Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

***Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs*** (also called ***Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs*** or simply known as ***Ice Age 3***) is an American 2009 computer-animated comedy adventure film and the third installment in the *Ice Age* franchise. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox.

It was released on July 1, 2009 with a sneak preview shown nationwide at selected theaters on Father's Day in the USA. It is the first *Ice Age* movie to be released in digital 3D and is by far the most popular movie in the *Ice Age* franchise so far.

Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was warmly-received by the general public. The film was also a massive blockbuster success, grossing $886 million worldwide against it's $90 million budget. It is the third highest-grossing film of 2009 (behind *Avatar* and *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince*), the highest-grossing animated film of 2009, and the 15th highest-grossing animated film of all time.

## Synopsis

*After the events of* Ice Age: The Meltdown*, life begins to change for Manny and his friends: Scrat is still on the hunt to hold onto his beloved acorn, while finding a possible romance in a female saber-toothed squirrel named Scratte. Manny and his new wife Ellie are expecting a baby, which leaves Manny anxious to ensure that everything is perfect for her when his baby arrives. Diego is fed up with being treated like a house-cat and ponders the notion that he is becoming too laid-back. He eventually leaves the herd. Sid begins to wish for a family of his own, and so steals some dinosaur eggs which leads to Sid ending up in an underground world where dinosaurs roam free, and where his herd must rescue him, while dodging dinosaurs and facing danger left and right, and meeting up with a weasel known as Buck who hunts dinosaurs intently and has a mammal chauvinism.*

## Plot

### Sid's New Family

One year after the events of *Ice Age: The Meltdown*, Ellie and Manny are expecting their first child, and Manny is obsessed with making life perfect and safe for the family. He is shown bringing a shell full of water to Ellie believing that she is giving birth, although this is just a false alarm. At the same time, Diego finds himself unable to catch an antelope he has been stalking. The antelope starts to taunt him. Believing that he is losing his predatory instincts as a tiger, he decides to leave the herd after a talk with Manny. Sid grows jealous of Manny and Ellie and "adopts" three apparently abandoned eggs that he finds in an icy underground cavern. Manny tells him to put them back, but Sid instead looks after the eggs, which hatch into baby *Tyrannosaurus* the next morning.

### The Journey Begins

Although Sid tries his best to raise the three dinosaurs, their rambunctious behaviour scares away all the other animals' young and ruins a playground Manny built for Ellie's baby. The mother dinosaur soon returns and carries both Sid and her youth underground, with Diego in pursuit. Manny, Ellie, Crash, and Eddie follow as well and discover that the icy cavern leads to a vast jungle populated by dinosaurs thought to be extinct. Here, an *Ankylosaurus* threatens the herd despite Diego’s efforts to fend it off. Ellie gets a Brachiosaurus to lean down at the ledge and they slide down the dinosaurs neck. On the ground, they are saved from a further crowd of angry dinosaurs (including Kentrosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Iguanodon, and Pachycephalosaurus) by a one-eyed, slightly crazed weasel named Buckminster, or Buck.

Buck has been living in this jungle for some time and chasing Rudy (the younger brother of the mother dinosaur and the dinosaur world's main threat), intending to avenge the eye he lost to it. He agrees to lead the herd through the jungle’s perils to Lava Falls, where "Momma" has taken Sid and her babies. Soon Manny and Diego are captured by a carnivorous plant, but thanks to Buck, they are freed. In the meantime, Sid and the mother try to outdo each other in feeding the offspring; Sid loses this contest, but is soon welcomed into the family regardless. Suddenly, Momma hears a loud roar off in the distance and nudges her kids to go forward. This makes Sid wonder "What on Earth could be bigger than Momma?" After the group leaves you see Rudy's foot come down on one of Momma's footprints, which was about the size of Rudy's middle toe.

### Buck's Story

That night, Buck tells the story of how his eye was taken by Rudy, and was nearly swallowed by him, but Buck launched himself out of his mouth, knocking one of his teeth out in the process, which he then proceeded to use as a weapon. That night, while the herd is resting, Manny has a bad dream of Ellie all alone in a jungle and being killed by Rudy. After he wakes up, Ellie was still sleeping; however, she woke up, too, and Manny explains to her about his nightmare. Because Ellie was in the nightmare, she explains the most dangerous place in the world is bigger than her and Manny. Buck hears that if Manny was nicer to Sid, they wouldn't be searching for him. Buck says that Manny risked his own life and his unborn baby. That makes Manny a friend and a hero.

The next day, however, Rudy attacks Sid, who was knocked off of Momma's tail by a rock. Rudy proceeds to chase Sid to the shore of Lava Falls, where one of Rudy's feet cracks the rock that makes up the shore and the slab Sid is on begins to float off. Sid is relieved that he escaped Rudy, but then realises that the lava leads to a great big fall.

### The Final Battle

As the herd moves toward Lava Falls, Ellie goes into labor and a *Guanlong* pack strikes, causing a rock slide that separates her from Manny and Diego. Manny doubles back to protect her and Diego fends off further attacks, while Buck takes Crash and Eddie ahead to rescue Sid. Just as the sloth goes over the falls, the trio swoops in on a commandeered Roger and saves his life (after being chased by some Quetzalcoatlus). Manny reaches Ellie just as their baby is born, a girl they decide to name Peaches (the codeword they had chosen for Ellie to use if she went into labor during the trip). Sid is saddened at the fact that he never had a chance to say goodbye to "his" children as he is reunited with the herd.

Before they can exit the jungle, Rudy (who is revealed to be a giant albino *Baryonyx* that is this world's biggest dinosaur) is hiding in the cave the group entered through; his rough, grey skin resembling rock in the darkness. Buck is saying his goodbye's to the group when Rudy exhales, which moves Buck's fur when he realises that they are not alone. Buck draws him away from the herd by showing off his knife, being made from Rudy's tooth, and Rudy licks the scar that was left behind. Buck helps the others ensnare him briefly, but he escapes and resumes his onslaught. The herd is saved by the timely arrival of Momma, who charges at Rudy and knocks him off a cliff.

### Epilogue

As she and her children wish Sid well, Buck – now without a purpose in life since Rudy is gone – decides to join the herd and live on the surface. However, a distant roar tells him that Rudy is still alive; he changes his mind and sends the herd home, he destroys the path to the underground jungle at the same time so that no one can go down there. Buck says goodbye to the herd and promises them that he'll see them again someday. Manny and Ellie welcome Peaches into their frozen world and admit that Sid did a good job looking after Momma's children. Diego decides to remain with the herd. Buck remains underground, foreshadowing his appearance in *Collision Course*.

In the end, Scrat, who had fallen in love with Scratte, decides to stay in the jungle down there with her. Unfortunately, Scrat's greed for his precious acorn overcomes his newfound romance with Scratte, and he ultimately chooses the acorn over her. Scratte and Scrat battle once more for the acorn, resulting in Scrat being repelled to the surface while Scratte is trapped in the jungle. Scrat celebrates with his acorn, though, a stray piece of ice falls on him and knocks it back into Scratte’s hands. He then screams in frustration, having lost both his acorn and his love and ending the film.

## Development

Rumours about a third *Ice Age* film started when *Ice Age: The Meltdown'*s DVD director commentaries said that there was probably going to be a third movie called *Ice Age: A New Beginning*. It wasn't until January 30, 2007 when Fox president Hutch Parker, based on the box office success of *Ice Age: The Meltdown*, announced and approved a third film. The movie is considered to be the biggest blockbuster of Summer 2009, with only *Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen* and *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* rivalling it.

Blue Sky decided to do "more of a what-if adventure" in the third *Ice Age* installment, "like finding the giant ape in *King Kong* or a Shangri-la in the middle of snow", and added the dinosaurs to the story. Character designer Peter de Sève welcomed the new plot addition, since he could not think of any other giant mammal to put into the story. The "lost world" approach led to colourful dinosaurs, because "the dinosaurs didn't have to be just brown, and you can take liberties because no one knows what colour they were", according to de Sève. Rudy's design was inspired by the *Baryonyx* because of his crocodile-like look, which de Sève considered even more menacing than the *T. rex*.

The film was released in RealD 3D where available. This sparked some controversy when Fox announced that it would no longer pay to supply 3-D glasses to theatres, leading to a number of exhibitors threatening to show the film in only standard 2-D projection.

The film's original trailer debuted with the film *Horton Hears a Who!* on March 14, 2008, then online on April 7, 2008. There are three others that have been released, with the third and fourth (which shows Buck) being the most closely resembling each other. Queen Latifah recorded a cover of the song "Walk the Dinosaur".

### Award Nominations

The film's score by John Powell and the voice acting of Sid by John Leguizamo were considered for the Annie Awards.

## Reception

### Critical Response

The film received mixed reviews from critics, scoring a 46% on Rotten Tomatoes. The site's critical consensus reads, "*Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs boasts some excellent animation -- in particular, the dinosaurs are wonderfully realised -- but its story is tired and monotonous.*"

It holds a score of 50 "mixed or average reviews" on Metacritic.

### Audience Response

Audiences gave the film positive reviews. Many loved the film for Buck, who proved to be such a huge popular character, that he was brought back 7 years later in the 5th film. The film holds a 62% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a rating of 6.9 on Metacritic for the user score. The film also earned a positive rating of an "A-" from CinemaScore. The film is often considered the last good *Ice Age*, due to how the other two sequels that followed caused a massive split with audiences.

### Box Office

*Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* grossed $196.6 million domestically and $690.1 million from other territories for a worldwide total of $886 million worldwide against a production budget of $90 million, making it a massive blockbuster success. It set a worldwide opening-weekend record for an animated feature ($218.4 million), previously held by *The Simpsons Movie* ($170.9 million). However, it was later surpassed by *Incredibles 2* ($235.1 million) in 2018. It marks the highest-grossing film of the *Ice Age* series, the second-highest-grossing film of 20th Century Fox for 2009 (after *Avatar*) and stands as the studio's fourth-largest film of all time behind the latter, *Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace* and *Bohemian Rhapsody*.

## Soundtrack

The musical scores were done by John Powell who did the scores for the previous movie. Queen Latifah's cover of Walk the Dinosaur was used to promote the movie though it doesn't appear in the soundtrack.

## Video game

A video game was released on June 30, 2009.

## Blu-ray Disc & DVD release

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 27, 2009 in the US, and in the United Kingdom on November 23, 2009. Two versions of the DVD exist: a single-disc DVD, and a "Scrat Pack" double DVD pack with three Scrat games.

On September 21, 2010, a 3-D DVD was released as a two-disc set, with the first disc being the TrioScopics 3-D (green-magenta anaglyph) version and the second disc being the 2D version.

Unlike previous Ice Age films, the DVD was released as 20th Century Fox's Halloween treat and didn't feature a new Scrat animated short.

The movie was rated *PG* for *some mild rude humour and peril*, as seen on the back of the DVD and Blu-Ray Disc of the movie.

### Behind the Scenes

* The first Blue Sky Studios movie that wasn't released in March.
* *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* was the last Blue Sky Studios movie to be shot in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio until *The Peanuts Movie* and to use the 1994 20th Century Fox logo (the studio's next film, *Rio*, the studio's first movie musical, released in 2011, would become the first Blue Sky film to be shot in the 2.35:1 ratio and use the new 20th Century Fox logo which was first shown with *Avatar*). The 20th Century Fox logo featured in the theatrical version was retained in the Blu-ray 3D and TrioScopics 3D DVD releases.
* It took only 26 days approximately to fetch $670 million and overcome its predecessor *Ice Age: The Meltdown*.
* The Lou Rawls song *You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine* is featured in the movie and was adapted to become the *You'll Never Tango* that plays when Scrat and Scratte fight over the acorn and afterwards.
	+ This song is also used in the teaser trailer of *Shrek 2*.

## Sequels

*Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs* was followed by two sequels: *Ice Age: Continental Drift* and *Ice Age: Collision Course* in 2012 and 2016, respectively.

## Trivia

* *Dawn of the Dinosaurs* is the highest-grossing *Ice Age* film.
* Despite mixed reviews from critics, *Dawn of the Dinosaurs* was well-received by *Ice Age* fans and the general public.
* *Dawn of the Dinosaurs* was a massive blockbuster success.
* *Dawn of the Dinosaurs* grossed $886 million worldwide against its $90 million budget.
* Buck proved to be a hugely popular character with audiences and *Ice Age* fans that he was brought back 7 years later in 2016's *Ice Age: Collision Course*.
* The idea of this film was deeply rooted in the first *Ice Age* film in which Sid comes across a dinosaur incased in ice.
* This is the second time Scrat screams in frustration to end the film, the first being *No Time For Nuts*, *Ice Age: Continental Drift* being the third and *Scrat: Spaced Out* being the fourth.
* Was the highest-grossing animated film of 2009.
* Outgrossed Michael Bay's *Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen*.
* First *Ice Age* film to get rated PG for mild rude humor.
* Dinosaur and Pterosaur sound effects in the film were created from the sounds of elephants (for huge dinosaurs and Rudy), camels (for herbivorous dinosaurs) and pigs (for Pterosaurs).
* At its peak, it was the 2nd highest-grossing animated film of all time, right under Dreamwork's Animation's Shrek 2 (2004).
* This is the first Blue Sky Studios film to be in 3D.
* The last Blue Sky Studios film of the 2000s.
* This movie contains a reference to ***The Flintstones***.
* The original title was "*Ice Age: A New Beginning*".

## See also

* *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs*/Quotes
* *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs*/Gallery
* *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs*/Home media