“Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up”

By
on

If you skipped Jack Black’s Gulliver’s Travels (like I did), you might have missed the latest Scrat short – which serves as an extended trailer for the forthcoming “Part 4″: Ice Age: Continental Drift. Below is a You Tube embed, click HERE for a more high def version. Ice Age: Continental Drift is scheduled for release on July 13th 2012.

Also in Cartoon Brew...

  • Scooby-Doo Performs
    on Fox News

    scoobyfox

  • New Trailer For
    “Sir Billi”

    Sir Billi

  • “Dorothy Of Oz”
    trailer

  • Ruddigore

    Oh my bloody days! Number 4!!!! Give it up already! Give this rat his nut and lets have done with it.

    • http://thatssokraven.livejournal.com/ Kelly Tindall

      God, WHEN will he catch and eat that Road Runner?!

      • Ruddigore

        uh huh, yeah good one kelly, although that wasn’t my point.

  • Kieran Pertnav

    Scrat is the only part of the Ice Age franchise who is still any good.

    • Jeff Niezgoda

      HA! Yeah right, they take one part of the first movie, slowly inflate it until it gets its own. Dreamworks loves to run things into the ground. No one needed 4 Shreks let alone 4 Ice Ages. The third Ice Age was like 70% Scrat, they hardly focused on the main plot! I give it 5 months until they make a tv show just like stupid, Penguins of Madagascar, Back to the Barnyard or the new Kung-Fu Panda show. Lets milk this cow even more then drag it out and shoot it. No one cares about main characters that drive plot anymore, just stupid side acts.

  • Matt Sullivan

    I hate to say it but..I’d like to see them make something NEW.

  • Paul N

    No space in the credits to list the animators who worked on this? Just a generic thank-you to the “artists who made this film possible”?

    • http://www.doctorwhom.com gavin

      Trailers don’t usually have credits. It’s a trailer for a feature.

      • 2011 Baby

        That would be fine if this WAS a trailer. They market it like one, but is no such thing of the saut.

      • Paul N

        Um, Gavin..? There were producers and department heads listed after the short. I’d call those credits. So, my question stands.

    • Deaniac

      The HD version on Apple’s website actually has credits.

  • http://she-thing.blogspot.com/ Caty

    Unfortunately I saw Gullivers travels. It’s an insult to humanity, mankind, neurons everything. What’s worse, I’ve seen Jim Henson’s version a week before this one and made me suffer all over the way… some kind of spiritual journey and mega social/political criticism turns in the most yankee commercial movie you’ve ever seen. ‘Thankfully’ my 9 year old sister said “I liked this one. The other was a bit boring” Sigh. The only good thing I can say Juianne looks very pretty here, I want to have her eyes and wig.

    As for the short, I thought it was a promotion for 3D but *gasp* it was actually a trailer… a pity to say that I’m so fed up of Scrat.

  • doop

    There’s a FOURTH!?

  • Chris

    Zany character on the spinning globe gag… how NOT original.

    • http://superrugged.blogspot.com MJ

      Felt pretty original to me…character that travels to the Earth’s core and affects the land above? When have you seen that before?

      • Chris

        “Adam” by Aardman, and something else whcih I can’t remember the name of, but had an cg alien on a moon of some sort (same kind of 360 degree gravity spinning around the globe gags in both).

    • http://zeteos.blogspot.com/ mick

      I agree with MJ… plus… I don’t think I have ever seen the ‘zany character on a spinning globe gag’ anywhere, let alone see it so many times as to consider it a bore

    • Stephan
  • http://superrugged.blogspot.com MJ

    wow that awesome! I wonder who worked on it…

  • Iritscen

    Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen much of the Ice Age movies or Scrat shorts, but I enjoyed this. It’s got to be the most ambitious short I’ve ever seen, for one thing. How many shorts have explained the formation of the continents, the origin of giraffes, etc., in under 5 minutes? You gotta give them that much.

    • 2011 Baby

      The past Scart shorts all had an explanation for the evolution of Earth in some way, but they were all shown once. This short is ALL ABOUT them.

  • tim g

    feels almost like a nod to koko’s earth control :)

  • Phil

    Really enjoyed this short.
    But the news of a fourth IceAge movie?
    Something new please.

  • Mark R.

    who knew you could get so much milk out of a scrat?

  • Iain

    If Fox really wants to do more Ice Age movies after “Continetal Drift”, stick with just Scrat. The adventures of Manny and the others have already been told.

  • http://www.ghiblicon.blogspot.com Daniel Thomas MacInnes

    It’s been over a a decade now. Do these movies even have writers? Or is it all just expansive marketing at this point? I’ll pay somebody $5 if they can come up with a new joke.

    And this crummy, soulless movie will make more money in its first two hours than Ponyo did during its entire US run.

    • Gobo

      Oh, you’ve already seen the movie, and know that it’s “crummy and soulless”? No?

  • http://dtoons.com/conroy Some guy who goes to SCAD

    I actually thought that was funny. I like how quick the visual gags were delivered.
    Although I think the one where he travels through time was better.
    I think it’d actually be better if they just make more Scrat shorts than making more Ice Age sequels. They’re more funny than the films anyway.

  • http://yeldarb86.deviantart.com Mr. Semaj

    MORE sequels???

    Enough already! >:(

  • http://www.animatortraining.com Kevin LeBaron

    I am soooo tired of the Ice Age movies.

    but….

    I’m not gonna lie, Scrat is still one of my favorite characters.

    and I’m still not sick of watching him chase that nut. =)

  • NJprogfan

    Scrat still cracks me up. The best iconic character since Spongebob.

  • http://gagaman.blogspot.com Gagaman

    As much as I love Scart, do we really need a 4th Ice Age? To be honest Scart is the best thing this series has ever had and the over characters are not terribly interesting anymore, as someone said their story has been told. They should just stick to Scart shorts and make some new feature films IMO, but then again Ice Age 3 made so much money it’s hardly a surprise.

    As for the trailer/short: it was excellent.

  • Was My Face Red

    Doesn’t anyone here understand movie making economics? If you make something and it works then you make it again, but you don’t chnage it much in case that pisses off the people who liked it the first time. And if that works you do it again. And again until the ice melts and no one wants to see your slushy seconds anymore.

    Although the drop in quality from Ice Age 1 to 2 was huge
    these fims still make money and I have no idea why anyone thinks it’s worth posting that the studio should stop doing that and make shorts that can’t be shown or sold anywhere instead.

  • http://zeteos.blogspot.com/ mick

    that had some trully wonderfilled ideas, timing, art and humour… sure the film will be a yawnathon as were the others but as for this, it’s 3 thumbs up from me

  • Greg

    Thanks for all the encouraging words, a-holes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drink some bleach.

  • Sarah

    This is the perfect example of a creative bunkrupcy of the
    BS studio. Doing the same film 4 times?!? No, wait I forgot the Robots, Blue and Horton. Sorry if I offend but
    its sad. Lionle Richie songs, Britney Spears songs, elevator music as well as recyclable jungle foilage, ice caps, characters models, jokes, cliches. Everything stinks of formula, tired gags, redundant color scheme. To make matters worse Robots – forgetable, Blue – wait and see but something tells me full of cliches as well. Horton – best one I think. One decent movie in a decade. Thats questionable too… basically corporate films for lowest common denominator. No thank you. Please dont make Ice Age 5, in fact dont make anything else. Save your money and time, think, be creative and than really DO a good film and dont pump out these conveyer belt half-ass prodcuts. Just because its animated and in 3D does not mean its good. Not to me and many other people as well. Thank you. Amazing stretch and squash though. Is that whats it about? Gean Kean once said to dont just move the character, MOVE the audience.

  • Iritscen

    Gee, I thought all you guys were saying Cartoon Brew should stop being so negative. Maybe the negativity was bubbling from the bottom up this whole time?

  • Alligator Radiator

    Yeah they must be doing something wrong. How much did IA3 make? 800+ Million? How much did your movie make?

  • Caresse

    Did we not watch the same short? I think the story’s fun and the craftmanship in the modeling, lighting and texturing is very well balanced! The elevator sequence thing made chuckle. And it’s infinitely better than hearing Ray Romano’s voice. It’s paced well, short, and like someone else mentioned: a clever geography lesson in 5 minutes or less. At least it’s not “Land Before Time” a.k.a “what the world would be like if dinosaur extinction never happened.”

  • T Kelling

    Well, I guess a few hundred people, my entire group of friends, my family and myself will sit in the theatre enjoying ourselves at the release of this terrible, creatively bankrupt pile of corporate steamer.

    Hope the sound of us laughing and having a good time doesn’t disturb the two trendy artistes watching Ponyo in the next screen over

  • Tee

    It’s like the vegan version of a Road Runner/Coyote cartoon.

    I think they’ve exhausted this character already, not to mention their having drastically over estimated Scrat’s charm and appeal.

  • Mandy

    I love how Scrat is the cause of everything destructive.

  • http://justforspite.blogspot.com cartoon brew 1929

    geez how many times is Charlie Chaplin gonna play this same character? It’s getting so old!!!

  • Katella Gate

    I don’t know what you all saw, but the cartoon I saw was funny, inventive, and not condescending.

    As for originality, I know I have never seen a cartoon that made the gravity null-point at the center of the earth funny. And as for continental drift, the closest we’ve seen is when Bugs saws off Florida “Take it away, South America.”

    • 2011 Baby

      There was a Tiny Toons episode where the characters are dealing with an intercontinental earthquake, and two of them discover that Montana Max STOLE THE EARTH’S CORE when they fall down into the center of the planet… and then FLOAT when they reach the void because of the gravity getting bouyant. It’s been done a few times.

      • Katella Gate

        2011 Baby, Thanks for cluing me in about the Tiny Toons episode. So much for originality. Thanks for being civil about it. My regular cartoon-watching ended decades ago.

      • Richie

        Oh, come on now. It’s impossible to keep track of every single animated instance that may have used an idea one’s going to use on a new movie. Messin’ with the Earth’s core has rarely been using as a source of comedy, and I’d consider this short original enough. Besides, the concept itself does not dictate how original something is, but the actual execution. There were LOTS of cat-and-mouse cartoons prior to Tom & Jerry, but that didn’t stop Hannah, Barbera and their unit to churn out unforgettable cartoons that put a twist to what we had seen before.

        With that said, I loved the original Ice Age, was bored to death with the second and had some chuckles with the third. If the level of energy and creativity displayed on this short is present during the fourth movie, by all means count me in.

  • Rodney D.

    I tellya, the floodwaters must have reached the textile mill. A lot of wet blankets around here.

    Give the squirrel another chance.

  • sam

    funny short, it made me laugh! :)

  • lola

    Cute short. Had a few gags I really enjoyed. But then the little Scat episodes have always been better than the actual movies in my opinion.

  • http://www.forthebirdsblog.blogspot.com Michael J. Ruocco

    Wow, it’s nice to see that for every positive comment on this post there’s about five ‘curmudgeony’ ones about unoriginality, greed and how Blue Sky is spiraling down the toilet.

    For the past few days I was in this really uncreative slump. I was downright depressed. Then I saw this short and it shot me right out of my slump almost immediately. It really got the animation juices flowing in me again. It reminded me of seeing the trailer for the first Ice Age years ago, and then I thought the animation of Scrat was amazing. Jump almost a decade later and they continue to blow my mind with what they can accomplish. They pull off some really amazing stuff.

  • Cyber Fox

    ICE AGE 4? Really?
    I’m lucky i chose NOT to see Jack Black’s Gulliver’s Travels.. from the trailers, They bastardized the story to no end with giant robots, pop culture gags, product placement (iPhone) and other stupid crud.

    The first two Ice Age films were historically accurate
    Ice Age 3 is a clustercuss and i have a feeling it’ll be the same on Ice Age 4 due to it has Pirates, yes folks… FUGG’N PIRATES!

    Scrat is cute but unfortunately the sabertoothed rodent has worn out his welcome…just give him his damn nut already and end this train wreck of a series.

  • http://goldenagecartoons.com Matthew Hunter

    That was funny! Hey, here’s an idea: why not come up with more of these, as well as shorts with totally different characters and situations? They could be sort of a “bonus” for the theatergoing experience, and don’t have to be a preview for a future feature. Oh…wait…no money in it, theatrical shorts are dead, nobody cares, blah blah.

  • Alissa

    Hey, maybe instead of more boring adventures of sloth and mammoth we’ll get a bunch of shorts starring Scrat packaged together? The only character that’s really liked is Scrat anyway…

    I know I know, naive optimism. But I can dream can’t I?