History WesternAnimation / FindingNemo

* ArtisticLicense: The Aqua Scum 2003 measures the temperature of the aquarium in Fahrenheit, even though the film is set in Australia, which uses Celsius. Of course, the film was made by an American studio and primarily marketed towards an American audience...

** [[Franchise/ToyStory Buzz Lightyear]] appears as one of the toys in P. Sherman's waiting room, a boy can be seen reading a [[Franchise/TheIncredibles Mr. Incredible]] comic book, and [[WesternAnimation/MonstersInc Mike Wazowski]] appears in the closing credits. As a bit of ContinuityNod, he's wearing some of the items he used to protect himself from Boo in his apartment.

* CreditsGag: At one point during the end credits, [[WesternAnimation/MonstersInc Mike Wazowski]] swims by in scuba gear and waves to the audience.

* ArtisticLicenseAnimalCare: The dentist puts the tiny Nemo into a tank clearly way too big for him, since he's almost immediately sucked into the aquarium's filter (this is vital to the subplot about the Tank Gang trying to escape, however). He also puts a wild fish directly into the tank, which is very easy way to introduce disease to the other fish, mostly stated to have come from captivity, in the aquarium.

* AlwaysABiggerFish: Averted [[spoiler: in the stinger sequence with the anglerfish.]]
* AnAesop: It's important to put trust in others, because sometimes all you can do to get forward in life is to take a risk and hope for the best. It really seems that the movie wants Marlin to learn this lesson, as he is consistently punished for not believing in people around him.
** Not believing that Nemo is capable of understanding what's safe and what isn't is what gets him taken away in the first place. When Nemo's friends swam into open water and goaded him to try, he had no intention of following them. He only swam out to touch the boat and put himself in danger of getting taken by divers when [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Marlin intervened]].
** Marlin distrusting Dory's ability to make something good out of a strange situation actually hurts Marlin '''twice'''.
*** First, when Dory wants to get help from Bruce, Anchor, and Chum to figure out if they know where Nemo is by showing them the diver mask, Marlin distrusts them and tries to fight Dory for the mask. This results in him accidentally hitting Dory with the mask hard enough to give her a nosebleed, which Bruce smells and makes him go berserk.
*** Second, when Dory is warned to swim through the trench instead of over it, she tries to tell Marlin to do the same. But because Marlin is intimidated by the trench and doesn't trust Dory, he ignores this warning and has them both swim above it. Because of this, they both almost get killed by a swarm of jellyfish.
** It's only when Marlin places his trust in others that things start to turn around for him.
*** When Dory wants to ask the whale for help getting to Sydney, Marlin is at first too afraid to do so, but when he looks at her wound and remembers that his distrust almost got them killed, he decides to trust Dory for once, and goes along with her plan to have a whale help them. He is rewarded for doing so with an escort straight to Sydney.
*** In the finale, when Dory is taken in the net with the school of fish, Nemo tries to go to her rescue and tells all of the fish to swim down like [[ChekhovsSkill Gill taught him]]. Marlin places his trust in Nemo this time, and the plan succeeds; saving Dory, the school of fish, and Nemo from certain doom.
*** Made explicit in the stage play with the song [[https://open.spotify.com/track/1iDe12CvtDfoVlNDGqhlO8 "We Swim Together"]].

* AnimalsLackAttributes: Poor Bruce was originally animated with prominent claspers, as would be appropriate for a shark his size. Obviously they didn't make it to the final version.

Meanwhile, the scuba diver turns out to be a UsefulNotes/{{Sydney}} dentist who puts Nemo in his office's aquarium and plans to give the fish to his niece, Darla, for her upcoming birthday. The other fish in the tank, most of whom are somewhat insane, decide to help Nemo escape (especially because Darla is described as a "fish killer", who, whenever she gets a fish, shakes their plastic bag too hard).

The movie takes place in and around the Great Barrier Reef near UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, and centers on an anxiety-ridden clownfish named Marlin (Creator/AlbertBrooks). After losing his wife Coral and all but one of their 400+ eggs in a barracuda attack, Marlin becomes fiercely protective of his remaining son, Nemo (Creator/AlexanderGould). On his first day of school, Nemo gets fed up with Marlin's apprehension of the ocean and ends up overstepping his father's directives by going near a boat. Soon after, Nemo gets [[UnwantedRescue "rescued"]] by a scuba diver, and Marlin, going against all his anxieties, goes off to find him. Marlin joins up with a forgetful blue tang named Dory (Creator/EllenDeGeneres), and they brave all sorts of obstacles to, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin find Nemo]].