Ice Age: Blue Sky's Answer to Shrek?

[Drtooth]

Rio's at least a good looking film, I'll give it that. And I'll throw far more anger at Alpha and Omega at Pixar's Newt not getting made. But overall, ehhh. The villain was alright, I guess. The sequel is supposedly horrid. I'm sure they have a third planned at some point that'll be even dumber than that.

As for Ice Age, I have to admit the third one was actually good, but even then that's mostly because of Simon Pegg. Having him and Sid's grandmother back in this one almost made me want to see it. As I've said before with the last one, the pirate stuff was actually decent, but the tween drama crap was tacked on, pandering, insultingly cliche (even for a kid's movie), and didn't make the pirate stuff worth waiting for. And it seems with every film, they pair a character up with a love interest. J Lo's white tiger was a completely useless character other than having Diego find someone. But the thing that ticks me off is that the fourth film, for all its flaws, lack of direction, and being made for the sake of being made, they closed out the Scratt cartoons beautifully with Scrat-topia or Scrat-Lantis or Scrat-rala or whatever. Seriously, his antics were funny at first, but it went from Wile E. Coyote cartoons to...ehhhh...Wile E. Coyote cartoons made in the 60's by Depatie Freling. Recycling old gags poorly.

 

[D'Snowth]

The third movie was okay, but one of my problems with it was it was released pretty much around the same time they came out with that godawful LAND OF THE LOST remake, which made the third Ice Age feel more like it was a dueling movie with LOTL. But I'll agree, Buck stole the show.

But as I've said, another of the problems I have with the sequels is John Powell's scoring - it just doesn't fit the Ice Age atmosphere. The first movie was quirky, and as such, David Newman's appropriately quirky score was very fitting. The sequels are supposed to be quirky movies as well, but John Powell's scores are really big and cinematic, and are just ill-fits for the movies. I see for the fifth movie, however, they got John Debney, which should be more suitable for an Ice Age movie: if you remember his scores from EIG or ELF, then you'll understand his unique style.

 

[Drtooth]

The third movie was okay, but one of my problems with it was it was released pretty much around the same time they came out with that godawful LAND OF THE LOST remake, which made the third Ice Age feel more like it was a dueling movie with LOTL. But I'll agree, Buck stole the show.

A show that wasn't heavily guarded, BTW.

There's something special about the first one. Not so much the fact the story had heart to it and grounded it ever so slightly in a sort of reality. But the fact it was the scrappy little film by a third party studio that was just starting out. Now they're essentially Dreamworks lite (TM). I want to like them and I want to push for them, but their films have been hit or miss with more miss. I agree completely they turned Ice Age into a cartoon since the second one. Their story telling did improve with the second and third movies, just not story writing. I find "the Meltdown" alright, and think the third one was at least an improvement over that. Ice Age 4 was pandering. It really feels like they didn't have enough story for one film, and threw in that pandering crap for tweenagers who were dragged there. That's why comedians played the pirates, and pop stars played Manny's daughter's friends. Guess which ones were better (though...yes, Drake has acting experience and Nicki Minaj was actually good as Sugolite in Steven Universe)? It's the same problem I have with Chipmunks 2. There's a decent half of a movie in there, and then a crappy second movie that feels slapped on to fill out the 80 minutes. Though in Chipmunks 2's case, it was more about Jason Lee wanting to be written out of the film.

 

[Muppet Master]

Ice Age was a great film, The Meltdown was a so-so sequel that added uneccesary side characters, Crash and Eddie, but was still okay. I agree that Dawn of the Dinosaurs was an improvement especially Buck. Though Contidental Drift was just crammed with so many random side characters as well as rehasing the second movie's plot along with the annoying subplot with Manny's daughter, if they had just focused on the pirates, maybe it would have been a better movie. I haven't seen the fifth one yet, but from what I've seen it's filled to the brim with even more annoying side characters, dumb bathroom humor, random cliche subplots like Peaches's boyfriend trying to warm up to Manny, I mean seriously? They really need to stop milking the franchise.

 

[D'Snowth]

As I said, I feel that's really a problem with the sequels, is they keep adding so many unnecessary side characters. I mean, just looking at the trailer for the new one, what started out as three characters has now exploded into three times as many. I don't see how they can keep track of so many characters. . . . after all, that's one of the reasons why M*A*S*H wasn't successful its first season: too many minor, secondary characters to keep track of.

That being said, I said it before, and I'll say it again: the original ICE AGE was fine as a stand-alone feature . . . maybe it could have been sequeled, and it has been, but each sequel has done nothing but tarnished the credibility of the original.

 

[Muppet Master]

As I said, I feel that's really a problem with the sequels, is they keep adding so many unnecessary side characters. I mean, just looking at the trailer for the new one, what started out as three characters has now exploded into three times as many. I don't see how they can keep track of so many characters. . . . after all, that's one of the reasons why M*A*S*H wasn't successful its first season: too many minor, secondary characters to keep track of.

That being said, I said it before, and I'll say it again: the original ICE AGE was fine as a stand-alone feature . . . maybe it could have been sequeled, and it has been, but each sequel has done nothing but tarnished the credibility of the original.

I agree, Ice Age alone is a great feature, but at this point similar to The Simpsons, people recognize it more for the bad then the good, because the bad has been more plentiful, when someone hears Ice Age, they probably remember the cash cow sequels more then the great original film, which is sad. I'm glad that Seinfeld didn't get a 10th season or beyond, because the same thing would have happened to it.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm glad that Seinfeld didn't get a 10th season or beyond, because the same thing would have happened to it.

Totally. Take shows like BEWITCHED and THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, for example: neither show were originally meant to go beyond their fifth seasons, but when the networks dangled more money in some of their faces, they both went on for three more seasons, and they started tanking as a result. In BEWITCHED's case, not only did they replaced Dick York with Dick Sargent as Darrin, but the show began recycling its own scripts because they were out of ideas; in THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW's case, Don Knotts already pressed on with his movie career, so we lost Barney Fife, who was essentially the heart of the show, not to mention the switch to color took away part of the show's charm and appeal, and Andy himself just got grumpier and grumpier each season.

 

[Drtooth]

I haven't seen the fifth one yet, but from what I've seen it's filled to the brim with even more annoying side characters, dumb bathroom humor, random cliche subplots like Peaches's boyfriend trying to warm up to Manny, I mean seriously? They really need to stop milking the franchise.

From what I've heard, it seems they've made the same major mistake the fourth film had. Sounds like there's a fun movie in this somewhere, but also a really terrible, cynically written one. You see, toilet jokes...ehh...I've grown to be past that. They suck unless done well, sure. It's the hashtag jokes I've been hearing about that make me want to break something. They threw in some character (or a couple) that talk like how a 50 year old guy who's never been in a room with someone under the age of 30 thinks 10-20 year olds talk. And while I'm a strong advocate of the "everything is a product of its time/nothing is truly timeless" mindset, there's a difference between having Michelangelo talk like Sean Penn from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and having a character make as many at the moment references as possible, Seltzer/Freberg style. This is the latter.

Though, it sounds like Buck's return is getting some praise, as is Scratt, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson's ink suit character, who explains in scientific terms the cartoony things going on. And this sort of thing kinda frustrates me. I want to not see this film, I have no plans of even jumping in at a 5 dollar Tuesday matinee...but I kinda want to see this when it hits redbox (as it'll probably be sometime before it hits Netflix). I do like the characters for the most part. I like Sid, love his grandmother ("Chew this sandwich for me" was the biggest laugh in the last movie)... this sounds like if it didn't try too hard to appeal to them youngsters on them Razor Scooters playing the Flappy Birds on their iKajiggers with crappy dialogue, it might have even been better received than the last film.

 

[Muppet Master]

From what I've heard, it seems they've made the same major mistake the fourth film had. Sounds like there's a fun movie in this somewhere, but also a really terrible, cynically written one. You see, toilet jokes...ehh...I've grown to be past that. They suck unless done well, sure. It's the hashtag jokes I've been hearing about that make me want to break something. They threw in some character (or a couple) that talk like how a 50 year old guy who's never been in a room with someone under the age of 30 thinks 10-20 year olds talk. And while I'm a strong advocate of the "everything is a product of its time/nothing is truly timeless" mindset, there's a difference between having Michelangelo talk like Sean Penn from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and having a character make as many at the moment references as possible, Seltzer/Freberg style. This is the latter.

Though, it sounds like Buck's return is getting some praise, as is Scratt, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson's ink suit character, who explains in scientific terms the cartoony things going on. And this sort of thing kinda frustrates me. I want to not see this film, I have no plans of even jumping in at a 5 dollar Tuesday matinee...but I kinda want to see this when it hits redbox (as it'll probably be sometime before it hits Netflix). I do like the characters for the most part. I like Sid, love his grandmother ("Chew this sandwich for me" was the biggest laugh in the last movie)... this sounds like if it didn't try too hard to appeal to them youngsters on them Razor Scooters playing the Flappy Birds on their iKajiggers with crappy dialogue, it might have even been better received than the last film.

Ugh seriously hashtag jokes. But, I will also at least watch it when it hits DVD. I'm curious if Buck will be funny again or just overused.

 

[Drtooth]

Only hashtag joke I thing worked was that Amazing World of Gumball episode where Nichole was threatening a bureaucrat who was wasting time on a computer instead of helping them.

"Hashtag make hashtag sure you're hashtag alive to hashtag enjoy it!" followed by a sheepish "that's not how hashtags work" from the frightened employee.

Everything's a product of its time, and kid's movies will always throw in an at the moment reference or two, sometimes even far after the thing was ever relevant. But doing it too much and too cynical makes it clumsy and pointless.