Trailer
Plot summary
Herds of prehistoric animals head south to escape a coming freeze. Sid, a ground sloth left behind by his family, tags along with Manny, a woolly mammoth who would rather travel alone. Killing saber-toothed tigers for their pelts has set a human tribe against the pack, and the pack's leader, Soto, wants the chief's infant son, Roshan, brought to him alive. The child's mother leaps over a waterfall with him and leaves the baby in the care of Manny and Sid before the river carries her off. Diego, a saber-toothed tiger, offers to carry the baby, but a mistrustful Manny sends him to track the humans instead.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ice Age (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Denis Leary revealed in a 2012 interview with Jay Leno that his character, Diego, originally died near the end of the film, but kids in the test audience burst into tears at the death, just as Leary had warned, and the scene was re-written to ensure Diego survived.- John Leguizamo experimented with over 40 voices for Sid, and came up with the final voice and trademark lateral lisp after watching footage of sloths and learning that they store food in the pockets of their mouths, which ferments over time.
- Michael J. Wilson stated on his blog that his daughter came up with the idea for an animal that was a mixture of both squirrel and rat, naming it Scrat, and that the animal was obsessed with pursuing his acorn.
- For Manny the studio was initially looking at people with big voices: James Earl Jones and Ving Rhames were considered but sounded too obvious, and Albert Brooks was offered the role, which instead went to Ray Romano because his voice sounded very elephant-like.
- Sid was originally supposed to be a con-artist and a hustler, with a finished scene of him conning some aardvark kids, and an alternate hot tub scene ended with a female sloth kicking him in the groin; it was cut as unsuitable for children and a possible PG-13 risk.
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, released three months before Ice Age, became the first computer-animated film to make use of ray tracing technology; Ice Age would have received the distinction had it been released when Blue Sky began work on the movie.
