FINDING DORY, the much-anticipated sequel to 2003’s hit FINDING NEMO, is an entertaining, emotional, and stressful night out at the movies. When our favorite forgetful fish Dory goes in search of her long lost mother and father, she is swept up in a whirlwind of aquarium tanks, a surly octopus, and… Sigourney Weaver. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. While FINDING DORY doesn’t surpass NEMO in the pantheon of Pixar’s best, it certainly lives up to all of the hype, giving audiences a deeper glimpse into one of Pixar’s most beloved characters.
Admittedly, DORY stressed me out. I don’t know if it is the animal lover in me who cannot handle seeing animals in any sort of danger, or the fact that the movie is just that stressful, but I felt like I needed a drink after the credits began to roll. I had that same sort of feeling after I re-watched FINDING NEMO last week, but DORY took things to the next level. It seemed like nothing would go right for Dory and her friends. Just when you thought things were starting to look up… nope, another setback. This gets a bit tedious after awhile, and the film’s solutions to many of the problems were a bit outrageous, but hey, it’s a cartoon. How much can we really criticize it?
However, once the movie ends and you finally take a sigh of relief after the stressful ride you have just gone through, do not leave the theater just yet. There is a scene at the very end of the credits that will answer another question you may be wondering from FINDING NEMO … Stop here if you don’t want to know what it is.
I first noticed something was up when I saw Allison Janney listed in the credits. So I stayed ’til the very end, as my journalistic duties require, to figure out if there is a bonus scene there. Lucky for me, there is! Remember the end credit scene in FINDING NEMO where the animals in the dentist’s, ahem P. Sherman’s, aquarium escape? If not, let me refresh your memory:
The “now what?” question is finally answered, and honestly… prepare to take a giant leap of faith and don’t think too deeply into how this all supposedly happened.
After the credits, there is another funny scene between the sea lions, but then the camera pans back to the harbor, where we see the now algae-infested bags of “The Tank Gang” (Peach, Gill, Jacques, Deb, Bubbles, Gurgle, and Bloat) bobbing up and down. Now it’s hard to assess how much time has gone by from their escape; regardless I am not sure how the fish were able to survive in tiny bags with no food or air circulation from Sydney, Australia to California. But hey, like I told myself in the previous 100 minutes of action, it’s a movie… chill out. This whole time, the animals (including the puffer fish) were unfortunately not able to puncture through their bags. Luckily (or unluckily) for them, the same aquarium rescue boat that picked up Dory finds the bagged fish and proceeds to take them to… wait for it…. another aquarium. So not only did The Tank Gang not get a chance to live freely in the ocean, they are now back where they started – in an aquarium. Though I guess the upside is they don’t have to worry about Darla.
Should I be depressed about this? Hope we don’t have to wait another 13 years for them to be saved in FINDING THE TANK GANG.
