In the great tradition of all Disney•Pixar movies, Finding Dory will be accompanied by an animated short titled Piper, and Entertainment Weekly has your first look at the adorable bird protagonist, who learns to overcome its fear of water. Check out the first image from the Finding Dory short film above!
The six-minute short is about a hungry baby sandpiper learning to overcome hydrophobia. “Seeing the way these sandpipers react to waves and run, I always felt, ‘Gosh, that’s a film, that’s a character,” says Piper director Alan Barillaro. “It’s always fun to show a world we’re familiar with but from a different perspective. We’ve all been to the beach, but have we ever viewed water from just an inch off the sand? That could be very fearful from a bird’s perspective.”
For Finding Dory, returning Finding Nemo characters include Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), Marlin (Albert Brooks), Nemo (Hayden Rolence), Mr. Ray (Bob Peterson), Crush (Andrew Stanton) and Squirt. New characters include an Octopus named Hank (Ed O’Neill), a whale shark named Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), a beluga named Bailey (Ty Burrell), a pair of sea lions, Rudder (Dominic West) and Fluke (Idris Elba), and Dory’s parents, Charlie (Eugene Levy) and Jenny (Diane Keaton).
Finding Dory picks up six months after the first movie, with Dory living a quiet life among the clown fishes. After going with Nemo on a class trip to see manta rays migrate back home, her home sickness leads the forgetful Dory on a quest to find where she came from.
Findng Nemo helmer Andrew Stanton (John Carter) returns to the director’s chair for the animated film, which hits theaters on June 17.
