short-term memory loss.

Crew

Crew Position
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Co-Directed by Lee Unkrich
Produced by Graham Walters
Executive Producer John Lasseter
Associate Producer Jinko Gotoh
Original Story by Andrew Stanton
Screenplay Andrew Stanton
Bob Peterson
David Reynolds
Music by Thomas Newman
Story Supervisors Ronnie Del Carmen
Dan Jeup
Jason Katz
Film Editor David Ian Salter
Supervising Technical Director Andrew Stanton
Production Designer Ralph Eggleston
Directors of Photography Sharon Calahan
Jeremy Lasky
Supervising Animator Dylan Brown
Art Director Ricky Vega Nierva (Characters)
Robin Cooper (Shading)
Anthony Christov (Environments)
Randy Berrett (Environments)
Computer Graphics Supervisors Brian Green (Characters)
Lisa Forssell (Ocean Unit)
Danielle Feinberg (Ocean Unit)
David Eisenmann (Reef Unit)
Jesse Hollander (Tank Unit)
Steve May (Sharks/Sydney Unit)
Michael Fong (Global Technology)
Anthoyn A. Apodaca (Digital final)
Michael Lorenzen (Schooling/Flocking)
Character Designer Dan Lee
Sound Designer Gary Rydstrom
Production Manager Lindsey Collins

Release and influence

Finding Nemo set a record as the highest grossing opening weekend for an animated feature, making $70 million (surpassed in 2004 by Shrek 2). 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 saltwater aquariums are notably tricky and expensive to maintain.[2] As of 2004, in Vanuatu, clownfish were being caught on a large scale for sale as pets, motivated by the demand.[3]

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.[4] 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.)[5]

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

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 angerd 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.[8] 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.[9] 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.[10] Sternberg soon dropped the lawsuit, saying he could not afford to lose.

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:

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 this 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.[citation needed] Pixar would also be tasked with creative responsibility 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. [2]

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.[11] 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.[12] Tony Award-winning director Peter Brosius signed on to direct the show, with Michael Curry, who designed puppets for Disney's phenomenally 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."[13] 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."[13]

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."[13] Nemo is notable for being the first non-musical animated film to which Disney has added songs to produce a stage musical.

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. Interestingly, Verne's Nemo was an allusion to the Latin nemo, meaning "no one," making the title literally mean Finding No One.
  • 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 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 glissandi 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.
  • 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 dark down there, you can't see a thing. .."). Unsurprisingly, this lobster was voiced by Stanton himself.
  • Crush says "Coo Coo Ca Choo" a possible parody of a line in The Beatles song I am the Walrus
  • 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:
  • 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. (The Nicholson scene in The Shining was an allusion itself, referring to Ed McMahon announcing Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.)
  • 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."[citation 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 one scene, Dory pronounces the word "escape" on a hatch as "ess-CAH-pay", which is the Spanish pronunciation of the word.
  • The seagull calls have been confirmed to be "Mine! Mine!" but many audiences hear them as saying "Mate!" in an exaggerated Australian accent.[citation needed]

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.
  • Just right of the Buzz light year toy is the aircraft that buzz rides on to prove to Woody he can fly in Toy Story, this aircraft also appears in Monsters, inc. and Toy Story 2.
  • One of the cars which flashes by in Gill"s escape plan outline is the Pizza Planet delivery truck from Toy Story.
  • An Early version of the character Luigi from Cars, the then forthcoming pixar film can be seen driving past when the tank gang escapes.
  • 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 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 Randall gets banished from Montropolis you can see a Nemo trophy mounted on the wall.
    • 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, "Well, what do ya know, I found Nemo!"
  • The movie 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 The Incredibles, another Pixar film, very briefly in the family photo you can see that baby Jack-jack is wearing a Nemo napkin.
  • 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.[14]
  • 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"
  • 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.
  • Nemo was seen in Godzilla Final Wars. He attempted to hop away from Zilla with Marlin and Dory but his lucky fin was burned by Zilla's breath in the attack.

Trivia

  • 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 an advisory warning put on its G rating in Australia, which said "Some scenes may frighten young children." [citation needed]
  • The movie was dedicated to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar Animator who died of melanoma in October 2002, seven months before the film was released.
  • 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 through 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 Filipino.
  • Anchor the hammerhead shark has a mouth where a real hammerhead's neck should be.
  • 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 Wannahawkaloogie is also a reference to Philippines' Mt. Mayon because some of the animators of the movie were Filipino.
  • After the credits roll, there's a scene where the small green fish swims in the darkness before a light appears, a few moments later the anglerfish appears out of the dark, only to be eaten by the green fish.
  • Dentist P. Sherman's first name is given as "Pablo" in the musical.
  • The Dentist's real name is Philip Sherman (video/audio commentary)
  • On the floor of the waiting room of the Dentist office there are toys from the movie Toy Story.
  • Nemo, and a park exclusive character called Coral, appear at Epcot of Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, FL, as meetble characters.

Attractions

Attached short film

Main article: Knick Knack

The theatrical and video/DVD release of this film includes Knick Knack, a Pixar short made in 1989.

Trailers

One Pixar tradition is to create trailers for their films that do not contain footage from the released film. Trailers for this film include:

  • Marlin asks a school of fish for directions and Dory scares them away.

References

  1. ^ Snider, Mike (2005-01-05). "DVD continues spinning success". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-03-21.
  2. ^ Jackson, Elizabeth (29 November, 2003). "Acquiring Nemo". The Business Report. Retrieved 2006-11-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Corcoran, Mark (9 November, 2004). "Vanuatu - Saving Nemo". ABC Foreign Correspondent. Retrieved 2006-10-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Company Warns of 'Grinding Nemo', FoxNews.com/AP, 2003-06-06.
  5. ^ "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.
  6. ^ Mitchell, Peter (3 June, 2003). "Nemo-led recovery hope". The Age. Retrieved 2006-10-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Dennis, Anthony (11 August, 2003). "Sydney ignores Nemo". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2006-10-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ 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)
  9. ^ "Author loses against Disney's 'Nemo'". USA Today/AP. 2004-03-15. Retrieved 2007-03-21.
  10. ^ "NJ diving dentist says 'Nemo' film was his idea" (reprint). Newsday. 2005-02-16. Retrieved 2007-03-21.
  11. ^ Finding Nemo - The Musical, Walt Disney World Magic.
  12. ^ Hernandez, Ernio. "Avenue Q Composer Lopez Co-Pens Musical Finding Nemo for Disney," Playbill.com (2006-04-10).
  13. ^ a b c Maupin, Elizabeth (2006-11-26). "Swimming with big fish". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  14. ^ http://disney.wretch.cc/Joke/c43.htm

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Finding Nemo.



Template:Pixar films

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