Cartoon Central

Ice Age 2 just doesn't come close to Pixar's animations.

The first problem is Fox seems too conscious of the competition. Pixar started a tradition of showing a short before its feature films. This hearkens back to the olden days when Disney would show Loony Toons before its feature films. Pixar’s shorts have won awards. I can just imagine the conversation in a Fox board room somewhere: “They’re doing it, so we have to do it too.” Their short focuses on that little animal that was chasing his acorn throughout the first movie. He’s still chasing it. Problem #1 with the short (does that make this Problem 1(a)? Too much law school!) is that the animation isn’t impressive. Pixar always makes a point of making its shorts look cool. Fox’s short looks like they just used the storyboard sketches.