YMMV / Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

• Alternative Character Interpretation: There's a lot of debate whether the Ankylosaurus was carnivorous or simply territorial. On one hand, it has sharp teeth and tried to bite Manny at one point, suggesting the former (plus the novelization stated it was trying to eat them). On the other, it frequently tries to smash the group with its tail and didn't attempt to eat Crash and Eddie while they were playing dead, suggesting the latter. However, Buck's Survival Guide correctly describes Ankylosaurus as a herbivore.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: During the gas scene, were the animals high on the gas, and/or delirious from hypoxia, or were they just goofing around because they thought their helium voices sounded funny and making confessions because they thought they were dying? One of the possum brothers said that the bedwetting claim was just "gas talk", but is that meant to mean he was truly delirious/high, or that he was lying to avoid embarrassment?
• Awesome Music: John Powell's score certainly counts, with the Credits Medley and the 6-track battle suite from "Plates of Woe" through to "Rescues" being highlights.
• Canon Fodder: Buck's backstory is a prominent one, among others. The best explanation is that he's got it all mixed up himself.
• Contested Sequel: Many fans of the first two movies despise this installment for changing the franchise from a Dramedy series focused on prehistorical animals dealing with the titular ice age to a more kiddish Lighter and Softer adventure movie which works more like a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. With that said, it has a solid fanbase that find it to be the best sequel because of Rule of Fun, the focus on the changing dynamics of the Herd, being the one sequel that tried something different and Buck.
• Critical Dissonance: The film received mixed reviews from critics, but became a massive blockbuster success, grossing $886 million worldwide against it's $90 million budget. The film also received mostly positive reviews from audiences. The film holds an audience score of 62% on Rotten Tomatoes.
• Common Knowledge: The movie is commonly believed to be the Series Fauxnale, given it has a sense of finality and dinosaurs being much bigger of a threat that anything else in the series. There's however little to no evidence that Blue Sky Studios ever intended to conclude the series before getting hit with Franchise Killer Collison Course.
• Death of the Author: A popular fanon after Dawn of the Dinosaurs' release was that Diego was having heart problems. Despite this being Jossed in the director's commentary with the explanation that Diego was out of shape, there were still several fanfics written based around the inaccurate fanon, with some fics using it as an excuse to kill off Diego because he was "getting old" even though that, like the inaccurate heart problems fanon, was Jossed by the creators.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humor:
  • Sid tries to milk a yak, who ends up chasing Sid down in rage. Sid screams, "I thought you were a female!" suggesting Sid groped something else.
  • Buck mentions that he turned a T-Rex into a "T-Rachel" using his knife.
  • When Diego says he feels "tingly" in the carnivorous plant, Manny expresses disgust, and Diego clarifies that he doesn't mean "that kind of tingly", indicating that Manny thought Diego was saying he was aroused.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Scratte proved to be pretty popular for...obvious reasons.
• Estrogen Brigade: Who would expect Buck the weasel to have so many fangirls?
• Fan Nickname: Buck's pterosaur mount is named "Roger", based on Crash and Eddie confusing Buck saying, "Roger" (as in the military slang for "affirmative", but they thought he was referring to someone named Roger).
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans (especially those who disown the following sequels) prefer to ignore Scrat's Sudden Downer Ending of losing both Scratte and his acorn and being stranded alone on the ice age world, instead pretending that the series' resident Butt-Monkey got a happy ending for once.
• Genius Bonus: Buck's attitude and tendency to fight Rudy is very akin to real weasels, which are known to be fearless and attack prey bigger than themselves.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The main antagonist is a gigantic albino theropod, who gets defeated by a female Tyrannosaurus rex. Sounds like the Indominus rex.
  • Buck using a rock as a phone can come off as this to fans of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind due to the character Doppio also using various objects as "phones".
• Just Here for Godzilla: Several people openly admitted to rewatching the film solely for Buck or Scratte.
• Memetic Mutation: "Were you killed?" "Sadly, yes. But I lived!" Possibly the most quotable line to come out of the franchise.
• Moe: Peaches is as as adorable as any infant could be. Instantly curious about the world around her, and that extends to A Mammoth Christmas where she remains a curious and cheerful girl.
• Strawman Has a Point: Sid's arguments for adopting the eggs are dismissed by the narrative as him making a irrational choice for being at the verge of a personal crisis as well as being...well, Sid, but his actions are fairly reasonable; he found three lonely eggs underground and their legitimate mother didn't actually bothered to find them until they were born, he has every reason to believe they were abandoned and that he was doing the right thing by adopting them. And while denying a dinosaur of her babies isn't a wise choice, he's not wrong he was the one who took care of them until they were born and therefore are his sons.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some fans have noticed that this movie offered a perfect The Fellowship Has Ended conclusion for the franchise (especially considering later movies weren't well received and most fans prefered it would have ended here) with Manny and Ellie having a baby, Diego deciding to go on adventures on his own and Sid forming a family in the Dinosaur World with the Baby Dinos and Momma Dino starting to care for him. Even Scrat was getting very close to a happy ending by getting in a relationship with Scratte and forgetting about his acorn. Sadly, Status Quo Is God and nothing changes about The Herd's dynamic by the end of the movie.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Buck's pterosaur mount is referred to as female in the video game version of Ice Age 3. In fact various official sources and fans interchangeably refer to the pterosaur as a boy or a girl.
• Viewer Species Confusion:
  • Rudy is supposed to be a Baryonyx as confirmed by Blue Sky, but viewers believe he is a Suchomimus or even a sail-less Spinosaurus.
  • The Triceratops are often referred to as Chasmosaurus by viewers, due to their unrealistically large frills.
  • Buck's pterosaur mount (officially labeled as "Pterodactyl") is believed to be either a Pteranodon or Harpactognathus.
  • The pack of blue and orange pterosaurs (officially labeled as simply "Pterosaurs") are believed to be Quetzalcoatlus or Pterodactylus.

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