Headscratchers / Ice Age

• What in the hell did they feed that baby? A baby cannot live on watermelon- a baby just learning to walk is still drinking almost exclusively milk. And there weren't any other women with the humans- which also makes no sense. So how did they keep it alive afterwards, anyway?
  • On that last point, it's a possible interpretation that the group of humans was a search party or a hunting party, so the women would be back at the camp, or in some other temporary hideout where they would be safe. Presumably any other children the tribe has are with them.
  • Babies learning to walk are usually around 10 months to a year old, they can eat pretty much everything by then. He could have been picking up things to eat off the ground too.
  • Even if they needed to feed him milk, maybe they found a lactating animal who was willing to produce some for him. Sid tries to do something similar for the three dinos he looks after in the third movie, so at least he isn't adverse to the concept.

• The flashback of Manny. I haven't seen the movie in a few years so maybe my memory has been jogged but..Was the baby Manny? Or was the adult Manny?
  • The flashback shows the baby, along with the mother, cornered by hunters. The adult that trumpets in shock afterwards is Manny.
  • I agree with above, this also explains some of the attachment Manny has with with human baby.
    • It's debatable. When I first watched it again, I always assumed they killed Manny's parents.
    • It was definitely his wife and child. It's referenced in the second movie that he's lost his family, twice (by the kid at the start, then Manny mentioning it's his family holding him back from trying to get with Ellie).
    • This is no doubt the reason behind his sour attitude at the beginning of the film, a man grieving for the deaths of his wife and child.

• Okay, in Ice Age, the baby's mom is nearly dead in a river. She looks up and sees a fucking mammoth hovering over her and her infant. She simply smiles, dies, leaving the baby at the mercy of the mammoth. Of course, we know this mammoth is Manny and he's not going to hurt the infant, but seriously, IRL, a woman would not be too pleased that an elephant is within a few feet from her baby.
  • She was probabley woozy from being near-death and unable to get out and help her child. She might have not even known that the animal next to her child was a mammoth.
  • Or she thought she was hallucinating Manny. Or she was hallucinating something else entirely.
  • Based on the beliefs of ancient peoples, at the very moment she needs it, along comes what could well be a totem (protection spirit) of strength and gentleness. She takes a chance and offers Manny the baby, hoping he's a spirit come to protect her child.
  • Go back and watch the movie. She pushes her baby in the direction of the mammoth, who takes the baby in his trunk, and it's when she sees this that she smiles. She wasn't just smiling because she saw an elephant standing nearby. And besides, at that point her only other option for Roshan would be to keep him with her as she died, which risks him slipping into the river and drowning or being consumed by a carnivorous creature who comes along and finds him. But the only way for Roshan to be killed by a mammoth is if the mammoth accidentally steps on him, and he's more likely to be safe from predators with such a huge creature looking after him. So leaving the baby with Manny was really the only choice she had.

• Word of God says that Diego really did die in Number 1. So, in the sequels, Diego's a ghost?
  • He had nine lives. Now he has eight.
  • Actually, he's a different sabertooth, also named Diego. Note that in the sequels, he has a different attitude, a different personality, and even different eye color than the first film.
    • Also, while the "second Diego" hates water, the "first Diego" has no problem with it, even crossing a river while chasing Roshan's mother.
    • Maybe that's his brother or some other close relative who replaced him?
    • I always assumed that Diego was just so completely focused on getting the baby that the water didn't cross his mind.
  • Diego was supposed to die in Ice Age; they changed it after making the test audience cry. Probably what they meant was that, when they were making the scene, they did it with the thought that yes, this character is dead, hence why it really did seem like he had died until he came back. I don't think we're supposed to believe that another, previously unmentioned, tiger randomly joined them, or anything else like that. Any inconsistencies between the first two films are coincidental.
  • The "changes of personality", possibly as well as his "sudden" fear of water, might be just as well explained with his injuries from the first movie. Soto threw him against a rock and the blow was severe enough that he passed out. It is confirmed that head injuries can lead to change in behavior and personality, if they're severe enough.
  • A near-death by drowning causing his subsequent dread of water seems entirely plausible to me.

• What I never got when watching the first; what exactly happened when Diego jumped between Manny and Soto that nearly cost him his life? Soto bit his throat? Way too subtly shown in that case.
  • actually it looks more like it should have been a gut shot...still no visable injury though.
  • He hit his head against a rock and there was a sort of cracky thud, so it was probably because he, y'know, hit his head.
  • Speaking of that, did anyone notice that Diego falls on his left side after taking the blow from Soto but when we see Manny and Sid mourning over him later, he's lying on his right side? I always assumed that Diego didn't move anymore after taking the blow because he was too weak because of his injuries, but apparently he has moved. It just doesn't make sense to me why he should stand up to lay on his other side when being that hurt.
  • Why on earth should he need to stand up just to effectively roll over? The absolute most movement that would require is pushing the front half of his body up and using the momentum to flop over onto his other side. That's possible to do even if you're hurt.
  • True, to the second above point, and that also does explain the moan we hear from Diego - he probably made it as he was rolling over in an attempt to hide how serious his injuries were from Manny, Roshan, and Sid.

• When Sid was hiding behind Manny from Carl and Frank, why couldn't Sid just explain to Manny that the two wanted to kill him for pleasure? Manny heard about this from Carl and Frank a few minutes later and was disgusted and horrified, so why couldn't Sid just tell him that instead of being like "Please don't let them impale me! I wanna live!"?
  • Because he had two multi-tonne animals out for his blood. Sid wasn't in the right state of mind to discuss Carl and Frank's motivations for killing him.
  • Because Carl and Frank explain it seconds (not minutes) later.
  • He didn't know. When Manny points out that rhinos are herbivores, Sid says "an excellent point", implying he thought they were going to eat him too.

• Soto's second plan doesn't make a lot of sense. Original idea: Attack the human village, steal baby and eat him. Okay, Diego lost the baby and his mother at the waterfall... why the heck did Soto ask Diego to meet them (Sabers) again at Half Peak? "OK you lost the baby. Diego, we'll go to a volcano -dozens of miles- away and you'll take the baby there instead of us helping you find it".
  • Soto's "victory or death mentality" (see the Ice Age fridge brilliance page) would make one think that he'd just kill Diego there immediately but he doesn't. I think it was just a ruse to get Diego out of the way since Soto clearly doesn't like him and - as I put on the Fridge Horror section - he might have known that the volcano was going to erupt too at that time and was deliberately trying to make sure Diego died when that happened. So, it's not really a plan to get back at the humans, it's a "reprieve" for Diego since he's already holding multiple Implied Death Threat's over his head.
  • I believe splitting up was also to keep the humans distracted - after Roshan's father comes across the beads his wife dropped, the film shows he and his tribe chasing after the other members of the pack. If they all stay in the area and help Diego (which he shouldn't need anyway - it's one woman and her baby, who were last seen jumping over a waterfall), it would've been easier for the humans and their dogs to track them.

• What does Diego eat after he abandons his old pack and joins the herd, which is largely composed of animals sabre-toothed cats are known to eat? And for that matter, what did Shira eat when she was still a member of the pirate crew if all they did with the dead weight was toss it overboard and their bounty was composed entirely of fruits?
  • Well Fish is always an option.
  • For Diego, the herd is only him, Sid, Manny, Ellie, her brothers and Peaches, all other animals are fair game unless he decides to befriend them. If he can't find enough to eat in fish or bugs he slinks off and picks off a straggler, someone ill or someone close to death. Shira likely ate those who resisted.

• It's not really such a huge deal, I suppose, but about that string of beads that Roshan's father gives to Manny at the end of the first film...Why doesn't he keep that in any of the other ones? If I had known there was going to be an Ice Age 2 when I saw the first one, I for sure would've expected it to have been just tied around one of his tusks to secure it...Wouldn't it have been a nice little reminder of the baby, the entire reason the heard was brought together in the first place? (Especially come the third movie, where Sid is shown to have what seems like pretty exemplary skill at tying knots.)
  • I agree, but perhaps it would simply have been too difficult to continuously animate the necklace hanging onto his tusk.
  • To be fair to the sequels, the beads didn’t even look like they lasted through the end of the first movie; they’re already gone once Manny and Sid turn away from the humans and reunite with Diego. It’s hardly out of character for Manny to have discarded it or let it slip loose without noticing, since it’s not really like him to be overtly sentimental.
  • With a few exceptions, animals don't tend to go in for keepsakes. Manny may have interpreted the offering of beads as more of a communicative gesture expressing gratitude - something on par with a male bird showing a female pretty pebbles to attract her attention - than an actual gift he was meant to retain long-term.

• More of a meta thing, but according to this site (and various other sources) Blue Sky reversed Diego's death because it made kids very sad (with some sources saying it made them cry). What, exactly, were they expecting the reaction to killing off a main character to be? If anything, you'd think sad kids would be the desired result from that kind of thing.
  • You also have to keep in mind though that Fox ordered a children's comedy. Killing off a main character doesn't exactly fit into a children's comedy, but that's because Blue Sky upped the stakes a little and altered into a dramedy. And they (Carlos and Chris) do express a bit of regret that they had to alter it because it verged from their original vision (and probably the movie it's based on, 3 Godfathers) in the Ice Age 1 commentary. Also, surprisingly Denis Leary was against killing Diego from the start and warned them it would set kids bawling and when he was right Diego did actually die but was brought back to life.
  • Sure, they probably expected kids to be upset when a main character dies. But they also had the scene of showing what happened to Manny's family, Roshan's mother dying, Soto being surprisingly explicitly threatening... And all of those are arguably more important to the plot than whether Diego actually stays dead or not. The thing is (as far as focus groups and the like are concerned), if kids get too scared or upset from a film, the chances are that they're not going to want to watch it again because they then associate it with being sad or scared. A little fear or sadness is alright but only a certain amount and preferably not right at the end of the film when it will more likely be the lasting memory of the movie.

• What the hell happened to Roshan? He was a huge part of the first film, and he was what originally brought the herd together. Then in the sequels he's completely forgotten, and no one ever mentions him again. What gives?
  • Well, he and his people went through a pass that subsequently filled up with snow at the end of the first movie, so it's not likely that he'd appear in person in any of the sequels, especially after the herd has returned further south, found mates, and raised children. As for referencing him, there just hasn't really been any need to. I feel that they could've worked one if they'd wanted to, but they seem content with moving further and further from the first film with each new sequel.
  • Though as the YMMV page points out, it is "blissfully ironic" that they seem to have completely forgotten about him at this point, considering their last words to him were literally "We won't forget about you." For a serious answer, though, they're probably worried that dropping a reference to Roshan wouldn't be understood by the target audience the newer films are aimed at, as they're probably still too young to have seen the first film when it came out.

• Why did Manny even accept Roshan from his mother initially? If his intent at that point was to turn around and leave him, why didn't he just do that from the get-go? Just to give the mother some peace of mind?
  • He was shocked at what was currently happening and went on instinct - he took something someone else gave him.
  • It plainly wasn't by instinct, as he was standing there for several seconds watching her before she gave Roshan over, and the two of them share a prolonged look before she lays her head down and expires, implying that they had come to some sort of understanding. If Manny was intent on leaving the baby to die, he could've just not taken it from her to begin with.
  • Look at the sequence of events: his instinct was to save Roshan once his mother actually offered him. She pushes Roshan up the bank towards him and Sid, Roshan starts rolling back down and Manny catches him without even looking. That's instinct. The look of understanding is entirely on the mother's part - no doubt she sees Manny as being some kind of protector omen for her son or is just relieved that he's being given a chance to survive - but Manny is still just staring at her with wide shocked eyes. Manny's only reference for humans up till this point is that they killed his mate and child, but he's still a fundamentally good creature; there's no way he's just going to wrestle a bundle out of the grip of a human woman before said bundle is offered to him, especially when he has absolutely no idea what's even led to this point. He probably didn't even realise that she was dying; he just had the understanding that whatever she's pushing towards him should be kept out of the water. As the first responder said, he took something that was offered to him and only when he realised it was a human baby and the shock of the situation wore off did he turn away and try to leave.
  • Given that Manny's only known prior experience with humans was their slaughter of his wife and child, he may well have been so shocked to realize that they could fear for their offspring also that he couldn't help but act as he did, out of knee-jerk empathy and confusion.

• So humans killed several of Soto's pack members. How did Soto know that the human tribe Roshan was in was the tribe in particular do so and what exactly did the humans do that is any similar to eating a baby alive?
  • 1.) He probably knows it's the same tribe because he remembers them from when it happened. 2.) He says what the humans did — they slaughtered Soto's pack members, used their fur to keep warm, and may've even eaten some of them, too. From a tiger's perspective, killing one member of the human tribe in retribution, even if he is a baby, seems a bit minor in comparison.
  • Human population densities were extremely low during the Ice Age. Roshan's tribe was probably the only one for hundreds of miles.

• Can Roshan hear the animals speak English?
  • Roshan is a BABY, of course he can't. That doesn't mean he wouldn't understand their moves and expresions, like when Diego does the "where's the baby" sign.