Rented "Finding Nemo" for Holiday Treat. Hated it! Why did you like it?

[KoKo]

What did I miss? I thought it was weak on plot and heavy on "inside NY/Psychobabble speak" and aside from the awesome "undersea graphics" would not take any kid under 7 to see it (too scary) and most kids over 10 would be bored to death. I hated that the Dentist was so scary that little kids wouldnt' want to go get their teeth checked, and that "all the eggs and the mother in the beginning were killed off." I felt the "eggs" were a sign of Fundie Christians influence in the movie. Little kids associating "eggs" with loss and destruction. (a total mind imprint for the future Fundie/anti abortionists.) I thought it didn't belong. Besides why was the father more important than the mother and the rest of the sisters and brothers in the "eggs" which just vanished from the movie?

I felt like the movie was pure hype. Came home checked reviews and it reminded me of what I see about Shrub. My mind tells me he's an "imposter" but the "media tells me I should love him." ALL Reviewers LOVED IT! So, I guess I've gotta be nuts here, right? :shrug:

But that said, what did YOU like about it, besides the fantastic PIXAR Graphics?

[Langis]

1. I couldn't stand it either

I could never understand why everyone liked it. It was no Shrek, or even Monsters Inc.

[KoKo]

12. Thanks....there are two of us.....we are NOT alone.....................

:scared:

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. I loved it

I think you're reading waaaaay too much into it. It was a very cute movie, and I LOVE Albert Brooks, so him being the voice of Nemo's father really sold the movie for me.

[MrSlayer]

3. I thought it was great too.

Watched it with the kids last week and thought it was really funny. Dory the fish was hilarious with her constant forgetfullness and the re-habbing sharks were brilliant. A great movie for all.

[Pale Blue Dot]

4. AAAAAUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHH!

I LOVED "Finding Nemo". Besides the gorgeous animation, the story was wonderful, and Ellen DeGeneres should get an Academy Award nomination. As for the eggs, which you find some sort of "Fundie Christian influence" :wtf:, the loss of hundreds of eggs helps to explain why Marlin is SO overprotective of Nemo: Nemo is the one thing he has left after his wife and hundreds of eggs have been destroyed.

You aren't a father, are you? Becuase I found it a perfect film about the father/son dymanic. It is funny and imaginative, and while I don't except everyone to love it, I have a hard time believing anyone could hate it unless they had an agenda going in.

I guess you and I won't be seeing any movies together anytime soon, LOL.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. I just watched it a couple days ago, and loved it

Ellen Degeneres was hilarious, as was Albert Brooks.

parts of it were not so great - it wasn't as consistently wexcellent as Monsters, Inc. or Toy Story - but I really enjoyed the story, the growth of the father (somewhat contrived, but it was there), but mostly the humor. I don't watch these movies so much for the plot, since they're rather one-dimensional, but for the humor, since they are always filled with intelligent and zany humor, much of it quite quick and adult.

[KoKo]

6. But, what about the creepy, sicko Dentist from hell who wipes scum from

the dirty aquarium on the kid's dental bib? What about the "NYC type psychiatrist patient psychobabble? What about the crudeness of the characters. The Sharks who are undergoing a 12 Step AA program to stop eating humans and then smell the blood and "go off the wagon?"

I thought it was kind of sick for little kids. And, as an adult, what was there to find redeeming in humanity in this movie?

But, I appreciate your comments. It's amazing how people can see things so differently. And, it's one of the biggest grossing movies of all time.....so I must be wrong....:shrug:

On edit: Biggest grossing movie...it grossed my out! But, not in $$$$$$'s .......A pun!

[Pale Blue Dot]

13. Here is a list of the liberal messages in finding Nemo:

1. If you don't let you child rebel a little, you will face consequences;

2. Education is the difference between a represive existence and a great life;

3. Love and respect those who are different than you;

4. Rehibilitation, not punishment, is the best way to help an addict;

5. You should not always trust authority figures;

6. Nature should be left alone, not housed in a glass cage;

7. Stoners are realy friendly and helpful.

Hope that helps!

[KoKo]

20. But here are 7 things I saw wrong with the movie:

1. Overprotective parents should be rebelled against.

2. One should rebel in such an outstanding way that one shoves one's weakeness (undeveloped fin) in their face and find something REALLY dangerous to do just to taunt them.

3. If you can find a silly person to latch onto, then do it, and when you want to "dump them" if they cry then keep them along and just hope they turn out okay, but please don't let them sing too much, and don't trust them unless they can "bail you out BIG TIME."

4. Dentists are disgusting people who have daughters/patients who are equally as disgusting. They take "Readers Digests" into the bathroom for enough time that you will have some minutes to escape if you plan well, and they will enjoy hurting you by performing "root canals" and wiping "pond scum" on you, plus they imprison living creatures in aquariums and allow them to be abused by children in the most disgusting ways.

5. Seagulls are evil. They sit around yapping "Mike, Mike, Mike, and can't wait to steal food.

6. Sharks are really always trying to reform from their love of the smell and sight of blood. They are your typical drug dependent types who might fall off the wagon and need their peers to help them, but "intervention" doesn't always work.

7. A little guy can be sacrificed to save a group, but the group needs to be there with a big weed to save him, if he can't make it, and in the end he will just save himself anyway.....but you will feel good thinking about how he saved himself and that you helped him.

8. Sea Creatures are mostly helpful turtles who say "Hey Dude, well I'm about 150 years old and I know all about these sea currents, and WTF man....I'm just lazin along here with nothing to do with my time, but I'm REALLY HIP....and if I had a joint to smoke in this water, I would show you how cool I am.

and, and, and,........LOL's.......See I REALLY disliked this movie! ;-)

[Pale Blue Dot]

23. I think you and I need to agree to disagree about "Finding Nemo"

Would you like to discuss something less controversial, like abortion, the death penalty, or Dean vs. Clark? :-)

[ant]

15. about the sharks...

...that one line they had along the lines of, "Humans! They think they own everything! Must've been Americans," (referring to Nemo's "kidnapper") made me laugh out loud...and I was watching the movie on a plane...illegally, I had my own earphones and didn't pay to watch. :)

I liked it. I'm not big into animation flicks, but I enjoyed this one and hope to get the DVD at some point.

[Demobrat]

7. It made my Pixar stock go up 15 points.

I love it.

[KoKo]

10. LOL's and you are here on DU......You Corporatist Opportunist!

;-)

[Demobrat]

18. Not all Democrats are poor.

Although most of us seem to start out that way.

[KoKo]

21. I was kidding, not saying Dems are poor.....Many of us have stocks!

sorry, if you thought I was putting you down...really.

[mvd]

8. Dorie is such a cute character

Ellen's vocals were perfect. And Dorie's flaw, forgetting things, was adorable. Also had good lessons IMO, the characters were vibrant, and it could teach kids a few things about the sea.

Night, everyone! :hi:

[KoKo]

22. I probably like Dorie the best........n/t

n/t

[Ediacara]

9. the eggs?

Look, fish have hundreds of eggs, generally 90+% of them are killed in their egg to larval stage. By anthropomorphizing the fish into speaking nice emotional animals with manipulative forelimbs, you must make them into parents that give a rat's ass about their eggs.

Anyway.... I liked the movie generally :-)

[Heddi]

11. Disney Movies always

treat mothers as either evil, or easily disposable.

Think of the disney movies--for the life of me, I'm having a hard time finding ONE with a strong, positive, PERMANENT mother-figure in the movie.

There's the evil step-mothers who are out to kill, maim, or torture their children.


Or the mothers that just conveniently die off (bambi, anyone)

Or the mothers that just aren't there, which is usually the case.

Disney also has a habit of using minorities to voice characters that are less-than-appealing. Cheech Marin as one of the hyenas in Lion King comes to mind...or all of the 'bad' characters are darker. Again in Lion King, the "Bad" lion was much darker-skinned than the 'good' yellow-skinned lions. (THis isn't something that I myself noticed, rather a black friend of mine pointed it out, and listed several examples that I cannot remember at the moment).

Disney movies get suckier and suckier with each movie.

[KoKo]

16. You have a good point there. Walt and his followers must have had "famale

problems. Some kind of "abandonment issue." Or, he and they missed having a strong father figure even if their mothers didn't abandon them.
:-(

[tjdee]

24. Actually, Walt's mother died in a house he built for her.

Don't remember the particulars, but Walt had a house built for his mother and she died because of a gas leak or something like that.

So he did have issues with his mother.

[fortyfeetunder]

31. Walt Disney had a family complex

After a visit to Disneyland a couple of years ago, I really wanted to understand more about this creative and complex man. There is an interesting unauthorized bio on Disney that I found...and from what I remember:

There were rumors about Disney's bio mom being other than his mother. But there was insufficient evidence to claim he wasn't the product of his bio mom and dad.

For example, Disney's second daughter was adopted. In that day he was incredibly private about the whole matter, so it was some time before the adoption was *confirmed* , so I'd guess he was feeling inferior to have adopted a child (he had fathered the first one) One possible contributing factor to the adoption was he had occasional bouts of impotency.

So it made sense to me to see all these "parental loss" themes in the Disney animations. It gets repeitious.

I liked Nemo only for the superb Pixar graphics. The mother loss theme turned me off.

[carpediem]

14. I loved it and

my kids aged 4 and 6 loved it. It was sweet. the movie that pissed me off was Lilo and Stitch. We took our kids to see that and my youngest had me sitting in the hallway for most of it and had nightmares from it because it was too scary (it took almost the full hour before stitch went from scary to sweet). She had it figured out though, down to the simplest of distinctions, the white stitch (elvis stitch) was ok, but red stitch wasn't. quite amusing actually.

[Pale Blue Dot]

17. I thought "Lilo and Stitch" sucked, too

A vastly inferior copy of "The Iron Giant", IMHO. My son liked it, though.

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. OMG, I almost died laughing watching Lilo and Stitch!

But a lot of humor was Hawaiian, and unless you lived there, you'd miss that. But the humor is definitely different for a Disney movie - it was more British in nature, with the really fast toss-off phrases, puns, and quick wit. i don't remember any Disney movie having the kind of humor that went into Lilo and Stitch.

I absolutely loved it - one of Disney's best, if not in animation, in humor. Right up there with Aladdin.

[supernova]

25. I love Finding Nemo

In fact, it (along with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) were the first two DVDs I bought when I got my DVD player a couple of weeks ago.

Besides the pop out graphics (did computers EVER do such loverly work?), the writing is superb and tight.

And no, I wasn't offended that Mom wasn't there, the film is about the father/son relationship. We all suffer losses and kids are not immune. I wish more grownups understood that. :-(

[populistmom]

26. I like it because my two year old likes it

and it's something other than Thomas the Tank Engine. Plus, I find all those underwater images have a rather calming influence.

[grasswire]

27. keep swimming!

[ScreamingMeemie]

28. Two words....Whale speak. Saw it for the first time last night and

was laughing so hard at that I almost cried.

My precocious over ten daughter adores this movie as well. It's a good time spent with family. I think movie association can go a little bit overboard.

:)

[bleedingheart]

29. I loved it!

My kids loved it! I wasn't expecting a cinematic masterpiece...I expected a kids flick...

Nothing funnier than Mount WannahawkaLoogie...heehehee
Or Whalespeak!

[Bombero1956]

30. seagull made me laugh

Mine,mine mine, and when they're chasing Nigel and they fly into the sail, all you see are beaks sticking through the sail saying mine,mine,mine.

[bleedingheart]

32. that was cute and the crabs doing the karate kind of routine

to avoid being eaten by them...

"jump in my mouth if you want to live"..hahaha


"You made me ink"

[WindRavenX]

33. I thought it was a fantastic movie

Excellent story, great characters, and a movie that can be enjoyed by kids and (if not more!) by teens/adults.
I'm 18. Everyone at my college adores Nemo. It's about growing up. It's not a sugary movie- it deals with grief, loss, and the inability to let your child go. And we loved the lobster that talks in a boston accent- "yeah so I was sayin' - hi bob- it was WICKED dahk down theh!"
And yet, kids love the movie, despite the harsh themes. Pixar/Disney is brilliant in that regard.
on edit:
Finding Nemo funfact: the "mine! mine!" cries of the seagulls are being translated into every language that the movie is being made into. I wonder if this means that the Japanese version will have them saying "watashi!" I'm curious on that one.

[FloridaJudy]

34. I rented it as well

Mostly because I was going to the house of a friend who has an autistic son, and I figured a "G-Rated" movie would entertain him (the kid *loves* animated movies).

After dinner, the rest of us drifted into the living room and joined him in watching it. Cody was enthralled, and most of us were drawn in as well. It was the first time I'd seen it.

I'll grant you that this is no masterpiece; the plot was simplistic, and the biology was ridiculous (with very rare exceptions fish are NOT devoted parents). But the graphics were stupendous, and the humor was droll; Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres and Willam Dafoe were perfectly cast. And the twelve-step group for "Recovering Sharks" was a hoot - several of the adults I watched this with were AA members, and they laughed so hard they snorted club soda out of their nostrils.

And I loved the obnoxious seagulls.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes eggs are just eggs. I certainly didn't feel there was some Fundie conspiracy at work during the opening scene.