Deep Dive Pixar: Wes Looks at Finding Nemo

Welcome everybody! Today, Deep Dive Disney, or rather Deep Dive Pixar, dives once again all the way down to the bottom of the sea as we look at the beloved Pixar classic, Finding Nemo. I remember this movie being huge at the time. In 2003, it often felt as if you could not take five steps without seeing something pertaining to this movie. For its part, the film is amazing. The undersea environment is visually stunning and full of diverse and interesting creatures. Our story this time centers around Marlin, a Clownfish who loses his wife and all but one of his four hundred children in a barracuda attack. The attack leaves the surviving child, Nemo, with a deformed fin that makes swimming difficult and leaves Marlin with a fear of pretty much everything, causing him to become overprotective of his son, angering the boy to no end. When Marlin’s smothering becomes too much, Nemo swims out to sea against his father’s wishes, only to get scooped up by a scuba diver and taken away in a boat. While Nemo finds himself in a fish tank in a dentist’s office somewhere in Syndney Australia, Marlin, with the help of a friendly fish with short-term memory loss named Dory, goes on a journey across the ocean to get his son back. Along the way, Marlin and Dory encounter sharks, angler fish, jellyfish, sea turtles, whales and all other manner of nightmares of the deep, learning not to be so afraid of the world along the way. So, let’s get right into it and dive deep into, Finding Nemo.

Main Character:

Nemo and Marlin share the role of main character as each have their own arcs and stories that take center stage. Since his name is in the title, we’ll start with Nemo. Nemo is, of course, well aware of his handicap, even referring to it as his “lucky fin.” Nemo fully understands that things are more difficult for him than they would be for other fish because he’s not a very strong swimmer. What makes Nemo angry is that because of his handicap, Marlin won’t even allow him to try. When he finds himself in the tank, he is given the chance to prove himself, and yes, he does struggle, hell, he nearly dies at one point, but at least once he’s given the opportunity to try, he manages to learn how to handle himself, something that Marlin would never allow him to do.

Speaking of Nemo’s dad, let’s talk about Marlin. First things first, Marlin is voiced by the legendary Albert Brooks. Brooks is known for many great roles over the years, but for my money, he’ll always be my favorite one-off Simpsons character of all time, the Bond villain who’s actually a really great guy to work for, Hank Scorpio! Anywho, you really can’t blame Marlin for being the way he is. Afterall, he experienced a tragedy that cost him the lives of his entire family. Nemo is all he has left so you can understand why he holds onto him so tightly. While the Marlin/Nemo dynamic is integral to both characters, I’d like to save further discussion of it for the Story section. As a character on his own, Marlin is an overly cautious sort who needs to learn that being afraid of the world is no way to live, and no way to raise a child. He’s not a bad guy, he just needs to loosen up and stop being so scared of everything.

Villain:

Much like Sid from Toy Story, Darla is another perspective determinant antagonist, which is what we call a character who is only a villain when viewed from the perspective of the main character. Darla, the niece of Dr. Sherman, the dentist who “rescues” Nemo and puts him in his fishtank, is not evil, she’s not even that malevolent. Honestly, the whole “Ah’m a Puh-rahna, Dey in de Amazahn” bit is absolutely adorable. Darla is just a spoiled little girl who probably shouldn’t be caring for another living being given what happened to poor chuckles the goldfish. All that having been said though, the film goes out of its way to make Darla as creepy as humanly possible. With her creepy stares and twisted smile, she’s almost like the evil twin of Boo from Monster’s Inc. Hell, they even play the music from Psycho whenever she’s on screen. Nice touch.

Side Characters:

Okay everybody, this is going to be a LONG section so buckle up. We may as well get a bit of controversy out of the way first. I… don’t really like Dory. Yeah, I know a lot of people love that character, but I honestly do not. No, I have no problem with Ellen DeGeneres who provides Dory’s voice, if anything, her delivery makes Dory way more endearing than she has any right to be. The whole short-term memory loss thing is amusing in theory but honestly it feels a little mean spirited towards the mentally handicapped. Even ignoring that though, I just found Dory really annoying. I appreciate her boundless optimism, it’s actually something I relate to to a certain extent, but even I know that there’s a time and a place to be super-duper happy, and when a man is worried sick about the well-being of his son who has been kidnapped and taken god knows where, is neither the time nor the place. Again, I know there’s a lot of people who like this character, but for me, let’s just say there’s a reason Findy Dory is not on the schedule.

Now let’s talk about Bruce, Chum and Anchor, three sharks who Marlin and Dory come across early in their journey. While at first, they seem like big scary nasty sharks who are not to be trusted, it turns out they’re actually vegetarians trying to cure their addiction to eating fish and improve the overall image of their species. That’s actually a pretty nice subversion and led to quite a few funny moments.

Next up is Crush, the sea turtle who helps Marlin and Dory navigate the Eastern Australian Current. Crush and the rest of the sea turtles all have a bit of a “surfer bro” attitude and speech pattern, making the whole experience a bit like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles if all four of them were Michelangelo.

Next is Nigel the pelican. He might be the only friendly pelican in all of Australia and I love that while he acknowledges that he eats fish, he tries to make it clear that it’s nothing personal. I actually appreciate that he tries his best to be friendly with the fish he doesn’t plan to eat and he seems to be a genuinely nice and empathetic guy. It’s also worth noting that Nigel is voiced by Geoffrey Rush, someone we’ll have a lot more to say about in our next article.

And now, there’s the tank gang, the group of fish who live in the aquarium at Dr. Sherman’s dentist office. These guys are a bunch of weirdos of the highest caliber. Frankly, half the time the tank comes across as some kind of fish insane asylum. There’s Bloat, the porcupinefish voiced by the always amazing Brad Garret who’s constantly inflating himself at the slightest provocation. Peach, the starfish who’s always sticking to walls. Bubbles, the yellow tang fish who’s obsessed with the treasure chest that sprays bubbles that it’s seemingly driven him insane. Gurgle, the royal gramma fish who’s a massive germaphobe. Jacques, the cleaner shrimp who is constantly cleaning as a compulsion and finally, Deb, the striped damselfish who is convinced that her reflection is actually her sister. Honestly, given how fun these characters are, I can honestly say that the sequel totally should have been about these guys. I mean, the end of this movie shows that they all escaped Dr. Sherman’s office and made it to the ocean, it might have been fun to see a bunch of fish who were born in captivity adjusting to life in the open ocean. However, the character I’d most like to talk about and the one I found to be my favorite is Gill, the Moorish idol fish who serves as the leader of the tank gang voiced by The Green Goblin himself, Willem Dafoe. Save for Nemo himself, Gill is the only member of the tank gang to have come from the ocean rather than from a pet store. During his time in the tank, Gill becomes something of a second father to Nemo, believing in him in a way that Marlin was never able to. However, when Nemo almost gets himself killed trying to clog the tank filter as part of an escape plan, he starts to realize that maybe he shouldn’t have let Nemo go off on his own before he was ready. How fascinating is it that Marlin and Gill learn opposite lessons and both are equally valid?

Memorable Scenes:

There’s a couple of scenes worth discussing here. The scene in which Nemo is officially inducted into the tank gang at the summit of Mt. Wanahakalugi (actually a plastic aquarium volcano) is delightfully weird and intense. Honestly, if I walked into a dark room with a bunch of weirdos chanting at me, I’d probably slowly back away like that Howmer Simpson gif.

I also enjoyed the stuff in the EAC, especially the bit where Marlin sees Crush let his son Squirt go off on his own. It’s one of the first times that Marlin is made to see how he’d been smothering Nemo, which is nice to see.

Also, the whole Seagull scene is just fantastic. The way they all say “Mine, Mine, Mine” is hilarious and the part where they first show up is straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Story:

I want you all to think way back to when we covered The Little Mermaid. If you recall, I didn’t really care for that movie and I stand by that opinion. One of the ways I suggested that the film may be improved is by shifting the focus to King Triton and making the story more about a father learning to let go of his child and acknowledge that they’re growing up. Ladies and gentlemen, it has been fourteen years worth of movies since we’ve covered The Little Mermaid, but I think we’ve finally found a film that actually gets it right. Much like Triton, Marlin is a father who experienced a tragedy that essentially ended his life as he knew it, and because of that, he now will not allow his child live their life for fear of what may happen to him. However, Marlin learns that the tighter he holds on to Nemo, the more Nemo resents him for it. When Nemo tells Marlin that he hates him, you feel it. You obviously feel bad for Marlin but you also fully understand where Nemo is coming from. And it’s not like Marlin is entirely wrong, Nemo is not a strong swimmer and probably does need some special attention, something that Gill ends up having to learn later on, however, just because you’re handicapped does not mean you should be shielded from the world. Maybe Nemo is ready to be out on his own and maybe he isn’t, but much like how Ariel deserved the chance to figure out for herself if she was really in love with Eric, Nemo deserves the chance to find out if he’s ready for the open ocean. It’s honestly quite gratifying to learn that someone at Disney learned their lesson and actually got it right this time.

The Dark Disney Factor:

It seems like the last few films we’ve covered have taken it a bit light on the Dark Disney Factor. Fortunately for us, that is not the case this time around because this movie makes the ocean look like a god damn nightmare! Everywhere you look there’s terrifying sharks, horrifying anglerfish, a forest of jellyfish and all other manner of nasty creatures of the deep. You really do feel just how small our heroes are and how massive and expansive the ocean is in every frame of this film. Hell, we actually get onscreen blood for the first time since I can remember. Not enough for you, our main characters end up getting swallowed, TWICE!! This movie is goddamned terrifying. Honestly though, the most disturbing thing about the movie is right at the very beginning when the barracuda kills Marlin’s wife and children. The filmmakers do everything in their power to make the barracuda as terrifying as possible and the fact that it kills a bunch of children is especially disturbing. Also, did you know that in real life, when the female clown fish dies, the male mate will actually change its sex and then reproduce with its own children in order continue to pass on genetic material? I'm not kidding, look it up. That means, Marlin and Nemo... they probably fucked.

Final Thoughts: Is it my favorite Pixar film, I wouldn't go that far, but the film is still a visual masterpiece filled with excitement as well as fun and likable characters. A really triumph to be sure. Next time, it's a film that I've been looking forward to covering for a long time now. It'll be our first live action film since Who Framed Roger Rabbit and it's a damn good one at that. It's a Pirates life for me mateys, drink up me hearties, yo ho! Next time, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.