| “ | Once, there was only silence, and not a speck of hope in sight. And every tiny bubble burst on its journey towards the light. But the spark of creation will flicker again; it's a brand new era... about to begin. | „ |
| ~ Joe |
| “ | My good friend, we have a job vacancy, perfect for you. Commander of my minons, leader of this impresive group of idiot fish. | „ |
| ~ Joe attempting to make Fly and his friend to join him. |
| “ | One potion. One ocean. One ruler of all. | „ |
| ~ Joe's singing, proclaiming himself as the ruler of the ocean. |
Joe is the main antagonist of the 2000 animated Danish film, Help! I'm a Fish. He is a pilot fish who drank some of Professor Mac Krill's potion, became highly perspicacious and intelligent, and then decided to take over the seas with an army of intelligent sea creatures.
In the Danish version, he was voiced by Nis Bank-Mikkelsen. In the English version, he was voiced by the late Alan Rickman, who is known for his role as Severus Snape in Harry Potter.
Personality and Traits
| “ | You got it? Good. Now get this... You're FIRED!!! You brainless-sawtoothed-seaweed sucker! | „ |
| ~ Joe to Shark, showing his intensive aggression. |
Joe is very calm, suave, collected, loquacious, and smooth-talking. He is an obsequious and polite fish who never loses his calm and remains level-headed even when angry. Having drunk much more of the fish-into-human potion than any other fish, he is by far the smartest of them. Unfortunately for everyone, he is also completely evil, ruthless, manipulative, and power-hungry. He presents a facade of business-like politeness to subordinates and potential associates, but hardly veils his scorn and often dishes out disparaging and opprobrious comments. He is also very prideful, audacious, self-satisfied, oppressive, and boastful, revelling in his higher intellect and enjoying to rub his superiority in people's faces. He evidently resents the heroes for their innate intelligence, and while he wants to use them for his own gain, he strives to get rid of them and displays great delight when he manages to outsmart them.
While indeed very intelligent, able to organize an extremely developed human-like micro-society in little more than a day, to seize opportunities when they arise and skillfully adapt to the situation, Joe has yet to fully come to term with behaving like a human, prompting him to act on impulses, to neglect facts, and to make mistakes. And like many villains, he ends up undone by his own arrogance. Joe is a highly magniloquent and persuasive orator, described as "inspiring" by the other evolved fishes, able to present himself as a benefactor to recruit them. However, people turned into fishes like Fly know better than to blindly follow him and provide an intellectual match, leading to his downfall.
In addition to his intellect, Joe also proves much stronger and tougher than his small size would make it appear. However, this is still not enough to put up with a pissed of shark.
Joe's main minions are a dimwitted Lemon Shark, who just thinks about food, and a military-minded Crab, who both eventually turn against him.
History
Joe was initially a Pilot Fish swimming aimlessly alongside Shark. One fated day, the hero, a young boy named Fly, goes at sea with his overweight cousin Chuck and a scientist named Professor Mac Krill, searching for Fly's little sister Stella, who got turned into a fish by accidentally drinking Mac Krill's potion and fell into the ocean. As soon as Fly turns into a fish to look for her, a storm breaks up and the boat sinks, along with the antidote, making it appear that Mac Krill drowned, forcing Chuck to turn into a fish as well avoid drowning. Joe and Shark came near the bottle of antidote, which was opened and was spilling in the sea.
They both drink it, gain human-like features and personality and becoming talkative. The pilot fish (who names himself "Joe") figures how to use the potion for his own gain. He promptly drinks more and starts "evolving" thousands of other fishes, while making sure to make them less intelligent that he is. Over the next forty hours, Joe establishes himself in a sunken Ocean Liner and starts a town-like society of evolved fishes, with him in charge. He has them build a huge statue in his likeness on the liner's deck, and organizes whale-buses trips to his lair, for the evolved fishes to come and watch his conferences.
Fly, who was reunited with his sister and his cousin, is searching for the antidote, for they need to drink it within two days, lest they stay fishes for the rest of their lives. They eventually board a whale-bus and sneak into Joe's conference room, as the villain is singing a song about granting every sea creature the gifts of speech and intelligence to lead them to greatness. Fly starts singing along, pretending loyalty to grab the bottle, but he cannot drink the antidote at the bottom of the sea, lest he drowns when he turns back to human.
Joe immediately figures out that the protagonists are more than mere evolved fishes and has them arrested. He later has them brought to the captain's cabin which he turned into his office. He asks for the formula of the antidote so as to mass-produce it, and offers to welcome them in the society he wants to build, promising them enormous influence over it, but all they want is to turn back into humans. (In fact, Joe's real motive is to feed them to Shark once they outlive their usefulness, lest they outshine him.) Shark did not understand that he was not to eat them immediately, and his blunders, as well as Joe's obvious lack of sincerity, ticks them off.
Joe refuses to believe that they are humans transformed, thinking that they are trying to deceive him. He has them caged and guarded by Crab. Fly attempts to goad Crab into cutting the bars, but the one-track-minded crustacean snaps the key instead. Fortunately, Stella's pet seahorse Sacha, whom Joe condemned to labour, manages to flee and goes to their rescue. By chasing Sasha, Crab opens the cage and they knock him out with a crate hook. They then run into Joe and Shark, but Fly tricks Crab into attacking the wicked fish and they escape.
Incensed, Joe attempts to have Shark and Crab executed, but an angry Shark devours the would-be executioner and Joe instead appoints him as his general to distract him. He orders him to lead his entire armies of crabs, sharks and swordfishes look for them. As the protagonists are trying to gather ingredients to make antidote themselves, Joe's armies surround them. Joe drinks the last drops of antidote to spite them and takes Sacha hostage. Tired of Shark's stupidity, he fires him and offers once again to make the protagonists leaders of his armies, but Shark has had enough of this and turns against him. Meanwhile, Crab chases after the fleeing protagonists, wounds Fly and drinks their makeshift potion to evolve more. Overjoyed and vastly overconfident, Crab declares himself the new leader and foolishly takes on Joe and Shark, but the latter swallows him in one gulp.
Joe only escapes the wrath of his angry follower when a boat piloted by Professor Mac Krill and the heroes' parents searching for them enters the fray. The whirlpool caused by the boat (looking like a hurricane under the sea) disperses Joe's army and traps Shark in the tube, while the protagonists cling for dear life.
Fly, Stella, Chuck and Sacha find their way to Mac Krill's house and enter through the pipes connected to the sea, searching for a second bottle of antidote, but Joe follows them and chases them, only to get knocked out. They flood the house to search for it, but Joe steals the bottle once they find it and opens the tank full of carnivorous fishes, leaving them to get eaten while he escapes through the pipes. Chuck manages to defeat all the fishes, and Fly rushes after Joe.
Being wounded and Joe having become much bigger and stronger than he is, he challenges his foe's intelligence by asking many increasingly difficult questions, making Joe drink more antidote to answer each one of them, while gradually turning into a hideously deformed, half-human half-fish mutant. After Joe becomes more human than fish, Fly asks him a final question: "Can a human breath underwater?" Joe answers "Of course not!", only to realize too late that he has been tricked. He drowns, and his lifeless, mutated body is then carried away by the current. His new "empire" fell apart without him to lead.
Gallery
.jpg "Joe (Intelligence Song).jpg (96 KB)")
