LogFAQs > #961914530

Yup, Ice Age 3 was yet ANOTHER animated sequel (Not unlike Despicable Me 3 and Secret Life of Pets 2, both of which are already out) where the producers thought "We have all these characters from previous movies and kids might be fans of any one of them...but rather than maintain focus on a single main character, we're gonna scattershot the plot across EVERYONE, and add NEW characters into the mix, because we know kids don't care about any sort of coherent narrative". I hate the mindset of "EVERYONE needs to have a major focal point and story arc", because, to paraphrase one of the better Disney/Pixar villains, when everyone is the main character, then NO ONE is the main character.

Despicable Me 3 should have been exclusively Gru dealing with the aftermath of getting unnecessarily fired and trying to get his job back by proving his skills of villainy against Trey Parker. None of the stuff with the girls, none of the stuff with the wife. You can introduce Dru and have him complicate things, and that's fine. But the focus should have been exclusively on Gru. And I get that the movie feels very Gru-centric already, but what I mean is...there shouldn't be extra scenes where Margot is dancing with some local boy and then is mistakenly engaged to him. There shouldn't be extra scenes where Agnes and third girl go hunting unicorns and find a goat. These scenes in particular make the move feel bloated, while not contributing to the central story. It's fine if those plots are told through Gru's lens, because he should be the main character, but they're extremely superfluous when the cast is just having scenes and screentime dedicated to their misadventures without him around.

Same thing with Secret Life of Pets 2. Max should absolutely be the main character, because he's the one who has a character arc over the course of the movie. Gidget and Snowball should have been cutaway gags at best (and Gidget largely was). But Max's anxiety should have been the SOLE focus of the movie. Give him more of a relationship with the kid to amp up that anxiety. Keep Rooster being tough on him as a neurotic city dog, sure, because that helps Max grow. But also, play up the relationship with the kid because Rooster doesn't have that on the farm. His life is not a one-to-one translation with Max's, so you can have scenes of him looking forlorn that he doesn't have what Max has, and he can be a bit more empathetic when the climax of the film comes around. Keep the tiger plot, sure. You can have Snowball and Gidget (who could easily have replaced Tiffany Haddish) trying to rescue the tiger, but then the train takes them to the podunk town where Max's farm is. And one thing leads to another, they free the tiger and go to the farm, but it gets recaptured, and in the process, the kid gets captured. Suddenly, Max needs to put his bravery into action to rescue his child and all the plot threads tie together nicely with Max as a hero.

Ice Age 3, first off, you've gotta get rid of the Diego subplot. It is completely pointless. And Sid's subplot is just dumb altogether. The plot should exclusively be about Manny fretting over being a father again, worrying about Ellie, and then the dinosaurs show up to wreak havoc, and Manny has to rescue Sid (and maybe Ellie's brothers) because he needs to be a protector for his burgeoning family. Similarly to the changes with Max up above, build Manny up as overly worried about safety, and then over the course of the movie, he has to go out of his comfort zone to rescue his adopted family, proving that he's strong and brave enough to handle anything life throws at him with his new child.

All three movies, you just need to center the film solidly around a main character. You can still have goofy little subplots, but you NEED a main character to emotionally ground the story.