Ice Age (franchise)

Ice Age (franchise)

“If I had a dollar for every time we made a film franchise about extinct animals, I’d have two dollars. That’s not a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.”

~ Chris Wedge of Blue Sky on Ice Age and Rio

Blue Sky’s unique three-dimensional animation techniques made Ice Age stand out from most other animated films of the time.

Ice Age is a series of prehistoric nature documentaries created by the famous soul-less content farm, Blue Sky Studios. The films have been praised for their high accuracy (in portraying a child’s idea of the Pleistocene Epoch), though the later films have been criticized for prioritizing this accuracy over humor. The documentaries follow the migrations of a suicidal mammoth, a retarded and Bat Fuck Insane sloth, and a saber-toothed tiger. The series has become the highest-grossing documentary series of all time, barely edging out 2 Girls, 1 Cup by 2003.

Films

Ice Age is one of few many film franchises to get worse and worse with each subsequent entry. While the original was well-received, each Ice Age sequel is cheesier and duller than its predecessor. This may be because records of the real Ice Age get muddier as time marches on, so portrayal of the Ice Age becomes less and less accurate throughout the series.

Ice Age (2002)

Three kaiju monsters, Sid, Manny and Diego, form a threesome to replace their adopted baby’s mother. They then send this abomination to his father.

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

Sid wishes for global warming, and it arrives. The biblical flood is proven to be real later on in the film, ark and everything… but where the hell is Noah? In a “plot twist” that is so overdone that it’s barely even a plot twist anymore, Manny discovers that he’s not the only mammoth alive… the only other one thinks that she’s an opossum.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

The previously universally-hated Sid is captured taken underground to a fantasy world of talking dinosaurs, breaking with the realism that defined the previous two films. Manny and Diego encounter a deranged weasel that I would definitely fuck if I could.

Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)

This film is generally considered the point where Ice Age fell into the great black hole of cancer. By this point, Manny has had a daughter, who has daddy issues and gets bullied. (Where did all her mammoth bullies come from?) The original trio get into a feud with a four-fingered mutant pirate ape. (In case you can’t tell, a four-fingered mutant pirate ape is a clear sign of insanity.

Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)

Ice Age is one of few media franchises that can celebrate not only jumping the shark, but also jumping the shark-jumper and the shark-jumper jumper. This film is what you get when you flanderize every character while adding in no likable new characters, attempt to appeal to children using cringeworthy trends that will become uncool in a couple of weeks, and give adults absolutely no reason to watch the film. And if you thought we forgot to explain the plot, you would be wrong, the previously stated issues are the plot of this film.

[REDACTED]

First rule of being an Ice Age fan: THOU SHALT NOT MENTION THIS WORK OF THE DEVIL.

Characters

“Why should we portray death maturely? Why should we have characters die? Think of the poor little children!”

~ BS Studios designing the Ice Age sequels

A sign of active squirrels on your local polar icecap.

Scrat God

In the Ice Age franchise, God has been sent down from the heavens as a saber-tooth squirrel named Scrat, which possesses superhuman- err.. super-squirrel-an abilities, capable of altering the climate, splitting continents, and destroying entire planets.

The Nut Other God

To complement the powers of Scrat the squirrel is yet another god, the N U T. The N U T is the source of Scrat’s power, and so he never eats the N U T, since doing so would cause Scrat to lose his powers. But Scrat doesn't know this, so he still tries to catch it to eat it; yet the N U T always finds a way to avoid this to happen, as it knows that if Scrat succeded the world as we know would collapse.

Sid

This giant ground sloth is an embarrassment to nature, to say the least. The world itself hates him almost as much as it hates Scrat. Sid is known for being utterly retarded, despite insisting that he has a large and well-developed brain. Sid serves to shows us how sloths evolved to be slow: he is not physically slow, only mentally slow, while modern sloths are both.

Manny

This depressed mammoth with an awfully tragic backstory (for a children’s movie) wants to die alone, but nobody will let him.

Diego

A traitor and retired maniacal killer.

The Baby

Roshan, also known as the Ice Age Baby or the Antichrist, is known for doing the Holocaust with his good pal Adolf Hitler, bombing civilians in Syria, planting landmines in Bosnian streets, and having prior knowledge of 9/11. He should have been aborted.

Soto

The leader of Diego’s sabertooth pack from the original Ice Age. Looks and acts a lot like Scar from the Lion King. Well, Sid has a resemblance to Timon, and Pumbaa is a more lively version of Manny… have we uncovered a conspiracy?

Crash and Eddie

Two opossums that were at least somewhat bearable early on, but slowly become the most insane creatures on earth. Such character arc is rather typical of opossums.

Ellie

A 10-ton possum.

Buck

Do not attempt to make any sense of what he says, what he wants, what he thinks, or what me means. You’ll only be right like, 2% or the time.

Reception

The original film was well-received by the public, but it was denounced by several prominent critics for its offensive caricature of sloths. Christian fundamentalists also shunned the film for its prehistoric setting and portrayal of God as a squirrel.

The sixth film, Buck Wild, was hated by many people primarily due to the fact that it was produced by Disney. In fact, that is a very good reason to hate a film, although modern Disney’s army of boot-licking manchildren will call you a childhood-ruining basement dweller for this.