Ice Age story
A couple, Gail and Rob, find an antique refrigerator after they move into their new apartment. Opening it to get ice, they discover a tiny preserved mammoth, and returning to the freezer, they realize that a fast-moving time- dilated civilization is developing. Within ten minutes, the civilization goes from Medieval era to Industrial Revolution then modern-day, but some minutes later they see the civilization use a nuclear bomb, which burns Rob's face. Finding the fridge civilization escalating their warfare, they close the freezer and order pizza. After an hour, and afraid they did not make it, they open the freezer and find the civilization has rebuilt and has moved further into its future with technology evolving at an unprecedented level. They ultimately evolve into a race of energy beings, return to a singularity, and vanish from the freezer. Believing the mini-people are gone, Rob unplugs the refrigerator to clean it in the morning. As they have breakfast, they find the freezer now has a prehistoric world, with primitive sapiens under attack by dinosaurs. Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Gail, Topher Grace as Rob, John DiMaggio and Roger Craig Smith as construction workers Directed by: Tim Miller. Story by: Michael Swanwick.
5 total · 1 choice · 2 major · 2 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| speculative rise of civilization | choice | The story is about a young couple discovering a civilization of tiny people inside the icebox of their antiquated refrigerator. They observed the civilization quickly progress from a Medieval-era society to the Industrial Revolution before attaining a modern-era level of development. There was a nuclear conflagration out of which a society arose that had technology so advanced that it seemed like magic. |
| romantic relationship | major | Gail and Rob tried to have a romantic dinner at home but were distracted by the civilization that was rising up inside their refrigerator icebox. |
| time passing at different rates for different people | major | Within Rob and Gail's antique fridge, time passed so fast that tiny little civilizations rose and fell over the course of a mere days outside. |
| incorporeal being | minor | The tiny-people in the icebox evolved into a race of energy beings. |
| nuclear holocaust | minor | The icebox civilization was destroyed in a nuclear conflagration. |