My Experience With... The Ice Age Film Series

(Sorry, was on vacation last week, so this is a late entry.)

WARNING: SPOILERS

I remember when Ice Age came out. It looked pretty cute, so I wanted to see it.

Now it’s no secret that Blue Sky Animation wasn’t exactly on par with Pixar or DreamWorks, but it had its old charm. Little did I know that I would end up watching FIVE MOVIES in this odd little series.

Ice Age

As I said, this seemed pretty cool, what with a snarky woolly mammoth, a freaky-yet-funny sloth, a super-cool saber tooth tiger, a completely nutty prehistoric squirrel, falling dodos (Yeah, you forgot about them, didn’t you?), and of course the totally awesome website based off the movie!

…

…

…

Okay, okay, you got me. I trolled you. I just colored the text blue and underlined it. Sadly, I could not find the original website. Sorry, readers.

Anyway, the only thing that had me confused a bit was the PG rating. See, at that time period, I usually watched PG-rated movies with the 'rents, so I was naturally a bit cautious. Then I saw that it was rated so for "mild peril," which I figured meant there was no profanity or awkward innuendo or anything like that.

I ended up watching it with my parents anyway, just because it was just something I did at that point. I still do. (We just recently watched a certain Disney Princess movie, but more on that another time.) Unless my memory serves me incorrectly, we first watched it on VHS. Either way, I enjoyed it, and as I did with MANY a movie at that time period, I watched it until I pretty much had every line memorized, which I suppose was a good thing...

Suppose....

You see, I have several cousins, and only two of them are younger than I am. The youngest cousin I've got was OBSESSED with this movie. At that time, he was an adorable little tot who liked to pretend to voice act and quote movies more than I do (which is impressive, by the way). To this day, we've even shared inside jokes and old quotes. This really helped a lot back then, especially since I had my Manny and Sid impressions on point back then.

Hey, so what if I had a good "Ray Romano" voice

for a young girl at that point? I watched a lot of

Everybody Loves Raymond. ... 

Well, as long as my parents OK'd it.

The story centers on a very grumpy woolly mammoth named Manfred who is walking against the migrating herd to try to get away from everyone Meanwhile, Sid the Sloth oversleeps, only to wake up to see that his migrating family ditched him... again. After an unfortunate incident with what I can only assume to be an ancient armadillo, he ends up causing trouble for himself when he ruins two rhinos' vegetarian meal. They chase Sid until he literally runs into Manfred (whom he later nicknames Manny). Manny and Sid eventually fight off the rhinos and form a... friendship?

 *snickers* Sorry, can't help it.

[in best Sid voice] You have beautiful eyes.

[in now-butchered Ray Romano voice] Get off my face.

B story: a small tribe of humans start to get ready to travel away from a highly chilly winter, and the tribe's chief is a proud husband to his wife, and a proud father of quite possibly one of the most oddly adorable little ankle biters the world has ever known.

Okay, to all you aspiring bloggers out there, blogging and research will have you finding some cool and weird stuff. For instance, I JUST found out upon LOOKING UP THIS KID (I literally only Googled  "ice age child," and found out this child's name was Roshan.

ROSHAN.

ROSHAN???!

All this time, this kid had a name??! I didn't think any of the humans had a name and this kid's name is ROSHAN???!!!! Wait, what's that name mean, anyway...? *researches on Google* Roshan: Sanskrit for "shining light." Okay.

Ahem. As I was saying, the chief (I am not gonna bother looking up his name,  my mind's blown already) is a proud papa to a small child NAMED ROSHAN....... not that his name is ever mentioned, and not that the humans are ever brought up again. I have to say, that's probably the one serious issue I have with this series.

(Love that gif.)

The tribe suddenly gets hunted down by a pack of Saber Tooth Tigers, which the tribe can fight off, but at a loss. The wife, seeing one tiger hunting her child, takes off with him and eventually falls over a waterfall to her (eventual) death. She, by pure ex-machina luck, gets found by Manny, who happens to be walking nearby. The woman gives Roshan into Manny's care before she drifts away in the river (thankfully, they don't show that). At first, Manny wishes to leave the child alone, but Sid convinces him otherwise.

The lead of the pack of Tigers is not happy about the failed mission, and sends Diego (a barely second-in-command) out to retrieve the baby. Diego finds Manny and Sid and convinces them to follow the humans' migration trail to the settlement, under his lead of course, without them knowing of the trap.

It's an interesting buddy-buddy-buddy travel comedy with just enough charm to make it a cute storyline. It even includes a kind of B-and-a-half story line with Scrat trying his hardest to successfully store his acorn, with his adventures crossing paths with the original trio at one point.

This movie is very easily my fave of the Quintilogy. I do have one sad thing about it. Remember when I said I had every line memorized, especially with it cemented from my now not-so-little cousin quoting it with me? Yeah. Every time I want to watch it, I start quoting it line-by-line in my head, and it kind of ruins it for me, as in "What's the point in watching it if I still know every last thing that happens in the movie?" *sigh* I probably haven't watched this movie in ten years, easily.

Ice Age: The Meltdown

When trailers started coming out for Ice Age 2, I immediately thought, Oh, no, this cannot be good. Firstly, I thought Ice Age was perfect as it was. Great amount of comedy, great amount of adventure (which I recently found out is my fave movie genre), great amount of the feels, and it ended stinking perfectly with a thawed-out Scrat trying to store coconuts. Nope. What freezes up, must melt down. 

All of the ice in the valley is melting, threatening to drown the inhabitants in the incredibly bowl-shaped valley. To top it all off, two prehistoric water predators start thawing out, and they're hungry for anything. It's up to Manny, Sid, and Diego to find the best path to safety, although Manny, who had been less grumpy, returns to somewhat onery when it hits him that he's the only living mammoth left... until he meets a species-confused mammoth named Ellie. She was orphaned at a very young age, and grew up with oppossums... and she and two of her "brothers," Crash and Eddie, think she's an opposum.

Now Sid and Diego try to get the two of them together, which should've been really, really hard considering (as shown in Ice Age though animated cave paintings), Manny lost his first wife and child to human hunters. I guess the desire to preserve the species was greater than trying to cope with his lost family.

By the way, his killed family was never brought up during the rest of the series, either. Take it away, Homestar....

Thank you.

Manny, Diego, Sid, Ellie, Crash, and Eddie return to the valley to tell the others of a pass that will lead them to safety, but they would need to boat across, using the melting ice to their advantage. The animals build a large boat (not quite an ark...), as they try to get through a pass before it closes, but not before fighting off the two predators to their demise. Unfortunately, the valley passage melts to the point where it closes, but never fear! Scrat-ex-machina to the rescue! In a weird twist of fate, his bad acorn-burying skills saves the day by one crack completely opening up the pass, letting all the water (and Scrat) out. Manny also discovers afterwards that he and Ellie are not the remaining two mammoths by a LONGSHOT, however, they get married anyway.

The movie ends with the washed-up Scrat in an acorn heaven, and just as Scrat is about to get the granddaddy of all acorns....

I cannot speak for anybody else, but I cracked up in that theater.

As great as that ending was, I'm sorry, but that is my least fave of the Ice Age movies. For one thing, it actually did have profanity this time. Why, I will never know. They never had it in the movies before or since.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

This is probably (in my opinion) the
best movie poster of the series.

My BFF in high school and I have birthdays that are pretty close, so for quite a few years we went to see a movie for our birthdays. That year, it was Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Sid accidentally finds a few dinosaur eggs, which is really unusual for a land full of mammals. This causes our group to find a whole tropical world underneath the frozen tundra full of -- you guessed it -- Dinosaurs. Now the troupe must find a way back home, while a crazed-out weasel named Buck, who is on a misison, himself to conquer the largest, most fearsome dinosaur, Rudy, serves as their guide. To top it all off, Ellie's pregnant! Don't worry, she safely delivers a baby girl, whom they name Peaches.

This one, for me, was not a very bad movie, but merely forgettable, compared to the others. I should watch it again at some point, shouldn't I? It did have great adventure, and very cool twist ending.

Ice Age: Continental Drift

By the time this one came out, I was starting to get sick of the Ice age series, mainly because I thought the 3rd one was overkill. This has to be the heaviest as far as a plot and thrill factor goes.

Scrat inadvertently sets off a chain reaction that starts to have the large chunk of land separate into the continents we know of today.

Huh. That's weird. I could've sworn I heard

Rudyard Kipling groan and roll over in his grave.

Because of the continental crack-up...

The animals have to figure out how to stay all together, without ending up on a chunk that is desolate, without losing everyone, and without ending up killed by a group of villanous pirates or predatory sirens. An albino tiger named Shira switches from the pirate crew to the Ice Age crew (as Diego's mate, of course), and Sid picks up... his sassy, decrepit, old grandmother. Brother just can't get a girl, can he? Even Scrat found the love of his life in Ice Age 3... which he thinks is a female version of himself (Scratte), but ultimately realizes that it's acorns (ever feel sorry for a cracked acorn?).

The B-plot of this, of course, centers on Manny and his family. Peaches is now a teenager, and of course, is interested in boys, to poor daddy's chagrin. There is a thing with a mammoth being into her, and some mole who's been her best friend since forever kinda having a crush on her, but she can't exactly reciprocate his feelings, but whatever. Both are gone by the next movie, so it really doesn't bear much mentioning.

As I've said before, it does seem the heaviest-toned, but at least it's not The Meltdown. Seriously, those sirens creeped me out!

Ice Age: Collision Course

Okay, we're finally at the last one. I... didn't want to watch this one... at all... and refused to watch it in theatres. A few weeks ago, I recorded a mini-entry as to my personal experience watching this. In fact, this movie made me want to write about this series. Here we go.

2/3/2017 9:18 PM

It’s times like these that make me wonder…. What in the world am I doing with my life? I mean, it’s not like I’m untalented. I could be in the WNBA. An owner of a darling boutique. A career woman scaling her way up the corporate ladder. A fiscally independent bachelorette scaling her way up a rugged terrain wall. One of the worlds cutest petite Multiethnic models. OKAY, that’s a stretch. PLUS-SIZE, short, Multiethnic model. Heck, I could be a Mom thinking up the next recipe to invent for her loving husband and 3 kids (one on the way).

But nope.

On this February evening, I am in the den staring down a bowl of Frosty Flakes, a bagel with modified cream cheese and jelly, 3 chicken fingers, a cup of lime-on water, and a cup of ACV water.

Why?

For my readers. A few of whom, I found, are in England and France.

Thankfully, this isn’t a food blog.

Nope. I decided that in two weeks, I would be writing a piece on the Ice Age series. I’m about to watch a film that I had absolutely no intention of ever watching in my entire life. Period. But I figured it wouldn’t be fair to the slightly OCPD side of me to leave a project like this “unfinished.” Why can’t I be selective about this kind of thing when it really counts?

Anyway. I shudder to see what this movie entails. The first one was great! Second was okay, but more of a filler. The third one was rather enjoyable, though it might have been the fact that I watched it with my BFF, the fourth one was… meh. Not good, not bad, but watchable. This one though….

*hard exhale through teeth*

The back of the DVD box had a sentence on it. “The best Ice Age movie yet!” Oh, that’s cool, I thought, At least one person said it was good. Who said it?

No one.

There.

Were.

No.

Quotes.

And no source.

I am literally about to watch a movie that’s “The best Ice Age movie yet! …SAID NO ONE EVER.”

I dunno. Maybe I’m being too hard. Still, I can only handle so much Scrat….

Here I go. Down the hatch.

*om nom nom*

---------------------------------------------------------

2/3/2017 11:08 PM

Wow. I did not expect to enjoy Ice Age 5 as much as I did. Seriously.

I actually found myself laughing. Laughing hard. Laughing for real. I think with this movie, they returned to their former comedic form that was displayed in Ice Age 2 and 3. I think Continental Drift had a pretty heavy undertone for something that’s normally lighthearted. Was Collision Course necessary? No. Was it horrible…. Not really. Not at all! Well, maybe the cartoon violence seemed a little too realistic for my taste. I’m gonna blame it on the fact that the animation here has a more cinematic quality, while Ice Age (the first one) looks barely passable for a video game.

Do I think that Collision Course is the best Ice Age movie yet? Again, I say “No.” I think Ice Age was the best Ice Age movie yet. It was a quick, clever, original idea, and it didn’t follow the characters so long into their lives.

Collision Course basically tells of Scrat’s never-ending chase for the acorn – which was pretty funny, even though it was mildly disturbing at times – which unintentionally causes a giant meteor to fly directly toward earth and wipe out all the existing mammals. It’s up to the original trio, plus Manny’s wife, daughter, daughter’s fiancé, Crash & Eddie, Diego’s wife, Sid’s Granny, and Buck (from Dawn of the Dinosaurs) to change the course of a prophecy of yet another doomsday. Manny’s daughter Peaches’s relationship with her parents get strained when changes on the horizon, mainly her getting married and moving away. Sid keeps looking for his true love (and eventually finds her). Diego and his wife want kids, but are unsure of how good they’ll be as parents – albeit, their only meter is children that are typically prey. Oh, and a dysfunctional family of dino birds is trying to kill Buck (who soon becomes, unexpectedly, a father) for foiling their egg-stealing plans.

After writing this, I just realized how much this sounds like somebody’s drunken fanfiction. Ah, well. It was really good on the screen. I’d definitely recommend this to anybody who wants some cheap laughs.

I'M DONE!!!! Oh, my gosh, I'm finally at the end of writing this! You guys have it easy, you only have to READ the stuff I post up here!

Okay, ranking time!

#5: The Meltdown. In addition to their trying to "edge" up the content, it was just not necessary. I think I could've gone without having any of the Ice Age movies (except the first one) exist, but the storyline just seemed very forced.

#4: Continental Drift. This was SCORES better than The Meltdown, but the main drawback is that it really is very intense for younger viewers, and while I'm not a younger viewer, I know who the target audience is. Had this series been intended for older viewers, this might be higher up on the ranking scale.

#3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. This was a great story and a great improvement from The Meltdown, as the execs were probably thinking, The next Ice Age movie should be more... Ice Age in content and humor. That's how we got viewers in the first place, right? However, this has to be the dullest of plot lines, but only by comparison.

#2: Collision Course. Again, I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and I'm glad I did enjoy it. Great set of characters, nice closure, and simply one laugh, after another, after another. Kinda like #1.

#1: Ice Age. There will never be a movie in the series quite like the original. I don't care if video games nowadays have better rendering than what this movie had, the hype was all real for this film. It was a positive mixture of all things good in a movie, and it had a TON of heart. Plus, hello, this song...

That does it. I'm finding my VHS and watching that bad boy TONIGHT.

Phew! Now to kick back and relax, because there's no way that there's gonna be another Ice Age movie in this very, very, VERY long franchise.

Unless...

Uh-oh.

Which movie has your favorite soundtrack?