The Extinction of Ice Age - Chapter Three: One Broken Family

One of the major features of the series is the "herd", the group that our protagonists are part of. The creators are determined to show off the message of family throughout the movies, with each movie focusing on an aspect - the first film involves the forming of the herd, the second film involves Manny finding a mate, the third film involves him and Ellie expecting their baby, the fourth film involves said child Peaches becoming an independent teenager and the fifth film involves her...getting married for some reason.

Dreadful last note aside, all of these are interesting aspects of family to explore and it would seem that the franchise does a good job of exploring it as a whole. Until we then get to these aspects...

Our Family...And Some Random Nerd

For a series that prides itself on "true family", they sure seem to put Sid through a lot of shit. He gets smacked around whenever he does or says something that annoys them and they get a laugh out of him getting injured in some way. It doesn't help that his original family kicked him out along with his grandma due to finding him to be "too annoying", and his new one is prone to having the same views as them on him at times.

Which is kind of ridiculous if you ask me. Sid was pretty much the reason they got together in the first place. He was insistent on looking after the baby. Plus, he encouraged Manny to put his past grief behind him and pursue the relationship he wanted with Ellie in the first place.

This was excusable for the first film. The heroes had only just met up with each other and therefore were going to be somewhat antagonistic towards each other at times. Manny was still grieving over his dead family and had a cynical outlook on life in general, just wanting to head south by himself before Sid came along. Diego meanwhile started off as one of the bad guys before having a change of heart. Sid also did some rather ridiculous things at times - Manny had to save him earlier on do to him rubbing poop all over the brontotheres' salad and Manny and Diego dope-slapped him several times after he pretended that he was throwing a poop-filled nappy at Manny.

In the second film, they're still condescending towards him at times despite the events of the first film. Diego for instance is rather snide about Sid's camp idea, claiming that he's "now an idiot in two languages", and he and Manny basically say that he's unfit to become a camp counselor. Manny also dope slaps Sid a couple of times. Though in some cases, it can be justified in that Sid unwittingly ticks them off at times, such as the moment in which he sings insensitive songs about Manny supposedly being the last of his kind out of a sense of misguidance. In fact, Manny and Diego do show concern when Sid tries to gain respect after the camp incident by leaping off the Eviscerator and Diego saves him later on when he's unconscious. It's also clear that they did take his advice to them to heart after all - Manny when it came to pursuing Ellie and Diego when it came to getting over his fear of swimming. By the end of the film, Diego pretty much acknowledges that Sid is both the one who got the herd together in the first place AND the glue that keeps it together, much to the latter's heartwarming delight.

The third film has the herd's journey into the lost world in order to rescue Sid from the Momma T-Rex, so they definitely aren't willing to leave him in danger - even if he turned out to be kind of ungrateful about the whole thing in a bizarre case of acting out of character. In fact, there's a bit of dramatic irony in that Sid believes they won't rescue him due to his screw-ups earlier on, even though we already know that they're on their way. The fourth movie once again brings back Manny dope slapping Sid, but again, those are balanced out with moments where the Herd shows they do care for him. In fact, in a twisted sense of kindness, Diego lies to Sid about his original family dying since he doesn't want to upset when with the truth that they just abandoned him again, though Manny ultimately feels that it is necessary to warn him.

So that's the first four movies. You're probably wondering by now, what am I making a fuss about in the first place? Did I just contradict my earlier point? Well, let's move onto the shorter works now. I'll start with the Christmas special for instance, which starts with Manny proclaiming that Sid is on Santa's naughty list due to him accidentally destroying his family heiloom rock. Okay, so he's legitimately angry, especially since Sid dismissed it earlier on. Diego however is just snide about the whole thing, claiming that he's on there simply because Santa doesn't have a loser's list.

Anyway, Peaches dope slaps Sid and tells him to get a hold of himself, and that they'll travel off to see Santa in order to get him off the naughty list (as well as prove to Manny that . A series of events lead to Santa's work getting ruined when Santa's entourage try to send the visitors away, and Sid pretty much gets the blame for it. Manny says that he will ground Sid and Diego dope slaps him when everyone gets put on the now-real naughty list. Wait, so what about Peaches? She was the one who came up with the idea in the first place? Why does the narrative favour her? Sure, eventually they sort things out and they all end up on the nice list, but I'm still left confused as to why Sid was depicted as the one responsible for the mess when many other characters were involved.

It gets worst when the plots are even shorter. From 2011 to 2013, Kaboom Studios (known for adapting various works in comic book form) released a series of short graphic novels to officially tie in with the Ice Age movies. Though technically they aren't canon, it is still worth mentioning the events of the first one Iced In.

The story starts with the characters waking up, and Sid getting the brunt of Manny and Diego's sleepiness-induced irritation. Diego flicks his claws out at him and Manny knocks him through the air due to him standing on his trunk and trying too hard to wake him up. Later on, Manny shows some irritation towards Sid's bragging due to the fact that they're trying to look for food. It's nothing too bad though.

It's once they get caught in an avalanche and trapped inside a cave in the process that things start to go from bad to worst for Sid. Inside, Diego makes some comments about possibly having to eat another another that cause Sid to start panicking, and if anything, Manny seems more annoyed than sympathetic when he asks if Diego really needed to bring that up. Diego just points out that Sid's fear of the dark will soon kick in and that will distract him.

Anyway, Sid doesn't need to worry for too long. As a repeat of the first film, he manages to start a fire and thus proclaim himself as "Lord of the Flames"....and just like the first film, he sets himself on fire. This leads to a plan from Manny and Diego that sure won't go in his favour.

[Let's be real - YOU thought the same thing that I did. Urgh... O_O]

We cut away to Scrat for one page, and then cut back and...yep, Diego has completely sheered the bottom half of Sid and thrown the fur on the fire. As I said, very interesting implications when you take it out of context. And as expected, Sid is not too impressed.

[Can I just point out that it was Manny who suggested the idea of shaving him in the first place? Look at that smug shit-eating grin underneath the fur.]

As with most Ice Age media, Sid gets a moment to impress the others in which he unwittingly suggests an idea for escape. Diego still seems pretty aggressive towards him though and he finds his stench to be unbearable.

By the end, all three manage to make it out. Everyone is happy - Manny has a tender moment with his family, Diego fistbumps with Crash and Eddie...and everyone is disgusted by Sid's naked legs.

[Insert image.]

Thus, they all abandon him and he is forced to catch up by himself. Even Manny and Diego are unwilling to help him out.

[Insert image.]

Here, Sid's treatment just comes off as a little too cruel. The longer length of the movies means that the characters have more time to express that they do genuinely care for Sid. The graphic novel on the other hand is about 22 pages long, meaning that there's only time for the mistreatment aspect. The later graphic novels are MUCH lighter with their treatment of him, but apart from Where There's Thunder (where he doesn't appear at all) and The Hidden Treasure (where he only shows up at the end), most of them still put more emphasise on how others find him "annoying".

The breaking point for me was the following scene used to promote the fifth film. When the meteorites start to head towards earth, Sid mistakes them for shooting stars and starts excitedly begging for his friends to make a wish. One of them strikes him and sends him flying into a tree. Manny smugly states that his wish came true and then when Sid spontaneously combusts (he gets better), Diego replies in the same smug manner "Mine too".

Wow, you're just gonna wish death on your "friend" like that? You know, the guy who's the WHOLE GODDAMN REASON you're together in the first place?! It's not so much family now as just a recreation of how Wiz and Boomstick treat Jocelyn and DUMMI in Death Battle!...which at least is meant to make them come off as sociopaths.

Boomstick: Jocelyn appears to be stuck up that tree. Maybe we should help her.
Wiz and Boomstick: Naah...
(Caption: At least these guys have the excuse of her being their intern...)

Sure, they once again have moments in which they act nice towards him, such as getting him cleaned up after he makes a mess of himself upon Francine dumping him and Manny congratulating Sid for preparing a good wedding for his daughter, but the meteorite scene is what stands up the most for this movie.

The problem is that the creators try so hard to emphasise how "annoying" Manny and Diego find Sid at times that as a result, it some comes across as abusive behaviour. In a way, it makes some of Sid's behaviour towards them in return come off as perfectly justified. Even when they have the moments in which they actually treat Sid well and accept him as part of the herd, you end up forgetting that upon seeing moments such as the fur-shaving incident and the meteorite scene.

Another thing that doesn't help is that Sid contrasts so much in personality to Manny and Diego that it's like the creators are targeting him simply because he's different. Manny and Diego are more cynical and grouchy and masculine, whilst Sid is more optimistic and emotional and effeminate. This has happened in several works before - notice how the more cowardly and sensitive Luigi in Super Mario Bros. is made the butt of jokes rather than his more outgoing and somewhat masculine older brother? Why are those types of characters made the creator's punching bag? It seems that it's not just to do with simply trying to provide schadenfreude, but also to make some awkward commentary on how they see masculinity and effeminacy and what they see as superior.

A Glut Of Love Interests

For once, here's something that doesn't have much to do with the "comedy" aspect that I've been discussing throughout the chapters. For some reason, the series becomes increasingly obsessed with shipping off its protagonists with attractive female counterparts, with each one having less personality as the series continues. For this part, I will just focus on the companions that they finally ended up with, as well as mention Scrat's temporary love interest (even though he's not part of the herd) and Peaches' male partner for comparison.

Manny's partner Ellie.

The original love interest of the series. Already, the idea was that she would be Manny's attractive female counterpart, with character designer Peter de Seve saying that "there had to be something sweet about her, so the audience and Manny would fall in love with her" (p. 63). Her fur is a lighter colour and the shape of her eyes makes Manny's look kind of goofy in comparison. At first glance, she's essentially a idealised female love interest.

However, Ellie does have quite a bit of characterisation and her romance with Manny serves as important to the plot. She's very playful and friendly, in contrast with his more anti-social and withdrawn nature, and she is initially under the belief that she is a possum. A major part of the film is that Manny believes that he and Ellie are the last mammoths on earth and he has a crush on her, but her misguided view on her identity, her misinterpreting Manny's comments as if he is "entitled" to have her and his lingering grief over his lost family get in the way.

She still continues to have a major presence in the third and fourth movies, despite not being as prominent as the main three. In the third movie, she joins them on their journey to save Sid, despite being heavily pregnant at the time, and shows the ability to think quick on her feet. In the fourth movie, she serves as a contrast to Manny with regard to how they parent Peaches - Manny is very overprotective and strict whilst Ellie is a lot more understanding. She also gives a pretty good speech to Peaches when the family get separated by continental drift, showing a proper understanding of her husband in the process. And throughout all of this, she develops from being somewhat of an oddball to being a responsible and caring mother figure who still has her energy and fire. The fifth film does cock up with her suddenly becoming as controlling as Manny with regard to the idea of Peaches getting married for some reason, but hey, that's just another reason to dislike that movie.

Scrat's "partner" Scratte.

Guess what? Scrat has a love interest too! Or at least he did for a while. Similar to his point on Ellie, de Seve notes that "Scratte had to be really appealing, so I visualized her pretty quickly, in that she's everything that Scrat is not" (p. 89). Whilst he's an scrawny and agitated loser who never has things go his way, "she's sweet, beautiful, calm, cool, and flies". Well, I'd argue she's not that "sweet" - she's pretty much of a femme fatale who's got Scrat wrapped round her finger, but the other points still stand.

Unlike Ellie, Scratte is clearly not a trustworthy type. And she's got an obsession with the acorn too. It's just that, unlike Scrat, she KNOWS how to get it. She fake-cries in order to guilt-trip Scrat into giving her the acorn, flies off with the acorn and leaves him to fall down, rips the acorn off his tar-covered front and even kicks him in the "nuts" after dancing a tango with Scrat over the acorn (I loved that tango myself). Interestingly enough though, the acorn itself is revealed to be almost sentient and actually sees Scratte as more of a love rival, having a sad song play when it seems that Scrat abandoned the acorn for Scratte.

And to really seal the deal, the relationship ultimately fails. Scrat is just too obsessed with his acorn to give it up for anything else, thus returning everything to the status quo. There's a bit of a call back to this relationship in the fourth movie in which Scrat is not interested in an illusion of Scratte that appears before him, but gets excited upon seeing an illusion of an acorn. Very different to how Manny and Ellie's relationship received a real upgrade and is still going strong. And I find that to be very interesting and fitting with regard to Scrat's situation.

Diego's partner Shira.

Shira starts out as the only attractive member of Captain Gutt's crew, so of course she'll be the one to turn good in the end. She's also introduced as a female counterpart to Diego, so OF COURSE he will be the one to convert her to the good side and fall in love with her. "was comparable to the concerns I had with Scratte, which was to be feminine, appealing, and in this case, an equally dangerous version of Diego" (p. 146).

Shira has a bit of a personality - she's rather sarcastic and somewhat of a tsundere, especially if you compare her with the more gentle Ellie. However, she is just a female version of Diego - it seems as if her gender and appearance are the only things that differentiate her from him. Plus, her plotline is essentially a repeat of Diego's - she starts out as a mistreated member of the bad guys before learning about true companionship and joining the good guys. Sure, the circumstances are slightly different (no babies are involved this time), but it's still a repeat.

In the fifth film, she doesn't have much of a purpose or personality at all and is simply there as Diego's partner. You could easily remove her from it and nothing would change except for the moments in which they talk about their relationship and having children. And as for the spin-off movie, she doesn't appear at all. Make of that what you will.

Sid's partner Brooke.

Sid's previous two sloth love interests were the atrociously clingy Sylvia (who only appears in deleted scenes) and the bland Francine. This was considered to be the better outcome.

Okay, now here's one heck of a super-rant coming up. This character has NOTHING to her. She's essentially just the "dream girl" archetype that sad nerds pine away for. Which in a way, was what the film designed her to be.

The main reason that this character pops up is because Sid has a failed date at the beginning of Ice Age 5 with the equally bland (and actually kinda bitchy) Francine. Cue this character, who is not given a proper reason to full in love with him at all. Everyone is confused by how the "loser" Sid and the "dream girl" Brooke could even be pursuing a relationship, but it happens anyway. Honestly, I was less wary of how a "perfect" woman like her would choose a "goofball" like Sid, and more wary of how someone genuinely as entertaining and surprisingly in-depth as Sid would go off with someone with no depth at all.

I'll just go into further detail on her here. Unlike with Ellie and Manny's romance, Brooke's just automatically accepting of Sid and there is no development that causes them to fall properly in love. They don't even have the same conflict that the previous pairings do - the main "conflict" is that Sid accidentally causes her and the Geotopians to revert to their original ages, meaning that they may not be able to pursue a relationship due to their age gap. It's mainly just a way of showing that Sid isn't shallow because he still likes her despite her old age (even though she still looks kind of decent in her "old" form, probably so they could kiss without it looking gross), a plot point that I easily guessed even before the Geotopia twist was revealed. Brooke may have been able to call out the Shangri-Llama for his selfish nature during the same scene, but anyone could have done that and it wouldn't have changed the scene much. After the plot is resolved, it seems that Sid and Brooke won't be able stay together during the ending, since Brooke has to stay in Geotopia to stay young AND because of the newfound age gap. In the end though, any tension gets thrown out of the window when the Geotopians miraculously regain their youth and Brooke is able to reunite with Sid anyway, singing a song called "My Superstar" that comes out of nowhere and selfishly hijacking the wedding of another couple.

It gets to the point in which, unlike with the previous love interests mentioned, the book doesn't even mention her character traits, instead involving art director Michael Knapp talking about how hard it was to animate her due to her dress and hair and that the end result is "a beautiful fusion of the creative and the technical" (p. 231). If that's all that anyone has to say on her this time, that's pretty damning evidence as to how truly developed she is.

It would have been really interesting if the fifth movie ended with Sid, after angsting over finding his dream partner, not managing to find one. But then he realises that he's been too hard on himself and that no matter whether he does or doesn't find "the one", the important thing is that he's got friends and family who look out for him no matter what. As a result, he learns the concept of self-love and gains more confidence in the process. It would have made for a really touching and emotional moment, as well as delivered a powerful and important message to its audience on how important self-love is and life isn't all about having to find the "ideal" partner. But no, apparently all three leads had to get laid no matter what, so we're stuck with him going off with a glorified flesh light instead.

Boomstick: (crying happy tears) Oh Mama, you're right! I shouldn't have been worrying about Dad after all!

Sid: (thinking) God dammit...

(Caption: Once again, past experiences come back to affect my views.)

Like Shira, Brooke also doesn't return for the spin-off movie, which just adds to the notion that she really was just a pipe dream after all. I would not be surprised if someone created a fanfic in which it turned out that Sid was hallucinating her the whole time due to his unfortunate breakup with Francine. It would have been better if he stuck with Momma T-Rex from the third film after all. At least she had personality.

Peaches' partner Julian.

Peaches' actual first boyfriend was Ethan, but that relationship failed. In contrast to Ethan, Julian has a gentler appearance without any punk aesthetics.

Now for a case of a male love interest being introduced to one of the female characters. Julian is not as bland as Brooke, but still not that memorable. I actually forgot his name for a bit whilst writing this article and have to look it up in the Art of... book just to jog my memory, which should say something about him.

Julian is super friendly, loves to give out hugs and has a free-spirited nature. The ultimate nice guy. He's also pretty important to the plot at times, such as when he helps the heroes to save the day. However, his whole character arc mainly focuses on his upcoming marriage to Peaches. That's about it. Though at least said marriage does play an important role in the "emotional" plot of Manny coming to terms with Peaches growing up. Of course, the main plot involves asteroids trying to destroy the earth so that overshadows it pretty quickly, even if it was supposed to be a "metaphor" for Julian "crashing" into Manny's life and "shaking up" the status quo.

Speaking of the marriage, that's another thing that clashes with historical accuracy to an irritating degree. None of the previous pairings involved marriage - Manny and Ellie simply became mates, as did Diego and Shira. The marriage is just shoehorned into the plot to serve as an "emotional core". The films have always tried to have an emotional core to them, but this one fails to actually tug at the heartstrings due to its contrived nature. They could have just had them become mates like the others, with Peaches planning to move away with Julian anyway, but no, that's apparently not dramatic enough according to the creators. It just makes the relationship less convincing as a result.

The saddest thing about this situation is that in the fourth film, Peaches has a molehog friend called Louis (voiced by Josh Gad before he was in Frozen as Sid's snowman counterpart), who was super sweet and shy and served as an interesting counterpart to her then-crush Ethan. Whilst Ethan was super cool and exciting but kind of aloof, Louis was awkward yet relatable and ultimately was the one there for Peaches when she needed him the most. He was also the butt of jokes like Sid was, so you really felt for him when things went his way. However, he's just forgotten about in the fifth movie so they can introduce a generic new love interest for her. Because god forbid that she should have an inter-species relationship with him when babies are the most important thing of all.

The Purge

No, not that one that makes up a horror movie franchise. This is about a situation that arrives in the spin-off movie. As I mentioned before, the franchise tries too hard to add new characters. The addition of Ellie and Peaches makes sense since it's essentially Manny learning to move on and start anew when it comes to family, Crash and Eddie were already Ellie's adoptive brothers anyway and Sid's outspoken Granny is a delight (and possibly one of the redeeming points of the fourth and fifth movies). But Shira and Brooke are only added so that Diego and Sid won't be "left out" due to Manny already having a partner, and Buck is added so that he can be "part of the family". The only members who left are Peaches, who went off to live with Julian just to prove that she could be "independent" now, and Granny, who stayed with the Geotopians in order to go off with a younger man...and then was made younger again by the fountain of youth (probably so the writers could get away with having them in a relationship with each other).

The spin-off film tries to rectify this issue by removing the excess characters until we just have Manny, Sid, Diego and Ellie. Unfortunately, they still cock up with this. All excess characters are simply not mentioned, presumably because the writers were too lazy to explain what happened to them despite there being a recap of the first five movies at the start on it. In fact, Manny even refers to Sid and Diego as "outcasts and losers". Thus, we end up with the horrifying implications that Diego and Sid went through messy break-ups, even if the film refuses to state these implications. At least we already knew that Peaches and Granny left in the previous movie.

The business with Crash and Eddie is particularly asanine. They go on this adventure with Buck without the rest of the herd, and then ultimately decide to go off with Buck, with both them and Ellie "realising" that they don't need to rely on her anymore. Of course, that's what the filmmakers want you to believe. Given that Crash and Eddie only really have a significant role in the second film, are mainly defined by their connection with Buck in the third and fifth movies and barely have a role at all in the fourth film, it comes off less as character development and more as a easy way to get rid of characters that they don't know how to use anymore. Because, you know, actually thinking of ways to properly use characters is tiring.

Are they really planning to bring things back to basics? Or, since Disney is thinking about a seventh movie, are they planning to just rebuild from scratch? It's something that makes my hurt thinking about it.

The films try so hard to focus on family. They really do. And the first four movies pull it off well (the first three more so). But by the fifth film, the message wears thin. And then the spin-off movie equally screws things over. Whether it's because of Sid's continued mistreatment despite his backstory, the introduction of two (or three, depending on your opinion of Julian) pointless love interests and the bizarre addition and subtraction of team members, I have to wonder whether the creators really did care about the application of family themes or whether they did it for the simply excuse of an obligatory "message".