Why I'm Writing This
Sometimes a film does well, and sometimes it does so well that it starts a franchise. Unfortunately, said franchise can eventually be killed off with a combination of terrible execution and marketing, as well as not living up to the first installment.This is sadly the case with the Ice Age franchise. It's been twenty years since the first film was released and received both critical and commercial acclaim, kickstarting the franchise off. It has also been six years since the fifth film flopped at the box office during the Summer Bomb Buster of 2016 and the franchise essentially ground to a halt in the process. Recently we had a new film on Disney+, but it's a spin-off that focuses on the supporting characters rather than the main ones, and the fact that the original creators Blue Sky Studios went under in 2021 meant that a different company animated it instead - specifically the one that worked on the divisive second season of gen:Lock.
For me, this is an absolute pity. The first Ice Age film is one of my favourite films of all time and was both critically and commercially received. It's funny, exciting and packs an emotional punch too. The second film (The Meltdown) is also a fairly enjoyable film, if not up to the same standards as the first one, and I thought the third film (Dawn of the Dinosaurs) was okay, if focusing a bit too much on comedy over an actual plotline. I'm not so fond of the fourth film (Continental Drift) and the fifth film (Collision Course) is absolute garbage. I remember the day in which I realised the fifth film was actually a thing and for once actually being depressed rather than excited. Other Ice Age fans clearly felt the same as I did because they just didn't go to watch it and it's considered to be one of the worst films of 2016.
The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are a good indicator of the quality drop. The first film has a Certified Fresh score of 77%, which is very impressive (it may not be as high as your typical Pixar movie, which normally has scores above 90%, but I think it's still good enough). The second film goes into the Rotten category with 57%, but I feel that Rotten Tomatoes can be a little strict with the rating system at times - a film has to get 60% or over to be classified as fresh, so even a halfway score is considered to be bad - and I think a third category should be introduced for films like these that get mixed reviews (“under-ripe”, maybe?). But then the third film has 46%, the fourth film has 37% and the fifth film has a measly 18%. The recent spin-off film The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild was slightly better than the fifth one, but still received a paltry 22% and has dire animation, so it's safe to say that the franchise probably isn't recovering any time soon.
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| When things snowball out of control... |
So for the next few blog posts, I will be analysing what exactly went wrong with the franchise. Many things will be taken into account and I will definitely be doing a lot of ranting, which explains why I be making separate posts rather than one long post like I have done previously on my blog. Above all, this will mainly be a way for me to find out when these flaws started to become apparent and whether the better-received first film had the first warning signs for them.
The History Of The Ice Age Franchise
I would like to start by discussing the production of the first Ice Age film, which I feel may have some of the answers to the problems that would later evolve with the franchise. Most of this information is from The Art of Ice Age by Tara Bennett, published by Titan Books in Britain and part of the Art of… series of books on film-making. However, the first fact/urban legend I will mention is an interesting one, and one that is not mentioned in the book. It is the idea that Don Bluth was originally going to make it.
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| Don Bluth, both legendary animator and the supposed former developer of Ice Age. [Note: Use own picture.] |
Bluth is an animator most known for his turbulent history with the animation industry. Starting out as an animator for Disney, he left when he felt that the company was dropping in quality and started work on his own projects. This resulted in the classic films An American Tail, The Land Before Time and The Secret Of NIMH, all considered to be the starting point of the Renaissance Age of Animation, and he also created the hit game Dragon's Lair. Unfortunately, starting with the flop that was All Dogs Go To Heaven (though history has been much kinder to it over the years), he ended up releasing the duds Rock-a-Doodle, A Troll in Central Park, Thumbelina and The Pebble and the Penguin, all of which bombed at the box office. He gained some traction back with Anastasia (not a film that I like, but hey, it made money), before utterly bombing with Titan A.E. (again, history has been kinder to it over the years). That last film was indeed the last straw, as he hasn't really done much since then (though he's apparently planning a comeback) and he gave up on whatever projects he was planning at that point.
One of those alleged projects happened to be Ice Age. A film about three mismatched animals trying to return a baby to its father, it has some traits of Monsters Inc. (another film that I love) but also shares traits with Don Bluth's earlier films. Supposedly, Bluth's version would have been a straight-on drama in the same vein as his eighties classics as well as cel-animated. Now whether this is completely true or is simply a rumour, we may never tell - this wiki article in particular doubts its existence. But it if is true, it provides an interesting glimpse into what the film could have been.
I shall now discuss the story that was told in the Art of... book. Producer Lori Forte says that she was looking for ideas for potential new animated movies that 20th Century Fox, who owned Blue Sky Studios at the time, could invest in. At the time, there had been plenty of films about dinosaurs, but "there was an area, a world, a "big idea" that no one had really tapped into yet in animation - the Ice Age" (p. 6). Forte remembers being puzzled by this, since "it's such an amazing period with an array of beautiful, majestic creatures, most of which are now extinct" (p. 8.). And so in order to allow people to get a glimpse into this world, she teamed up with director Chris Wedge and scriptwriter Michael J. Wilson in order to create what she saw as a "beautiful, heart-felt" story.
This take on events is a lot more idealised than the previous take I mentioned, but there are still similarities between the story involving Don Bluth and the story told in this book. The original film was a lot more dramatic in scope, focusing on the tension between animals and humans and simply being an adventure story where three alienated misfits grew closer to each other as they tried to save a baby from sabre tooths. Instead of the humorous beginning sequence we got in which Scrat desperately tries to bury his acorn before being stomped on for his troubles, it instead began with protagonist Manny have a nightmare about the day his family were murdered by hunters - a scene that would get transferred to later on in the final product. Similarities can potentially be seen between this and Blue Sky's 1998 Academy Award winning short Bunny, a moving story about the titular widow which explores the concepts of grief and the afterlife with the deceptively simple tale of her being bothered by a pesky moth whilst trying to bake a cake.
Forte says that "all the stars seemed to align for us, except for one hiccup. Our script was an action-adventure and Fox wanted the movie to be a comedy" (p. 6). I assume that the failure of the gritty Titan A.E., which sunk their original 2D animation studio may have had something to do with this train of thought, or maybe they wanted to cash in on the 2001 monster smash that was Shrek. Either way, they wanted the final product to be less serious than the one they had so far.
The issue was fixed by bringing in screenwriter Michael Berg, who provided a "comedy rewrite". As said by assistant director Carlos Saldanha, Fox wanted certain sequences to be "funnier". That said, the emotional core was still there - Manny is grieving over the loss of his family and there's a touching reunion scene at the end between the baby and his father. After several more edits and preview showings, with one of the later major changes involving Diego's original permanent death becoming a temporary one, all they had to do was release the film and hope that it did well.
The final product was a massive success. It received positive reviews from critics and showed the world that Pixar and DreamWorks weren't the only animation companies who could release successful CGI animated movies. According to Box Office Mojo, against a budget of around $59,000,000, it grossed $176,387,405 domestically and $206,869,731 internationally to bring in an overall gross of $383,257,136. It was also nominated for the Oscar and the Annie Award for Best Animation Feature-Length Film, though it ultimately lost out to Spirited Away both times. Overall, it got Blue Sky Studios started in the feature-film business for real.
There is no doubt that I find this film to be perfect. However, Fox's obsession with comedy would prove to be a thorn in the side for the sequels, as the next few posts will explain.
Forte says that "all the stars seemed to align for us, except for one hiccup. Our script was an action-adventure and Fox wanted the movie to be a comedy" (p. 6). I assume that the failure of the gritty Titan A.E., which sunk their original 2D animation studio may have had something to do with this train of thought, or maybe they wanted to cash in on the 2001 monster smash that was Shrek. Either way, they wanted the final product to be less serious than the one they had so far.
The issue was fixed by bringing in screenwriter Michael Berg, who provided a "comedy rewrite". As said by assistant director Carlos Saldanha, Fox wanted certain sequences to be "funnier". That said, the emotional core was still there - Manny is grieving over the loss of his family and there's a touching reunion scene at the end between the baby and his father. After several more edits and preview showings, with one of the later major changes involving Diego's original permanent death becoming a temporary one, all they had to do was release the film and hope that it did well.
The final product was a massive success. It received positive reviews from critics and showed the world that Pixar and DreamWorks weren't the only animation companies who could release successful CGI animated movies. According to Box Office Mojo, against a budget of around $59,000,000, it grossed $176,387,405 domestically and $206,869,731 internationally to bring in an overall gross of $383,257,136. It was also nominated for the Oscar and the Annie Award for Best Animation Feature-Length Film, though it ultimately lost out to Spirited Away both times. Overall, it got Blue Sky Studios started in the feature-film business for real.
There is no doubt that I find this film to be perfect. However, Fox's obsession with comedy would prove to be a thorn in the side for the sequels, as the next few posts will explain.
