Starting as a single adventure in 2002, the CGI animated movie was a box office hit and expanded into an entire trilogy. It is Blue Sky Studio's first film and is the trilogy that supported them so far.In the Ice Age, a clumsy sloth named Sid, a grumpy woolly mammoth named Manny, a saber-toothed cat named Diego and an acorn-loving-obsessed saber-toothed squirrel named Scrat are forced to become unlikely heroes. The first three reluctantly come together and brave the deadly elements of the impending Ice Age. The saber-toothed squirrel has his own parallel Story Arc. He tries to bury his beloved acorn, but he only manages to create mayhem around him.In the first Ice Age film, Sid is left behind sleeping while everyone else begins the journey to the south. Awaking, he meets Manny, a mammoth who travels to the north, and decides to follow him. When a human camp is attacked by a pack of vengeful sabers, a woman takes her baby and jumps in a river. Before she drowns, Manny and Sid rescue the baby. The two animals decide to search for the father and return the baby to him. Diego, one of the tigers that attacked the humans, comes also claiming the baby. Diego starts to work as a double agent, but along the journey he is befriended by Manny and Sid and finally joins them.In the sequel, Manny, Sid and Diego are living in a large valley with an enormously high ice wall filling one end. The trio discover that the ice wall is actually barely holding a massive body of water that would flood the valley to nearly a mile underwater. A vulture tells them that there is a boat at the other end of the valley that may save them all, but they have only three days to make it or die. Manny is having trouble facing the fact that he may be the last mammoth left. Along the way, they meet Ellie, a mammoth who thinks she is a possum, and her possum "brothers", Crash and Eddie.The third one was released in 2009 and involves a Lost World filled with DINOSAURS! It turns out there is an entire prehistoric world that somehow survived by being located underneath the surface of the Earth. Manny and Ellie are expecting their first child, and Manny becomes compulsively over-protective of her as he tries to be readily prepared for when the time comes. Sid is jealous and raises three abandoned eggs. They turn out to be baby T-rex's, and when their real mother finds out they were stolen, she takes her three babies and Sid underground, and Sid's friends all go to his rescue. There they meet a seasoned, slightly insane adventurer weasel named Buck, who becomes their guide in surviving this new world, and with an agenda of his own.A fourth movie, Ice Age 4: Continental Drift is due for release in July 2012.Also spawned three short films that are on the DVDs: Gone Nutty and No Time for Nuts, both short adventures starring Scrat, and Surviving Sid, obviously centered around Sid. And there's "A Mammoth Christmas", a Christmas Special that raises huge Fridge Logic issues just by looking at it.
Provides examples of:
Accidental Athlete: In Ice Age, Sid makes a touchdown during a game of football against dodos, ice-skates better than his other traveling companions, and is successfully able to create the first skiing and snowboarding events in history!
Actor Allusion: In Dawn of the Dinosaurs, when the eggs hatch and the hatchlings start playing with Sid, the Was (Not Was) song "Walk the Dinosaur" comes on. The song appeared in John Leguizamo's first movie, Super Mario Bros. (even if he probably won't admit it).
Adult Fears: The first film is more serious than the sequels, with human beings slaughtering mammoths, tigers slaughtering human beings, multiple characters with dead family members, parents trying and failing to protect their children, somebody's mom practically dying on screen...
All There in the Manual: Background information provided in the books and other websites confirms that Manny's family died in the Troubled Back Story Flashback in the original and corroborates the belief that his first child was a son.
There is also confirmation for the baby's name, which is Roshan. His parents are called Runar and Nadia.
The names of the two aquatic antagonists in the second film: Cretaceous and Maelstrom.
Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The first movie in the Japanese version has a surprisingly melancholy theme song for a family comedy. It's called "Hitoshizuku" which translates to "A Single Drop of Tears". This could be because the first movie is Darker and Edgier than the other two.
Buck: He who has gas, travels at the back of the pack! Eddie: Aw...*Hangs head, walks to the back of the pack*
Art Shift: In the Original Film, during the sequence where the "herd" happens upon the cave paintings, which fade into traditional animation to reveal Manfred's tragic loss and explain the reason why he is so moody - he is still grieving.
Ascended Fanboy: Josh Peck was a fan of Ice Age before being cast as Eddie in the sequel. He was very excited to be a part of the saga. Queen Latifah was also a fan of the original film before she was cast as Ellie in the same film.
Badass: Buck the Weasel of Dawn of the Dinosaurs, who is the most badass character ever to be featured in a children's film.
Diego also counts, especially in the Original film.
Big Bad: Soto in the first movie, and he is a very, very effective one, especially if one watches and is aware that he is setting up a gambit for Diego's death at the same time Diego is machinating the demise of Manny and Roshan, and Sid.
Rudy probably counts in the third movie.
Book Ends: the first movie opens with Scrat somehow causing an ever-growing crack with the acorn. It ends with one too. And so does the third movie.
Break Out Character: Scrat appears in more advertisement and has more shorts than any other character in this film series, and he's not even a main character!
Brick Joke: in the second movie, Scrat's vision of Fluffy Cloud Heaven includes rows of dodos welcoming him - could they be the same ones that essentially extincted themselves in the first movie?
Carnivore Confusion: The "predation is a fact of life" approach is taken with the sabretooths and humans. The Predators Are Mean approach is taken the antagonists of the third film, Mama T. rex and Rudy.
Comic Book Time: The animal characters never seem to age, even though by rights Crash and Eddie should be old now. Which leads to the puzzling thought about how old the characters actually are...
Continuity Nod: Whereas this was totally ignored in the sequel, the third movie comes through with a Callback to the Original Film. In the scene before Diego leaves Manny to go protect Ellie, he says four words that Manny knows very well from some years earlier: "You have to trust me." And the poignant expression in Manny's eyes seals the deal as you clearly can see that he is remembering that event all over again, and thus why he lets Diego go protect his mate.
A Crack In The Ice: The herd is walking on an ice field when a lava flow opens up beneath them, leaving only a thin bridge getting thinner by the minute.
Expy: Buck the Weasel in Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a clear allusion to John Rambo, another traumatized jungle warrior. His maddened quest to take down a giant white beast that took a part off of him makes him an Captain Ahab expy as well. He also seems to be channeling Captain Jack Sparrow.
Fire-Forged Friends: Manny and Diego, especially in the original film, where their friendship is put to the test - and once tested, remains strong - out of the herd in the newer movies, Diego and Manny's bond is the deepest.
Five-Bad Band: The pack of saber-toothed tigers in the first film:
Follow the Leader: The Original film is often termed so derisively by people who are fans of Shrek and Monsters, Inc., which is totally unfair. Ice Age is a film that deserves to be considered by itself despite these accusations that it was a "rip-off" of the two aforementioned movies.
Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Scrat's near-death experience with the giant golden acorn in The Meltdown
Pulled off twice in Dawn of the Dinosaurs; first when Sid tries to milk a "Cow" ( "I thought you were a female!") and at the end when Ellie's daughter is born ("Oh look, it's a boy!" - "That's her tail, Sid." - "It's a girl!")
Also Buck mentions that he knew a rainbow-colored butterfly when he was a little caterpillar, "before he came out", and when he turned a T-Rex into a T-Rachel. Also, when Diego and Manny are pressed up against each other, Diego says, "I feel all tingly!" Manny says, "Don't say that when you're pressed up against me!" "Not that kind of tingly!"
And again with "You know the old saying, an eye for a tooth, a nose for a chin, a butt for a... well it's an old saying. It's not a good saying."
It's virtually impossible not to at least raise an eyebrow after hearing Buck say this: "What does that mean, 'I got your back'? I'd rather they covered the front. That's where all the good stuff is!"
In the first movie, when Diego meets Manny and Sid with the baby for the first time- "Oh, you couldn't have one of your own, so you decided to adopt".
The Glomp: Sid does this to Diego when the mammoth and the sloth discover to their joy that their tiger friend has survived his apparent death in Ice Age. Diego doesn't really appreciate being Glomped though.
Held Gaze: The platonic version of this trope occurs in Ice Age after Manny has just rescued Diego from death at the lava fields.
This happens again during a tense situation between the mammoth and the tiger in the third film, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs when Diego is attempting to convince Manny to let him go protect Ellie.
Heroic Sacrifice: Nadia, the baby's mother and Manny and Diego, both subverted.
Humans Are Bastards: played with: humans kill mammoths and have caused real heartbreak for Manny, but at this stage of human development they aren't really worse than other predatory species like sabretooths.
Humble Goal: Scrat wants nothing more than to enjoy his acorn in peace.
I Am Big Boned: Manny. He's not fat, it's all that fur. It makes him look...poofy.
Internet Back Draft: Speculation over the details of Ice Age 4: Continental Drift is already beginning to cause some of this at fan forums.
Instant Birth, Just Add Water: Ellie gives birth in the middle of a raptor fight, screaming and wincing, and Peaches comes out already clean, happy and sleepy. One of the most exaggerated Hollywood births ever.
Played straight, and averted with Manny at the beginning of the third movie. He appears onscreen by screaming "IT'S HAPPENING!!" and carrying a hollowed out, upside-down turtle shell full of water.
Last Minute Baby Naming: In the third movie, Manny and Ellie have apparently not decided on what to name their child. After the baby mammoth's birth, Manny suggests they name her Ellie, but Ellie decides on the name "Peaches", which had been their code word for Ellie to tell Manny she was going into labor.
Mood Whiplash: The second half of the original film whips you through hilarity, and then sorrow, and then funniness again, and then back to close-to-tears-ness with the showdown with the sabres and Diego's Disney Death.
Never The Selves Shall Meet: Averted in No Time for Nuts when Scrat ends up meeting himself via use of the time machine. Hilarity Ensues when both Scrats start craving the time traveling one's acorn.
Pick Up Babes With Babes: Sid the Sloth tries to use this... and it actually DOES seem to be working, until Manny the Mammoth steps in. A cut-out scene shows Sid attempting to complete the 'score' after Manny's taken away their youthful charge, and predictably it ends badly.
Real Song Theme Tune: Rusted Root's "Send Me On My Way", which was used rather prominently in the Original film during the Travel Montage.
Record Needle Scratch: Abrubtly ending Scrat's stay in his Fluffy Cloud Heaven at the end of the second movie. Again, in the begin sequence of Dawn of the Dinosaurs, ending the first encounter of Scrat and Scratette.
Rescue Romance: Scrat and Scratte's relationship really kicks off after he rescues her from death by lava when they are hanging by a thin root on a cliff.
Red Wire Blue Wire - Hilariously spoofed in the carnivorous-plant action-sequence in Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Sand In My Eyes: Invoked and subverted by Diego after Peaches is born, as well as Crash and Eddie.
Sea Monster: Cretaceous and Maelstrom in the second film, a Mosasaurus and an Icthyosaurus. with legs.
Actually, Cretaceous looks a lot like a Metriorhynchid, a kind of sea-going crocodile from the times of dinosaurs. If this wasn´t the creature used as inspiration by the character designers, then it's an amazing case of convergent evolution...
The Speechless: Despite being very noisy, Scrat. Also, the humans of the original movie Ice Age. Cretaceous and Maelstrom in Meltdown. Mama T. rex and Rudy in Dawn.
Take That: Possibly one against Jurassic Park III in Dawn of the Dinosaurs. In the third JP, a Tyrannosaurus is killed after a brief fight with the Spinosaurus. Well, at the end of the third Ice Age, Mama (a Tyrannosaurus) turns up just at the last moment and attacks Rudy (an overgrown Baryonyx, related to Spinosaurus), effortlessly charging him, slamming him through the jungle and knocking him off a cliff. He doesn't actually die, but it was an incredible asskicking for the supposed Big Bad of all dinosaurs in the series.
Taking The Kids: The storyline with Sid, Mama Dino and the baby dinos is a parody of this trope, with Sid and Mama Dino playing the divorced parents fighting for custody.
Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Scratte appears to be wearing blue eye shadow, but makeup won't exist for millions of years, so it's probably natural coloring. In other words, you could say it's all down to her biological makeup.
Title Drop: The Original employs this along with This Is Sparta, below. "How do we know it's an Ice Age?"
True Companions: The term "Herd" is used to describe the characters, and contrary to popular belief (ie Sid's) the sloth is not the to first to call them that, Manny termed them thusly in the original movie after his rescue of Diego.
Wasn't That Fun?: In the first movie, after the animals all go hurtling through an Ice Helter Skelter and slam into a wall, Diego punches the air and asks who wants to go do it again.
Also in the third movie, when the herd is leaving the underground world, Buck states that they should have that adventure full of mortal peril again.
What Could Have Been: Don Bluth was offered to make Ice Age as a 2D animated film, but he refused to have any part of Ice Age.
Verbal Tic: Listening closely to Buck in Dawn of the Dinosaurs reveals that the weasel is somehow prone to neglecting the usage of the letter aitch/H in his speech....
Villain Protagonist: Diego in the Original Film, especially after joining Manny and Sid in their quest to return Roshan to his tribe.
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