It's time to get wild... Buck Wild!
The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild is a spin-off and continuation of the Ice Age franchise, released exclusively to Disney+ on January 28, 2022. It is the first animated media in the series not produced by Blue Sky Studios (which was shuttered in 2021), with Bardel Entertainment instead handling animation production.Opossum brothers Crash and Eddie have begun to chafe living under the watchful eye of their adopted sister Ellie, and when they are told they wouldn’t survive living on their own, they take the plunge and go off on their own. They manage to fumble their way back into the lost world, and decide they want to live a life of adventure with their old friend Buck Wild (Simon Pegg). However, they learn that it’s a bad time to pay a visit, as a hyper-intelligent dinosaur named Orson has set his sights on conquering the lost world with a swelling army of dinosaurs at his command. Now Crash and Eddie must help Buck, and his old friend Zee, in stopping Orson’s mad plans for conquest, and maybe prove they can make it on their own in the process.
Previews: Teaser Trailer
, Official Trailer
This film provides examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: This movie features Buck Weasel alongside Crash and Eddie as the main characters.
- Ascended Extra: Even more so than the last film. Crash and Eddie are the protagonists, with the film's plot focusing on them leaving the herd and venturing out into the Lost World, where they come across Buck again. Manny, Sid, Diego, and Ellie swap rolls with the two and become background characters who don't do much after the first fifteen minutes.
- Big Bad: Orson, a hyper-intelligent dinosaur who wants to rule the lost world and exterminate the mammals who had begun living down there.
- Breather Episode: Following the apocalyptic stakes of Continental Drift and Collision Course, Adventures Of Buck Wild is a more lighthearted adventure set in the Lost World.
- Breath Weapon: The small lizards have the ability to breathe fire.
- Broad Strokes: While the film acknowledges a few events and characters from the previous two movies (Captain Gutt, Buck’s pumpkin daughter, etc.), others seem to be ignored completely (like Brooke and Shira, the love interests of Sid and Diego respectively).
- The Bus Came Back:
- Played with. The cave painting in the opening recap depicts the humans from the first film, baby Roshan and his father Runar. This notably marks the first time since the original Ice Age that these characters, and the existence of humans in general, have been directly acknowledged.
- The same cave painting also features the various villains from the previous films, including Soto's pack, Cretaceous and Maelstrom, and Captain Gutt.
- Several dodos are shown to have taken up residence in the lost world, the species having last been seen in the second film.
- Momma T. Rex from Dawn of the Dinosaurs returns to assist Buck and the herd once again.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Although this movie explicitly takes place after Collision Course, Shira and Brooke are not seen or even mentioned (nor are Peaches, Julian and Granny, but this is excusable since they left the herd at the end of that movie). This is also the only Ice Age media ever where Scrat is absent altogether.
- Coming of Age Story: The film’s main arc is Crash and Eddie finally learning to become competent survivors in their own right and proving they don't need to live under Ellie's care anymore.
- Continuity Nod:
- The opening scene with Ellie narrating cave paintings serves to recap the events of the five Ice Age films. It also looks very similar to the cave paintings that told the origin of Manny's family tragedy in the first Ice Age.
- Sid calls Diego "Uber tracker", recalling a nickname Manny gave him back in the first film.
- We see the flashback of Ellie as an abandoned baby mammoth being accepted into Crash and Eddie's family from Ice Age: The Meltdown once again, but this time expanded upon to show more of their childhood growing up together and the possums' mother passing away.
- Buck still has his pumpkin "daughter" Bronwyn from Ice Age: Collision Course.
- Buck agrees to form a family unit with Zee, Crash, and Eddie, after he’d previously pondered joining the herd at the end of the third film.
- Demoted to Extra: Manny, Sid, Diego, and Ellie have severely reduced roles with Buck, Crash, and Eddie being thrust in the spotlight.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: This movie introduces fire-breathing reptiles living in the Dinosaur World.
- Dumb Dinos: Discussed when Crash and Eddie become surprised at Orson being a dinosaur that can speak, pointing out that dinosaurs "just grunt and roar like nincompoops". In response, Orson mocks the notion that "dinos have tiny brains" by showing off his enormous brain.
- Dwindling Party: The herd has become this since the previous film. With Peaches, Julian, and Granny all having moved away, as well as Brooke and Shira being completely absent, Crash and Eddie also move to the lost world, leaving only Manny, Ellie, Sid, and Diego in the herd.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: After he loses control of his raptor army to Crash and Eddie, Orson is chased away by his raptors who have been commanded to eat him.
- Eye Am Watching You: The cave paintings show Crash and Eddie doing this to Manny as he and Ellie fall in love.
- Fantastic Racism: Orson hates mammals with a passion and seeks to exterminate the ones who migrated to the lost world.
- I Choose to Stay: At the end, Crash and Eddie decide they want to stay in the Lost World with Buck and Zee. Ellie, after some thought and realizing her brothers truly have become more independent (and with the promise they'll still visit), accepts their decision.
- Informed Species:
- Orson is supposedly a Protoceratops. Aside from having a large frill on his head, he looks nothing like one— he's bipedal, with tiny arms, sharp teeth, and a spiky tail.
- If she didn’t explicitly say so, you’d have no clue Zee was a zorilla; in real life they have skunk-like black-and-white coloration, and a much less pointy snout than she is depicted with. If anything, her tan fur, eye patches, and pointed snout bring to mind a meerkat more, with her only trait that’s more zorilla-like being her bushy tail.
- Malicious Misnaming: Lampshaded when Orson calls Buck "Buckmeinster".Buck: It's Buckminster! But most call me Buck. Buckmeinster is not even a name, is like I called you "Shmorson".
- Misplaced Wildlife:
- Zorillas (which unlike most mammals in the franchise, are not extinct) are endemic to Africa in real life; Zee has no business being in a lost world under what’s implied to be North America.
- Also Inverted. Orson acts as though the presence of mammals in the Lost World will irreparably pollute its ecosystem, but this doesn't make much sense when you realize that in Real Life dinosaurs lived alongside a variety of mammal species for most of the Mesozoic. That said, he may just be using this argument as an excuse to justify his Fantastic Racism and Social Darwinist mindset.
- My Brain Is Big: Orson's brain is so enormous that it protrudes from the back of his head behind his enormous frill.
- My Greatest Failure: Buck and Zee hold the deaths of their old teammates as this, and it causes several arguments in the present day.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Orson is completely laughable as a threat when compared to previous villains like Soto or Captain Gutt due to lacking any martial ability of his own. The main reason he serves as such a threat to Buck in this film is because Buck himself is such a small animal (and so are Zee, Crash, and Eddie) and thus is not equipped to fend off numerous mind-controlled raptors. Indeed, the tables begin turning once the herd arrives to help and Crash and Eddie just outsmart him, rendering him helpless without his army.
- Out of Focus: Manny, Sid, and Diego don’t have as much of a role in the film since it primarily revolves around Crash and Eddie, with Ellie the biggest recurring supporting character due to the film also revolving around her relationship with her brothers.
- Previously on…: The opening of the film has Ellie recap the general story of the first three movies (as well as touching on the fourth and fifth) via paintings she’s made on a cave wall, to catch the audience up on the franchise’s story after several years since the last film.
- Put on a Bus: Several recurring characters do not put in an appearance in this film:
- The most notable examples are Peaches and Julian, Granny, and Shira. While the former three were written out of the series in the fifth film (Peaches and Julian moving away to live their own life, and Granny moving to Geotopia to stay young, respectively), Shira goes completely unmentioned. Sid’s girlfriend Brooke also goes unmentioned and unseen, even though it was implied she’d still have a relationship with Sid even though she needed to stay in Geotopia to stay young.
- Scrat is also nowhere to be seen in this film, a first for the franchise.
- Despite Mama Rex making an appearance, and the bond she formed with Sid being referenced, her three children that Sid had previously helped her to raise are not seen, and only briefly mentioned. Justified in that years have passed since the third film, so the young T.rexes have very likely grown up and moved out.
- In Dawn Of The Dinosaurs, Buck chose to stay in the Lost World after learning that his nemesis, Rudy, was still alive. Despite Adventures Of Buck Wild taking place in the Lost World again, Rudy isn't seen or mentioned at all.
- Likewise, there is no mention of Gavin, Gertie, and Roger despite being inhabitants of the Lost World.
- Raptor Attack: Orson commands an army of small, carnivorous theropods that are referred to as “raptors” in-universe, but outside of having the iconic dromaeosaur sickle claw, they otherwise look more like cartoony Coelophysis with the nasal crest of Ceratosaurus (once more incorrectly depicted as a rhino-like horn). Needless to say, they don't sport a single feather. Made all the more jarring when the previous film featured more accurate-looking raptors complete with feathers.
- Retcon: At the end of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Buck destroyed the land bridge connecting the world of the dinosaurs with the surface world permanently enclosing the two off. This movie seems to ignore that in showing Crash and Eddie (and the rest of the herd later) falling down the same chasm they fell in before and being able to just walk through a small cave into the Lost World.
- Sarcastic Clapping: Orson does this when he finds Buck, Zee, and the possums with Mama T-Rex.
- Series Continuity Error: Crash and Eddie point out that dinosaurs don't talk, despite having met Gavin and his kids who are talking dinosaurs.
- Soft Reboot: The movie takes place after all five of the Blue Sky-era Ice Age movies, and directly references the events of each movie in the opening, but otherwise lacks any major elements from the last two movies (none of the pack members introduced in Continental Drift or Collision Course, like Shira, Granny, or Brooke, appear or get referenced) and can be seen as a direct follow-up to Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Buck’s pterosaur mount Penelope seems to replace the role of the pterosaur mount from the third movie Roger.
- The Social Darwinist: Orson explicitly believes that rather than mammals and dinosaurs living in harmony in the Lost World, the reptiles should rule over everything due to being stronger than the mammals, and that as the (self-proclaimed) smartest being should have all the power and authority.
- Worf Had the Flu: Mama Rex is surely an indomitable ally against Orson’s army, right? Turns out, she has a bad toothache, so while she does still fight in the battle against Orson, she has a rather limited contribution.
- You Need a Breath Mint: Just before Crash and Eddie venture back to the Lost World, one of Orson's two raptors sneaks up on them and tries to eat them. Eddie, unaware of its presence, gets a whiff of its breath and groans, mistakenly telling Crash, "You gotta brush more."
