Headscratchers / Ice Age: The Meltdown

So Much for a Few Millenia

• Between Ice Age and Ice Age 2, the entire ice age happens. It starts out in the first that everything is about to experience instant permafrost for the next few thousand years, and in the next, everything is melting, and a mammoth, giant ground sloth, and sabretooth cat with the same names and personalities (and, in the case of Sid, Lord of the Flame, skills) as the first movie's protagonists are experiencing the end of the ice age, and nobody thinks it would ever end, because everything has been frozen since before the earliest stories. They could have easily handwaved this, by saying it's the first movie's characters' descendants, or by not having everyone say that the ice had been there forever (the sloth priestess did say it was lava melting the ice), but they don't even bother explaining the discrepancy.
  • I always thought the first movie took place near the end of the Ice Age. Remember, most of the animals were headed south, where it was warmer, and Manny was moving against the flow which is how he got wrapped-up with the left-behind Sid. After the errand with the human was done, the three of them could've just followed common sense and moved south too.
    • The "Ice Age" wasn't just long stretch of permafrost. It was cyclical.
  • Actually, going by the specific assortment of animals seen (and ignoring the dodos), it's pretty clear that the film is intended to be set in South America. Moving south would most likely take them into colder territory, not warmer.
    • I really don't think they were trying to make the setting be South America so much as a generic ice age American land. Bisons, brontotheres, mammoths, Gastornis and Hesperornis (two birds seen in the second movie) all come from North America and Moetherium (the things that looked like little naked tapirs) comes from Africa. But many of those lived way before the ice age anyway, and Hesperornis was contemporary of dinosaurs.
    • The movie gave hints of being set in all kinds of places. We see both Old Faithful and Stone Henge within less than a day's walk of each other.
    • Well, this was before Europe and North America split apart, although it still doesn't make a lot of sense.
  • This world has Pangaea, non-avian dinosaurs, and Christmas, in the Ice Age. Why would you expect there to stick with the reality as to when the Ice Age starts and ends?

Doesn't Know Her Own Size

• One would think that the mammoth-who-thinks-she's-a-'possum would at least realize that she's way too big to hide behind a small shrub. Rule of Funny, yeah, but really, she should think that she was a giant 'possum rather than a normal-size 'possum who looks big for her size.
  • Something tells me that she also wanted to belong with her brothers regardless of her size. That includes sleeping in groups.
  • Never forget that her brothers are idiots. It's possible they thought she was a possum too for a while, and nobody ever thought to tell her.

Teleporting Acorn

• A Piranha eats Scrat's acorn, but after Scrat beats them up, he get the acorn out of another Piranha. How is this possible?
  • The Piranha Scrat gets the acorn out of is the same Piranha Scrat used to whack the Piranha that ate the acorn. It is possible that the acorn was knocked out of one mouth and went into the other.

Birdbrained Baby

• The buzzard chick hatches, and instead of imprinting on Scrat (or the acorn), which could have been funny, it decides the acorn (and not the squirrel) is food, and that the buzzard is its mummy. It seemed the writers were trying not to abandon every scrap of logic for the Rule of Funny, but really, they chose oddly in deciding which scraps of logic to throw out.
  • The buzzard chick could probably tell Scrat wasn't another buzzard by looking at him, and the acorn might have been easier to eat than Scrat because it wasn't moving.

Don't Blame Manny

• After Manny flings Crash into the tree Ellie yells at him and then claims believing crash actually could was Manny's fault. REALLY?
  • Well, Manny was stupid to do what Crash said. Crash and Eddie had done nothing but act irresponsibly from the second Manny had met them, so one of them asking him to help with a stunt like that and claiming he's done it "a million times"? That was something that was always sure to end badly. It would be like a babysitter believing a kid they're sitting that their parents always let them slide down the banisters rather than using the stairs. The kid (Crash) is at fault for lying but the responsible adult in the situation (Manny) is also at fault for allowing the kid to obviously put themselves in harm's way and not being firm about saying "no". Ellie's anger at him is completely natural. What Manny could have said in his defence is that both Diego and Sid were egging him on as well.

Suddenly a Scaredy-(Prehistoric)-Cat

• Diego's arc revolves around him overcoming his aquaphobia, which is so crippling that he becomes visibly unnerved while crossing a small puddle of water. However, in the original film, he showed no hesitation while chasing Nadia to the edge of a waterfall.
  • Diego almost drowned in the original film. Great way to pick up aquaphobia from that, even if he hadn't minded water before.