Finding Fault

I’m having a crisis of logic, and it’s Pixar’s fault. My son likes to watch Finding Nemo, so I’ve seen it many, many times. The one thing about it that bugs me is (spoiler alert!) the part where they’re in the whale. They are swallowed and then blown out the blowhole. For some reason it bothers me that they do so much research into making the characters look and move just like their real-life counterparts, and then they make a serious error in terms of anatomy.

A whale’s blowhole is connected to its lungs. Its throat connects to its stomach. That’s it. There’s no chance of a whale choking, because its airway and esophagus are completely separate. The water that spurts up when whales breach is just the water hanging around the blowhole and water vapor from the moist air.

Now, the more serious question is this: Why am I freaking out about that instead of the fact that fish are talking in the movie?

Comments

Nathan Mulford said…
Thanks for ruining the magic! Next thing you are going to tell me is that you can't set a fire in a Whales mouth and make him sneeze you out! Thats ridiculous.
April 24, 2008 at 1:41 PM
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