Comment by throwaway0a5e

So? Those stories are interesting.

Disney is like any other BigCo. They have a million stakeholders pulling things a million different ways and they need to chart a course.

Finding Nemo could have been a hilarious comedy or it could have been a drama that criticizes modern society (depending on which way you want to spin it). Replace the clownfish with disabled vets. Replace the turtles with some hippies in a bus. Replace Dory with a stripper. Replace the sharks with a biker gang. Replace the whale with a rent-seeking small town police department. Replace the dentist's boat with a greyhound bus across the country. Etc, etc.

But they didn't, they chose to stick a kid's movie with what is a fairly heavy adult plot line at its core (and they distanced it even further by using animals). Why? That decision making process is its own story.