Hello everyone and welcome to a new installment of Rise and Fall. In this series, we take a look at movie franchises that used to reign supreme only to hit rock bottom. And today we’re taking a look at yet another animated film franchise that I adored in my childhood, but unfortunately I don’t have the highest opinion of it nowadays. I’m talking of course about the Ice Age franchise.
For those of you who don’t know, Ice Age is the flagship franchise of Blue Sky Animation Studios and second only to Shrek when it comes to the title of highest grossing animated film franchise of all time. But in spite of it’s massive success, the series has been experiencing a slump lately in terms of critical and audience reception. Why is that? Well first of all let’s go back all the way to the beginning.
For those of you who don’t know, Ice Age is the flagship franchise of Blue Sky Animation Studios and second only to Shrek when it comes to the title of highest grossing animated film franchise of all time. But in spite of it’s massive success, the series has been experiencing a slump lately in terms of critical and audience reception. Why is that? Well first of all let’s go back all the way to the beginning.
The Origin
Way back in the 1990’s, Disney was kicking ass and taking names in an era known as the Disney Renaissance, with highly successful animated musicals such as Aladdin and The Lion King. Naturally, other studios wanted to be prime competitors to the mouse house, one of them being Fox Animation Studios. Thus, animation legends Don Bluth and Gary Goldman pitched a film about prehistoric animals during the Ice Age. However, the project hit a major roadblock when Bluth and Goldwater’s Titan A.E. bombed at the box office thus leading Fox Animation Studios to shut it’s doors. But 20th Century Fox still wanted the film to be made, so they handed the project over to Blue Sky animation studios. Bluth and Goldwater were still offered the chance to direct but they turned it down, and so the project was handed over to Blue Sky’s own Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha. And thus many changes were made.
You see while Bluth and Goldwater had control over the film, it was originally going to have a very serious and dramatic tone. Not unlike films such as The Lion King or Bluth's own Land Before Time. But when Wedge and Saldanha took over, the tone was changed to a comedic one. Though it still had moments of drama sprinkled in. Another major change was that originally the film was going to be a hand drawn animated feature. But when Titan A.E. bombed at the box office, coupled with the massive success with films such as Toy Story and Shrek, Ice Age was changed into a computer animated feature. And thus Blue Sky got to work on the film that would eventually put them on the map.
The Rise
Ice Age tells the story of Manny the Mammoth (Ray Ramano) and Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo), two prehistoric animals living during the Ice Age who bump into one another while all the other animals are migrating to escape the ice age. Manny initially doesn't want anything to do with Sid, but all of that changes when a baby boy is separated from his tribe. A sabre tooth tiger named Diego (Denis Leary) claims to know where the boys tribe is. And so the three animals set off on a journey to get the baby back to his tribe. And of course the audience is treated to the antics of a sabre toothed squirrel named Scrat.
When the movie was released on March 15, 2002, critics gave it a very positive response. They praised the heartfelt story of the animals trying to get the baby back to his family while coming to love and care for one another as a family as the journey progresses. They also praised the hilarious side plot of Scrat and his acorn. Ice Age was also a huge financial success as well, as it even broke the record for a March opening, and ended up finishing it's theatrical run with a total worldwide gross of $383.3 million. And just like that, Blue Sky animation studios established itself as a prime competitor to Pixar and Dreamworks Animation and Ice Age it's flagship franchise. Naturally, Blue Sky and Fox wanted to capitalize on this movies success and thus a sequel was quickly greenlit called Ice Age: The Meltdown.
In the sequel, The Ice Age is about to come to an end and the herd, to their horror find out that the basin that they live in is going to be completely flooded. Thus they have to race against the clock in order to find a giant log that will protect them from the great flood.
But that's not all! Manny has new character arc where he believes that he may be the last mammoth left alive until he finds a female mammoth named Ellie (Queen Latifah). There's just one problem, she was raised by possum's and thus believes that she's one as well. When the film was released on March 31, 2006, it notably got a mixed reception from critics but a positive one from audiences. Nevertheless, it was an even bigger success than the first film with a total worldwide gross of over $660 million. And unsurprisingly another sequel was made, a sequel that would blindside pretty much everyone. And not in the best way.
The Fall
On July 1, 2009, Blue Sky released Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The plot is about Manny and Ellie expecting their first child, but thanks to some shenanigans courtesy of Sid, the herd ends up in a subterranian paradise where dinosaurs never went extinct and they team up with a weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg). This film got noticeably much more negative reviews than the last film with a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, but in spite of that it became the highest grossing film in the franchise with a worldwide total of $886 million.
On July 13, 2012, a fourth film, Ice Age: Collision Course was released. This time around, Manny, Sid, Diego, and Sid's grandma (Wanda Sykes) are separated from the rest of the herd when the pangea continent is broken up by Scrat chasing his acorn in earth's core (just role with it) and now they have to cross the ocean in order to get back to their family while fighting a gigantopithecus pirate named Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage). Plus, Diego starts to develop feeling for a female sabre pirate named Shira (Jennifer Lopez). While the film grossed a worldwide total of $877 million, the critical reception was even worse than before with a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. Still this didn't deter Blue Sky from making a fifth film.
And so on July 22, 2016, Blue Sky released Ice Age: Collision Course. The story now has the herd trying to stop a giant meteor from hitting earth thanks to Scrat trying to bury his acorn in a UFO that was-
As I was saying, thanks to Scrat trying to bury his acorn in a UFO that was frozen in a giant block of ice. Folks, jumping the shark would be the understatement of the century. And critics definitely agreed as the film got a scathing 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the worst reviewed film in the franchise. But surely the box office must save the film right? NOPE! This time around, audiences were not the least bit amused by the antics of the Sub Zero Heroes as the movie grossed $64 million dollars domestically against a $105 million budget. Thus making the movie a certified bomb in the United States. Worldwide it fared slightly better where it grossed $343 million, which brings the overall total to $405 million. But it's a far cry from the big numbers this series used to pull in.
So what went wrong?
I think I can sum up this franchises problem with this quote by John Lassetter:
"No amount of great animation will save a bad story."
The biggest issue of why the Ice Age movies went downhill was that the stories got progressively weaker, predictable, ridiculous, and just outright stupid. The first film started out with a simple but heartfelt story about three animals trying to get a baby back to it's home. Then the second film is about escaping a Noah's Ark style flood while at the same time, giving Manny a girlfriend. Ok, not as good as the first film but still enjoyable. And then the third film is about them dealing with dinosaurs. This is pretty much the moment where a lot of people agree that the series jumped the shark, even though the movie still had some redeeming qualities. I wish I could say the same about the fourth and fifth films.
And a major factor in the storytelling getting weaker was because the series just simply added too many characters for it to handle. This is especially evident in the fourth film where in addition to the main trio you also have Ellie and her brothers, Manny and Ellies daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer), Granny Sloth, Captain Gutt and his crew, Shira, yeah do you see where I'm going with this? Basically by adding to many characters a lot of them didn't get the proper time to get developed and as a result these newer guys are horribly one dimensional. And the plot threads with certain characters are a bunch of sitcom plots we've seen a million times before. For instance, in the third film Manny is freaking out over his new baby that's about to be born, does that sound familiar to you? Oh wait,what about this one?
In the fourth movie, there's a subplot about Peaches trying to impress this hunky boy mammoth named Ethan (Drake) and try and be a part of the popular crowd. But uh oh, the popular kids want to include Peaches in their group but they don't like her friends and think her family is weird. Gee, will she be torn between being popular and staying true to those she loves? Gee, will she find out that the popular crowd isn't all that it's cracked up to be? Gee, will she learn that it's best to always be yourself? The answer is yes, yes, and yes. It's every single story you've seen in pretty much every high school sitcom known to man. And I swear you can cut this subplot out of the entire film and it wouldn't effect the main plot in any shape or form!
But it doesn't stop there folks, because the plot of the fifth film is pretty much a leftover Everybody Loves Raymond script! Stop me if you've heard this one before, the man of the house forgets his anniversary and his wife ends up being pissed at him for the rest of the day and now said man has to make it up to his wife. Also, the mans daughter is getting married but uh oh! Daddy doesn't like his little girls fiance and he's scared of her growing up and living her own life! What's he going to do?!
You see folks, what irritates people about this series is that the writing has just gotten lazier and lazier with each movie. And the thing that's the most frustrating about Blue Sky is that they have proven that they can make phenomenal movies that are easily on Pixar, Disney, or Dreamworks level and the Peanuts movie (which I reviewed back in 2015) is proof of that. Another reason why this franchise has fallen from grace is that they fell into the age old trap of trying to be "hip" and "with it". And the fourth film reeks of this, from the extremely unnecessary casting of Drake and Nicki Minaj, to having a song by One Hit Wonder boy band "The Wanted" (boy is that an ironic name), to the characters saying stuff like "dude" or "OOOOOHHHH BURN!". It's almost like the writers just threw darts at a board to see what kind of shit kids are into these days so that they can try to make a buck off it putting it in the movie. And the fifth film is even worse with this by having the characters make jokes about hashtags. Yes a movie taking place at least 10,000 years before the invention of twitter is making jokes about hashtags.
Finally, there is the issue of the consistently poor executive decision making at Blue Sky. It's clear that the higher ups just pump out these movies to make money. Now to be fair, all movies are made with intent of making money, the film industry is a business after all. But when I look at movies like Finding Dory, Kung Fu Panda 3, or The Lego Movie and see where those movies succeeded where the Ice Age sequels failed it's because the teams behind those movies made damn sure that their stories were strong and that their characters were well written when they started working on their respective movies. And there's also the fact that after 5 films over the course of 15 years, the Sub Zero heroes have simply just overstayed their welcome. Critics are sick of them, audiences proved with their wallet that they are getting sick of them, hell there are even artists and animators at Blue Sky that are getting sick of working on these movies!
You see while Bluth and Goldwater had control over the film, it was originally going to have a very serious and dramatic tone. Not unlike films such as The Lion King or Bluth's own Land Before Time. But when Wedge and Saldanha took over, the tone was changed to a comedic one. Though it still had moments of drama sprinkled in. Another major change was that originally the film was going to be a hand drawn animated feature. But when Titan A.E. bombed at the box office, coupled with the massive success with films such as Toy Story and Shrek, Ice Age was changed into a computer animated feature. And thus Blue Sky got to work on the film that would eventually put them on the map.
The Rise
Ice Age tells the story of Manny the Mammoth (Ray Ramano) and Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo), two prehistoric animals living during the Ice Age who bump into one another while all the other animals are migrating to escape the ice age. Manny initially doesn't want anything to do with Sid, but all of that changes when a baby boy is separated from his tribe. A sabre tooth tiger named Diego (Denis Leary) claims to know where the boys tribe is. And so the three animals set off on a journey to get the baby back to his tribe. And of course the audience is treated to the antics of a sabre toothed squirrel named Scrat.
When the movie was released on March 15, 2002, critics gave it a very positive response. They praised the heartfelt story of the animals trying to get the baby back to his family while coming to love and care for one another as a family as the journey progresses. They also praised the hilarious side plot of Scrat and his acorn. Ice Age was also a huge financial success as well, as it even broke the record for a March opening, and ended up finishing it's theatrical run with a total worldwide gross of $383.3 million. And just like that, Blue Sky animation studios established itself as a prime competitor to Pixar and Dreamworks Animation and Ice Age it's flagship franchise. Naturally, Blue Sky and Fox wanted to capitalize on this movies success and thus a sequel was quickly greenlit called Ice Age: The Meltdown.
In the sequel, The Ice Age is about to come to an end and the herd, to their horror find out that the basin that they live in is going to be completely flooded. Thus they have to race against the clock in order to find a giant log that will protect them from the great flood.
 |
| Now where have I heard this story before? |
The Fall
On July 1, 2009, Blue Sky released Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The plot is about Manny and Ellie expecting their first child, but thanks to some shenanigans courtesy of Sid, the herd ends up in a subterranian paradise where dinosaurs never went extinct and they team up with a weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg). This film got noticeably much more negative reviews than the last film with a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, but in spite of that it became the highest grossing film in the franchise with a worldwide total of $886 million.
On July 13, 2012, a fourth film, Ice Age: Collision Course was released. This time around, Manny, Sid, Diego, and Sid's grandma (Wanda Sykes) are separated from the rest of the herd when the pangea continent is broken up by Scrat chasing his acorn in earth's core (just role with it) and now they have to cross the ocean in order to get back to their family while fighting a gigantopithecus pirate named Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage). Plus, Diego starts to develop feeling for a female sabre pirate named Shira (Jennifer Lopez). While the film grossed a worldwide total of $877 million, the critical reception was even worse than before with a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. Still this didn't deter Blue Sky from making a fifth film.
And so on July 22, 2016, Blue Sky released Ice Age: Collision Course. The story now has the herd trying to stop a giant meteor from hitting earth thanks to Scrat trying to bury his acorn in a UFO that was-
 |
| I'm sorry I couldn't type that with a straight face. |
So what went wrong?
I think I can sum up this franchises problem with this quote by John Lassetter:
"No amount of great animation will save a bad story."
The biggest issue of why the Ice Age movies went downhill was that the stories got progressively weaker, predictable, ridiculous, and just outright stupid. The first film started out with a simple but heartfelt story about three animals trying to get a baby back to it's home. Then the second film is about escaping a Noah's Ark style flood while at the same time, giving Manny a girlfriend. Ok, not as good as the first film but still enjoyable. And then the third film is about them dealing with dinosaurs. This is pretty much the moment where a lot of people agree that the series jumped the shark, even though the movie still had some redeeming qualities. I wish I could say the same about the fourth and fifth films.
And a major factor in the storytelling getting weaker was because the series just simply added too many characters for it to handle. This is especially evident in the fourth film where in addition to the main trio you also have Ellie and her brothers, Manny and Ellies daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer), Granny Sloth, Captain Gutt and his crew, Shira, yeah do you see where I'm going with this? Basically by adding to many characters a lot of them didn't get the proper time to get developed and as a result these newer guys are horribly one dimensional. And the plot threads with certain characters are a bunch of sitcom plots we've seen a million times before. For instance, in the third film Manny is freaking out over his new baby that's about to be born, does that sound familiar to you? Oh wait,what about this one?
In the fourth movie, there's a subplot about Peaches trying to impress this hunky boy mammoth named Ethan (Drake) and try and be a part of the popular crowd. But uh oh, the popular kids want to include Peaches in their group but they don't like her friends and think her family is weird. Gee, will she be torn between being popular and staying true to those she loves? Gee, will she find out that the popular crowd isn't all that it's cracked up to be? Gee, will she learn that it's best to always be yourself? The answer is yes, yes, and yes. It's every single story you've seen in pretty much every high school sitcom known to man. And I swear you can cut this subplot out of the entire film and it wouldn't effect the main plot in any shape or form!
But it doesn't stop there folks, because the plot of the fifth film is pretty much a leftover Everybody Loves Raymond script! Stop me if you've heard this one before, the man of the house forgets his anniversary and his wife ends up being pissed at him for the rest of the day and now said man has to make it up to his wife. Also, the mans daughter is getting married but uh oh! Daddy doesn't like his little girls fiance and he's scared of her growing up and living her own life! What's he going to do?!
You see folks, what irritates people about this series is that the writing has just gotten lazier and lazier with each movie. And the thing that's the most frustrating about Blue Sky is that they have proven that they can make phenomenal movies that are easily on Pixar, Disney, or Dreamworks level and the Peanuts movie (which I reviewed back in 2015) is proof of that. Another reason why this franchise has fallen from grace is that they fell into the age old trap of trying to be "hip" and "with it". And the fourth film reeks of this, from the extremely unnecessary casting of Drake and Nicki Minaj, to having a song by One Hit Wonder boy band "The Wanted" (boy is that an ironic name), to the characters saying stuff like "dude" or "OOOOOHHHH BURN!". It's almost like the writers just threw darts at a board to see what kind of shit kids are into these days so that they can try to make a buck off it putting it in the movie. And the fifth film is even worse with this by having the characters make jokes about hashtags. Yes a movie taking place at least 10,000 years before the invention of twitter is making jokes about hashtags.
 |
| Me too, Lin. Me too. |
It's sad really because this franchise really had potential to stand alongside series like Toy Story or Kung Fu Panda but it has fallen in quality so much where now it's just essentially on the same level as those crappy films you see in the $5 bin at Walmart. So Blue Sky please, stop squandering your potential and just let this series go extinct already.
Thank you all for reading, and on the next rise and fall we're gonna take a look at a time where the future of a superhero franchise was looking a bit bleak due to constant crappy decision making:
Until next time, see ya.
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