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Easter eggs
Hidden details in every movie and series: 24 in total. Tap a poster to see its eggs. Titles you haven't marked as seen stay locked so nothing gets spoiled.
- Referencenod to comics or other movies
- Cameoa familiar face shows up
- Setupplanted now, pays off later
- Behind the scenesproduction trivia
- Behind the scenesScrat came from the writer's daughter
Writer Michael J. Wilson says his daughter Flora came up with the half-squirrel, half-rat creature. The name Scrat blends squirrel and rat. They toyed with letting him talk, but he worked better silent.
source ↗ - ChangeDiego nearly died at the end
Denis Leary said Diego originally died near the end. Kids in the test screening burst into tears. He had warned them it would happen, and the scene was rewritten so Diego survives.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesIt was meant to be a 2D cartoon
Producer Lori Forte pitched the idea to Fox in 1997 as a traditional, action-driven animation. Fox then pushed it toward CG and comedy, and Blue Sky took over. Scrat's opening scene exists because, without it, the first snow and ice wouldn't show up until minute 37.
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- Behind the scenesThe title dropped the number, but only partly
The film was developed as Ice Age 2 and became Ice Age: The Meltdown at release. Even so, in the UK, Ireland, Mexico and Australia it was marketed as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown.
source ↗ - CameoScrat crashed Family Guy
As part of the promotion, the Family Guy episode "Sibling Rivalry" shows Scrat trying to pry three nuts out of a glacier until Peter shows up. The scene was rendered in 3D for a normally 2D show, with Chris Wedge voicing Scrat.
source ↗ - ReferenceScrat's heaven plays Spartacus
During Scrat's vision of acorn heaven you hear the Adagio from Spartacus by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian. John Powell wrote the rest of the score, replacing the first film's themes.
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- Behind the scenesThe dinosaurs came from a producer's idea
Blue Sky wanted a "what if" adventure, like finding the giant ape in King Kong or a Shangri-La in the snow. The dinosaurs came in from a concept by producer John Cohen.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesThe dinosaurs are colorful on purpose
Designer Peter de Sève argued for bright colors because nobody knows what color dinosaurs really were. Villain Rudy was inspired by Baryonyx: de Sève found the crocodile-like snout scarier than a T. rex.
source ↗ - ReferenceA special Father's Day screening
On June 21, 2009, Father's Day in the US, the film had special screenings in 530 theaters, in 3-D only, because of its fatherhood theme. It ended up the saga's biggest hit at $886.7 million.
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- ReferenceA broadcast debut and an Annie nod
The special aired on Fox on November 24, 2011, US Thanksgiving, and drew 7.1 million viewers. It was nominated for the Annie Award for best animated special production.
source ↗ - CameoPeaches gets a young voice
Ciara Bravo voices Peaches, who was a baby in the third film. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary and Queen Latifah return as Manny, Sid, Diego and Ellie.
source ↗ - ChangeOff the big screen, but on the timeline
The special is set eight years after the third film and seven before the fourth, per Wikipedia. It came out on DVD and Blu-ray on November 26, 2011 and reached Disney+ on November 26, 2021, after the Disney-Fox merger.
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- CameoPeter Dinklage sings with the pirates
The pirates' sea shanty "Master of the Seas" was written and produced by Adam Schlesinger and features Peter Dinklage among the cast's voices. It isn't on the soundtrack album.
source ↗ - ReferenceIt played with a Simpsons short
In US theaters the film was paired with The Longest Daycare, a short starring Maggie from The Simpsons.
source ↗ - SetupScrat promoted it in advance
Fox released two roughly 3-minute teasers, Scrat's Continental Crack-up and Part 2. In the first, Scrat's antics split the continents. In the second, his underwater acorn chase leads him to a pirate ship.
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- SetupThe ship in film five was in film one
In the first film, Manny, Sid and Diego walk through an ice cave and spot a spaceship frozen inside. That scene sparked the idea for the fifth. The third film also grew from a scene in the same cave, the frozen dinosaur.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesTwo minutes without a cut, three seconds a week
Buck's "Figaro" egg rescue is a single continuous shot of about two minutes. Animators could produce only three or four seconds a week, so it was among the first scenes started and the last finished. Simon Pegg sang the aria himself.
source ↗ - ReferenceDelayed a week, with a Scrat short
The film moved from July 15 to July 22, 2016 to dodge the Ghostbusters reboot. Earlier, Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe, a five-minute short, ran with The Peanuts Movie. The score is by John Debney, replacing John Powell.
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- Behind the scenesFirst film of the saga without Blue Sky
Animation was outsourced to Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver, with about 80 people, nearly all working from home. Director John C. Donkin never had a meeting with the whole team.
source ↗ - CameoOnly Simon Pegg came back
Simon Pegg reprises Buck, but the rest of the main cast was replaced. Manny, Sid and the others have new voices, and Scrat doesn't appear at all.
source ↗ - ChangeIt was supposed to be a TV series
In 2018 Fox announced a series about Buck. By December 2020 it had become a film. Blue Sky closed on April 10, 2021 and production carried on anyway. It hit Disney+ on January 28, 2022 in the US and on March 25 elsewhere.
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- Behind the scenesScrat got a new renderer
Instead of Blue Sky's in-house software, the series used Pixar's RenderMan. It was the studio's first and only confirmed production to do so. Michael Knapp said that meant rebuilding Scrat, with new fur, new materials and a new rig.
source ↗ - ReferenceBlue Sky's send-off
The studio closed on April 10, 2021. The series was the last Blue Sky production released by 20th Century and the studio's only TV series. It premiered on Disney+ on April 13, 2022.
source ↗ - SetupThe ending Scrat never got
On premiere day, a former Blue Sky employee posted an unlisted YouTube video called The End. In it Scrat finally eats the acorn, no catch. It sits outside the series, but it reads as a goodbye to the character.
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Original text by Sagaspedia. Posters: The Movie Database (TMDB); character photos via Wikipedia. This site uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB. All trademarks and titles mentioned belong to their respective owners. Streaming availability may change.
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