The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends
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| The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Actually, this movie isn't wise at all, nor is sitting down to actually watch it.
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The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends is a direct-to-video animated film created by Universal Studios Home Entertainment and was released in November 27, 2007. It serves as the sequel to The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers and is the thirteenth/penultimate(so-far) film in The Land Before Time series.
Plot
After an incident which nearly cost Littlefoot's grandmother her life, Littlefoot learns a series of lessons which his species call "Wisdoms".
Why It’s Unwise
- The main complaint with the film is the fact that everything is drastically dumbed down here. From the characters to the writing to the story itself, everything feels so much more immature here and the film feels that it constantly has to talk down to it's child audience and treat them like idiots in order to communicate with them. This is inexcusable, not just because the first movie managed to be convey serious concepts that little kids movies at the time would even touch upon and still didn't sugarcoat any of it. But this movie clearly believes that it's target child audience has the mentality capacity of a rock and feels the need to constantly remind them of what the basic premise of the film and it's moral. As a result, most of the film is just mindless nonsense and brainless fluff which desperately tries to entertain it's child audience with dull gags and just plain goofiness with no real purpose to the story.
- Annoying voice acting for the most part. As almost all the characters speak with high-pitched and squealy voices. Though this isn't entirely the case with some professional voice actors also starring in the film (as will be further discussed later in WINAW# 7), said talents end up coming off as incredibly wasted.
- While not annoying, the voice acting from the narrator is surprisingly mediocre. As it sounds like he isn't truly invested in the film in the slightest, as his performance sounds bland and uninvest with the movie itself. Not to mention how this is one of the many times that the franchise has hired a new narrator for their movies (if not having happened every single time they released a new feature). Not to mention that having a narrator to introduce the audience to the movie was rather unnecessary here, as all he really did was state what had already been established in previous films.
- As a result of being the 13th movie in the franchise, the film's main plot feels like an enormous rehash of multiple plots of the previous films. For example, the film's overall plot of the characters going on a journey to learn a lesson 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). But one of the most obvious rehashes from previous films in the series that sticks out like a sore thumb is the fact that it's main plot revolves around the main cast travelling to a safe valley with food and water for them. Sound familiar?
- There are also some scenes that are taken from previous films. For example, the movie starts with Littlefoot climbing on a tree only to cause it to bend. Something that already happened in the exact same way in the first film. And there's also a dramatic rockslide in another scene, which isn't almost identical to the one from the third film, accompanied by the same music as well.
- The movie feels the constant need to repeatedly smash it's "do what your parents say" message in it's audience's face. Whether it be through horrendous song sequences or the film itself using the lesson as a key driving force in it's plot. Just to put it into perspective, movies like FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and a majority of the Studio Ghibli features had life lessons, but they were used as plot points in the already strong stories rather than being outright stated to the audience. But here, not only is the story itself terrible, but the message here is so ridiculously hammered down that not only does it not give the audience a second to breathe, but it also feels like the most immature way to convey a message to the target audience.
- Not to mention how it also feels hypocritical for a film series like The Land Before Time to say, given how literally every movie (this one included) has the characters running away from their parents.
- Speaking of the musical numbers, they are downright horrible. They are all unoriginal, poorly written, and are more often than not only there to continue to enforce the "listen to your parents" message that's already absolutely hammered down here. The lyrics are also laughably bad like "Listen to your folks cause they know better, If something's in your way, bump it with your horn!" and When your mamma says stay, You can not go, Me have to do what she want me to, Why?, Because she say so!"
- Most of the characters have been flanderized here beyond belief.
- Littlefoot is probably the worst and most notable offender of this. Going from a fun-loving and curious but still relatable main protagonist to an annoying know-it-all who feels the need to constantly talk down to everyone around him and teach them about "the wisdoms", all because he made a single mistake. Not to mention how he's also a lot less intelligent than before here, as he walks onto a log suspended a large distance above the ground just to get a leaf and becomes a doormat for the Yellow Bellies which is heavily implied to be because of his grandmother's near death earlier in the movie and that influencing him to be more overprotective. This would usually be understandable, but this wasn't the first time Littlefoot nearly lost a friend or family member (or even had one die in front of him as was the case with his mother in the first film), and in those cases he didn't go all obsessively clingy or nagging towards everyone. Which makes it all of the sudden happening here confusing.
- Cera was already suffering from character issues and flanderization before this film, but both are easily at their worst here. As she's degraded into nothing more than an annoying and reckless brute who plays little purpose in the film's story other than serving as the foil to Littlefoot.
- Ducky when from a cheerful and bubbly comic relief character to a rather annoying and childish idiot.
- Petrie has been reduced from an anxious but caring boy to yet another unfunny idiot.
- Spike went from a gluttonous and quiet by easygoing dinosaur to even more of a dumb glutton how rarely, if ever, actually speaks and doesn't just make grunt sounds.
- The Yellow Bellies, some of the new characters introduced in this film, are incredibly annoying and serve little purpose than to be unfunny comic reliefs, as almost all of their dialogue is them trying to be funny, only to instead come off as insufferable due to how stupid and goofy they are. And unlike other dim-witted but likable characters like Russel from Up, Kuki Sanban from Codename: Kids Next Door, or Ibuki Mioda from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, the Yellow Bellies don't have any depth, charm, or traits to them that make them more than obnoxious idiots. While they're voice acting are actually some of the better performances in the film, with Cuba Gooding Jr. as Loofah (who also plays Frank Sachs from As Good as It Gets, Nicky Barnes from American Gangster, Rodney Tidwell from Jerry Maguire, BM2/Chief/Senior Chief Carl Brashear from Men of Honor, Carter Wilson from The Butler, Major Salt from Outbreak, Jason "Tre" Styles III from Boyz n the Hood, and Albert Lewis from What Dreams May Come), Sandra Oh as Doofah (who also plays Vice Principal Gupta from The Princess Diaries, Virana from Raya and the Last Dragon, Cristina Yang from Grey's Anatomy, Castaspella from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Jade Li from Double Happiness, and Kin Ho Lum from Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity), and Pete Sepenuk as Foobie (who also plays the narrator from Chrissy's Court and Hazmat Joe from Escape Room), the talents of these actors still feel wasted here. Especially considering how Cuba is an Oscar-winner and Sandra was nominated for 5 Emmys as well as winning a Golden Globe.
- They can't even follow basic directions because of their stupidity.
- When Littlefoot tries to tell them the first wisdom ("keep your eyes and ears open"), they suddenly forget.
- When Littlefoot suggests that they drink something, Loofah says he isn't thirsty yet.
- On top of being annoying and brainless, the Yellow Bellies also feel very out-of-place in a The Land Before Time movie. As they feel more fitting in a Dr. Seuss book/show/film or maybe a sequel/spin-off of Alice In Wonderland.
- The movie seems to have an obsession with the Yellow Bellies' butts, which are even most of the jokes surrounding them. Not to mention how this is the first The Land Before Time movie to have a fart joke (something that really shouldn't have been featured in one of these films).
- Overall, the movie takes almost all of the problems from the other Land Before Time poorly-received sequels and makes them worse. The dullness of Journey Through the Mists, the the obnoxiousness of Journey to Big Water, the dumbing down of everything and general nonsense of The Great Day of the Flyers, and the lack in depth of The Secret of Saurus Rock.
- False Advertising: Like with the previous sequels, it has nothing to do with the first movie.
- The movie features an unintentionally bad moral ("don't think about your future") during the Yellow Bellies' song.
Redeeming Qualities
- While most of the voice acting comes off as annoying, some of it can actually be decent at times, especially when it comes to the Yellow Bellies due to being voiced by Cuba Gooding Jr., Sandra Oh, and Pete Sepenuk (despite said talents coming of as wasted here, as previously mentioned).
- The Yellow Bellies are thankfully never seen again after this film.
- The ending (where Littlefoot and his friends are reunited with their family and return to the Great Valley) isn't too bad.
- The animation, as usual, is pretty good.
Reception
Despite receiving a nomination for "Best Feature Film, Ages 5-8" at the 2008 Kids First! Film Festival (but losing to Barbie & the Diamond Castle), The Wisdom of Friends was not well-received by critics or audiences alike, especially Land Before Time fans. The main complaint with the movie being how everything was drastically dumbed down, particularly when compared to most of the previous films in the series. The film As of 2021, IMDb has a score of 5.4/10, the current lowest score of any Land Before Time movie. The film as a whole is widely considered by many fans to be the worst Land Before Time movie of the franchise.
Trivia
- This was the final Land Before Time film to be animated by Wang Film Productions.
- This was the first Land Before Time film to not have a number in its opening titles.
- This is the only film in the series to date where Cody Arens voices Littlefoot, despite the fact that he still voices him in the TV series.
- This was the last film ever made to include the 1997-2012 Universal Pictures logo.
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