Ice Age: The Meltdown, also known as
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or simply as
Ice Age 2, is the 2006 sequel to the 2002
computer-animatedComputer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
film
Ice AgeIce Age is a 2002 American computer-animated film created by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge from a story by Michael J. Wilson. The story follows three Paleolithical mammals attempting to return a lost human baby to its parents...
. It was produced by
Blue Sky StudiosBlue Sky Studios is an American CGI-animation studio which specializes in high-resolution, computer-generated character animation and rendering. It is owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Greenwich, Connecticut...
for
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, and premiered in
BelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
on March 1, 2006. It was eventually released in 70 countries, with the last release being in
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, on June 9, 2006. It was directed by
Carlos SaldanhaCarlos Saldanha is a Brazilian director of animated films. He was the director of Ice Age: The Meltdown , Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Rio , and the co-director of Ice Age and Robots...
, co-director of the original
Ice AgeIce Age is a 2002 American computer-animated film created by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge from a story by Michael J. Wilson. The story follows three Paleolithical mammals attempting to return a lost human baby to its parents...
, and the music is composed by
RobotsRobots is a 2005 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and was released theatrically on March 11, 2005. The story was created by Chris Wedge and William Joyce, a children's book author/illustrator. The two were trying to create a film version of...
composer,
John PowellJohn Powell is a British composer, best known for his scores to motion pictures. He has been based in the United States since 1997 and has composed the scores to over fifty feature films. He rose to fame in the late 1990s and 2000s, scoring numerous animated films, and collaborating with...
. The working title was
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, but for the film's final release, the creators decided to remove the number
2, calling it
Ice Age: The Meltdown. However, in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia, its title is promoted as
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. Also, most of the sponsors of the film had the
2 in their packaging after the name change (they however did edit the
2 out of their TV ads). The
Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
and
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
were released in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
on November 21, 2006 according to the official web store. They were released in the UK on October 23, 2006, and both include a new Scrat short,
No Time for NutsNo Time for Nuts is a computer animated short film from Blue Sky Studios , starring Scrat of Ice Age fame, premiering on the DVD release of Ice Age: The Meltdown, much in the same vein as Gone Nutty on the previous movie's DVD release...
.
Plot
In the opening scene, Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel climbs a
glacierA glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
but accidentally opens a hole in it. The world of ice is slowly melting. The creatures of the Ice Age are all shown enjoying themselves on slides and pools made by the melting ice; among them the three protagonists of the first film: Manny, Sid, and Diego. Sid opens a day camp, where none of the younger creatures take him seriously, nor do Manny and Diego, which leaves Sid seeking a daring deed. Fast Tony, a local con artist is claiming that the earth will flood and that the bark and reeds which he sells are needed to stay alive. Manny dismisses the idea, but is distracted when he sees that Sid will try to high dive from a giant waterfall; as Manny goes with Diego to the top of the waterfall to save Sid from his act of daredevilry, they see that the pleasant weather caused the ice of the valley to melt, and it is kept from destroying the valley only by the glaciers, which have formed a dam. A turkey vulture tells the animals that a giant tree can act as a boat and save them; all soon set out to find it. As the animals begin their journey, Sid sings three songs to tease Manny about Mammoths being "extinct". During the time that the masses of animals escape, a glacier which contains two sea reptiles from the Mesozoic era, Cretaceous and Maelstrom, breaks off.
Diego and Sid encounter two mischievous opossums named Crash and Eddie who drive them nuts. Manny is teased about being the last
mammothA mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair...
alive, but meets Ellie, a female mammoth who believes she is an opossum and the sister of Crash and Eddie. Sid invites her to tag along with the group to escape the flood, and she brings her brothers. After a perilous ordeal with Cretaceous and Maelstrom, Sid finds out that Diego is afraid of water, prompting him to encourage Diego to admit and face his fears - Diego insists "Fear is for prey", so Sid points out that Diego is behaving as if he is water's prey. They discover an area which Ellie recalls as the place where she was adopted. She finally realizes she is a mammoth but distances herself from Manny when he suggests "saving their species". Ellie and Manny ultimately make up when they must co-operate to save the group when the ground cracks under their feet. Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths who believe Sid to be a god. Sid lights a fire for them, and believes that he has finally found respect, but they plan to sacrifice him to a
volcano2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
. Sid escapes. The next morning Sid tells the others his experience but none are convinced. They find a field of hot geysers, which separate Manny, Sid, and Diego from Ellie and her brothers.
When the flood comes, Manny saves Ellie from drowning as she is caught in a cave (due to falling rocks), while Diego overcomes his fear of water to save Sid. Cretaceous and Maelstrom arrive, but due to Manny's quick thinking, they are finished off by a rock which falls on them, killing them both. The other animals are at the mercy of the water currents. Meanwhile, Scrat climbs up the glacier and at the top sticks the acorn he has into the ice. This forms a crack in the glacier, which widens into a
fissureIn anatomy, a fissure is a groove, natural division, deep furrow, elongated cleft, or tear in various parts of the body.-Brain:...
, diverting the flood and saving the animals. Scrat is then washed away. In the final scene, a herd of mammoths shows up, but Manny and Ellie decide to remain together anyway, taking Sid, Diego, and the opossum brothers along. Sid encounters the mini-sloths again - they believe Sid stopped the flood and invite him to be their leader. Diego, surprised to see the mini-sloths are real, convinces Sid to stay with the others, reluctantly admitting that Sid is a vital part of their 'herd'.
The
epilogueAn epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...
shows Scrat having a
near death experienceA near-death experience refers to a broad range of personal experiences associated with impending death, encompassing multiple possible sensations including detachment from the body; feelings of levitation; extreme fear; total serenity, security, or warmth; the experience of absolute dissolution;...
after falling into the fissure. He enters a
heavenHeaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
full of acorns. Suddenly, he finds himself torn away. He unhappily wakes up, having been resuscitated by Sid, who he proceeds to viciously attack.
Cast
- Ray Romano
Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian, best known for his roles on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and in the Ice Age film series. He recently starred in the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age.-Early life:Romano was born in Queens, New York to Italian...
as Manfred "Manny", the woolly mammothThe woolly mammoth , also called the tundra mammoth, is a species of mammoth. This animal is known from bones and frozen carcasses from northern North America and northern Eurasia with the best preserved carcasses in Siberia...
.
- John Leguizamo
Jonathan Alberto "John" Leguizamo is an Colombian-American actor, producer, voice artist, and comedian.-Early life:...
as Sid, the giant ground slothMegalonyx is an extinct genus of giant ground sloths of the family Megalonychidae endemic to North America from the Hemphillian of the Late Miocene through to the Rancholabrean of the Pleistocene, living from ~10.3 Mya—11,000 years ago, existing for approximately .-Taxonomy:The generic name...
.
- Denis Leary
Denis Colin Leary is an Irish-American actor, comedian, writer and director. Leary is known for his biting, fast paced comedic style and chain smoking...
as Diego, the SmilodonSmilodon , often called a saber-toothed cat or saber-toothed tiger, is an extinct genus of machairodonts. This saber-toothed cat was endemic to North America and South America, living from near the beginning through the very end of the Pleistocene epoch .-Etymology:The nickname "saber-tooth" refers...
.
- Chris Wedge
Chris Wedge is an American film director, best known for the films Ice Age and Robots.-Early life and career:Wedge was born in Binghamton, New York. He attended Fayetteville-Manlius High School, graduating in 1975...
as Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel.
- Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens , better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy...
as Ellie, the woolly mammothThe woolly mammoth , also called the tundra mammoth, is a species of mammoth. This animal is known from bones and frozen carcasses from northern North America and northern Eurasia with the best preserved carcasses in Siberia...
.
- Seann William Scott
Seann William Scott is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Steve Stifler in the American Pie film series...
and Josh PeckJoshua Michael "Josh" Peck is an American actor, comedian, director, and voice actor best known for playing Josh Nichols in the Nickelodeon live-action sitcom Drake & Josh. He began his career as a child actor in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and became known to young audiences after his role on...
as Crash and Eddie, the opossums, respectively.
- Will Arnett
William Emerson "Will" Arnett is a Canadian actor and comedian best known for his role as George Oscar "G.O.B." Bluth II on the Fox comedy Arrested Development. He is also known for his role as Devon Banks on the NBC comedy 30 Rock. Since his success on Arrested Development, Arnett has landed major...
as Lone Gunslinger Vulture
- Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
as Fast Tony, the giant armadilloThe giant armadillo , colloquially tatou, ocarro, tatu-canastra or tatú carreta, is the largest living species of armadillo...
.
- Tom Fahn
Thomas "Tom" Fahn is an American voice actor. His sister and brother, Melissa Fahn and Jonathan Fahn respectively, and wife, Dorothy Elias-Fahn, are also voice actors. Tom Fahn is also sometimes credited as Tom Charles and Marvin Lee...
as Stu, the GlyptodonGlyptodon was a large, armored mammal of the family Glyptodontidae, a relative of armadillos that lived during the Pleistocene Epoch. It was roughly the same size and weight as a Volkswagen Beetle, though flatter in shape...
.
- Alex Sullivan as James, the aardvark
The aardvark is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa...
.
- Alan Tudyk
Alan Wray Tudyk is an American actor known for his roles as Simon in the British comedy Death at a Funeral, as Steve the Pirate in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, as Sonny in the science fiction drama I, Robot, as Doc Potter in 3:10 to Yuma, as Tucker in the Tucker & Dale vs Evil and as Hoban...
as Cholly, the chalicothereChalicotheres were a group of herbivorous, odd-toed ungulate mammals spread throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa during the Early Eocene to Early Pleistocene subepochs living from 55.8 mya—781,000 years ago, existing for approximately .They evolved around 40 million years ago from...
.
Promotions
- As an additional marketing ploy a special "anti-cell" spot was created with Sid complaining to the audience about a ringing cellular phone. The same was done for Brother Bear
Brother Bear is a 2003 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures, the forty-fourth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics. In the film, an Inuit boy pursues a bear in revenge for a battle that he provoked in which...
, I, RobotI, Robot is a 2004 science-fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay was written by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman and Hillary Seitz, and is very loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short-story collection of the same name. Will Smith stars in the lead role of the film as Detective Del...
, Kung Fu PandaKung Fu Panda is a 2008 American computer-animated action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures...
, and RobotsRobots is a 2005 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and was released theatrically on March 11, 2005. The story was created by Chris Wedge and William Joyce, a children's book author/illustrator. The two were trying to create a film version of...
.
- On Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
's episode "Sibling Rivalry"Sibling Rivalry" is the thirtieth episode of the fourth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on March 26, 2006. The episode follows Stewie as he battles with his half-brother, Bertram , who is born to two lesbians after Peter donates sperm...
", Scrat is shown trying to take three nuts out of the side of a glacier; Peter shows up and tries to stop him, admonishing the squirrel for stealing, which drives Scrat to subsequently attack Peter. Apart from Peter, the scene was rendered in 3D (Family Guy is normally drawn in 2D), and Scrat was voiced by Chris WedgeChris Wedge is an American film director, best known for the films Ice Age and Robots.-Early life and career:Wedge was born in Binghamton, New York. He attended Fayetteville-Manlius High School, graduating in 1975...
who voices him in the films. The episode originally aired the week before the film opened. FoxThe Fox Entertainment Group is an American entertainment industry company that owns film studios and terrestrial, cable, and direct broadcast satellite television properties...
aired promotions for the film throughout the evening.
- During the same evening of Scrat's Family Guy cameo, Sid was hosting the entire FOX line-up, showing up in intermittent times between commercials.
- Re-edited scenes of Ice Age: The Meltdown were shown in Airhead candy commercials on several kids' channels and programs, such as the Disney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...
, NickelodeonNickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
, ABC Kids on ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, and more. It shows, in part, that after Scrat defeats a school of piranhaA piranha or piraña is a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes, an omnivorous freshwater fish that inhabits South American rivers. In Venezuela, they are called caribes...
, he proudly displays an Airhead packet (replaced by an acorn in the actual film), when suddenly an eagleEagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
comes over and swipes it from him.
- One of the posters for the film was a parody of an iPod advertisement, with "iAge" replacing "iPod" and an acorn replacing an iPod.
Critical reception
Ice Age: The Meltdown received mixed to average reviews, with
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
giving the film a "rotten" rating, with 56% of reviews positive. Its
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
score is 58, placing it at the high end of the site's "mixed or average reviews" category.
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four.
Box office
The film exceeded expectations by opening with an $68,033,544 in its first weekend. This was the second biggest opening for a non-summer, non-holiday release, after the $83,848,082 of the
The Passion of the ChristThe Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...
. But the record for highest grossing weekend for March only lasted a year, due to the $70,885,301 weekend of
300300 is a 2007 American fantasy action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller. It is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. The film was directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant...
. The film grossed a total of $195,330,621 at
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canadian box offices, making it the first film in 2006 to pass the $100 million mark. On August 3, 2009, the film surpassed
Finding NemoFinding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
and became the highest-grossing animated feature in foreign revenue with $457 million, before it was replaced by the sequel,
Ice Age: Dawn of the DinosaursIce Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, also known as Ice Age 3, is a 2009 3-D computer animated film. It is the third installment of the Ice Age series, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox...
with more than $680 million. The film has grossed $655,388,158 worldwide and holds the fiftieth spot on the
list of highest-grossing films.
Ice Age: The Meltdown was the highest grossing animated film worldwide of 2006, but lost to
CarsCars is a 2006 American animated family film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney...
for being the highest grossing animated film in the U.S.
Soundtrack
The score is by
John PowellJohn Powell is a British composer, best known for his scores to motion pictures. He has been based in the United States since 1997 and has composed the scores to over fifty feature films. He rose to fame in the late 1990s and 2000s, scoring numerous animated films, and collaborating with...
; the soundtrack also features the song "
Food Glorious Food"Food, Glorious Food", written by Lionel Bart, is the opening song from the musical Oliver! It is sung when the workhouse boys from the 1960s West End and Broadway musical and 1968 film adaptation are dreaming and fantasizing about food while going to collect their gruel from the staff of the...
" from the musical and film
Oliver!Oliver! is a 1968 British musical film directed by Carol Reed. The film is based on the stage musical Oliver!, with book, music and lyrics written by Lionel Bart. The screenplay was written by Vernon Harris....
. He composes brand new music for the film that replaced the theme songs from the previous film. Aram Khachaturyan's
Adagio from SpartacusSpartacus, or Spartak, is a ballet by Aram Khachaturian . The work follows the exploits of Spartacus, the leader of the slave uprising against the Romans known as the Third Servile War, although the ballet's storyline takes considerable liberties with the historical record. Khachaturian composed...
is featured during Scrat's Heavenly vision.
Sequel
The third film in the
Ice Age seriesIce Age is a series of animated films produced by Blue Sky Studios, a division of 20th Century Fox, and featuring the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Chris Wedge. Three films have been released in the series thus far, Ice Age in 2002, Ice Age: The Meltdown in 2006, and Ice...
,
Ice Age: Dawn of the DinosaursIce Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, also known as Ice Age 3, is a 2009 3-D computer animated film. It is the third installment of the Ice Age series, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox...
was released on July 1, 2009. It was again directed by Carlos Saldanha, and it tells a story of Sid being taken by a female Tyrannosaurus rex after stealing her eggs, leading the rest of the protagonists to rescue him in a tropical world inhabited by dinosaurs.
Video game
A video and
computer gameA PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
based on the film was developed and published by
Vivendi GamesVivendi Games, formerly known as Vivendi Universal Games, was the holdings company for Sierra Entertainment and Blizzard Entertainment. Vivendi Games was founded as Vivendi Universal Games after Vivendi bought Universal Studios in the early 2000s...
, and the Wii version was released shortly after the launch of the system.
Game plot
In this game, Scrat is caught up in the events of the film,
Ice Age: The Meltdown and is trying to pursue acorns while interacting with some characters, some of whom help him in his quest. The game starts off by showing the icy areas where it began in the film and moving on to the woods, as well as exploring regions in the games such as the bowels of the sea reptile, Maelstrom, and swampy lands. In the game, Scrat occasionally allies himself with some of the main characters, and the player sometimes can play as either Sid or Diego, though not Manny. Characters which were shown as bit parts in the film are shown usually as adversaries or (in the case of one, a songbird) a guide to the next nut, though a select number of foes were not shown in the film at all.
See also
External links
Video game
- Ice Age 2: The Meltdown at Eurocom
Eurocom is a British video game developer founded specifically to develop games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Since then Eurocom has expanded to several other platforms including handheld game systems and most major video game consoles.The company was once famous for its arcade to console...