Saw FINDING NEMO the musical a few days ago and...

It was only meant for a theme park. It was never transfering to Broadway. Anyone I know that saw it said its great.

Still though... I am a sucker for Tarzan Rocks...

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What is the world coming to?! First Mulan, then Tarzan(kinda good) & Little Mermaid, but Finding Nemo?...The only thing left if Lilo & Stich!
Imagine...

I saw it about a month ago - admittedly technically beautiful, though I'm getting tired of the bunraku puppet thing. Honestly, I fell asleep - Animal Kingdom is a tiring park and I didn't think a hour's wait in line for Nemo was at all worth it. I would have been much happier drinking at the Rose & Crown Pub in Epcot. The Everest ride was great, though.

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Sorry you didn't like it too much. Versus all the other Disneyland and WDW shows I've seen I would say Nemo was one of the best. No, it's no Broadway but you can't expect it to be. Parts were left out and some things were rushed but you kinda have to expect that. The shows are made to be short because honestly most people who pay about $70 for a park ticket aren't going to want to take out a couple hours worth of park time to sit down and watch a show.

Keep in mind the Nemo show is new, so there are probably a few things still being worked out. (They do something resembling "previews" too.) I haven't seen it yet...assuming I work summer school, I'm gonna try to go visit my sister at the end of August...but my sister has a few times and says it's ok. She wasn't a hugs fan of "Tarzan Rocks", so she may be in the anything's better camp, but I usually trust her judgment with the shows at WDW.

Course IMHO, the best shows down there are:
Daytime ~ Festival of the Lion King
Nighttime ~ Fantasmic :)

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Updated On: 4/20/07 at 04:17 PM

"I completely understand. They still could have done it a bit better. I mean, the BATB show at MGM, which was the same length, rewrote the story a bit and nothing was confusing (although that production was a bit hoaky)."

That's true, the Nemo show does become confusing sometimes.

The BATB show...I've been waiting for them to redo that for a while along with Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Why do my favorite Disney movies have to have the crappiest shows?

saw FN at animal kingdom back in january ... forced to go to florida to cheer on my sister in the WDW marathon. (which Disney appallingly mismanagd -- can you imagine RUNNING OUT OF WATER AT A MARATHON?!?!?!)

but i digress ...

i think most of what DRSislove said about nemo is spot on -- rushed and garbled, good costumes, but not altogether cogent.

theaterdude is right to point out that Animal Kindgom is not a broadway house, but i think it's inaccurate to say "it's only a theme park ... not meant for broadway ..."

if you search the threads, or talk to the people down there, it's clear that disney theatricals was/is trying to gauge the show's worthiness (or should i say marketability?) for the great white way ...

if they've ruled it out, that's news, but to say it was *never* intended for broadway would be revisionist, imho.

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DRS - a little confused by your review. You open by saying it's bad, but then you say for a theme park show it's pretty good.

It is a theme park show. It was written as a theme park show. And I don't think (personally) Disney has any sights for this one to hit broadway - and if it did, clearly it would be fleshed out a lot more. For a 35 minute show, it's fierce with energy and is nearly completely sung through.

I can understand how at time you might think it's confusing - but I disagree that BATB is any less so. The difference is BATB is such a well known and universally known story. Nemo is more complex - and definitely not a linear in plot as BATB was.

Cutting down a 90 minute movie down to 35 minutes had to be a painful experience to capture the plot and keep it moving.

And I completely disagree about the staging. I thought it was very clever, and full of energy. The use of the puppets and people as fauna was refreshing as opposed to stagnant sets.

But to each their own. I think the show overall is quite ambitious (regardless of who the producer is) for free entertainment in a theme park.

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Yeah.....to write about a theme park show which is pandering to little kids and their exhausted parents?

What were you expecting?

Nemo and friends is part of The Living Seas in Epcot.. not the same thing

In January, they opened up Finding Nemo the Musical in the theater that used to house Tarzan Rocks (and the theater is now closed (not open air) - with air condition..

Lion King is still at AK too

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dont know about EPCOT, but the Nemo-themed musical at AK was absolutely created with the possibility of a broader life in mind. again, it's been discussed on the boards, and the two actors i spoke with down there said it was "developmental" ...

... that seemed like a generous word to me, but it's directionally accurate.

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Oh no, Testing1232! I agreed with every word you said--the awesome "Hunchback" show at MGM, the even-more-awesome Off Kilter at World Showcase--but "The Seas with Nemo and Friends"?! Give me back my Seabase Alpha!

I, too, thought "Finding Nemo: The Musical" was visually stunning and a lot of fun, even if you only watch the little kids' reactions. And, even though I wasn't crazy about the music or the lyrics, I still think it is one of most impressive and successful shows at any Disney park because, if I'm not mistaken, it's the first time that Disney has musicalized one of their non-musical films, in a theme park or on Broadway, and the final product is still a more or less tight piece of stagecraft.

That said, that's also the reason for some of the show's problems...aside from the fact that all theme park shows have to make serious cuts to their source material, this show had the extra burden of adding material--the score--and trying to make it work within a story that didn't originally rely on songs. Almost every other show you see at Disney World ("Beauty and the Beast", "Voyage of the Little Mermaid", "Festival of the Lion King", etc.) have well-loved songs to fall back on right from the beginning. At the very least, the fact that those scores are instantly familiar helps to make up for whatever shortcomings the productions have. "Finding Nemo: The Musical" has no such songs to fall back on, so it's the closest thing you get at Disney World to experiencing a brand new musical...and as we know, those are rarely ever perfect.

Still, though, it's one of the best shows I've experienced at Disney World or Disneyland. Now, I don't automatically subscribe to the theory that theme park shows are "just" theme park shows--I think there's an art to the type of themed attractions you see at Disney parks, one that's very different from the art of the Broadway show (they aren't, or shouldn't be, created or viewed solely as watered-down Broadway shows but as another animal altogether, with their own pacing and context), and as with Broadway shows, I think it's an art that can be "mastered". Does "Finding Nemo" master the art of the theme park show? Not quite, but I think it comes close, maybe as close as anyone can expect it to be. The film will always be superior, but when you consider how much of the hugely successful film had to be transformed for the stage aside from the loss of a few jokes, you realize that this was actually a pretty ambitious production for Disney and they did a pretty good job.

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