Finding Dory: Critique 3/3

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Clever

 

Word choice was utilised so effectively.

Dory’s dad calls her ‘kelpcake’. Not only is this a nice twist on the popular endearment ‘cupcake’ but it makes it relevant to the underwater environment.

A fish couple finds a lost baby Dory. They ask her where her parents are. Dory answers, “I can’t remember.” However, Dory has only ever said, “I don’t remember.” To say she ‘can’t’ means she’s tried to remember, reflecting the seriousness of the situation. ‘Can’t’ also has more finality than ‘don’t’.

Hank exclaims, “Holy carp!” instead of ‘holy crap’. Not only does it sound the same and have the exact same letters, but its aquatic theme matches the film’s aquatic theme.

Dory says to Hank, “For someone with three hearts, you’re not very nice.”

 

There were many positives dotted throughout the film, meaning the entire film kept the audience appreciative.

The singing of the migrating rays is very loud compared to the film’s volume. Yet this is a good thing! Hundreds of individuals singing together is going to be louder than one person talking, so I’m glad this realism was taken into account.

When Dory finally reunites with her parents, she keeps saying sorry. Her mum says, “No, don’t you dare be sorry.” No-one should ever apologise for their health issues. You go, Mum!

Dory sees a map of the park and says, “There’s so many attractions. How can you do everything in one day?” Says anyone who’s ever been to a park.

Dory and Destiny used to talk through the pipes in what they call ‘speaking whale’. This means Dory has always remembered how to do it and what it was called, but not why it was done: people with memory issues often only partially memorise events, so it was good to see it reflected here. It’s funny she used it to speak whale to whales when it’s actually from a shark.

 

Dory’s memory creates many instances worthy of note.

Dory sees shells in the sand and remembers her parents laying a trail for Dory to follow if she were ever lost. Dory sees this memory as a ghost superimposed in the present time. Usually, the past and the present are shown separately, so to have this one instance have them together was very impactful.

The fish couple that talks to lost baby Dory ask if any of the fish around are her parents. Dory does a complete circle and, when her eyes get back to the fish couple, she says, “Hi, I’m Dory. Can you please help me?”

Mr Ray warns them to be careful of the undertow. Dory starts to look like she’s remembering something. Mr Ray says that migration is an instinct, “Something deep inside you that feels so familiar that you have to listen to it.” This perfectly describes Dory’s current remembering.

Dory is caught in the undertow, seeing the class through a tunnel of rays. Then she has flashbacks of this happening as a baby (her parents through a tunnel of rock and coral). In both cases, loved ones call her name.

 

 

Animation

 

The animation is faithful to Finding Nemo whilst still showing the improvements of up-to-date advancements in animation.

 

Two of my favourite visual moments:

Dory’s inside a beaker which drops and shatters, leaving Dory to slide with the water into the ocean-leading drain. All this happens from the viewpoint of Dory’s eyes. It made it feel more consuming and frightening, rather than the audience just watching it happen. Watching the world slide by rather than Dory slide by.

As the fish-containing truck flies off the cliff, it’s done in slow mo. The fish fly out at different speeds and angles. The water sloshes around, some of it breaking apart and some joining together. The attention to detail was stunning; the slow motion lets the audience really appreciate these intricate details.

 

Hank is an octopus and octopus have great camouflage. The animators played with this effectively.

There’s a cat poster on the wall. Then it seems like its cat is melting as the colours and shape drip down. But then we see an undisturbed cat on the wall and Hank the octopus beneath it. The animation for this was spectacular.

When Dory’s being carried away in a bucket, Hank swings from the pipes near the ceiling. He looks like Tarzan. Completely unexpected!

Dory and Hank end up in an exhibit for kids to touch ocean animals. We see the terror from the perspective of the animals: the surprise prodding from hands, the rough handling, the clouds of sand obscuring their vision. This was very well done.

In the credits, Hank is shown camouflaged throughout the Jewel. Pretty soon, the audience starts to guess where Hank is hidden because he’s hidden well. Each one was animated so well, such as Hank being the blue skin in the giant clam’s mouth, or a tree branch.

 

The blue tangs (Dory’s species) presented good opportunities for animation skills.

The face of Dory’s dad looks like the face of many typical human dads: a bald guy. For the animators to make a hairless creature look like it should have hair but lacks it, and a fish face look like a human face, shows incredible talent.

As a baby, Dory was bright blue. Plus, her massive, vibrant eyes were beyond cute. Never in my life have I seen a fish and thought it was cute!

Dory’s front top teeth are always on show. The other blue tang’s teeth aren’t like this. Such a simple way to differentiate them.

 

There’s a giant squid and it was a visual success.

The giant squid has jerky movements. This replicates the stop-and-start motions of squid in real life.

Dory and co are followed by the giant squid. Just before this, it swims right at the screen, surprising the audience.

Dory and co swim through the open side of a shipping container and out the almost-closed doors on the other side. The squid follows but gets stuck. Its tentacles can fit through, whipping around blindly in a scary manner. Then its beak snaps at Nemo, the beak extended then pulling back with each bite, like an arm that keeps reaching forward. Just imagine if that was a human mouth, extending away from its stationary face. Bloody terrifying.

 

 

Call Backs and False Alarms

 

Call Backs to Finding Nemo were few and far between. This meant the film wasn’t overwhelmed, keeping its own identity whilst paying tribute to the first film.

The family do some roleplay. Dory’s dad says to Dory, “I’m not Dad. I’m a friendly fish.” She then says, “Okay, Dad!” This is reminiscent of the moment in ‘Finding Nemo’ where Dory asks Nemo whose dad they’re looking for. Even though that wasn’t for Dory’s dad, she stills calls, “Dad!” when she shouldn’t.

As Dory grows up in the open ocean, she says, “Just keep swimming.”

The giant squid glows up all over. This is reminiscent of the anglerfish doing just that in ‘Finding Nemo’.

Dory finds out she needs to go to the Open Ocean exhibit. But she keeps forgetting it as ‘soap and lotion’ and ‘the locomotion’. Dory misremembers Jewel with ‘gem’ and ‘broach’. She also thinks ‘Baltic’ or ‘Atlantic’ for California. This is similar to how she kept forgetting Nemo’s name in Finding Nemo.

The way the sealions yell, “Off! Off!” repeatedly and in chorus is like how the gulls yelled, “Mine!” in ‘Finding Nemo’.

 

False alarms seemed problematic at first but were okay on further thought.

Nemo and Marlin meet a giant clam. The seam in its shell is along its side and it can shut its mouth. However, giant clams in real life have the seam along its top and their mouths cannot be shut. (If that happens, the photosynthesising microorganisms living in their mouth can’t make food. Considering clams get most of their energy from these microorganisms, closing their mouths isn’t feasible.) However, this presumes that the phrase ‘giant clam’ in its entirety is a noun. The ‘giant’ could just be an adjective to describe the noun ‘clam’, i.e. this is a clam that happens to be really big.

Dory doesn’t remember her childhood friend Destiny, yet she remembers that echolocation is ‘the strongest pair of glasses’. Mind you, she remembers how to read, plus she never saw Destiny before, only talked through the pipes. So not recognising Destony can’t come as a surprise.

For the number of fish in the Open Ocean exhibit, it’s a very small tank. The sand area at the bottom of the Open Ocean exhibit is far larger than that’s bottom should’ve been. However, the exhibit it propping out from the wall, meaning that behind the walls the exhibit could be extended.

Some people complain about Dory keeps on remembering things, even those that happen from a long time ago. Memories have connections with other memories. So the more memories someone has about something, the more additional memories they’re going to remember off the back of one memory.

Marlin says that Becky is eating a cup. First, I wondered how Marlin knew what a cup was. But loads of cups end up in the oceans as plastic pollution: why wouldn’t fish have a word for cup?

Mr Ray says the undertow was caused by the flaps of the rays. But when Dory was young, there were very few fish and all were tiny. How could they have formed an undertow? Undertows are currents that flow in opposite direction from currents above them, a process that doesn’t require the movements of animals. Hence there’s no reason why these two undertows in the film had to be formed in the same way, so they aren’t contradictory.

 

 

Conclusion

 

I always wanted a sequel to ‘Finding Nemo’. I almost didn’t believe it when it was announced.

When I looked forward to something, when I positively brimming with anticipation, I’m usually heavily disappointed. Sometimes the sequel doesn’t have what made the first film special. Yet that wasn’t the case here. This film lived up to my expectations.

Whilst at the time it was one of my favourite films, this has downgraded. Making out the sealion Gerald to be stupid and disabled really put a damper on the film’s quality (something that was overridden by my sheer excitement the first few times I saw the film).

Still, the long wait was definitely worth it: I’d rather wait a long time for a great product than wait a short time for an alright product.