Finding Dory

When is a superhero movie like Game of Thrones? When it’s the most pirated movie of the year, of course. On a new list of all the movies downloaded from popular torrenting site BitTorrent, the merc with a mouth tops the chart over Batman v. Superman, Captain America: Civil War, and The Force Awakens.

Like every other Pixar release, Finding Dory opens with a short film. This one is called “Piper”; it’s about a little bird learning to hunt for food among the scary ocean waves. It’s a terrific showcase for Pixar’s latest advancements in computer animation, which in recent years has taken on the qualities of great nature photography. The sunlight sparkles against the water, which ripples and flows with uncanny accuracy, and when the little bird kicks a pile of sand in a crab’s face you can practically count the individual grains.

With another new Pixar movie comes the promise of another new Pixar short film, and their latest effort looks as ridiculously adorable and heart-melting as you could possibly hope. It also looks way cuter than Lava — not that it would take much for Pixar to deliver something better than Lava (and good luck getting that song out of your head now). The company has debuted the first image from Piper, the new short film that will probably make your heart grow three sizes when it premieres before Finding Dory.

People love to speculate about Pixar movies. There’s even a whole “Pixar Theory” about how every movie exists in the same shared universe (one with humans and talking toys and talking ants and a gigantic menagerie of horrors when you think about it). Then there are the famous Pixar Easter eggs; in jokes and references to other Pixar movies, both past and present, that litter the backgrounds of every single Pixar movie.

Pixar has settled into a rhythm of releasing both sequels to huge hits and new, original movies in theaters. 2015 was home to two original Pixar movies — the Oscar-winning Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur — which means now it’s time for another sequel...

While we wait for another trailer for Pixar’s long-awaited Finding Nemo sequel, these new Finding Dory posters are taking a bit of a clever approach by asking you to find Dory — though the simple-minded little fish isn’t so good at hiding. The four posters feature the tagline “Have you seen her?,” calling to mind the kind of missing pet posters you might see around your neighborhood. Maybe Pixar should put Dory’s face on a milk carton. (They can pay me for that idea later.)

In June of 2016, we'll be treated to another adventure centered around of the most popular animated characters in movie history, Dory. Here's the first trailer for "Finding Dory".