A question about the movie Iceage

[Kievstar]

Good evening. Has anybody of you seen the film Iceage by 20th Fox Entertainment. I think the movie is excellent, it provides kids with some good food for thought. There is just one thing I din't quite get in the story. At the beginning when Diego is trying to snatch the baby away from the humans, the human mother jumps with her baby into the river. She and her baby manage to make it back to the shore and that's where Manny and Sid find them. My question is why did the mother then abandon her child? I mean she was still alive, why would she not communicate with with Manny and Sid to try and get back home?

[Conchita]

Good evening Kievstar,

I watched this original movie quite a few years ago on a flight and can't remember all the details. But I have just asked my son who has seen it twice. From what he remembers, the mother could not take her child back home, because the lions would have snatched her away, as they seemed to do with all children.

[Kievstar]

Hi Conchita,

Thank you for your explanation. However, there was no reason for the mother to give up her baby because Manny the mammoth and Sid had found her and her baby in the river. She had tried very hard to get away from the Diego and had almost lost her life doing so. She could have asked Manny and Sid to help her instead of abandon her baby. This is the only moment in the entire story that somehow doesn't make sense to me. It's possible that I'm missing something but what is it?

[Conchita]

Hello Kievstar,

None of us seemed to remember that part well, so I looked up in Google. I think you’ll find the answer in the following plot summary of the film (incidentally, my son is also called Diego – James, in English!):

Sid the Sloth is left behind by his friends and family when they migrate. He starts off on his own when he gets attacked by Rhinos. A mammoth called Manny saves him so Sid decides to follow him. Meanwhile a pack of sabre-toothed tigers attack a colony of humans. One tiger called Diego chases a mother and her baby to a waterfall. The mother jumps off the waterfall and dies, pushing her baby onto shore. Luckily, Manny and Sid take it to return it to the humans. Diego goes with them to lure them into an ambush. Diego gets saved by Manny and feels bad about leading them to their deaths so he tells them. They all concoct a plan and it works (sort of!). Diego gets injured and he tells them to leave him. Manny and Sid find the humans and return the baby safely. As they go to leave, Diego appears good as new. They all migrate together.

So, the mother didn’t abandon her child, after all.

I hope you can sleep soundly now!

[Kievstar]

Hi Conchita. Thank you for your fast response. I can vividly remember how the mother looked into Sid's eyes when her baby was found. She was still alive when they got to shore together. So, even if she died after she had made sure her baby was safe, Sid would have tried to rescue her too as he did with her baby. Somehow this part of the story doesn't add up...

[Spencer]

She might have been in a great shock after the attack, or just wanted to swim another round first in that beautiful weather or Walt Disney didn't want kids to see a mother's dying,it's still not that big deal as if someone doesn't recognize her own grandma, and mistakes her for a wolf.

[Conchita]

[Spencer]

Exactly!
This is why I love Stephen King, he writes this way somehow, his novels are full of mysterys, eventhough they are mostly horrors.
But fairy tales have similar kind of effect on me sometimes. (Had)