Follow TV Tropes

Following

Trivia / Ice Age: The Meltdown

Go To

  • Accidentally-Correct Writing:
    • The entire plot of this movie did actually happen in real life in the north-west of the United States (and probably multiple times), with scientists calling them the Missoula floods, and yes, mammoths, saber-toothed cats and ground sloths would have been among its victims.
    • This is the first movie in the franchise to feature Gastornis. Depicted here as herbivore, despite usually being shown as a carnivore in 2000s. Flashforward to 2014, and it’s revealed via isotope analysis that Gastornis was indeed a herbivore (more like a cassowary than a terror bird), meaning this behavior was entirely correct.
    • Despite stemming from the hot and steamy Mesozoic, Cretaceous and Maelstrom have no trouble living in frigid, icy water. We have actually found many types of marine reptiles that did indeed inhabit polar waters, such as the Antarctic elasmosaur Aristonectes and mosasaurs Taniwhasaurus and Kaikaifilu, or the Svalbard ichthyosaur Undorosaurus, cryptoclidid Ophthalmothule and giant pliosaur Pliosaurus funkei (Predator X), among plenty of others, showing that these animals were thriving in colder waters just as much as whales do today.
  • Celebrity Voice Actor: The Japanese dub features actress and TV presenter Yūka as Ellie.
  • DVD Commentary:
    • First Commentary with Carlos Saldanha.
    • Second Comentary with Producer Lori Forte, Effects Supervisor Robert Cavaleri, Art Director Tom Cardone, Lighting Supervisor Dave Esneault, Senior Lighting Lead Andrew Beddini, Supervising Animator Jim Bresnahan, Lead Animator Aaron Hartline, Animation Technical Lead Matt Simmons, Animation Supervisor Galen Tan Chu, Materials Supervisor Michael Eringis, Story Artist Chris Renaud and Supervising Animator Mike Thurmeier.
  • Flip-Flop of God: Cretaceous is subject to this, since supplementary material can't decide to which species of marine reptile he belongs to. The Essential Guide refers to him as Ichthyosaurus while online game Ice Age Village and official magazine Ice Age: Animal Collection identifies him as Metriorhynchus. Given his resembles to the latter species, he's most likely Metriorhynchus.
  • What Could Have Been: Several concepts or scenes that can be seen in the various tie-in material were cut.
    • There was going to be a second sabertooth character named "Joe Junior". He was probably cut to focus on the development of Manny and Ellie's relationship. [1]
    • Originally a crisis would've erupted at the boat, as a vulture would've refused animals who did not have mates entry onto the boat (obviously taking the "ark" parallel further).
    • In some early concepts, the boat itself was going to be an actual human-designed boat implied to have been left behind by one of the tribes. Along with this, there were also discussions early on of Roshan possibly making a return. But the writers ultimately decided not to make any references to humans in the final film.
    • A third aquatic reptile (resembling an axolotl) was going to appear alongside Cretaceous and Maelstrom. The reptiles also talked early on, before it was decided that them being silent predators made them more threatening.
    • Originally the film was a No Antagonist story, but the filmmakers felt they needed an antagonist with a face, thus the creation of Cretaceous and Maelstrom.
    • As shown in storyboards, Maelstrom was originally envisioned as significantly larger, utterly dwarfing both the mammoths and his companion Cretaceous but in the final product, he's only slightly larger than Manny.
    • Scrat was originally going to officially join the group, but was ultimately delegated to his traditional outsider role.
    • The scene between Sid's encounter with the Mini-Sloths and the geyser field originally was a travel montage of the group crossing various perils. The director found it boring and livened things up with the "Food, Glorious Food" number, married with the previous concept of the group crossing the perilous landscape.
    • According to a character model sheet, Sid would have put on a bone monster costume made out of a creature’s skeleton that probably would have been used in the Mini-Sloth sequence. The props for the skeleton still appear in the final movie around the lava pit Sid is nearly thrown into.
    • Originally Ellie would've helped the group cross the geyser field by climbing to a tree and telling them where to go, and this would've separated her from Manny, Sid and Diego, as opposed to their fight in the final film. This change was made late enough into production for a children's book adaptation focusing entirely on the geyser fields scenes released early to promote the film to incorporate this original version of events.
    • The film was originally going to end with Manny and Ellie parting ways with Diego and Sid permanently to join the rest of the mammoth migration. However, the filmmakers ultimately decided to keep the herd together.
    • The scene where Scrat fought the piranhas was going to be part of the opening, but was moved to a later point in the movie because the intro ended up running for too long. The scene where he confronts the baby vulture was also part of the opener, but was pushed back for the same reason.
    • More animals would have appeared in the movie, including flamingos, secretary birds, and monkeys.

Top