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| Image via Google Play, property of Pixar |
Whether it's a Buzz Lightyear toy in the background of the waiting room of the dentist's office of Finding Nemo, a Darth Vader reference in Toy Story 2 or one of the several references to The Shining throughout their films, Pixar has shown to enjoy placing familiar images in viewers' heads.
Finding Dory makes good use of this, however it may come in a less familiar way, if you caught it.
At the near-end of the film, Dory is lost swimming, until she notices a trail of shells. Her parents (who she has not seen since her adolescence) taught her at a young age to follow the trail of shells, and she'll be home. Dory continues upon the trail, to where she finds her parents still avidly searching for her after many years, still laying out shells. Her parents drop the shells and quickly swim over to warmly embrace Dory; it truly is a great feel-good moment. The camera zooms out and the audience sees that the parents have made dozens of different trails, all leading to the same place.
I couldn't help but think of several different biblical themes shown in this scene.
First, Dory's parents are named "Jenny" and "Charlie." I'm pretty sure that through every mention of them, it is always "Jenny and Charlie" and never "Charlie and Jenny." Now let's do something wild, and put the letters of their first names together. JC. Where else do we see "JC"? Jesus Christ?
Let's put Jesus in the place of Dory's parents.
In this case, the multitude of paths paved by shells lead to Jesus. Jesus is actively setting paths before his people, and actively searching for them.
Each Christian has their own unique personal journey that leads to Jesus. And God, who is a father, set that path before each of them.
There also comes a point where Dory is about to get to her parents. All of the sudden she gets scared and says that she isn't sure if she wants to see her parents. She wasn't sure if they would accept her after all of these years.
Oftentimes, as humans, we feel the weight of our sin and our human pride comes in to play. We don't feel like we are good enough for God. This is because we are undeserving of grace. In this case, Dory feels that she is undeserving of her parents' love after many years away from them.
The love that Dory is shown upon her arrival is reminiscent of the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), a tale that further symbolizes the home and the feast that our Father is preparing for us in Heaven.
This wouldn't be the first time that director Andrew Stanton has used biblical imagery in his films. In 2008, he talked about the biblical influences on the making of Wall-E. So maybe there's something to this, or maybe this is a rare coincidence. I'll let you be the judge. Nevertheless, Pixar hit another home run with its 17th installment Finding Dory.
