Finding Nemo (Franchise)

**Finding Nemo** was a franchise of three films that took place in 2003, 2004, and 2016 respectively.

## Blurb

This series is one of the most famous examples of the fact that while humans didn't know (or have to worry about) talking animals until the 13,800s AD, they were still very well capable of communicating verbally with each other by the time humans rose to the top of the food chain. The creatures in the sea, for example, have entire "highways" with "exits" that fish travel through via the use of certain currents. It is likely that by the time these films took place, the current system had been established for centuries, or even millions of years seeing as sea turtles first evolved when dinosaurs were still around.

## Finding Nemo (2003)

Nemo is a young and cheerful clownfish who happily lives with his father, Marlin, in the Great Barrier Reef, and is eager to explore life around the ocean, but Marlin is overprotective of him, due to a barracuda attack that killed his wife, Coral, and the rest of their eggs years before, leaving him and Nemo as the only survivors. Nemo's egg was damaged in the process and was born with a bad fin. On the first day of school, Marlin embarrasses Nemo during a field trip. When Marlin talks to the teacher, Mr. Ray, Nemo sneaks away from the reef and is abducted by a scuba diver, who puts him on a speedboat. Marlin gives chase and meets Dory, a blue tang who suffers from short term memory loss. The pair encounter three sharks named Bruce, Anchor, and Chum who are trying to not eat fish. While at their meeting, Marlin sees the diver's mask that fell from the boat that took Nemo and also sees writing on it. However, Marlin and Dory fight over the mask, giving Dory a nose bleed. The blood sends Bruce into a feeding frenzy, and he attacks Marlin and Dory, who narrowly escape.

Meanwhile, Nemo is placed in an aquarium in a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia, where he meets the Tank Gang, including yellow tang Bubbles, sea star Peach, cleaner shrimp Jacques, blowfish Bloat, royal gramma Gurgle, and blue and white humbug Deb, led by Gill, a Moorish idol. That night, Nemo learns he is to be given to the dentist's niece, Darla, who has accidentally killed previous fish given to her, including a goldfish named Chuckles. Gill devises a plan to escape by sending Nemo inside the aquarium's filter and jamming it with a pebble so the dentist will have to put the fish into plastic bags while the tank gets cleaned, then roll out the window and into the harbour. Nemo agrees to do it but fails and is almost killed. Everybody saves him and Gill is left guilt-ridden.

The mask falls into a trench in the deep sea, where Dory reads the address as P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney. She remembers it despite her short term memory loss. Dory and Marlin receive directions from a school of moonfish. They are supposed to swim through a trench, but Marlin decides they should swim over it, and they encounter a forest of jellyfish that almost stings them to death, but they survive. Marlin and Dory wake up to find themselves on the East Australian Current and have a good time with Crush, a green sea turtle, his son, Squirt, and all the turtle children. Marlin tells the story of his quest to the turtles, who are impressed, and news spreads across the ocean. A pelican named Nigel flies to the dentist's office and brings the news of Marlin's efforts to find Nemo. Inspired by his father's bravery, Nemo makes another attempt to jam the filter, and succeeds. Soon, the aquarium and its contents are covered in green algae.

Marlin and Dory exit the East Australian Current and are engulfed by a blue whale. Dory communicates with the whale, who carries them to Sydney Harbour and expels them through his blowhole. There, they meet Nigel, who help the pair escape from a group of seagulls and takes them to the dentist's office. Meanwhile, the dentist has installed a new high-tech filter, the AquaScum 2003, foiling the Tank Gang's escape. Darla arrives, and the dentist prepares to give Nemo to her. Nemo plays dead to save himself as Nigel arrives, terrifying Darla and throwing the office into chaos. After the dentist throws Nigel out, Gill helps Nemo escape through a drain that leads to the ocean.

Thinking that Nemo really is dead, Marlin abandons Dory and begins his journey home. Marlin's departure causes Dory to lose her memory. However, she meets Nemo as he reaches the ocean, but she does not remember him. However, Dory's memory returns when she reads the word "Sydney" on a drainpipe. She reunites Nemo with Marlin, but is caught in a net with a school of grouper. Nemo enters the net and orders the fish to swim down in order to break the net so they can escape. After returning home to the reef, Marlin and Dory watch Mr. Ray take Nemo and his friends on a field trip.

## Finding Dory (2004)

One year after meeting Marlin and Nemo, Dory is living with them on their reef. One day, Dory has a flashback and remembers her parents. She decides to look for them, but her memory problem is an obstacle. She suddenly remembers that they lived at the "Jewel of Morro Bay, California" across the ocean when Nemo mentions the name.

Marlin and Nemo accompany Dory on her journey. With the help of Crush, their sea turtle friend, they ride the California Current to California. Upon arrival, they explore a shipwreck full of lost cargo, where Dory accidentally awakens a giant Humboldt squid, who pursues them and almost devours Nemo. They manage to trap the squid in a large shipping container, and Marlin berates Dory for endangering them. Her feelings hurt, Dory travels to the surface to seek help where she is captured by staff members from the trio's nearby destination, the Marine Life Institute.

Dory is placed in quarantine and tagged. There she meets a grouchy but well-meaning seven-legged octopus named Hank. Dory's tag marks her for transfer to an aquarium in Cleveland. Hank, who fears being released back into the ocean, agrees to help Dory find her parents in exchange for her tag. In one exhibit, Dory encounters her childhood friend Destiny, a nearsighted whale shark, who used to communicate with Dory through pipes, and Bailey, a beluga whale, who mistakenly believes he has lost his ability to echolocate. Dory subsequently has flashbacks of life with her parents, and struggles to recall details. She finally remembers how she was separated from her parents: she overheard her mother crying one night, left to retrieve a shell to cheer her up, and was pulled away by an undertow current out into the ocean.

Marlin and Nemo attempt to rescue Dory. With the help of two lazy California sea lions named Fluke and Rudder and a common loon named Becky, they manage to get into the institute and find her in the pipe system. Other blue tangs tell them that Dory's parents escaped from the institute a long time ago to search for her and never came back, leaving Dory believing that they have died. Hank retrieves Dory from the tank, accidentally leaving Marlin and Nemo behind. He is then apprehended by one of the employees and unintentionally drops Dory into the drain, flushing her out to the ocean. While wandering aimlessly, she comes across a trail of shells; remembering that when she was young, her parents had set out a similar trail to help her find her way back home, she follows it. At the end of the trail, Dory finds an empty brain coral with multiple shell trails leading to it. As she turns to leave, she sees her parents in the distance. They tell her they spent years laying down the trails for her to follow in the hopes that she would eventually find them.

Marlin, Nemo, and Hank end up in the truck taking various aquatic creatures to Cleveland. Destiny and Bailey escape from their exhibit to help Dory rescue them. Once on board the truck, Dory persuades Hank to return to the sea with her, and together, they hijack the truck and drive it over busy highways, creating havoc, before crashing it into the sea, freeing all the fish. Dory, along with her parents and new friends, return to the reef once and for all with Marlin and Nemo.

## Piper (2016)

A hungry baby sandpiper has to learn to overcome her fear of water in order to be able to feed herself. After much trial and error, she finally nabs her first snack just in time as the waves roll back before surging up again.