Basically the Lion King but with dinosaurs.
Dino King 3D: Journey to Fire Mountain (a.k.a. Speckles the Tarbosaurus 2: The New Paradise) is a 2017 sequel to Speckles: The Tarbosaurus.
Set a few years after the first film, the sequel focuses on the adventures of Junior, Speckles's only surviving child. Junior is fearful and timid and doesn't know how to hunt, much to his father's disappointment. Eventually, after a falling out with his dad, Junior runs away, but finds himself kidnapped by a pack of raptors who have been kidnapping baby dinosaurs as an offering to the "Beast of Fire Mountain": forcing Speckles to go out to rescue his son.
This film contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Speckles, surprisingly enough, becomes this emotionally towards his son, calling him a "disgrace" for a Tarbosaurus when Junior fails to hunt down a Protoceratops. This turns out to be the result of Speckles becoming afraid and desperate in looking after his son, given that his other children and Blue Eyes died back in the previous film and Junior is his only remaining family. Later on, he comes to accept that he went too far in disciplining his son during a conversation with Cy and Fang and promises to treat Junior better once they reunite, only to quickly slip back into this when they do.
- Androcles' Lion: Speckles saves the eggs of a herd of sauropods from a pack of Carnotaurus. The herd later repays them by helping them break through an obstacle of rocks blocking their way.
- Animal Talk: Played with. The tyrannosaurs, raptors and a tag-along ankylosaur are all able to converse, but the sauropods apparently speak another language heard only as bellowing noises.
- Anthropomorphic Shift: While Speckles: The Tarbosaurus was a semi-realistic, documentary-style film with only the main character narrating, the sequel has most of the dinosaurs talk, with a much more cartoony art style and a much more fantastical plot.
- Art Shift: Cy’s backstory.
- Asshole Victim: Slash.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Speckles is attacked by giant Brontoscorpio that are even larger than he is.
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Broken Aesop: After resolving to not be so harsh with Junior once he reunites with him, Speckles almost immediately expresses his disappointment upon seeing his son fleeing from the cave monsters, leading to Junior wandering even further into the cave so he won't have to keep hearing this, and has to be informed by Blue and Blade that Junior was the one who led them on their quest to rescue Dusty before he cuts Junior some slack. - Call-Back: Flashbacks show scenes from the original such as Speckles reminiscing about his late wife Blue Eyes or Junior's fear of water.
- Carnivore Confusion: Zig-zagged: the carnivores are shown eating meat, but also associate with talking herbivores on occasion, and even save a herd of sauropods from a pack of Carnotaurus. Justified with the ankylosaur sidekick, who Speckles dismisses as being too hard-skinned to eat anyway.
- Death of a Child: While Slash is a jerk, he is also still a kid who dies with some of the other raptors by falling into lava.
- Denser and Wackier: The prior film had some comedy to it but was mostly a relatively realistic take on the dinosaur world, this film is much less serious about its portrayal of dinosaur behavior with some Interspecies Romance and Interspecies Friendship even between predators and prey along with a lot more slapstick humor.
- Disney Death: Junior gets thrown into a cave wall by the Fire Mountain Beast while trying to distract it from his father and friends and is seemingly dead for several moments before finally awakening.
- Double Agent: Slash the Therizinosaurus, who is introduced as a gang leader of the kidnapped dinosaur prisoners but is later revealed to be working for the raptors as well.
- Expy:
- Blue the Tarbosaurus has the exact same color patterning as Blue the Velociraptor from Jurassic World.
- Ditto, one of the raptors, is a seemingly mentally-impaired maniac of the main raptor trio, bringing to mind Ed the Hyena. His color scheme and spiky quills also bring to mind the Indoraptor.
- Fed to the Beast: The baby dinosaurs are being kidnapped by the raptors as an offering to the Beast of Fire Mountain.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Ditto the raptor is crushed during an earthquake, while Slash the Therizinosaurus dies by falling into lava.
- Interspecies Romance: The ankylosaur sidekick's girlfriend in a flashback is shown to be a hadrosaur of all things, and at the end, he shows romantic interest to Fang, a female Tarbosaurus.
- Lighter and Softer: While still having some dark moments and intense scenes, this film is far more lighthearted than the previous film with talking dinosaurs and a much less tragic plot.
- Obviously Evil: Slash the Therizinosaurus, with red slit-pupilled eyes, a malicious-sounding hissing voice, a mohawk, and razor-sharp claws typical of his species. He's also a secondary antagonist.
- Parents as People: Or rather, Parents as Dinosaurs; Speckles loves his son and would do anything to look after and protect him. However, he's haunted by the loss of his other two children and his mate, Blue Eyes, and the fear of losing his only remaining child puts a lot of stress and pressure on him, causing Speckles to act rash and harshly critical toward Junior when he fails to make a hunt, which predictably causes a strain in their relationship. Of course, Speckles becomes depressed when Junior is kidnapped and realizes his error after a pep talk, deciding that once he saves Junior, he'll make a better effort in raising his son.
- Prehistoric Monster: The titular Beast of Fire Mountain, an indeterminate reptilian creature to whom the kidnapped baby dinosaurs are being sacrificed to. It is a humongous and monstrous force of nature.
- Predator Turned Protector: Speckles befriends an Ankylosaurus while Junior befriends a baby ceratopsian. Speckles also saves a herd of sauropods and their eggs from a pack of Carnotaurus.
- Raptor Attack: The primary antagonists of the film are a pack of raptors who are mostly scaly, though some have crests and wisps of feathers.
- Second Love: Fang is Speckles' new love interest after his mate Blue Eyes died in the previous film.
- Stock Dinosaur Archetypes: This sequel retains Therizinosaurus as an antagonist, but uses it in a different way with Slash, a juvenile who sides with a Deinonychus pack which is depicted as a gang who kidnaps infant dinosaurs to sacrifice them to a giant creature in the titular Fire Mountain. Tarbosaurus is also given a more heroic showcase with Speckles and his son, such as befriending a Saichania, Monoclonius, and Carnotaurus, though in the case of the latter, only an infant, Blade is shown becoming friends with Jr. as a pack serve as intermediate adversaries for Speckles, Fang, and Cy defending a Pukyongosaurus nesting ground.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Speckles goes from becoming a protecting and loving mate and father to an overprotective father to his son whose extreme desperation and stress in keeping him safe and teaching him how to hunt results in him becoming abrasive and emotionally (albeit unintentionally) abusive towards Junior. After Junior is kidnapped by a pack of Deinonychus, Speckles starts to become reflective over his past actions and a conversation with Cy and Fang ends with him conceding that he went too far in treating Junior harshly and wants to improve as a father.
- Verbal Tic: Ditto, one of the raptors, constantly repeats whatever is said to him.
