The Land Before Time

The Land Before Time
Genre: Drama Adventure Family Directed By: Don Bluth Produced By: Don Bluth Gary Goldman John Pomeroy Written By/Screenplay: Judy Freudberg Tony Geiss Starring: Gabriel Damon Candace Hutson Judith Barsi Will Ryan Release Date: November 18, 1988 Runtime: 69 minutes Country: United States Ireland Budget: $12.3 million Box Office: $84.5 million Sequel: The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure

The Land Before Time is a 1988 animated drama adventure film produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Lucasfilm, released by Universal Studios, and directed by Don Bluth.

Plot

An orphaned brontosaurus dinosaur has to face many obstacles until he along with 4 other dinosaurs learn how to survive with the help of each other.

Why We'll Hold On Together To This Movie

1. The movie has beautiful animation, even by 80s standards, and it still looks great to this day. It's also to be expected for Don Bluth standards.
2. Amazing and pretty original story.
3. The film has great vocal performances, such as the late Judith Barsi, who did a great job as Ducky, Gabriel Damon, Candace Hutson, and the now-deceased Will Ryan.
4. Tons of memorable and likable characters, like the lovable Littlefoot, the adorable Ducky, the always-hungry stegosaurus Spike, and the funny comic relief Petrie.
5. The scene where Littlefoot's mother died was really emotional and heartbreaking.
6. The movie features a wonderfully beautiful, and sometimes suspenseful, soundtrack by James Horner, who composed Titanic, Avatar, An American Tail, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Balto, and Bicentennial Man.
7. "If We Hold On Together" by Diana Ross was a great and beautiful song. Interestingly enough, the song was also very popular in Japan.
8. Ducky's catchphrase "Yep! Yep! Yep!" is adorable and cute, and it was referenced in shows and other movies as a result of its popularity.
9. Sharptooth manages to actually be quite a terrifying antagonist.
10. The ending was very heartwarming.
11. The idea of the age of dinosaurs was really original and creative.
12. The movie was so popular towards children of all ages that it spawned a popular franchise consisting of plenty of sequels, even if most of them are not as good as this one.
13. Great direction by Don Bluth, who previously directed The Secret of NIMH and An American Tail.
14. Cute and good character designs for the protagonists, while Sharptooth’s design is horrifying.

Bad Qualities

1. Some scenes might be a bit too intense for a G-rated movie (like the Sharptooth attack).
2. Cera can be a rather unlikable dirtbag pretty often. At some points, she even insulted Littlefoot's mother, even after she saved her life, and to add insult to injury, she even said longnecks had small brains. Her father is also a bit unlikable, due to being overprotective, and takes it too far in the third movie, though he becomes more tolerable as the series progresses.
3. While the sequels are enjoyable towards younger and some older viewers, most of them range from mediocre to terrible, and most of the voice actors from this film did not even return or come back, and neither did the original crew. However, they are still entertaining for younger and some older fans of the franchise. Frankly though, the movie has a ridiculously unbelievable amount of sequels (thirteen to be precise).
   • In some of the sequels (particularly in the later ones), there are species of dinosaurs that never actually existed like the Yellow Bellies and the Tinysauruses, which are thrown in for no apparent reason.
4. While he is funny and not bad, Petrie can be annoying and slightly obnoxious at some points.
5. The film feels kind of short and somewhat rushed, as it's only 69 minutes long. This is because the pacing gets a little too quick, when compared to even its sequels.
   • Executive meddling: To be fair, the main reason for it's shorter runtime of 69 minutes is due to roughly 20 minutes of footage, most notably on scenes involving the Sharptooth, were cut from the finished film which was intended to be about 80 minutes long, because they were were deemed too scary or intense for younger children by executive producer Steven Spielberg.
6. While Spike is a likable character, one thing is confusing about him: Why does he act like a more realistic dinosaur while the other dinosaurs act more like anthropomorphic animals?
7. While the animation looks beautiful, some scenes have animation errors.

Reception

On review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, the film earned a rating of 72%, and earned a 73/100 rating on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews ". The movie has also earned a rating of 7.4 out of 10 on the Internet Movie Database, based on 74,345 reviews. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes states: "Beautifully animated and genuinely endearing, The Land Before Time is sure to please dino-obsessed tykes, even if it's a little too cutesy for older viewers."

Comments

Loading comments...