The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers

The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers
This movie can't fly.
Genre: Comedy Adventure Directed by: Charles Grosvenor Produced by: Charles Grosvenor Written by: John Loy Starring: Jeff Bennett Rob Paulsen Anndi McAfee Nick Price John Ingle Kenneth Mars Tress MacNeille Aria Curzon Nika Futterman Distributed by: Universal Studios Home Entertainment Release date: December 6, 2006 Runtime: 81 minutes Country: United States Language: English Franchise: The Land Before Time Prequel: The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses Sequel: The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends

The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers is an animated film created by Universal Stuios Home Entertainment and was released in December 6, 2006. It serves as the sequel to The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses and is overall the twelfth/third-to-last(so-far) film in The Land Before Time series.

Plot

Pterodactyl Petrie has problems flying in formation with his siblings, so newcomer Guido advises him to just be himself, but with a great day for flying fast approaching, Petrie must be sure the strange dino can be trusted.

Why It Can't Flip, Flap, and Fly

1. Everything is drastically dumbed down here. From the characters to the writing to the story itself, everything here feels so much more immature. This is inexcusable, not just because the first movie managed to convey serious concepts that little kids movies at the time would even touch upon and didn't sugarcoat any of it.
   1. One of the biggest examples is the "Flap, Flap and Fly" Song sequences that occurs before the climax were all of the dinosaurs dance around to the beat, it feels VERY out-of-place and does not fit the esthetics with The Land Before Time series.
2. As usual, the voice acting is annoying.
3. The movie feels more like an extended version of an episode from the TV series, which came out a year later.
4. All of Petrie's siblings come across a very unlikable in this film as they all blame him for messing up their flying formation. Yes, Petrie was the one who screw up the flying formation in the first place and needs to be berated like this, but he had no involvement with the rest of his siblings messing up a few moments later, and yet they blame Petrie for that too.
5. As a result of being the twelfth movie in the franchise, the film's main plot feels like an enormous rehash of the plot where the characters go on a journey to learn a lesson. This has already been done to death in many of the previous Land Before Time sequels, not to mention that even the first film could count as this (although it's easily the best example of this storyline in the series).
6. The musical numbers, as usual, are downright horrible and poorly-written. They repeatedly shove the film's message "be yourself" down kids' throats.
   • Speaking of which, the film also uses its message as a key driving force in its plot, which feels like the most immature way of conveying a message to the target audience.
7. Continuity Error: Petrie somehow has trouble flying in the movie, despite being able to fly very well in the previous ten movies.
8. Aside from Petrie, most of the other characters are either annoyingly reckless and brash here or bland and one-dimensional with little-to-no personality or any significant purpose in terms of the plot.
9. Guido serves little purpose to the movie. We don't even know who he is or where he came from.
10. There's a scene near the end of the movie where Cera's baby sister Tricia falls into a river and nearly drowns, which is very disturbing for a kids' movie.

Redeeming Qualities

1. While most of the voice acting comes off as annoying, some of it can actually be decent at times.
2. This film introduces Cera's new baby sister Tricia.
3. Both Mo from The Land Before Time IX: Journey to the Big Water and the Tinysauruses from the previous film, The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses, make cameos in this film, which does add some nice continuity to The Land Before Time franchise.
4. This is the first film in The Land Before Time series to star Petrie as the Main Protagonist, which is a nice change of pace were as the previous films, Littlefoot's the Main Protagonist while Petrie somewhat serve as the Comic Relive.
5. There are a few admittedly funny moments here-and-there, such as the scene were Tria tells Cera's dad Topsy to move away from the egg, only for the latter to fall off the cliff as Tira then says "Perfect.", and another scene were Mr. Clubtail ask Guido if he has a Bobber at the end of his tail like him, which precedes to have the latter ask what a Bobber is as Mr. Clubtail wacks Guido with his Bobber then saying "That's a Bobber!".
6. The animation is still beautiful.

Reception

Upon release, The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers received generally unfavorable reviews from critics. It currently has a 2/5 on Common Sense Media, with the website describing it as a "stale, slow dino friends tale for very young only".

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