BR119606

19606

Film Response: Finding Nemo The movie Finding Nemo is about a clownfish named Marlin who is searching for his son Nemo.

Nemo was captured by a scuba diver and taken away on a boat. Throughout his effortless journey to find his son, Marlin meets a fish named Dori. Together they take on the ocean and all of its obstacles in determination to find Nemo.

What developmental issues does the work depict?

As we look at each of the individual main characters in this film we can see throughout the movie how they respond to the particular situation or environment that they are in and by the end of the movie we see how those situations changed the characters and how they look at life in a different way now.

Marlin: Marlin is a clownfish from the reef. In the beginning of the film Marlin and his “significant other” Coral are about to be parents!! As they are excited and anxiously awaiting for their children to hatch they are trying to decide what to name them all. Coral states she likes the name “Nemo.” Just moments later a Barracuda fish attacks, killing coral and all the babies except for one. With fright in his eyes and complete sadness on his face Marlin swims over to the egg that was not taken during the attack, holds it in his fin and says “Daddy’s got you, I promise I will never let anything happen to you.” Here we see because of the tragic accident, Marlin is now going to love and protect his son Nemo so that nothing bad will ever happen to him. ( Beginning of movie to 4:38)

Its now the first day of school and Nemo is excited and ready to go and is trying to wake up “Dad.” As Marlin awakes he is nervous about Nemo attending his first day of school. Marlin asks Nemo “Are you sure you want to go to school this year? Because its no problem if you don’t, you could wait five or six years.” Nemo shrugs, grabs his dad’s fin and says come on Dad its time for school. Before leaving the anemone (their home) Marlin asks Nemo “ Now what’s one thing we have to remember about the ocean? Nemo responds “It’s not safe! Marlin says “That’s my boy!” So they first check to make sure the coast is clear, they swim out a little and back in than go back out and back in and tells Nemo to repeat this process until he feels comfortable leaving the anemone. When they arrive to where their supposed to meet the teacher, Marlin makes sure that Nemo stays by his side at all times. “Mr. Ray” the teacher arrives shortly after and welcomes Nemo aboard! Marlin tells “Mr. Ray” to keep an on eye on Nemo and make sure he gets a break every so often. “Mr. Ray” assures Marlin that they will all stick together as a group. After all the students leave with “Mr. Ray”, Marlin is talking with some of the other parents who inform him that the students are going to the “drop off.” Just mintues later after Nemo and a few of his new friends excaped from the rest of the class, Marlin catches Nemo just as hes getting ready to swim out into the ocean. Nemo is embarrassed and gets very mad at his dad and does exactly what he was told not to do. Nemo starts swimming out in the ocean in attempt to touch a boat that is nearby. After touching the boat, Marlin is very mad with Nemo and telling him to swim back to the reef’s edge. Nemo begins to do so, as he is swimming back he is captured by a scuba diver and taken to live in a fish tank within a dentist’s office. All of these events leading up to Nemo’s being captured we can see how over protective Marlin is. Although he is just looking out for Nemo and trying to protect him as much as he can we can see that him being so protective is having a huge effect on Nemo and Marlin fails to realize it. In the end of the movie when Marlin reunites with his son Nemo we see a huge difference in their relationship. Over the journey Marlin realized that yes, he should be teaching his son the dangers of the ocean and protecting him but he should be able to trust his son as well. When Nemo was captured you could tell that he means so much to Marlin, hes everything to him. Marlin would do anything to find him. Being apart from each other and not knowing if they would see eachother again made their relationship stronger and they were able to relate with eachother better and see eachothers point of view as father and son. (5:26-15:04)

Marlin is frantically chasing after the boat, trying to follow it so he can rescue Nemo back. He quickly looses contact with the boat and is asking anyone if they saw a boat. As hes swimming around asking if anyone has seen a boat he runs into Dory, a blue tang fish. Marlin follows Dori and together they begin their adventure to find Nemo.

Nemo: “Wake up, first day of school!! First day of school!! Come on Dad, first day of school!!” Nemo is Marlins son, the only one that survived the fatal accident. He was however born with an injury, one of his fins is smaller and they call it his “lucky fin” Nemo is your typical young, energetic boy. He feels confident about himself and being able to swim in the ocean and start his first day of school. Nemo however often gets frustrated with his dad underestimating his abilities and overprotecting him. Nemo is still young and trying to learn but just wants to be able to go out and have fun with the other kids and do what they do, which is a great example of peer pressure. Nemo gets so frustrated when his dad shows up to school just as he’s about to do something very dangerous that he knows he’s not supposed to do, which is swimming out in the open water away from the reef. Marlin upsets Nemo and says “You think you can do these things but you just can’t Nemo!”(13:18) Nemo than says back softly and under his breath “I hate you” Marlin is completely crushed and looks as if he’s just going to break to pieces. Than nemo is so upset after his dad made him feel like he just cant do anything, he starts swimming out to the boat that was close by and touches it. As hes swimming back he gets captured by the scuba diver. Nemo is than taken to live in a tank in a dentist’s office in Sydney, Australia. While living in the tank Nemo realizes how much he misses his dad and that disobeying his dad and saying what he did wasn’t right. Rumors start going around in the ocean about a clownfish from the reef who is searching the entire ocean for his son Nemo. Word makes its way to a pelican in Sydney Austrailia who has met Nemo. The Pelican informs nemo that his dad is searching the entire ocean for him and is on his way to Sydney. Nemo is so excited and cant believe that his dad searched all that time for him. Nemo was under the impression that most kids are, that our parents are out to get us and just make life miserable sometimes. Nemo realized that his dad is just trying to protect him. After a series of complications in trying to meet up with his dad Nemo is finally able to make it to the ocean and find his dad. When they get back to the reef and on their way to school in the morning there is a significant difference in when they say goodbye this time than they did the first time previously. Instead of just a quick goodbye, to his dad, Nemo makes sure that he didn’t forget to give his dad a hug and say I love you!

Dory: Dory is a blue tang fish who suffers from short term memory loss. Dory is expressed as a very funny, happy go lucky type fish. Dory assists Marlin in his search for Nemo. Dory adds life to this movie and makes the journey adventurous. When trouble arises Dory looks at things with a different perspective, just assuring herself and everyone else that it will all turn out ok and to just keep pressing forward or as dory would say “just keep swimming!” In the movie we can see that Dory suffers from short term memory loss which causes her to not have any friends. Dory has a big heart and I think she had an influence on Marlin throughout the movie. What is the intent of the author in showing these issues?

I think the authors intent in showing these issues was to show that in real life relationships between parents and children we will always have a conflict ,wrong style of parenting, an argument, etc. There is never anything that is perfect. We live in a world where something will always go wrong. Everybody will mess up and make mistakes but hopefully will then learn from them. I think one of the main reasons why some of these issues were shown was to prove that no matter what happens while you grow up, your parents will always love you. Whether it’s disobeying and breaking the rules or saying things that hurt really bad that you don’t mean. Regardless of anything that goes on they will always love you and you will always love your parents as well.

Also I think the makers of this film did a good job of pointing out the fact “you don’t know what you have until its gone.” If you look at the situation from both Marlin’s and Nemo’s perspective you can see that they both realized that they should have done things differently. Marlin should have maybe trusted Nemo and had a little more confidence in him while Nemo should have had a little more respect for his dad. Nemo realized once he was taken away that his dad was right, the ocean is not a safe place and he was just trying to protect him.

What Praise or criticism has the work received for its depiction of these issues?

According to commonsensemedia.org there is a review of this film saying that it is a great family movie because it will give an opportunity for the parents to explain to their children how they have to be able to protect their kids but at the same time let them grow up and figure life out on there own. Also if you go to the movieteachwithmovies.org there is a whole page filled with information about Finding Nemo. All of the reviews that I could find, reviewed the movie as being excellent for both kids and adults. The movie will open up all sorts of opportunities to talk with your kids on all sorts of issues.

__ Subject Matter—10 points out of 20 __ You need to integrate the textbook theories into the character outlines you have here, and give specific examples. You need to have a list of works cited, so I can evaluate your research and resources.

__ Higher-Order Thinking—10 points out of 20 __ :

You show that you have found depth in this film, but you do not relate that to the textbook concepts.

__Organization--20 points out of 30__ The theme of your response is unclear--this reads more like a summary of the movie.

__ Format--5 points out of 10 __ No references

__ Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling--10 points out of 10 __

__ Readability/Style--8 points out of 10 __ Imprecise words make this harder to read.

Grade: 63/100