Ice Age: Collision Course is a 2016 American animated adventure comedy film directed by Michael Thurmeier and written by Michael Wilson, Michael Berg, and Yoni Brenner. Produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios, it is the fifth installment in the Ice Age film series and the sequel to Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012). Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Josh Peck, Simon Pegg, Seann William Scott, Jennifer Lopez and Queen Latifah reprise their roles from the previous films. In the film, when Scrat is propelled into outer space in an abandoned spaceship during an attempt to bury his acorn and accidentally sends a giant asteroid towards Earth, the Herd and Buck go on a mission to find a way to fend it off.
Ice Age: Collision Course premiered at the Sydney Film Festival on June 19, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 22 by 20th Century Fox. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $408 million against a $105 million production budget. While the film was deemed a disappointment at the domestic box-office, it performed better internationally. A spin-off film, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, was released in 2022, while a further sequel, Ice Age: Boiling Point, is scheduled to be released in 2027.
Plot
Peaches gets engaged with a benign mammoth named Julian, whom Manny disapproves of as he finds Julian annoying and incapable of protecting her. The concern escalates when Peaches reveals her wish to travel and explore the world for their honeymoon, which both Manny and Ellie oppose. Diego and Shira want to have children but worry they will not make friends, as the other kids are scared of their species. Sid is about to propose marriage to his girlfriend, Francine, but is dumped by her and laments his solitude.
During Manny and Ellie's wedding anniversary, asteroids incited by Scrat impact and the herd barely escapes to shelter in a cave. Meanwhile, in the underground lost world, following his encounter with a trio of flying dromaeosaurs, Buck discovers an ancient stone pillar and takes it to the surface, where he reunites with the herd. Buck explains that according to the pillar, asteroids have caused two extinctions in the past and, with the next one incoming, he believes that the only place they could find a clue to stop it is on the previous site: a nearby volcano, as according to its engravings, they always fall in that same location.
The dromaeosaurs overhear the conversation and decide to stop them, surmising they can avoid the impact by flying away, thus not only exacting retribution against Buck but also eradicating Earth's population and securing domination over the planet for themselves. Roger, the son, is reluctant, but is strong-armed into cooperating. During the herd's journey to the crash site, Buck discovers that asteroids have electromagnetic properties. He theorizes that if a large number of lesser asteroids were gathered and launched into orbit, they could attract the main asteroid away from Earth.
After facing several obstacles and the interference of the dromaeosaurs, the herd arrives at Geotopia, a community of long-living animals formed inside one of the asteroids that fell long ago. There, Sid meets Brooke, a ground sloth who instantly falls in love with him. Shangri Llama, the leader of Geotopia, refuses to cooperate with Buck's plan to use the city's crystals to stop the asteroid, as they are the key to the residents' longevity. Sid inadvertently destroys the entire city when he attempts to remove one of the crystals to give Brooke, reducing the Geotopians to their true age, much to Shangri Llama's chagrin.
After Brooke convinces the other Geotopians that stopping the asteroid is more critical than their lost youth, they and the herd fill up a volcano with a massive quantity of crystals so that the pressure launches them into space to draw the asteroid away. The dromaeosaurs attempt to intervene but discover they will not survive the asteroid's impact. Buck convinces them to help, knowing that dinosaurs can co-exist with non-reptilians. After a lesser asteroid blocks the last and biggest crystal's installation, Julian helps Manny push in the crystal, earning Manny's approval. The volcano erupts, sending the magnetic crystal shards into the sky and repelling the asteroid away from Earth.
The herd departs for home, including Sid, who parts ways with Brooke. Just as they leave, a small crystal shard falls into a hot spring, giving it rejuvenating properties that allow the Geotopians and Granny, who stayed behind with them, to regain their youth. After the herd returns, Manny and Ellie reconcile with Peaches, encouraging her to chase her dreams. Peaches and Julian marry afterwards, while Diego and Shira become heroes to the kids and a rejuvenated Brooke appears during the wedding ceremony to reunite with Sid, much to his delight.
Voice cast
Ray Romano as Manny, a woolly mammoth and the leader and co-founder of the Herd John Leguizamo as Sid, a ground sloth and the co-founder of the Herd Denis Leary as Diego, a smilodon and the co-leader and co-founder of the Herd Queen Latifah as Ellie, a female woolly mammoth who is Manny's wife Keke Palmer as Peaches, a young female woolly mammoth who is Manny and Ellie's daughter Adam DeVine as Julian, a woolly mammoth who is Peaches's boyfriend Simon Pegg as Buck, a one-eyed weasel and a dinosaur hunter who reunites with the Herd to warn them of the coming asteroid Seann William Scott and Josh Peck as Crash and Eddie, an opossum duo and Ellie's adoptive brothers Jennifer Lopez as Shira, a female saber-tooth tiger who is a former pirate and Diego's wife Wanda Sykes as Granny, Sid's aging grandmother Nick Offerman as Gavin, a dromaeosaur and the father of Roger and Gertie Max Greenfield as Roger, a freaky and cowardly dromaeosaur and Gavin's son Stephanie Beatriz as Gertie, a dromaeosaur and Gavin's daughter Jessie J as Brooke, a ground sloth who is a resident of Geotopia and the girlfriend/love interest of Sid Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Shangri Llama, a yoga-loving llama and the spiritual leader of Geotopia Neil deGrasse Tyson as Neil deBuck Weasel, a weasel astronomer who exists in Buck's mind Lilly Singh as Bubbles and Misty, a pair of "minicorns" who reside in Geotopia Michael Strahan as Teddy, a fearless rabbit and a resident of Geotopia Melissa Rauch as Francine, a ground sloth who has a close relationship with Sid as she is his former girlfriend Chris Wedge as Scrat, a saber-tooth squirrel
Production The concept of Collision Course was deeply rooted in a scene from the first film where Manny, Sid, Diego and Roshan are walking through an ice cave and they spot a spaceship that's encased in ice, an item that inspired this film in the series. As with the third film, which was also inspired by the ice cave scene in which the Herd comes across a dinosaur that was encased in ice, the team went back to the first film to search for a possible inspiration for this next installment. The characters were first hand-drawn on animation software, complete with color and animated clips of the characters doing specific actions. They were then sent to be hand-sculpted with clay, and ultimately scanned into CGI software and animated around the model.
The "Figaro's Aria" sequence which involved Buck saving an egg from a trio of dromaeosaurs proved to be one of the most challenging sequences for Blue Sky Studios' animators, as it involved a continuous uninterrupted shot that ran for around two minutes. It was one of the first scenes put into production but also one of the last to exit production due to its time-consuming and difficult structure, as the team would only be able to produce three or four seconds of footage a week.
The recording sessions took place in Los Angeles, California since most of the actors live there while the studio is based in New York. Director Michael Thurmeier and co-director Galen Tan Chu would take turns travelling to L.A. to head the recording sessions. In the film, Simon Pegg sang a rendition of "Figaro". Jesse Tyler Ferguson was offered the role of Shangri Llama after the producers saw his performance in Modern Family. It is his first time working in an animated film. Ferguson blew out his voice on the first day of the recording session because he did a lot of yelling. He then took a few days off and came back later to finish his part. He admitted that he struggled the first time he heard his voice come out of his character's mouth. As a result, he decided to stop watching interviews of himself on television because he found them to be "too weird".
A promotional poster, shown in June 2015, at the Licensing Expo, revealed the film's full title: Ice Age: Collision Course.
Music
The film score was composed by John Debney, replacing John Powell due to his unavailability. However, some of Powell's themes from prior films were used, along with David Newman's themes from the first film. Jessie J performed a song dubbed "My Superstar" with Blaze n Vill as a contribution to the film. Other songs in the film include Simon Pegg's rendition of "Largo al factotum".
Release
Ice Age: Collision Course was originally scheduled for release on July 15, 2016. However, it was delayed to July 22, to avoid competition with the Ghostbusters reboot that was also scheduled for July 15. An extended sneak peek of the movie in the form of a short film called Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe was attached to theatrical showings of Blue Sky Studios' The Peanuts Movie on November 6, 2015. The teaser poster of the film was revealed on November 6, 2015, with the words "Bring Scrat Home" spoofing The Martian. The short film was released later on November 9, 2015, on 20th Century Fox's official YouTube page.
Home media Ice Age: Collision Course was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, 4K Blu-ray and digital download on October 11, 2016. Special features include a new short film titled Scrat: Spaced Out, which is primarily made up of Scrat's scenes from the film, with a few unique scenes at the end.
Ice Age: Collision Course was released on The Walt Disney Company's streaming service Disney+ on July 3, 2020.
Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe is a five-minute short film, with the majority of its footage, minus the closing scene, taken from the beginning of Ice Age: Collision Course. Directed by Michael Thurmeier and Galen Chu, the short premiered on November 6, 2015, along with the film The Peanuts Movie. In the short, Scrat, trying to bury his acorn, accidentally activates an abandoned alien ship that takes him into deep space, where he unwittingly sends several asteroids en route to a collision with Earth.
Scrat: Spaced Out Scrat: Spaced Out is a short film that compiles all Scrat's scenes from Ice Age: Collision Course with a few unique scenes at the end. The short was included on the film's home media releases.
Following the events of Ice Age: Collision Course, Scrat is heading back to Earth in the saucer. An acorn-shaped ship appears and pulls the acorn, with Scrat holding onto it. In the ship, three alien squirrels (A.K.A Scratazons) are surprised by finding Scrat, and blast him away from the acorn. Scrat tries to take it back with a tractor beam in a nearby saucer, but the alien leader pulls it back with another tractor beam. Being pulled to both sides, the nutrogen inside the acorn snaps, creating a massive explosion, which destroys the ship and creates a black hole sucking everything nearby into it. Scrat jumps out of the saucer, knocks the Scratazon alien leader into the black hole while trying to save the acorn, but gets pulled in the hole nonetheless. He emerges in space along with the acorn, only for the black hole appearing again, snatching the acorn and leaving Scrat alone again. The short ends with the latter screaming in frustration.
Reception Box office