Ice Age - storyform?

Hello everyone,
as a bit of NaNoWriMo relaxation/procrastination, which also dual hatted as a bit of parental shared endeavour. I watched Ice Age for the first time since I have become somewhat familiar with Dramatica (that’s not a modest “somewhat”). I thought I’d put the seed of an analysis down now, while fresh, and hopefully come back to it later, whilst also seeing what anyone else thinks.

My take away was this:
Manny is the MC (Steadfast - Start - Be-er).
Diego is IC (changed)
Sid is Protagonist
Diego’s pack leader is antagonist

MC domain is Mind
OS domain is Physics (concern/goal of Doing)
IC domain is Universe
RS domain is Psychology

Driver is Action
Limit is Timelock
Outcome is success
Judgement is good

That’s about all I’m fairly happy with. The following are wilder guesses:

OS Issue is Skill
MC Issue is Confidence

That’s all I’ve got right now.

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Sorry for the late response!

I will need to rewatch the film myself before I can say much about the storyform, but I’m on board with Manny as the MC, as we see his personal struggle with the loss of his family to human hunters. Also, if the Story Goal is something along the lines of “Protecting the Baby Roshan” (like “Protecting Gotham” for The Dark Knight), then Sid would fit perfectly into the role of Protagonist, as would Diego’s pack leader Soto into the Antagonist role. Sid convinces Manny take Roshan back to his tribe and he plows through that flock of hungry birds to get the child a melon to eat, while Soto tries to take Roshan’s life.

The Changed Resolve for Diego as the IC sounds right (with Diego going from joining Manny and Sid just so he can lead them to his pack to jumping in front of Manny to save him from Soto), as does the Driver of Action (the attack on the camp forces the Roshan’s mother to leave him in the care of Manny and Sid, and returning Roshan to the tribe appears to resolve the OS).

I’m not sure about the Limit being a Timelock though. How do you think that would that be illustrated in this story?

Hi,

thanks for joining in - I just saw your reply.

I don’t think the goal is “protecting the baby Roshan”, but something like “return Roshan to his people”. I think it’s a Timelock story because they need to do that before the humans cross the pass and it closes for the winter.

I agree that the humans crossing the pass and the pass closing would be the Story Limit, but wouldn’t that be an Optionlock (aka a Spacelock)? I don’t remember if a definite amount of time until winter is shown throughout the film or not. I’ll get back to you on that.


That certainly sounds better, and sounds like an Obtaining Goal. It also makes a lot of sense since Manny’s personal baggage seems to stem more from Subconscious than from Preconscious. Future also sounds better for Diego than Progress.

So if the Goal is Obtaining, which Issue do you think sounds best for the Overall Story: Approach, Attitude, Self Interest, or Morality? Or for the MC throughilne, does Closure, Denial, Hope, or Dream sound the best?

Sorry if my replies are a bit sporadic, I’m devoting most of my free time to finishing a first draft (my first first draft) off the back of NaNoWriMo. With Dramatica holding my hand, it’s going better than I’d expected.

My gut instinct is that the OS issue is Self Interest. Almost everyone is looking to get what they want (surviving the ice age being the overall example). Manny doesn’t agree to take Roshan back to his people out of altruism, but to get Sid to leave him alone. Sid using Roshan to hook up. The Dodos hording food. I think there are some counterpoints as well (the “Rhinos” with the dandelions).

I initially had the OS concern/goal as Doing, but I can see that’s not a good fit, now.

As for Manny, I think it’s too easy to think Closure might be his Issue (coming to terms with the death of his family), but I think his issue is Hope (projecting his current alone-ness into the future) with a counter point of Dream (accepting the unlikely new “herd” he finds along the way).

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Same here. No problem!

Sounds totally right to me.

Those are really cool illustrations for Hope and Dream, and sound fantastic for this story. :grinning: It may also be worth noting that with the storyform choices of Steadfast, Linear, Action, Good, OS Issue of Self Interest, and MC Issue of Hope, the MC Unique Ability would be Closure.


By the way, with the above OS and MC Issues, we would have an IC Issue of Delay, and an RS Issue of Commitment. Interesting…

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Just watched it for the first time. If it has a complete storyform, I don’t think it was what I thought it might be going into it, so I could t speak to most of it. But what was super clear was the Problem of Protection and Solution of Inaction.

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