With a $50 million opening, “Finding Dory” released Friday is dominating all 4,305 North American movie theaters. The Finding Memo’s sequel has had the biggest animated film debut of all times.

Apparently, statistics estimates that “Finding Dory” might break the 121.6 million Sherk the Third’s record for best domestic animated opening by the end of the weekend. If this happens, the Finding Nemo’s sequel may rank as one of the top 20 local openers of all times.

This new story is about Dory a forgetful but lovely blue tang character in “Finding Nemo”.  In the sequel, the focus is on her past and how she learned to live with a short-term memory loss condition.

Over a decade ago, the first film Finding Nemo was released to the public. The film captured everyone's imagination and quickly turned into an instant classic from the hands of Pixar. Image Credit: Digital Times
Over a decade ago, the first film Finding Nemo was released to the public. The film captured everyone’s imagination and quickly turned into an instant classic from the hands of Pixar. Image Credit: Digital Times

‘Finding Dory’:  a story about children’s mental disabilities and challenges

Director Andrew Santon says that he was not mean literally she’s a representation of a particular handicap.  In the first movie, he just wanted to show that this one thing that was funny and helpful (Dory) saw as a burden. And she had to apologize for it.” He says that for Finding Dory is was needed to show how Dory grew up, but in a way, the film was not only addressed to children with disabilities.

Flashbacks indicate that Dory was born with a short-term memory loss, and also how she learned to manage her condition. When she was little Dory’s parents s build seashell trails to help low her find her way home. Although dory’s parents figured out how to teach Dory a lot of things, they worry if she’ll be OK on her own.

Mitch Prinstein, director of clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and former editor of the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology refers Dory’s parents as “scaffolding”. Prinstein says this is because they provide a structure that allows kids to function within their abilities, then gradually removing that structure until they’re able to stand on their own.

He believes that Pixar Finding Dory movie will be helpful to children because they will stop stigmatize people with mental disorders.

“The stigma is generalized by adults,” he says. “So if we get children to think about it now and have awareness of psychological difficulties that is a huge and important step forward,” Prinstein says.

Given the plot from the original film, it was a no-brainer for producers to ensure the character with memory loss was the one who got stranded. Image Credit: Coming Soon
Given the plot of the original film, it was a no-brainer for producers to ensure the character with memory loss was the one who got stranded. Image Credit: Coming Soon

Regarding authors, co-director Angus McLane says that Dory is so popular among children and audience in general because she does not let her disability slower her. Also, he credited her popularity for being someone with such a positive attitude, despite their challenges,

“Dory has an obvious disability, but she finds out what her strengths are in her particular brain,” says McLane. “For some people, those strengths are visible and for some might be hidden.”

Finding Dory is a beautiful film full of CG animation, thrills, laughs and heartfelt moments. The filmmaker gives all that a Pixar film fan is looking for. This movie is not just a sequel to one of the best studio’s acclaimed projects, in fact, it is an animated picture people has been waiting to see for a lot of time. It took 13 years to think about a sequel with an excellent story and a more significantly powerful message.

What are the critics saying about Finding Dory?

On Rotten Tomatoes, Finding Dory has gotten 95%”fresh “rating. Also, Fandango- an online ticket service- reported “Finding Dory” had become its top pre-selling animated movie ever this week.

Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst with comScore, said that “Dory” may reverse the recent declining momentum at the summer box office, which is down 18% from the same point last year.

“Hollywood has been fishing for a box office hit and may have finally found it with ‘Finding Dory’ which is on track for a spectacular weekend that, along with ‘Central Intelligence,’ could boost us out of the summer doldrums and get the momentum going in a positive direction,” he noted.

Nancy Churnin, Dallas Morning News, said that Finding Nemo’s sequel has new characters as too many sequels do, but that this fine-finned tale tells a parallel story from the opposite direction.

ComScore PostTrak,  also, reported that younger females are dominating most Dory theather rooms with 63% women, 65% under 25. The overall positive score is 89%. The audience is flocking mostly in pairs or groups. Twenty percent came with a friend, 25% watched Dory with a date, while 18% arrived with two-to-four friends. Word of mouth is huge with 71% of the audience recommending Dory to their buddies. Sixty-five percent of the public bought 2D tickets to Dory.

Source: USA Today