The old saw that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan goes double for the movies.
Thats borne out in the case of Scrat, the breakout star of theIce Ageseries.
Frake reportedly turned this troublemaker into the heroic, acorn-hunting, saber-toothed squirrel we love today.
Reportedly according to this officialblog postby Blue Sky Studios, that is.
Lets have a glacier chasing one of the characters.
She came up with a character inIce Agethat is a combination of a squirrel and a rat.
She called him Scrat.
What does Scrat want?
Scrat wants the acorn.
Whether all or none of those stories have it quite straight, who can tell?
laughed Chris Wedge when asked this March.
The Scrat was born of necessity.
screaming noises provided by Chris Wedge).
It was short, distinctive and very funny.
And it made audiences fall in love with Scrat.
They used that sequence as a trailer, remembers de Seve and it was wildly successful.
Everybody wanted to see that movie, but they wanted to seethatcharacter.
And they thought Oh, wed better keep him alive.
I think they stumbled onto something when they animated him, he continues.
Theres also an emotional element to Scrats popularity, his creators suggest.
I think its also because hes frustrated and were all frustrated says de Seve.
Were all chasing after something and I think we relate to that.
Were never going to get everything we want and hes never going to get that acorn.
So theres a Scrat in all of us?
That I absolutely agree with says Peter de Seve.
De Seve admits I wish I could say we intended to do that!
His perseverance is whats so special about him, suggests Lori Forte.
Its Charlie Brown and the football.
Its such a very core, relatable character.
We do test our movies towards the end and they just went wild.
We put him in little moments throughout the film and it just sort of grew, explains Forte.
Originally though, says Chris Wedge [Scrat] never existed in any movie script.
Well,nowhe does.
Lori and I had a Scrat movie up on reels about ten years ago.
We have been cannibalising that movie forIce Agemovie ideas.
And a Scrat feature still isnt out of the question, according to Wedge.
If someone gave me the challenge to do a Scrat movie, Id do it gladly.
Weve done a handful of Scrat shorts but I think it would be fun to do a big one.
I think it would be absolutely hilarious to do a Scrat movie.
To mark that, will Scrats persistence finally be rewarded?
Is there a chance that the studio will grant their unofficial mascot a single celebratory acorn?
Never going to happen!
Ice Age: Collision Course opens on July 22nd.
This article originally appeared onDen of Geek UK.
