Headscratchers / Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

• At the beginning of the film, it's shown in a news report that Alex and his friends are presumed dead by the New Yorkers as the ship that was supposed to take them to Kenya went missing, but what about the ship's captain and his crew? Skipper told Gloria in the first film that they put the humans on a slow lifeboat heading to China, so they shouldn't have been found and brought back to civilization by that point? The captain and the crew likely don't know what happened to the lion, the zebra, the hippo and the giraffe they were shipping to Kenia, but as long they know, they were still aboard the ship when it was taken over by the penguins, so why they haven't told to the media yet that the ship was taken over by the penguins?
  • Let's be realistic, if somebody told you that, would you believe it?
• Did the writers of the sequel even see the first movie? The intro of the sequel with them at the zoo made no real connection for the "Marty's depressed on his birthday" reason for going to Connecticut.
  • It seemed to be just a Call-Back working under Rule of Funny. But hey maybe he always wanted to go to Connecticut and his birthday gave him an excuse to talk about it again.
  • Or maybe the idea always floated arpund his head but his birthday made him 100% sure and decided to do it.
• Exactly why in Escape 2 Africa are all the animals in the preserve, predator and prey, seen coexisting with one another?! This especially jarring considering that a major plot point in the first movie was Alex dealing with his closest friends also being his prey in the wild.
  • Truth in Television on this one. In Africa during droughts, predator and prey will often be seen coexisting peacefully around the only available water source in the area. Dehydration will kill before starvation, so the water is the priority, not getting food.
  • Or Predation Is Natural is in full effect. The herbivores might be aware that lions ate them, but they're ultimately good folks when they're not hunting them.
    • Plus, three of the species living in preserve (elephants, rhinos and hippos) are animals that are too large and dangerous for lions to hunt.
• Was Gloria literally going to "sign up" for a breeding program? Could Marty really operate an iPod? Just how human were the animals by the second movie?
  • The TV Show showed us that Skipper and the crew can hack into zoo computer and send the other zoo animal to another zoo, so it could be possible that Gloria could ask them for signing her for a breeding program.
• Were the chimpanzees invisible from the capture at Grand Central Terminal to after the plane crash?
• Were the other zebras really striped differently from Marty?
  • Yes. It's pretty subtle; you can tell Marty has thicker stripes than the other zebras (specifically on his mane).
• A thing that really intrigues me in Escape 2 Africa is the scene in which Alex has to choose an opponent for his Rite of Passage, whom he has to fight to earn his mane. Given that the Rite of Passage is a coming-of-age ceremony, three young lions accompany Alex to fight their opponents after him, who is the only grown up in the group because he wasn't able to do his rite when he was from their age as he was kidnapped back when he's a cub. Of course, due Makunga's trick, Alex chooses Tetsi and gets his ass kicked, but the thing is that all lions present there are all grown up, so who the heck the three young lions are going to choose as opponent if all of them are older than them and thus they don't have any chance against them?
  • Maybe there were lions from their age available there and were just not seen onscreen. Most likely, only Alex had to chose an adult lion as his opponent because he was already an adult, as it would have been really unfair if Alex was able to chose one of the three young lions as his opponent, having a great advantage on him. Not to say that none of the trio would have had a chance against Tetsi...
  • I thought this was obvious; they were gonna fight each other. The lions choose who they fight, they're not forced to pick from the crowd, they just have to fight another lion. So they were just gonna fight each other; 2 would be forced to leave the tribe and 1 would be the only lion to join it.
• Zuba was the alpha, so he was the one who made the rules. Why couldn't he have banished Makunga instead of giving up his position?
  • We see in the beginning of the film that the alpha can be challenged for his position at any time, and Zuba's getting old. If respect for tradition was the only thing keeping the other lions from challenging him, suddenly changing the rules for a selfish reason could have cost him the position regardless.
    • If his son was the only exception, then it would seem selfish, but it looks like Zuba forgot he could change the rules. He could've said "From now on, losing a battle is no reason for banishment".
• Where did Julien's "throw someone into the volcano as a sacrifice" plan come from? He had nothing to gain from it and he didn't even believe it'd really work (when someone asks whether it'd work, he casually answers "no" before correcting himself) so... why?
  • I guess, he is just such an Attention Whore. He needs no other benefit apart being constantly in the limelight. He just remembered one possible way to gain the water and used it to attract everyone's attention. Those little things, like whether this plan would work, or that someone has to sacrifice himself, are out of Julien's concern.
  • Also note that he never forced anyone to be sacrificed. He asked for volunteers. And got one, too.
• According to Word of God, after the film, Nana makes it back to New York City and takes Makunga with her. To do so, she puts Makunga on a kitty cage. However, how this is possible? It would be impossible to someone bring a lion to a city as the lion could pose as a danger towards many civilians, let alone putting such lion inside a kitty cage. And let's take into account that Makunga is technically part of the preserve, so the ones in charge of the preserve shouldn't have allowed Nana to take Makunga away?
  • Nana basically made Makunga her bitch. Not to mention, she doesn't take shit from anyone, so I doubt most people could stop her.
    • She was stopped in first movie by two cops, though. With that in mind, she will probably be arrested not only for poaching (since she wanted to kill Alex and Zuba when they were outside the preserve) but also for stealing and keeping dangerous wild animal in a city. Serves her right.
• Lions are on the "Threatened species" list; plus, they were in a preserve, meant to keep them safe from hunters. By trying to kill Alex, even for food, Nana was breaking the law, and so was everyone involved in it. By all means, they should have all been arrested. (Also, he's technically still zoo property, and the others recognized him as a zoo lion once he started performing, so killing him was illegal on those grounds too.)
  • Remember Alex left the preserve to look for water when the hole dried up. When he was caught by the tourists he was outside the preserve which meant he was fair game. Also the tourist only recognized him when he started performing, and only Nana tried to kill him after that. So she's really more guilty of breaking the law than the rest of the crew. Also, to be fair, at least one of the tourists was unsure if it was a good idea to eat a lion even before discovering it was Alex.
• The conflict between Alex and Marty starts up because Alex mistook him for another zebra who was hanging with the group. But why was that random zebra even there!? Besides a subtle foreshadowing (knowing an African translation) there is zero indication that this guy isn't Marty. The only thing Alex really did wrong in that situation was being the first one to misidentify him. And then the zebra acts surprised that he was mistaken for Marty!?!
  • The problem wasn’t that Alex mistook another zebra for Marty, but that he didn’t seem to realize, nor care, how it made Marty feel (he probably thought he was being replaced, albeit unintentionally). Not helping was the fact that Alex didn’t apologize, admitted there was no way to tell them apart (suggesting he wear a bell) and then went on to complain about his own problems.
• Makunga's idea for everyone to fight for the last water in the watering hole is deemed unfair because he'd win, but how? Of the animals present are Giraffes, Hippos, Elephants, and Ostriches; all of which are known for being able to take down Lions with minimal effort.
• Why all zebras look and have the same voice like Marty? Does this mean they're no female zebras living in preserve? The concept arts show that other zebras all had individual personalities and there was even one female zebra. So why creators of the movie decided to make army of Marty's clones?
• Why was young Melman uncomfortable when Gloria said that Alex was cute? Alex was a cub. Of course who wouldn't agree with her? Lots of people would say lion cubs are cute like they would say a baby or a puppy is cute. But that does not mean they want to marry them.
  • Given his Precocious Crush towards her, I always interpreted that he is afraid that Gloria will fall in love with Alex and won't return the feelings he has for her, making Melman the most sympathetic Green-Eyed Monster that had appeared on screen.
• At the climax, weren't any of the tourists surprised to see a plane that is partly made from their stolen jeeps and is piloted by animals?
• How those in charge of the preserve are gonna to react when they will discover the plane repair site that is filled with the wreckage of their stolen jeeps?
• Does the tourists or the tour guide that accompanied them weren't surprised that they (allegedly) run over a penguin, which, for unknown for them reasons, found itself in the heart of the African savannah?

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