Ice Age (Original Film)

This article is only on the First Film. For the articl on all four films See Ice Age (Film Series)
==Ice Age (Original 2002 Movie)==
Ice Age is a 2002 American computer-animated adventure comedy-drama 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. It is also the first movie created by Blue Sky Studios. The story follows a group of Paleolithical mammals attempting to return a lost human baby to his parents. The film stars Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, and Denis Leary. The film was met with mostly positive reviews and was a box office success, starting a series with three sequels, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Ice Age: Continental Drift.
·         Directed by
o   Chris Wedge
o   Carlos Saldanha (Co-director)
·         Produced by
o   Lori Forte
·         Screenplay by
o   Michael J. Wilson
o   Michael Berg
o   Peter Ackerman
·         Story by
o   Michael J. Wilson
·         Starring
o   Ray Romano
o   John Leguizamo
o   Denis Leary
o   Goran Višnjić
o   Jack Black
·         Music by
o   David Newman
·         Editing by
o   John Carnochan
·         Studio
o   Blue Sky Studios
·         Distributed by
o   20th Century Fox
·         Theatrical Release date
o   March 15th 2002
·         Home Media Release Date(s)
o   November 26th 2002 (VHS and DVD)
o   March 4th 2008 (Blu-Ray)
·         Running time
o   81 minutes
·         Country
o   United States
·         Language
o   English
·         Budget
o   $59 million
·         Box office
o   $383,257,136
·         Contents
o   1 Plot 
§  1.1 Scrat subplot
o   2 Cast
o   3 Reception 
§  3.1 Critical reception
§  3.2 Box office
o   4 Production and development
o   5 Video game
o   6 Sequels
=Plot=
The film begins with a saber-toothed squirrel (known as Scrat) who is trying to find somewhere to store his prized acorn. Eventually, as he tries to stomp it into the ground, he causes a large crack in the ground that extends for miles and miles and sets off a large avalanche. He barely escapes, but finds himself stepped on by a herd of prehistoric animals. The animals are trying to avoid the ice age by migrating south, except for Manny (Ray Ramono),a wooly mammoth, who is heading north (the fact that mammoths are able to surviving thought the ice age, due to there thick fur). Meanwhile, Sid (John Leguizamo), a clumsy Megalonyx sloth left behind by his family, is attacked by two Brontops that he'd angered, for ruining there salad. Sid is rescued by Manfred, who fights them off. Not wanting to be alone and unprotected, Sid follows Manfred. Meanwhile, Soto, the leader of a Smilodon pride wants revenge on a group of humans by eating the chief's baby son, Roshan, alive. Soto leads a raid on the human camp, during which Roshan's mother is separated from the rest and jumps down a waterfall when cornered by Soto's lieutenant, Diego (Denis Leary). For his failure, Diego is sent to find and retrieve the baby. Sid and Manfred spot Roshan and his mother near the lake, having survived her plunge. The mother only has enough strength to trust her baby to Manfred before she disappears. After much persuasion by Sid, they decide to return Roshan, but when they reach the human settlement, they find it deserted. They meet up with Diego, who convinces the pair to let him help by tracking the humans to Half Peak (making it one way to get to Glaciers' path, where the humans have a settlement at the other side). The four travel on, with Diego secretly leading them to his pack for an ambush. While having small adventures on their way, (At one time the group passes a flying saucer frozen in the ice, while Sid comes upon a display showing the evolution of sloths) they reach a cave where Sid and Diego learn about Manfred's past and his previous interactions with the humans, in which his wife and son were killed, leaving Manfred a depressed loner. Soon, Manfred, Sid and Diego were almost to Half Peak, and encounter a river of lava Sid, Manfred, and Roshan made it to safety, but Diego was struggling and was about to fall into the lava, and so Manfred went back and saved him, sacrificing himself, but survived. Diego told Manfred he could have died, for saving his life, Manfred responds, "That what you do in a herd, we look out for each other". Later Diego confesses to Manfred and Sid about the ambush, and tells them to trust him, being there only chance to fight there way out. So the herd battle Soto's pack and a short fight ensues. As Soto closes in for the kill on Manfred, Diego leaps and stops Soto, who wounds Diego in the process. Manfred, in vengeance, knocks Soto into a rock wall, causing several sharp icicles to fall on Soto, killing him. Manfred and Sid go up to an injured Diego, and where to to go on with out them. So Manfred and Sid went to return Roshan to his father and happily reunited. After saying goodbye to Rosha, Diego recovers and rejoins Manfred and Sid, as the group begins to head off to warmer climates.
=Scrat subplot=
There is also a subplot where Scrat the squirrel makes many comical attempts to bury his beloved acorn. His misfortunes include getting chased by an enormous glacier, being struck by lightning, attempting to thaw out the acorn by using a fire, but roasting it too long, causing it to turn into a large popcorn kernel, and finally getting frozen an icecub along with his much sought after nut. In the epilogue, 20,000 years later (the present), Scrat is frozen in an ice cube that washes up on the shore of a tropical island. The sun slowly melts the cube, bringing Scrat back to life but the acorn, which is just out of his reach, ends up being washed away by the tide. Scrat then explodes out of the ice cube in anger and hits his head repetitively on a tree, which drops a coconut. Believing it to be a giant acorn, Scrat's anger immediately turns to glee at this new find. He tries to pack it into the ground as he did previously with his other acorns, but in the process causes a large crack in the ground that makes its way up the side of a volcano and causes it to erupt, mirroring the opening scene when Scrat causes a break in the ice with an acorn.
=Cast=
The characters are all prehistoric animals. The animals can talk to and understand each other and are voiced by a variety of famous actors. Like many films of prehistoric life, the rules of time periods apply very loosely, as many of the species shown in the film never actually lived in the same time periods or the same geographic regions.
·         Ray Romano as Manfred "Manny", the woolly mammoth
·         Denis Leary as Diego, a Smilodon
·         John Leguizamo as Sid, a giant ground sloth
·         Director Chris Wedge as Scrat, a "saber-toothed" squirrel
·         Goran Višnjić as Soto, a Smilodon
·         Jack Black as Zeke, a Smilodon,
·         Diedrich Bader as Oscar a Smilodon
·         Alan Tudyk as Lenny, a Homotherium
·         Cedric the Entertainer as Carl, a Brontops
·         Stephen Root as Frank, a Brontops
·         Jane Krakowski as Rachel, a female sloth
·         Lorri Bagley as Jennifer, a female sloth
=Reception=
==Critical reception==
Ice Age was released into theaters on March 15th 2002 and got a 77% approval rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 164 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Even though Ice Age is treading over the same grounds as Monsters, Inc. and Shrek, it has enough wit and laughs to stand on its own." Similar site Metacritic had a score of 60% out of 31 reviews. The film was nominated for AFI's 10 Top 10 in the "Animation" genre.
==Box office==
The film had a $46.3 million opening weekend, a large number not usually seen until the summer season, and way ahead of Fox's most optimistic projection of about $30 million. Ice Age broke the record for a March opening (first surpassed in 2006 by its first sequel, Ice Age: The Meltdown) and was the then-third-best opening ever for an animated feature—after Monsters, Inc. ($62.6 million) and Toy Story 2 ($57.4 million). Ice Age finished its domestic box office run with $176,387,405 million and grossed $383,257,136 million worldwide, being the 9th highest gross of 2002 in North America and the 8th best worldwide at the time.
=Production and development=
The film was originally to be directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, and produced in traditional animation by Fox Animation Studios, but the rise of CGI animation and the failure of Titan A.E. destroyed Fox's traditional animation division; hence, Bluth and Goldman transferred their duties for Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha from Fox's CGI division Blue Sky.
=Posters=
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