The movie is a sequel to the movie The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
Dr. Mackrill is a government scientist who was commissioned to study sea life so he can figure out how Mr. Limpet turned into a fish. This would explain where Mackrill got so much money to work on his evolution and devolution projects. The fish potion has no time limit.
Or at least it has a longer one than MacKrill said. How would he know? Has he ever been stuck as a fish forever? (Remember, forever is a long time.)Also, watches rarely run true, especially ones that have been submerged under water for a long time. Chuck's watch was probably behind by a few minutes or seconds, and so their "time" ran out earlier.
Joe and Professor Snape are the same person.
They both have the same voice, and they are both obsessed with potions. Sasha is one of Professor MacKrill's failed test subjects.
Originally, after testing the potion on a person, he found that it was too strong and caused the loss of all human intelligence. Sasha was lost in the same way Stella was; by the time MacKrill found her, it was too late. She was stuck in that form forever. The US cover has such god-awful art because the US distributor didn't want it to be a success.
Some idiots probably didn't want a non-Disney (or Fox, DreamWorks Animation, WB, whatever) and non-Japanese animated film to have much success in the States. Since CG-animation was popular at the time, they made a CG cover and made it look deliberately terrible to keep people from buying it.- Must be the same guys who deleted many useful scenes from The Fearless Four.
The US cover was a huge Take That! toward American animation of the era.
This terrible cover was essentially mocking the States' obsession with CG animation over traditional animation. This cover art was also a test to see if Americans wouldn't judge a book by its cover. This movie was originally going to be part of a six-part anthology corresponding with Merlin's tests in The Sword In The Stone.
We know that in The Sword In The Stone, Merlin tests Arthur by transforming him into various animals, the first of which is a fish. This movie revolves around three kids who get turned into fish. This could mean that a series was planned; each title would be Help! I'm a/an [Insert animal name here], and each film would have a different group of kids getting turned into the eponymous animal. It was going to be a combination of tests from the novel version and from the Disney movie. However, this idea never took off, as the movie didn't get a lot of publicity, and the creators feared it would turn into a Franchise Zombie from all the sequels. So, they just abandoned the plans. They were on drugs the whole time.
The antidote's effect on the fish eventually wore off...
...resulting in them (slowly?) reverting back to their normal non-speaking states and tying up the last loose end. The antidote never wore off on the fish
And now their descendants live in a place called Bikini Bottom.
- Or they built the world of Shark Tale?
- Maybe both, depending on their level of anthropomorphism from the amount of antidote they consumed.
Fly became afraid of water after his experiences as a fish.
Remember, he did almost get killed several times, from Shark trying to eat him, Stella, and Chuck, to Crab wounding him. If a Sequel is made, it will focus on Mackrill in his younger self.
Fly is Only Known By His Nickname.
His real name is Flynn (after all, who names their kid Fly?). He gained his nickname early on in life due to his obsession with fishing, and the name stuck to the point that almost no one, bar his closest friends and family, know his real name. The Movie takes place in Splatoon's universe.
Fly, Stella and Chuck are all descended from the Darling family.
Specifically, Fly and Stella are Wendy's great-grandkids, and Chuck is John's.- For starters, the three of them clearly have some parallels with the original three Darling children: Fly is the older sibling and de-facto main character like Wendy, Chuck is logically-minded and wears big round glasses like John, and Stella is the sweet, innocent younger sibling in pink like Michael.
- Fly, Stella, and their father Bill all have the same light brown/dirty blonde hair that Wendy, her mother Mary, and her children Jane and Danny are depicted with, while Chuck and Anna have black hair and fuller figures reminiscent of George Darling's. In early drafts, John was left out of the trip to Neverland due to being too serious and wanting to be like his father.
- The timeline matches up; the film is clearly meant to take place in the present day of its production/release (so late 1990s to early 2000s), so it wouldn't be too farfetched for Jane (who was presumably born in 1929) to have given birth to Bill during either the late 1950s or early 1960s.
- In addition to being Meaningful Names, Fly and Stella's names could be allusions to the Peter Pan mythos: Fly as in flying to Neverland, and Stella as in the Second Star to the Right. After the events of Return to Neverland, it makes sense that Jane would pass down the stories of Peter Pan to her kids and grandkids, and regardless of whether Peter is directly involved in the family tree or not, his influence can also be seen in Fly's mischievous and impulsive personality. (See also: the model pirate ship that can be spotted in Fly's bedroom during his first scene.)
- To an extent, Fly's affinity for the ocean, and how it results in unfortunate consequences for him, could be seen as parallel to how Wendy's happy thought was specifically focused on the Neverland mermaids, only for them to harass her and drive her to anger. There's also a bit of a role reversal/vindication in this parallel: whereas Wendy is nearly drowned by a bunch of sea-dwellers, Fly is eventually responsible for causing Joe, a sea-dweller, to become human and actually drown.
- Disney's take on Peter Pan is a Fiery Redhead, and Wendy is clearly shown to have feelings for him; Jane not so much, but she does grow to appreciate him, and there is some eventual Ship Tease between her and Peter. While Peter doesn't end up with either of them (so it wouldn't exactly be an example of Like Parent, Like Spouse), it is interesting that Lisa, Bill's wife and Fly and Stella's mom, is also a redhead — and as a bonus, she also happens to share her name with the Darling family maid from the original play/novel (albeit spelled differently).
- Also noteworthy is that both films feature an eccentric redhead whose exploits end up being the catalyst for the main trio of kids to go on a far-off adventure while their parents are away. This could apply to both Peter Pan and Professor MacKrill.
- As for why none of them have British accents: it's exceedingly rare for a particular family to live in the exact same house forever, and John is nowhere to be found in Return to Neverland, implying he had long since moved out of the old Darling family house by the time she had Danny. So it makes sense that both Wendy's and John's children would have moved out too, possibly relocating to different countries with their respective spouses after marriage. Therefore, their own children wouldn't have the same exposure to that same British accent.
