Finding Marlin/Rejected Ideas

Here are some deleted scenes and rejected concepts for Finding Marlin, a film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, as well as distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The movies serves as the direct sequel to Finding Dory, and the third installment in the Finding Nemo franchise.

Original Plots
The film was originally intended to be a ripoff of Finding Dory and Ice Age, but the producers realized that they would receive backlash from fans and even get sued by Blue Sky Studios, the company that made Ice Age.

Here is the first draft, in which parts of the plot which rip off Finding Dory are in italics, and parts of the plot which rip off Ice Age are underlined :

''The film begins with a flashback of Marlin's childhood, where his parents, Christopher and Sophia, are having fun with him. He is eventually separated from them and is sent to the ocean where, in his eventual adult years, he eventually runs into Coral (Marlin's wife from the first movie), and start a new life.''

In another flashback, the fish are playing with Marlin (present-day Marlin is voiced by Albert Brooks) and Coral and the two clownfish look at their new eggs. Soto, the leader of a barracuda pack, watches the fishes with his trusted lieutenant, a piranha named Diego. Soto intends to devour Marlin's wife, Coral, and their eggs, planning an attack for the next afternoon. The attack takes place after Soto slaps Marlin back into the anemone, with Diego pursuing Coral (who has hidden an egg that is damaged), but she escapes, swimming to the bottom of the ocean so that Diego returns to Soto with no fish; the pack gives up and takes the eggs (except for Nemo). Soon after, Marlin had many adventures with his 6-year old son Nemo and their friend Dory.

We cut to the present day, where Dory is living near Marlin and Nemo, exactly three months after the events of Finding Dory. Nemo runs into the Tank Gang who managed to escape from the Marine Life Institute (and got out of their plastic bags) and Gill accepts it. ''Later, Marlin and Dory go on a field trip to help Mr. Ray supervise the fish minors when they watch a Sardine migration. Mr. Ray dissuades the kids from coming near the undertow, while Marlin notices the undertow and falls into the undertow itself, eventually knocked unconscious. Upon regaining consciousness, he becomes worried at remembering something but can't recall what it was.'' Back at the reef, he has another brainstorm that causes him to remember his family and Coral. Marlin gets help from Nemo and Dory, but Marlin is reminded that he doesn't wanna lose Nemo or Dory (again). Their destination is an aquarium in New Zealand.

With the help from Crush and the Tank Gang led by Gill, they make it to their destination. ''Marlin accidentally attracts the attention of a Megalodon, which chases him, Nemo, Dory, and the Tank Gang. When Dory gets hurt, Marlin feels bad for almost getting Dory eaten alive.'' Marlin decides to get help, but he runs into a piranha named Diego. ''Marlin finds himself near the Marine Life Institute in dirty water, where he is stuck in a six pack ring. Just when Dory and Nemo catch up to him, he and Diego are taken by humans and put into the Institute's Quarantine center, where the twosome encounter an octopus (Hank's cousin) named Fred, who wishes to have Marlin's tag that causes him to be eligible to be transferred to China, where Fred wants to go to live out a life of peace and quiet and solitude. Marlin agrees to give Fred the tag if he assists him and Diego in finding Marlin's parents and Coral.''

Meanwhile, Soto the barracuda and his pack find out that his lieutenant has been captured by humans. He gets very mad and decides that he and his pack will wait for Diego to come back.

During their journey, Fred is eventually separated from Marlin and Diego, with ''Marlin and Diego being sent to a compartment containing a bottlenose dolphin named Flipper, who turns out to know Marlin from childhood. Flipper has a friendly neighbor, a narwhal named Horny. Fred finds Marlin and Diego and attempts to renege their agreement, but Flipper points out that Marlin is from the Open Ocean exhibit and the directions to get there, so Marlin, Diego, and Fred resume their journey. Among the way, Marlin hears random words and voices that trigger his memories, leading him one step closer to his parents and Coral.''

Meanwhile, after Gill tells them to go find Marlin, ''Nemo and Dory encounter a duo of walruses, named Alan and Benson, who are former patients of the Marine Life Institute. When telling them of their delima, Alan and Benson call upon their blue-footed booby friend, John, to help them find Marlin. After Alan introduces John to Nemo and Dory, he starts pecking Nemo and Alan tells him to bring Nemo and Dory to Quarantine and Nemo is suggested to imprint by looking him and do a blue-footed booby call. Underwater, Nemo and Dory start making a plan about John and reaching above water, Nemo is curious to know which eye he should look at. One of them tells him to look at one of them. Doing a blue-footed booby's call, John put Nemo under him while Alan calls Niko to bring a green bucket for John to pick up, but is soon warned by Alan and Benson to stay away from their rock while John carries Nemo and Dory in the bucket. ''

''While being carried by John, Nemo is a little disappointed that John is confused and doesn't know where to find Quarantine and accidentally leaves Nemo and Dory on a branch, thus he starts eating popcorn that fell into a floor after Fred the octopus bumped into a girl who has a cup of popcorn while trying to get to the Open Ocean exhibit. Upon seeing John eat the popcorn, Nemo and Dory move the bucket and try to ask John to help them, but instead the two are launched in a tank with a toy fish inside. Then, Nemo and Dory wonder "what would Marlin do?" and try to escape the tank. Nemo and Dory launch themselves out of the tank and suddenly wander into the section where a giant clam annoys Nemo and Dory.''

Marlin, Diego, and Fred use a baby stroller to get to their location (with some hiccups along the way) and they eventually make to their destination, where Fred drops Marlin and Diego into a huge tank. Marlin gives Fred the tag and they part ways. Marlin and Diego are unable to find Marlin's parents, but they eventually find Coral (and she remembers Diego chasing Coral). Diego secretly meets up with two of his pack mates, who pass a message from Soto, demanding that Coral is officially alive; Diego sends them back with a message to Soto, promising to bring Coral and Marlin to Soto. ''A crab tells Marlin that his parents went to Quarantine, and Marlin, Diego, and Coral bravely travel in a water pipe, where Marlin reunites with Nemo and Dory. Flipper and Horny locate Marlin, Diego, and Coral in the pipe thanks to the latter and guide them to Quarantine and Nemo and Dory tag along again'', with Nemo giving his father a hug. Marlin also brings Diego, Coral, Nemo, and Dory out of the pipes.

''While trying to go to the ocean, they reunite with Fred, and the gang head to Quarantine where fish tanks are being packed and are about to be relocated to China. The gang soon finds and enter the tank of many clownfish.'' However, Marlin finds his parents and introduces his friends to his parents. Nigel (the pelican from the first film) and John suddenly appear and bring the gang and some clownfish back to the ocean, and Fred comes with the fish. The Pelican friends (from the first film) named as Gerald, Floppy, Beaky and Freddy led by Nigel, also arrive to the sea of the ocean and bids farewell to Marlin and his friends. They catch up with Gill and the Tank Gang and all of the gang come back to the ocean.

The gang arrive to the ocean, and Diego, feeling remorse for betraying Marlin's trust, confesses his plans to Marlin, which angers the clownfish. Marlin pins Diego to a rock wall, intending to kill him for his misdeeds, but Diego, having had a change of heart, agrees to help Marlin escape the pack.

Leading the pack away from Marlin, who they intended to ambush, Dory swims away with Coral; The pack, however, catches up with Marlin, Nemo, and Marlin's parents, who get help from Flipper and Horny so the two marine mammals escape from their tanks to help Marlin and his family. Soto catches up with them and corners Marlin, Nemo, and Marlin's parents, asking Diego to help bring the clownfish family down. Diego defects from Soto and defends Marlin and his family at his own expense as Soto brings Diego down, wounding him. Soto then turns to Marlin, intending to attack him alone, but the clownfish, in fit of rage, anger and vengeance, knocks a distracted Soto into a rock wall, causing several boulders to fall on Soto, crushing him. The other barracudas, Oliver, Beige, and Alex return to find their leader killed and flee the scene. Marlin and his friends and family then mourn for the injury caused to Diego, which they fear would be fatal, and bring him back to the Great Barrier Reef.

At the Great Barrier Reef, Marlin plays hide and seek with Nemo, Dory, the Tank Gang, Hank, Destiny, Bailey, Diego, Fred, Coral, Flipper, Horny, Crush, Squirt, Bruce, Anchor, Chum, Tad, Sheldon, Pearl, Kathy, Tad's parents, Sheldon's parents, Pearl's parents, Dory's parents, and Marlin's parents. Gill thanked Marlin for finding his family and Marlin and Gill start a friendship.'' Marlin later goes to the drop-off with Nemo, Coral, Gill, and Dory. At the drop-off, they see the different kinds of fish friends they had but they declare them, "unforgettable".''

Rejected Character Concepts

 * Oliver, a human teenager who can talk to animals due to a car accident which killed his parents. He would have helped Marlin and Spike travel the aquarium to find Coral. The reason he was removed because he didn't fit in with the plot, and that he didn't affect Marlin and Spike's relationship and character development, and that the audience would see him as a Gary Stu (meaning too perfect, unrelatable and unlikeable).
 * Earlier during production, Oliver was originally named "Boris", but it was more of a Russian name.
 * Arnold (originally named Horny and then Hornald) was originally supposed to be a narwhal, but the producers realized that narwhals can't survive in captivity, meaning that Arnold would have died some time before the events of the film, so they had to change him into an orca. He was also supposed to be friends with Flipper, but the writers couldn't come up with ideas for how Marlin and Spike were going to get into the tank.
 * At the time when Arnold was a narwhal, he was originally named "Horny", but the producers realized that this was too inappropriate. He was then given a joke name called "Hornald", but they decided to go with "Arnold".
 * When Oliver was still in the script, there was a mean gang who start attacking Nigel and the pelicans, and then chase Oliver in a car chase. When the producers decided to scrap Oliver from the script, they also had to rewrite several parts of the plot, meaning that the mean gang had to be scrapped as well.
 * This film was originally supposed to have dogs. Yes, DOGS. They included a Scottish-accented Golden retriever dog named Rommel, a dachsund named Brownie who is friends with Lincoln, police dogs (in the scrapped car chase scene), Ash (Rommel's son), and a police dog named Amy who was going to be voiced by John Ratzenberger. The reason they were scrapped from the plot is because they didn't fit in with the plot, and that they didn't affect Nemo's subplot.
 * Fang was supposed to recruit baddies, two of which are named Ryan and Ben. They were scrapped because the writers realized that Fang wouldn't need backup.
 * At one point, two of the baddies that Fang recruits, Ryan and Ben, were originally named Carlos and Earl. Their names were changed to Ryan and Ben for unknown reasons before being scrapped.
 * There was originally going to be a male blue tang named Lincoln, who is the leader of a bunch of blue penguins and the love interest of Dory. He was scrapped because he barely had any purpose in the story at all, as well as the fact that he'd be a generic love interest who is boring, forgettable, and bland.
 * When Lincoln was still in the script, there were blue penguins that were his minions. However, when Lincoln was scrapped, they had to be scrapped as well.

Deleted Scenes

 * The original version of the Tank Gang scene in Finding Marlin featured Gill noticing a science research ship, then he tells his plan to Marlin, Dory, Nemo, and the Tank Gang about a plan to get on the vessel, then they are fished up by the scientists, and are put in a tank. But then, a saltwater crocodile on the ship tries to attack the good guys, but they jump from tank to tank until the crocodile is recaptured by the scientists. Later, when they arrive at the port of Napier, New Zealand, the good guys tip their tanks over the side of the ship after encountering a police dog, then they land into the ocean. The scene was cut because it made no sense, so the writers used inspiration from the Tank Gang deleted scene in Finding Dory to make a new one.
 * At the time Oliver was still in the script, the scene where Marlin and Spike help Flipper and confront Arnold was very different; in fact it had two different versions:
 * "Later, Marlin and Spike are separated from Oliver, and the two fish fall into an exhibit containing an injured common bottlenose dolphin named Flipper, who meets Marlin and Spike. Flipper has an friendly neighbor, an orca whale named Arnold, who meets Marlin and Spike. Marlin explains to Flipper and Arnold about his quest to find Coral, then the four go up to the surface of the water, where Oliver shows up, and Marlin tells Flipper and Arnold about the human who's helping him find Coral. He and Spike get in the bucket, and the trio continue their quest to find Coral. Among the way, Marlin keeps finding clues, leading one step closer to Coral."
 * "Later, Marlin, Spike, and Oliver hear that a dolphin named Flipper is in trouble, so Oliver grabs a nearby ladder and puts the two into the tank. Marlin and Spike then meet Flipper, who tells them that he is being bothered by a bully named Arnold who is an orca. Marlin and Spike then stand up to the bully, who then gets taken out of the tank by the human workers. Marlin explains to Flipper about his quest to find Coral, and Flipper, in return, gives him directions to the coral reef exhibit. Then, Oliver puts the two fish into the bucket, and the trio continue their quest to find Coral. Among the way, Marlin and friends go to more exhibits."
 * The first scene was supposed to be the same opening from the first Finding Nemo, but as a dream by Marlin. It was scrapped because it was way too similar to the opening in Finding Nemo.

Rejected Cast Members

 * Charlie Adler wanted to voice George with some lines, but the producers didn't want George to speak like Becky didn't speak in Finding Dory and the major predators and the whale didn't speak in Finding Nemo. Adler refused to voice a silent George and tried to force Pixar to give him some lines, but he was eventually fired.
 * Scott McNeil was originally going to voice Spike, but the producers wanted to give Spike a voice that fits in with his personality and role.
 * Ian McShane was going to voice Fang, but the producers wanted Fang to have a voice which fits his arrogance. They then have rejected many actors since.

more coming soon...