While animated movies are rarely factual, this particular discrepancy is actually pretty important to the plot of Finding Nemo. Nemo and his dad, Marlin, live in the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia.
The entire Great Barrier Reef is around 1,600 miles long, so it’s impossible to place exactly where they lived, but we do know they lived along the edge because Nemo swam out to sea before he was captured. He was then taken to Sydney, which is way down on the southeastern coast of Australia.
If we were to place them as close as possible to Sydney from the Great Barrier Reef, Marlin and Dorey would have had to swim around 1,568 miles! If we’re being mean to the poor fish and put them at the furthest point in the reef, they would have swam 2,630 miles!
For both distances it is a nearly impossible distance for such little fish to swim in just a couple days, but then again it’s not likely they could talk either!