2006年VOA标准英语-Hollywood Goes Back to the Ice Age for an

By Alan Silverman
Hollywood
02 April 2006
 
  
  
It's back to prehistoric¹ times for a sequel to the 2002 computer-animated family film that featured a grumpy mammoth² and his traveling companions: a quick-witted saber-toothed tiger and a talkative sloth³.

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"Hey Manny, Diego, my bad mammal-jammers! Do you want to give a sloth a hand?"

Sid the sloth, Diego the tiger and Manny the mammoth are on the move again. In the original film they were trying to escape the oncoming "Ice Age." Now the glaciers⁴ are melting and they face a new danger of extinction⁵ from global climate change.

"It's all part of my 'Accu-weather' forecast. The five-day outlook is calling for intense flooding followed by ... THE END OF THE WORLD!"

As the vultures start circling in anticipation⁶ of a planet-wide feast, this misfit herd⁷ takes off in search of dry land. But Manny has another problem: there don't seem to be any other mammoths around. Just as he's become resigned to a hermit-like existence as the last of his species he finds Ellie. The trouble is, she's a bit confused about her identity:

"Wait a minute, I thought mammoths were extinct. What are you looking at me for?"
"I don't know, maybe because you're a mammoth?"
"Me? Don't be ridiculous. I'm not a mammoth, I'm a possum."
"Right. Good one. I'm a newt."

It seems that Ellie was raised by a kindly⁸ possum family after her own clan⁹ met its demise¹⁰. Can Manny, with the occasionally-able assistance of Sid and Diego, convince her she really is a mammoth? Can they all escape the rising seawater that threatens to drown their coastal¹¹ plain? Their path to safety is strewn with comically-animated, but paleontologically-accurate characters and situations:

"Thanks to Sid we're now traveling together and, like it or not, we're going to be one big happy family. I'll be the daddy, Ellie will be the mommy and Diego will be the uncle who eats the kids who get on my nerves."

In the English language version Ray Romano returns as the voice of Manny. "It was easier to find the voice again and the character. I just had to repeat a couple of lines from the first movie. So in that sense it was a little easier the second time around," he says.

The New York comic actor says he had no trouble identifying with the mammoth's awkwardness around the opposite sex. "That was very organic and was actually fun to play because Manny is normally yelling and screaming and ordering the tribe around. So it was fun to play that side of him and, yes, it was very relatable. I have all of Manny's worst traits. I'm not assertive¹², like he is. I don't have his good traits, I have his bad traits. I can't talk to women and I smell," he says.

"Ellie, do you realize that now we have a chance to save our species?"
"Really? How are we going to do that?"
"Well, you know ..."
"Oh no, did you just..."
"No, I didn't mean..."
"I'm a mammoth for five minutes and you're (flirting with) me?"

Queen Latifah joins the ensemble¹³ as the voice of Ellie the female mammoth. Her character, she says "... who thinks she's a possum. That's what clinched¹⁴ it for me. The idea of playing a confused mammoth was just too appetizing, so I had to go for it (and) it was fun. She's just so idealistic and so open-minded. Life is just so sweet to Ellie that it was really kind of cool to me."

"So, you think she's the girl for me?"
"Oh yeah, she's tons of fun and you're no fun at all. She completes you."

John Leguizamo once again voices Sid the Sloth and says the character is more than just comic relief. "I wanted Sid to have a good arc and real reason to be in the movie and we came up with the 'respect' thing. It's not totally on plot or topical jokes that will be stale five years later. It's just finding the humor from the characters and the moments," he says.

Ice Age: The Meltdown is directed by Carlos Saldanha, who co-directed the 2002 original. The Brazilian-born animator says computer technology advances helped his team give the film a new mix of whimsy¹⁵ and realism. "It's a sequel, so the characters have to look the same. You have to be able to look at them and say 'oh, that's Manny, that's Scrat...' You have to know the characters are the same from the first one, but we wanted it to look better," he says. "So how do you do that? We add the extra little sweetening such as making the fur move. In the back of your mind you hear a little wind and you see the fur reacting to the wind ... and I thought this is more for me. I watch it and love that the fur moves, but nobody will notice. Then the first time we put the movie out (people said) 'Oh my God! The fur! The tail!' So people do see it and I'm happy."

"Now let's move it before the ground falls out from under our feet."
"I thought fat guys are supposed to be jolly."
"I'm not fat. It's this fur that makes me look big. It's poofy."
"Oh, okay. He's fat."

Ice Age: The Meltdown has Denis Leary returning as the voice of saber-toothed Diego; and animator Chris Wedge is again the voice of that luckless squirrel Scrat.

1 prehistoric   

adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的

参考例句：

• They have found prehistoric remains.他们发现了史前遗迹。
• It was rather like an exhibition of prehistoric electronic equipment.这儿倒像是在展览古老的电子设备。

2 mammoth   

n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的

参考例句：

• You can only undertake mammoth changes if the finances are there.资金到位的情况下方可进行重大变革。
• Building the new railroad will be a mammoth job.修建那条新铁路将是一项巨大工程。

3 sloth   

n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散

参考例句：

• Absence of competition makes for sloth.没有竞争会导致懒惰。
• The sloth spends most of its time hanging upside down from the branches.大部分时间里树懒都是倒挂在树枝上。

4 glaciers   

冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Glaciers gouged out valleys from the hills. 冰川把丘陵地带冲出一条条山谷。
• It has ice and snow glaciers, rainforests and beautiful mountains. 既有冰川，又有雨林和秀丽的山峰。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

5 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。

6 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。

7 herd   

n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• He had no opinions of his own but simply follow the herd.他从无主见，只是人云亦云。

8 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

9 clan   

n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派

参考例句：

• She ranks as my junior in the clan.她的辈分比我小。
• The Chinese Christians,therefore,practically excommunicate themselves from their own clan.所以，中国的基督徒简直是被逐出了自己的家族了。

10 demise   

n.死亡；v.让渡，遗赠，转让

参考例句：

• He praised the union's aims but predicted its early demise.他赞扬协会的目标，但预期这一协会很快会消亡。
• The war brought about the industry's sudden demise.战争道致这个行业就这么突然垮了。

11 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

12 assertive   

adj.果断的，自信的，有冲劲的

参考例句：

• She always speaks an assertive tone.她总是以果断的语气说话。
• China appears to have become more assertive in the waters off its coastline over recent years.在近些年，中国显示出对远方海洋的自信。

13 ensemble   

n.合奏(唱)组；全套服装；整体，总效果

参考例句：

• We should consider the buildings as an ensemble.我们应把那些建筑物视作一个整体。
• It is ensemble music for up to about ten players,with one player to a part.它是最多十人演奏的合奏音乐，每人担任一部分。

14 clinched   

v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的过去式和过去分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议）

参考例句：

• The two businessmen clinched the deal quickly. 两位生意人很快达成了协议。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Evidently this information clinched the matter. 显然，这一消息使问题得以最终解决。 来自辞典例句

15 whimsy   

n.古怪，异想天开

参考例句：

• They are like oracular messages,but witty-jaunty at times-and sometimes trembling on the edge of whimsy.它们都像神谕，但很机智，有时极其轻快，有时又濒于怪诞。
• He had a whimsy about flying to the moon.他有个想飞上月球的怪念头。