Ice Age: The Meltdown

Ice Age: The Meltdown
Ice Age: The Meltdown
	File:Ice Age 2- The Meltdown.jpg Final poster for Ice Age: The Meltdown
Directed by	Carlos Saldanha
Written by	Jon Vitti
Produced by	Lori Forte
Starring	Ray Romano; John Leguizamo; Denis Leary; Queen Latifah; Jay Leno; Seann William Scott ; Josh Peck; Will Arnett; Debi Derryberry
Music by	John Powell
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	March 31, 2006 ; April 7, 2006
Language	English
Budget	$75,000,000

Template:Infobox movie certificates Ice Age: The Meltdown, also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown in some international releases, or simply as Ice Age 2, is the 2006 film sequel to the computer-animated 2002 film Ice Age. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and was released in movie theatres around March 31, 2006. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha, co-director of the original Ice Age, and the music is done by Robots composer, John Powell.

This film was originally rated G by the MPAA, but was re-rated PG by the MPAA for some mild language and innuendo. The working title was Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, but for the movie's final release, the creators decided to remove the number 2, calling it Ice Age: The Meltdown, as they considered the movie not a sequel but an entirely new movie. However, in the UK, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia, its title is promoted as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. Also, most of the sponsors of the movie had the 2 in their packaging after the name change (they however did edit the 2 out of their TV ads).

The DVD will be released in the United States and Canada on November 21, 2006 according to the official web store [1]. It was released in Mexico and Latin America in mid-June 2006 and released in the UK on October 23, 2006.

Characters

Just as in the original, prehistoric animals are the focus of the story. Returning in their original roles are:

Manfred (Manny) the woolly mammoth - Ray Romano
Sid the Megalonyx - John Leguizamo
Diego the Smilodon - Denis Leary
Scrat the saber-toothed squirrel - Chris Wedge

Joining Manny, Sid, and Diego this time in their adventures are:

Ellie the female woolly mammoth - Queen Latifah
Crash and Eddie the opossum - Seann William Scott and Josh Peck

Some characters that they meet along the way are:

Fast Tony the armadillo - Jay Leno
Stu the Glyptodon
James the anteater
A Vulture known as the Lone Gunslinger- Will Arnett
Cholly the Chalicotherium- Alan Tudyk

and attempting to stop them from their goals are:

Cretaceous the Metriorhynchus ^{[citation needed]}
Maelstrom the Placodus ^{[citation needed]}
and in Scrat's case, a school of piranha and one very sour eagle.

Plot

Template:Spoiler In the opening scene, Scrat, the prehistoric fictional saber-toothed squirrel (that has a rat's long snout) who is desperate for his acorn, climbs up a glacier side, hoping to take back his acorn. He pulls it out with significant force, but unknowingly also opens a hole in the glacier, which water soon leaks out of. Scrat tries to plug up the hole, but it cracks more open, revealing that the ice which the animals live near is slowly melting away.

In the next shot, the Ice Age animals are having a ball in their new world full of water slides made of ice, naturally caused whirlpools and hot springs. However, soon Manfred the mammoth, Sid the ground sloth, and Diego the saber-toothed cat enjoy themselves as well, all but Sid, who wishes for more respect among his fellow animals. Soon, the trio discover, by Fast Tony and Stu, a pair of local con artists trying to sell off products for surviving underwater, that the global warming had caused a flood and caused the ice of the valley to melt (as demonstrated by Scrat in the beginning of the film, when trying to recover his acorn), and it is kept from destroying the valley only by the glaciers, which have formed a dam. Time is running out, and as soon as a vulture known as the Lone Gunslinger tells the animals that a boat (which is actually a giant piece of a fallen tree) can lead them to safety, they set off in a rush to find it.

As this happens, the trio accidentally breaks off a piece of the glacier, which contains Cretaceous and Maelstrom, two sea reptiles from the Mesozoic, that had been frozen in the now melting glacier, while Manny appears to be the only one who sees something wrong with the chunk of ice, while not knowing exactly what it is.

In the next shot, Scrat is shown pining for his acorn, which has landed from his fall under a sheet of ice; Scrat tries to break through the ice, but gets trapped under a sheet of ice, and catapults the acorn onto a high ledge by mistake.

Along the way, Manny becomes depressed when other animals (especially Sid) tease him about being the last mammoth alive. After following a trumpeting sound not unlike a mammoth's call, Manny, Sid, and Diego encounter Cholly, who produced loud flatulence which sounded like the call. Manny wishes to be alone, leaving Diego and Sid alone, unknowingly to be heckled by two annoying opossums, Crash and Eddie. Manny comes across the opossums' “sister”, a female mammoth named Ellie who believes she is an opossum. Manny has a hard time convincing her she is a mammoth, a task he must perform if they are to save the species from extinction. With this in mind, she tags along with the group, and brings her brothers, who aren't exactly on good terms with Sid and Diego.

Scrat tries to catch his acorn by sliding off an icy slide, and falls into the water with his acorn. He is then confronted by piranhas, which he does battle with using kung-fu and knocks the piranhas senseless, not knowing that an eagle would come along and take his acorn. In the night, Scrat makes his way into the eagle's nest, and fights a baby eagle over his acorn, which he soon loses when he was booted out of the nest by the father, which soon came back, none too happy at the intruder of his nest.

Along the way, Sid finds out that Diego is afraid of water. After their ordeal with the sea reptiles, Manny and Ellie take a night-time stroll, where Manny slowly convinces Ellie that she is indeed a mammoth, but soon grows apart from her when he suggest "saving their species". In time, when the situation calls for it, to save them all from falling into a gorge of pointed rocks, they make up. During the night, while all are asleep, Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths (they are likely modern-day three-toed sloths, though they also share traits with ground sloths) who call him the Fire King and attempt to sacrifice him to a volcano to save themselves from the meltdown. As luck would have it, Sid shot out of the volcano's vent unintentionally by means of the vines which bound his feet acting like bungee cords.

The next morning, the group of animals regroups with Sid, who claims himself to be taken by "a tribe of mini-sloths", but is stopped when the group finds out that they had overslept and that the ice was melting. They therefore rush off to try and reach the boat, and are waylaid by some hot geysers, which separate Manny, Sid, and Diego from Ellie and her brothers.

While this happens, the dam cracks, and lets loose water which floods the land completely, taking Scrat along in the eagle's nest, which the eaglet and the eagle had abandoned so as to escape the flood. Scrat is swept off in the nest, and soon makes it back to the glacier, trying to escape the flood with his acorn as a pickaxe to climb the glacier.

In time, Manny saves Ellie from drowning when she was trapped in a grotto of rocks, while Diego overcomes his fear of water to save Sid. All was about to be ruined when Cretaceous and Maelstrom came about attempting to eat the animals, but, due to Manny's quick thinking, were soon finished off by a rock which fell atop them in the pursuit of the mammoths. While all this happens, the other animals are taken on a death ride on the "boat" as it floats about, and almost are headed to a certain fate.

Scrat reaches the top of the dam, but as seen in the first movie, causes a crack which travels through the weakened parts of the dam he made with his acorn, eventually causing a huge fissure in the dam. Scrat tries to take his acorn but it falls down as he tries to catch it while holding on to the glaciers for dear life and finally almost kills himself when he gets sucked in with the water, accidentally diverting the meltdown and unwittingly saving the valley in the process.

In the final scene, a herd of mammoths shows up, removing the need for Manny and Ellie to mate and proving to other animals that mammoths are not extinct; however, love triumphs and they decide to remain together anyway, taking Sid, Diego, and the opossum brothers along.

The epilogue shows Scrat having a near death experience after falling into the fissure he opened to divert the flood and save the animals. He enters a heaven full of acorns, amazed completely. He sees a gigantic acorn, reaches for it and nearly grabs it. Suddenly, he finds himself torn away from heaven. He wakes up in the arms of Sid, who had resuscitated him. Taken from his heavenly, giant acorn, Scrat is enraged and proceeds to attack his savior. Template:Endspoiler

Trivia

Bootleg copies of the film were just titled Ice Age 2 instead of Ice Age: The Meltdown, because these were available before the movie's title was finalized and made public.
The vultures originally had a role in the previous Ice Age, but their roles were scrapped. Their original designs can be seen in the special features on the DVD.
The movie contains a spoof of Saving Private Ryan, when Manny is hit by a geyser and temporarily loses his hearing. Incidentally, the German voice for Manny, Arne Elsholtz, also synchronizes Tom Hanks, who also stars in that movie, which creates an insider joke by happenstance in the German version.
Despite there being few brontotheres in this film with the exception of one younger individual in Sid's camp, the original two, Carl and Frank from the first film, do not appear in this film.
A spoof advertisement appeared in the South Park episode "Cartoon Wars Part II". As Cartman and Kyle were fighting, one could see a billboard advertising "Cold Age: The Smackdown".
The ultimate ending of Cretaceous and Malestrom, the two reptiles, remains dubious. The essential guide says that they were later eaten by mini-sloths, while the storybook maintains that they were picked off by vultures. The mini-sloths eating the bodies of these two creatures seems unlikely, as sloths of any species are traditionally vegetarian and the vultures picking the sea reptiles off seems more likely as the vultures were singing on how they'd wanted their meals.
Alan Tudyk (who played Cholly) was also the voice for Lenny, one of Saber-toothed cats from the first Ice Age film, as was Stephen Root, who played both Frank the brontothere, and a Moeritherium.
Manny mockingly refers to Sid as a platypus. Syd the platypus was one of the three mascots chosen for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The sequences in which Scrat battles a group of pirahnas and fighting a baby eagle for the acorn were originally considered for the opening of the movie and teaser trailer.
The reason why Roshan, the baby from the first movie and his family are not featured in this movie is because the makers felt that bringing him back as an older character was too predictable.

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, I, Robot, and Robots (another Blue Sky Studios film).
Burger King Ice Age: The Meltdown Toys
Yetisports Ice Age 2 - The Meltdown special games
On Family Guy's episode "Sibling Rivalry," Scrat is shown trying to take three nuts out of a 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 Wedge who voices him in the films. The episode originally aired the week before the film opened. Fox aired promotions for the movie 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.
A teaser trailer for The Simpsons Movie was attached to every print of the movie, despite rumors that it was only on some prints.
Re-edited scenes of Ice Age: The Meltdown were shown in Air Heads candy commercials on several kids' channels and programs, such as the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, ABC Kids on ABC, and more. It shows, in part, that after Scrat defeats a school of piranha, he proudly displays Air Head packet (replaced by an acorn in the actual movie), when suddenly an eagle comes over and swipes it from him.

Box Office

The film opened on March 31, 2006, and exceeded expectations by opening with an $68.7 million in its first weekend, the second biggest opening for a non-summer, non-holiday release, since the The Passion of the Christ. Though reviews were mainly mixed, [2] despite that it had achieved that goal. According to Wal Mart's website, Ice Age 2 the dvd will be released on November 21, 2006. As of June 29, 2006, the film has grossed a total of $193,666,929 at United States box offices, making it the first movie in 2006 to pass the $100 million mark.

In the Netherlands, the film grossed €152,262 in its first week, not enough to enter the top 10. In its second week (March 30 - April 5), the film debuted at #1, grossing over €1,350,375, kicking Inside Man from its #1 position there. The film has accomplished an amazing job by remaining in the top 3 for 9 weeks now (as of May 31, 2006). In total, the film grossed € 6.108.685 in the Netherlands.

As of July 17, 2006, the film grossed a massive $642,774,057 worldwide according to boxofficemojo.com, surpassing all expectations and netting the film a massive profit given the moderate budget of $75 million.

Animals Featured

Anteater (the doubting anteater father which maintains that mammoths have truly gone extinct, referred to as "Aardvark" in script )
Baptornis (seen going down the waterslides in formation)
caribou (seen in migration, one making way down waterslide and poking a Paleocastor in the rear with his horns, referred to as "elk" in script, the younger individuals acted like gazelles)
Chalicotherium (Cholly)
Dodo (seen being killed by the hot geysers, and then in the acorn heaven)
Eagle (young hatchling fights with Scrat over the acorn)
Embolotherium (seen in waterpark questioning Manny's storytelling, referred to as "rhino" in script)
Dung beetle (seen in migration complaining about toting a mound of dung along)
Gastornis (seen in migration getting her children in a moving nest, referred to as "Diatryma" in script)
Giant Armadillo (Fast Tony)
Glyptodon (Stu,and many of them in the migration)
Hedgehog (seen in migration, children trying to get their grandfather out of the burrow, referred to as "molehog" in script)
Mammuthus (Manny and Ellie)
Macrauchenia (seen in migration and in waterpark, one individual getting stuck in a waterslide, referred to as "freaky mammal" in script)
Megalonyx (Sid)
Metriorhynchus (unsubstantiated) (Cretaceous)
Moeritherium (seen in migration and discrediting Fast Tony's selling of bark, referred to as "start"in script)
Musk Ox (seen in migration and accused of being fat by Fast Tony)
Opossum (Crash and Eddie)
Palaeocastor (seen in migration, exclaiming "Dam!" when the ice was cracking, referred to as "beaver" in script)
Piranha (school of piranha fight with Scrat for life and his acorn, some were showed eaten by some Baptornis in the opening)
Platybelodon (seen in herd and openly laughing at Fast Tony, referred to as "shovelmouth" in script)
Placodus (unsubstantiated) (Maelstrom)
Saber-toothed squirrel (a fictional animal) (Scrat)
Songbird (seen with younger animals questioning Manny on his family)
Smilodon (Diego)
Vulture (seen singing "Food, Glorious Food" from Oliver! when in pursuit of their prey)

Inaccuracies and film mistakes

The opossums are referred to as "possum" throughout the film. Scientifically speaking, the term "possum" is usually reserved for a group of Australian squirrel-like tree dwelling marsupials.
Sid claims tigers are the only animals that can not swim while they are infants. In fact, tigers are one of the few cats that take to water (but Sid may have been referring to Smilodon, whose appropriate name is "saber-toothed cat").
Both the Metriorhynchus and the Placodus in the film differ greatly from the true animals, in that neither is the appropriate size and both have superfluous fins.
Armadillos cannot retract into their "shell," they roll up instead.
Baptornis did not live at the time of the ice age. And those shown do not seem to have come from melted ice like Cretaceous and Maelstrom, though since many of the creatures in the film did not live during the same time period this is a matter of artistic license.
Macrauchenias in the first film were comparatively taller that the mammoths, but have been shrunk down for their role in this film, in order to provide a measure of factual accuracy and to aid the story's continuity.
It's worth noting that neither Placodus or Metriorynchus (Maelstrom and Cretaceous) would have survived in a glacier. During their time periods (Metriorhychus were from the Late Jurassic period, and Placodus was from the Triassic), the world's temperature was still too high for ice to form anywhere, ergo they could not have survived through the millions of years of being frozen, because they would never have been frozen at all. They would have been extinct long before the world cooled down that much.
Also, when all of the floodwater has receded through the crack created by Scrat, the mammoth herd walks through into the "bowl" through the same crack, even though an extremely large amount of water had just flowed straight through that crack.
In the scene where Scrat is fighting a school of piranhas, he knocks one to the right side. This piranha had eaten his acorn. But when he retrieves the acorn by stepping on another fish, it is a different piranha in a different direction.