Finding Nemo (2003)
A Pixar original story by Andrew Stanton.
Marlin, a clownfish, lives in an anemone in the Great Barrier Reef with his partner, Coral. The couple are awaiting for their many eggs to hatch. A hungry barracuda sees Coral and Marlin, with the rest of their neighborhood hiding. Coral fears she will lose her babies and rushes down to protect them however the barracuda knocks Marlin out when he tries to protect Coral, eating Coral and most of their eggs. One egg remains uneaten, with it being slightly cracked. Marlin vows to keep his only surviving child safe, naming him Nemo, and becomes overprotective (“Nemo Egg (Main Title)”).
On Nemo’s first day of school, Marlin and Nemo meet fellow parents and their children as well as Nemo’s teacher who is a stingray called Mr. Ray. Mr. Ray takes them to the Drop-Off, a deep-ocean trench at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef. Some of the school students pressure Nemo into approaching a speedboat causing Marlin and Nemo to get into an argument. Nemo goes against Marlin’s instructions and approaches the speedboat where a pair of scuba divers capture him. Marlin pursues the boat in vain and meets Dory, a blue tang with acute short-term memory loss, who offers her help. The two encounter Bruce, Anchor, and Chum, three sharks who have sworn to abstain from eating fish and repeat the quote: “Fish are friends, not food”. Marlin finds a diver's mask that fell from the boat, accidentally hitting Dory and giving her a nosebleed. The scent of her blood sends Bruce into a feeding frenzy, but the sharks flee after accidentally setting off old naval mines, which knock Marlin and Dory unconscious.
Nemo is placed in a fish tank in the office of the diver who captured him: dentist Philip Sherman. He meets the "Tank Gang” (which consists of Jacques a cleaner shrimp, Gurgle a royal gramma, Peach a starfish, Deb a humbug, Bubbles a yellow tang, Bloat a porcupine pufferfish) led by Gill, a Moorish idol and they learn that Nemo that he is to be given to Sherman's niece Darla, who killed her previous fish. The Tank Gang hold a welcoming ceremony on the summit of Mount Wannahockaloogie (a toy volcano in the fish tank) to welcome Nemo in the fraternal bonds of tankhood by swimming through the Ring of Fire and giving him the name “Sharkbait”. Gill decides to help Nemo and devises an escape plan: Nemo can fit inside the aquarium's filter tube and must block it with a pebble, obliging Sherman to put the fish into plastic bags while he cleans the tank, and allow them to roll out the window and into the harbor. Nemo attempts to place the pebble, but fails and is saved by the Tank Gang before he is almost killed
Marlin and Dory awaken, but the mask falls into a deep trench. Descending after the mask, they are soon pursued by an anglerfish. Dory memorizes the words on the goggles: “P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney” and they escape. The two disregard directions from a school of moonfish, taking what Marlin believes is a safer route. After being stung by a forest of jellyfish, they are knocked unconscious and awaken in the East Australian Current (EAC) with a group of sea turtles, including Crush and his son, Squirt. Marlin is given the moniker “Jellyman”. The story of Marlin's quest is relayed across the ocean to Sydney, where a pelican named Nigel tells the Tank Gang. This inspires Nemo to try to block the filter again which he succeeds in doing and soon the aquarium is covered in green algae.
Marlin and Dory exit the East Australian Current and are consumed by a blue whale which expels them through its blowhole in Sydney Harbour. Nigel helps them escape a flock of seagulls and takes them to the dentist's office, where Sherman has foiled the Tank Gang with a new high-tech filter. When Darla arrives, Nemo plays dead and Nigel terrifies Darla, throwing the office into chaos. Sherman throws out Nigel along with Marlin and Dory, with the former believing that Nemo is dead. Gill helps Nemo escape through a drain leading to the ocean.
Marlin bids farewell to Nigel and Dory and begins his journey home. Nemo meets Dory but she does not remember him until her memory returns when she reads the word "Sydney" on a drainpipe. Dory reunites Nemo with Marlin, but a fishing trawler captures her in a net along with a school of groupers. With his father's blessing, Nemo enters the net, and he and Marlin instruct all of the fish to swim down. Their combined force breaks the net. Returning home to the reef, Marlin is more confident, while Dory has remained friends with Bruce, Anchor, and Chum. Marlin and Dory watch Nemo off as he goes to school.
Meanwhile, after the dentist's filter breaks, the Tank Gang escapes into Sydney Harbor after being placed in bags. Still stuck in the bags, they ponder what to do next (“Beyond the Sea'“).
TRIVIA
Visual Style
To ensure that the movements of the fish in the film were believable, the animators took a crash course in fish biology and oceanography. They visited aquariums, went diving in Hawaii, and received in-house lectures from an ichthyologist. As a result, the animators integrated "the fish movement, human movement, and facial expressions to make them look and feel like real characters”.
Production designer Ralph Eggleston created pastel drawings to give the lighting crew ideas of how every scene in the film should be lit, particularly in the “Jellyfish” scene.
The supporting characters drew inspiration from classic movies: Gil was given Clint Eastwood’s squint, Bloat was based on George Kennedy’s character in Cool Hand Luke, and the Tank Gang borrowed the neuroses of the characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Easter Egg(s)
The line "Here's Brucey!" is a reference to the Jack Nicholson line from the 1980 horror film The Shining.
The music that plays for the dentist's niece Darla is the theme music from the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho.
Attraction(s)
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage (Disneyland)