How Did Andrew Stanton Develop Finding Nemo'S Screenplay?

I’ve always assumed that Hilary Swank was American but a few days ago I read an in-depth article about actors who still hold on to their original passports and I was surprised to see her name listed, alongside the likes of Anthony Hopkins (still Welsh/British) and Charlize Theron (became an American citizen although this was big news at the time). This has opened my eyes and I had no idea that living and working in a country for 50 years or more does not automatically mean that you are a citizen. Her choice is telling of her love for her birth country, even though she now resides in a country on the other side of the world.

One of the most openly childlike films ever made, Ponyo is the kind of movie I want to watch on a sleepy weekend morning, all wrapped up in a blanket with tea. The heart of the movie is the very pure relationship between Ponyo and Sōsuke, and it is expressed not through grand declarations of love, but through the concrete actions of saving each other’s lives, sharing food, and trusting each other. The movie expresses a profound theme of simple, grounding love that makes the chaotic world around us feel steady. On the surface, Ponyo is a simple story about a fish-like creature who wants to become human, but it is also a deeply rich exploration of the theme of identity and transformation. Ponyo wants to become human not because she wants to rebel against her father, but because she is trying to figure out who she is. Along the way, the film raises many questions about the nature of autonomy, and how we choose our own paths in life. One of the things that really resonates with me is the balance of the movie: between the sea and the land, magic and reality, childhood and adulthood. It’s interesting to see that Fujimoto has a ‘fear’ of humans, and a pretty typical Miyazaki anxiety about the environmental consequences of human actions and the easily-tipped-over eco-system. But Ponyo’s huge transformation of the tides to save her dad has so much resonance as to how small an action can have HUGE consequences, that it never feels like the movie is lecturing you about this. Rather, it is a wonder to behold, an alive, ancient, sometimes mischievous, and mostly kind and gentle ocean. And the way the rest of the family is portrayed as well, in relation to Sōsuke and Ponyo is also really wonderful. The calm, practical and kind Lisa is a great example of the restorative powers of care and trust, showing how parents and guardians can model the best of behavior to their children in the simplest way. However, it is the more recent repeat viewings that have revealed further depths to the film. Firstly, the emotional, true-to-life depiction of the relationship between Ponyo and Sōsuke is amazing, as is the way the film champions simple, grounding love. Secondly, there is the outstanding way in which adult responsibility is balanced against the magic of the sea. This must be the way that all environmentally aware films should be – present in the story, yet never didactic or preachy. In addition, one cannot fail to be struck by the sense of family and care that is at the heart of the film. The simple, selfless love that Sōsuke’s mother, Lisa, shows to her son and to Ponyo is wonderful, as is the depiction of responsible, compassionate adult behavior. As a result, this is a film in which parents and other adult family members are positively represented. The way in which Ponyo’s desire to become human leads to huge environmental problems also adds depth to the film and serves as a powerful warning about the potential consequences of human actions.

I was excited to explore how Kya could have possibly managed to kill Chase given her history with him and her general inability to deal with humans. The answer is simple: the marsh was her weapon. For years Kya had observed how various nature creatures eliminated threats to their survival. How a predator would set up a ‘trap’ in order to destroy an intruder. How the tide would come in and wash away any trace of what had once existed. Kya would use all of these same methods to eliminate Chase, the man who had assaulted her and then continued to taunt her by pretending to want to return to her years after the fact. He wore the seashell necklace that she had given him as a symbol of their ‘affair’ and she used it to bait him in order to kill him and make it look like a crime that no one could have suspected her of having committed. The fire tower scene is amazing. She uses Chase's belief that Kya is too wild to be smart against him. There's enough evidence to make people wonder who could have done it, but not enough to make sure that Kya gets in trouble for it. And then the poetry at the end of the book is so wonderful. It makes sense of so much of what Tate had figured out about Kya, namely that her quietness had not been ignorance, but rather calculation. In another story, this would be the action of a villain. But because the world has failed Kya so completely, her attempt to get back at the person who had failed her the most is something that the reader can feel(ambivalently)ision with.

This is also really wonderful: the backgrounds of the food scenes are painted with such love that they become characters in their own right. The ham, the noodles, the tea. The steam rises up from the bowl of ramen like little smoky strands, and the slices of ham are glossy and so silky-looking. It’s all been painted with gouache. Making food look good in animation is hard. But making food look good with flat, opaque paint is just about a miracle. The tiny highlights and accurate shadows that suggest texture and warmth are so detailed. And the point of it all is small, but crucial to understanding the simple joys of human connection that this film celebrates. The care that went into rendering this bowl of noodles is the same care that Lisa put into making it for her family. This art style supports the values of the story at the minutest level.

‘Hustler’s University’ Part 1 by Tate was a very motivational video. The lessons he presented on developing mental toughness were most relatable after my recent failures. The step by step process on starting an online business was also very useful but did get slightly repetitive after a while, particularly for those familiar with the ‘hustle culture’ plethora of information already out there. The big takeaway for me though was his point of ‘owning your time’ and automating income to ensure true side hustle freedom. BUT, the content is AGGRESSIVELY WORDED & NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. You must identify with Tate’s WORLDVIEW in order to benefit from his “bootcamp style” university courses.

I think a lot of people focus on the romance of this story. Instead, it is a very simple exploration of choice and consequence. The mermaid made a very cold and hard bargain with the witch – get the prince to fall in love with her and marry her, or die on the day another woman marries him. The witch never lied. So, the ending of the story is simply the fulfillment of the bargain that the mermaid made with the witch. It is a very grim, but very fair story. The ‘magic’ of the story is not in it finding some way around the terms of the bargain. Instead, it is in showing us how the mermaid deals with the consequences of her actions. She doesn’t rage against the world. She doesn’t beg for mercy. Instead, she accepts her circumstances and makes the one choice available to her in the circumstances that she has created for herself. The ending is therefore very respectful of the ‘rules’ of the world that has been created for the story. And it is very powerful as a result. It feels earned, not random.

The Ocean in ‘Life of Pi’ represents the uncertainty of life. The main character Pi’s voyage across the Pacific will surely mirror the ups and downs of your own life. At times the Ocean will be serene allowing for peaceful moments while at other times it can turn into a raging storm bringing tough challenges to Pi’s fragile raft of life and his encounter with the primal force of Richard Parker the Bengal Tiger. The vast open Ocean symbolizes the unlimited possibilities that life has to offer while the depths of the sea are mysterious and unknown and even in the harshest of circumstances there is always hope for survival with faith and determination.

This poetic final chapter has yet to receive the recognition it so richly deserves. It’s written in a most unconventional, i.e. almost stream-of-consciousness fashion, mirroring Kai’s exhausted yet liberated mind. Short sentences. Fragments. Repetition. The process of thoughts settling down after a long and turbulent period is rendered in perfect fidelity: ‘Light. Through the blinds. Not the blue glow of the monitor. Yellow. Warm. The hum of the fridge. A distant bird. Silence that isn’t empty. Silence that is full of… nothing. Nothing urgent.’ In shifting to this most novelistic of structures for the closing chapter of his harrowing novel about information overload, Seibel delivers the thematic pay-off in the very form of the text. Clever writing. The story about being overwhelmed by information ends in a literary style which is the very opposite of information-overloaded.

I wouldn't say "transformed" as such, but his ordeals absolutely unleashed his potential and he was caught in a number of unstoppable streams. As the heir to the Atreides throne, Paul was very much being prepared for leadership. He commanded the friendship and respect of the likes of Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho, and held his own in combat against them. Jessica instilled him with the training of the Bene Gesserit under the watchful eye of the sisterhood. The Fremen were aching in their bones for a jihad and the arrival of the mahdi. The rest of the universe had grown fat and stagnant. Paul had very little choice in the matter. He hardened, most certainly - partly from a thirst for revenge, a desire for justice and tearing down of the old failing systems, but a good deal of this came with the crushing burden of prescience too. How does one remain personable and empathetic when you have visions of the death of billions and are forced to choose between love and terrible personal sacrifices for a greater necessity? By the end he was quite the opposite of a broken god messiah. He preached to the masses that messiahs were a lie planted in society by the Bene Gesserit with their Missionaria Protectiva. He could have died in the sietch that one day and the events would have unfolded much the same. Humanity needed to fend for itself, make its own decisions and forge its own future, and stop falling under the spell of charismatic heroes and promises. The Fremen were a great people destroyed by the stagnation that came with their "messiah" and the most heroic thing Paul ever did was to try to snap them out of it. Ultimately he knew Leto II would do what he could not bring himself to endure (and who could blame him) That's my thoughts on the matter anyway. The beauty of Dune is that depending on who you ask and how you frame it you can interpret the key players in a multitude of wildly contrasting ways

The animals on the lifeboat, and in Pi's memories, are all symbols of real people, with certain characteristics that Pi observes. The hyenas represent brutality, the zebra black-and-white stripes represent suffering, and the orangutan represents maternal protection. All of these animals are in the movie too, but in a more subconscious way than in the book. The book makes the connection between the animals and the humans that they represent very clearly, and then makes the reader question the connection that they have made when an alternative explanation is given for what the reader has seen. The allegory in the book is more complex and demands more from the reader than the simple narrative of the movie.