There are 4 retcons (that I know of) in The Croods: A New Age (2020) movie. Some of them do not affect the story that much, but others completely dismiss some character developments in The Croods (2013) movie.
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Sandy Crood’s first word
Sandy Crood is a literal feral kid. She growls, bites, scratches and hunts like a wild animal. In the majority of The Croods (2013) movie, she did not speak a single word. She spoke her first word in a very emotional moment in the movie. It was when Grug threw his family members across a deep fissure for their safety. Everyone realized that Grug wasn’t going to make it to the other side because there was no one to throw Grug across the chasm. One by one, Croods bid farewell to Grug. When it was Ugga and Sandy’s moment, Sandy spoke her first word “Dadda” and touched Grug’s face. It was a sad and beautiful moment. It wasn’t a onetime wonder either. When Grug beat all the odds and rescued himself using a flying contraption of his own making, Sandy welcomed him with another “Dadda”. Finally she joined Belt to end the movie with a Belt’s iconic “Dun dun daa…”
In The Croods: A New Age (2020) movie, Sandy was reverted back to a non-talking feral kid again. In this movie Grug and Eep had a better bond as a father and a daughter. Grug and Eep had their own thing, a kind of a greeting where they would say “Boom” while fist bumping. At the end of the movie Eep and Guy separated from Croods to start their own pack. It was a very emotional moment for Grug and he was sad. At that moment, Sandy cheered her father by offering a fist-bump while saying “Boomsies”. Grug started to celebrate, saying “Boomsies” was Sandy’s first word.
It is nice to see that Grug has managed to mend his relationship with his teenage daughter Eep and even develop their own cute fist bump ritual. But it is lame to discard all Sandy’s development from the first movie only to turn her into new daddy’s girl.
Grug claimed that he hadn’t seen a banana since he was a cub
We know how sacred bananas were in The Croods 2 movie. Even Bettermans had a rule against eating bananas from their own farm despite they had abundant banana fruits in there. Not only bananas were sacred, but also rare according to Grug Crood. This is how Grug described bananas;
“Buh-nah-nuh. I tasted one once, long, long ago. It was summer. The sun was warm on my shoulders. Flowers were in high bloom. I was just a cub. Well, I ate that banana in one bite. And ever since, a day hasn’t gone by without me thinking about it. No words can describe it. No words are good enough.”
But no one bothered to remind him that, in the first Croods movie, Guy used plenty of bananas in order to distract Punch Monkeys so they could pass them without getting punched. Guy even handed one banana to Grug. At that time Grug did not treasure that banana, instead he threw it away and accidently slipped on that banana.
Wigasus: Gran Crood’s secret pet
After Sandy Crood, Gran Crood was the most feral Crood in the group. One time she got hungry and tried to eat Belt. Guy had to explain to the Croods that Belt was a pet and therefore they should not eat him. Gran did not know the concept of a pet.
Gran asked “What’s a pet?”
Guy explained “An animal you don’t eat.”
Gran replied “We call those ‘children.’”
But in The Croods: A New Age, it was revealed that Gran was secretly using a sugar glider like creature as her wig. Her pet Wigasus was a retired battle companion who uses its gliding ability for surveillance missions. So in the original movie, Gran did not know what a pet means, but in the second movie she has her own awesome pet who dual purposes as a wig and a surveillance drone. Gran’s secrets doesn’t stop with her secretive pet, there’s more…
Gran was the queen of Thunder Sisters
In The Croods 2 movie Gran used to ramble about her awesome past where she was the queen of an Amazonian tribe called Thunder Sisters. According to her, Thunder Sisters was a female exclusive tribe. She passionately described them as a fearless, adventurous and resourceful group of women. Eep thought they were just Gran’s old bedtime stories and Hope Betterman simply thought that Gran was crazy (TBH Gran was actually bit crazy.)
Near the end of the movie, Gran actually proved that she was not a crazy old lady, but actually a Thunder Sister. She led their group of women, girls and also Thunk into a battle with punch monkeys and a colossal monkey monster in order to rescue their abducted men.
It is beyond the doubt that Gran was ‘the queen matriarch of a warrior tribe of wimmins.’ But then why did she tell a different story about her past in the original Croods movie? In that movie she claimed that she was a gatherer and she was in a scandalous romantic relationship with a hunter (because they were hunter-gatherers), but her father smashed the hunter with a rock and traded her to Eep’s grandfather. It could be a retcon in order to fit the Thunder Sisters story arc into the new movie, or Gran was simply telling a joke to her grandchildren, because Guy had already introduced her to the concept of the joke: “Just making something up to make you laugh.”
If she was just making jokes to make the kids laugh, then why did not she use her abilities and experiences to lead the Croods to a better, safe place in the events of the first movie? She and Grug disliked each other, but she always followed Grug’s overprotective ‘say no to all new things’ rule. Gran also openly recognized Guy as their chance to survival and decided to follow Guy to the promised ‘tomorrow’. Also, I can think of two instances where the service of Wigasus could have come in handy: When Croods and Guy were trying to find a way through a rocky maze, and in the end when rest of the Croods did not know the fate of Grug who was trapped in the other side of the fissure.
Gran did not show a hint of leadership qualities from her Thunder Sisters past and she did not use Wigasus in dire situations. So it is safe to assume that her Thunder Sisters past and her secret pet ‘Wigasus’ were retcons.
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