Headscratchers / The Land Before Time

Littlefoot's grandparents not looking for him

Why didn't Littlefoot's grandparents look for him after the great earthquake in the first film? ^note Unless the sauropods that fell down the opening chasm were his grandparents, that is.

• We're shown a huge split that goes as far as the eye can see (or at least what the camera follows), I always figured that the Littlefoot's grandparents couldn't find a place to cross immediately, and by the time they did it had been so long they would have a much higher chance meeting Littlefoot and his mother at the Valley then trying to backtrack since that's where they were all headed and Littlefoot's mother knows the way (and taught it to her son). And littlefoot does find his grandparents at the Great Valley, he rushes up to them at the end of the original film.
• They also don't know Mother is dead, since she dies after the earthquake. They assume Littlefoot is with her, and if they are separated they will probably find each other and therefore all eventually meet up in the valley.

Great Valley Resources

How can the Great Valley possibly support so many migratory herbivore dinosaurs? Its shown to be big, let's be generous and say its about the size of the Grand Canyon, but even that pales in comparison to the outside world they've all just arrived from.

• Well one of the earlier ideas was that it was actually Heaven, which would explain why everyone is able to be included.
• Alternatively, given how much more intelligent the dinosaurs are than their Real Life counterparts, it doesn't require a major suspension of disbelief to imagine that they could've developed (at the very least) rudimentary rules for population control and resource management within the Great Valley.
• And more cynically, there's bound to be plenty who perished in the earthquake or died of starvation along the way, so there might be less who actually make it to the Great Valley.

Mammal and dinosaur talk

• In the TV series: why can small mammals suddenly talk to the dinosaur characters? Anyone who remembers Tickles from the 4th movie can probably see my point.
  • Perhaps it's a case of learning the language, similar to how Chomper speaks both Leafeater and Sharptooth
• Another possibility is that Tickles, much like Spike, simply doesn't speak much (if at all)

Who's older, Littlefoot or Shorty?

• They appear to be the same age

Chomper getting off the island

• Chomper returns to the Great Valley in the TV series. How did he and his parents get off the island after the land bridge was destroyed by the earthquake?
  • Maybe Elsie took them for a ride back to the mainland, like she did with Littlefoot and his friends at the end of 'The Mysterious Island'?
    • The problem with that is Chomper's parents are pretty heavy even for a plesiosaur like Elsie to carry. Young dinosaurs the size of Littlefoot are one thing, but a full-grown T-rex, let alone two, would be a rather heavy load for an Elasmosaurus to carry across the sea. She'd have no trouble getting Chomper across, but his parents would be far more difficult.
    • There could have been a low tide. Remember the size of Chomper's parents would give them an advantage as, even if they couldn't swim, they could wade in water that would be too deep for Chomper. Even water that was 10-15 feet deep would be shallow enough for a full grown Tyrannosaurus to wade in with no trouble. They probably could have carried Chomper across.

If Littlefoot is a crossbreed of an Apatosaurus and a Brontosaurus, why does Ali look exactly like him?

• Is it ever actually stated that Littlefoot is a crossbreed? Keep in mind that Brontosaurus was still considered synonymous with Apatosaurus when the tenth movie was released, so the wordplay involved in Bron's name doesn't mean much.
• Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus are very closely related and very similar, which is why they were placed in the same genus for many years, so even if Littlefoot is a crossbreed, that shouldn't be surprising. I also wouldn't be surprised if young Apatosaurs and Brontosaurs were almost identical in appearance. Another possibility is Ali is also a crossbreed.

Time span of the franchise

• How much time passes in-universe over the course of the series? Based on the seasons that go by in the sequels and the TV series, it's implied that it's several years (perhaps at least 5-7?), yet the young dinosaur characters don't seem to age much or grow bigger in that time. Even in the last installment, they're still much smaller than the adults, when realistically, most of them would at least be adolescents, if not full-grown, by that time.
  • Presumably just another example of Not Allowed to Grow Up, which is hardly a trope unique to this franchise.

Chomper's future

• So why exactly do the other adults act like Chomper is a time bomb and would attack his friends when he's older? There's no reason he can't act as security for the Valley. I'm sure a full grown T-rex would give most sharpteeth pause for thought. Or he could eat the corpses of leafeaters that die of old age, or mercy kill them when they are on their deathbeds. There's plenty of ways for Chomper to eat meat without attacking his friends.
  • Likely just Fantastic Racism mixed with Primal Fear. We obviously never get to see whether or not the anxieties of the adult dinosaurs end up warranted, so it's entirely possible they're just letting their fear and mistrust of carnivorous dinosaurs override their reason.

Time to reach the valley

• How long exactly did it take Littlefoot and his friends to reach the valley? In the first movie, we only see one scene in which they sleep. And everything they go through happens in rapid succesion, implying that they were traveling for maybe 2 or 3 days tops. Yet, "Stone of Cold Fire" suggests it must have been longer than that. After all, in the time it took Littlefoot and friends to reach the valley, the adults also formed a mixed herd (which can't have been easy considering the whole "everyone sticks to his own kind" rule), had a falling out over leadership that led to Pterano taking a part of the herd with him with disastrous results, and eventually they reached the valley before their children did.
  • Perhaps the first movie had some easy to miss time skips to skip over the days nothing important happened and just cut ahead to the next main event in the children's journey.
  • It’s worth remembering that Littlefoot and Cera didn’t encounter Petrie, Ducky, and Spike until much later in their journey, so it’s entirely possible that by sheer luck both Petrie and Ducky managed to cross paths with Littlefoot precisely within a day to two days’ journey to The Great Valley, where shortly after Cera caught up and the four of them found Spike.
    • Actually, Littlefoot was still grieving when he encountered Ducky, so it wasn’t “much later” in his and Cera’s journey. To answer the original question, it’s possible it took place over just a few days, but there could have also been time-skips. Also, it’s worth remembering that are a lot of deleted scenes, which could easily indicate a much longer journey.
    • Mother also says they'll have to see the Bright Circle pass over several times, meaning it'll likely take more than a couple of days to reach the Great Valley, and that's going by the pace of full grown adults.

Ducky's name

• Why is ducky named "ducky"? The movie never shows birds existing at the same time as the dinosaurs. Although in retrospect it becomes accidental Fridge Brilliance as the earliest waterfowl already existed when Ducky's species was alive.
  • It's a kid's movie, not a palaeontology lecture. It's just playing on the fact that the kind of dinosaur that Ducky is had a mouth like a duck's bill.
  • It could also be playing on the use of the word "ducky" to mean things are fine, i.e., "everything's just ducky."
  • Maybe her name just happens to sound like the word "ducky" and she is not named after ducks at all in-universe.
  • Maybe In-Universe she's named after a species of duck-like bird from the Late Cretaceous, like Vegavis or Polarornis, and the movie calling her "Ducky" is just Translation Convention.

Unobservant father

• Cera's father kind of owes Littlefoot an apology. If he'd noticed Cera had wandered off sooner, either they both could have been rounded home before the Sharptooth ever showed, or could have helped protect the kids - maybe the Sharptooth wouldn't have wanted to take on two adult dinosaurs and Littlefoot would have a mother.

Continuity

• What is up with the fourth episode of the series? Cera asks if Petrie has ever been to the smoking mountain, to which he replies that no, he hasn't... while standing next to Chomper. The whole group went to the Smoking Mountain in the second film, where they MET Chomper. In fact, the reason they were on the Smoking Mountain was because Chomper was chasing bugs there and they didn't want him to get hurt! Especially egregious since that movie is the sole reason that Chomper is in the valley to begin with- he was hatched there and made friends with the locals, who proved capable of defending themselves against sharptooths (like Redclaw).

Tar pit

• How on Earth did Littlefoot, Spike, Ducky, and Petrie escape the tar pit in the first movie? Right before the scene change, they're pretty thoroughly mired with no apparent way out. The next time we see them, they just show up coated head to toe in the stuff, indicating they were completely submerged at one point. Did they somehow pull themselves out? Nobody after that point was shown pulling that off - even they needed the adults' help in the second movie. Did someone see them going under and rescue them? But then why wouldn't that someone stick around to help save Cera?
  • Given how much footage was cut from the first film, maybe some of the deleted footage answers this question.

Eating habits

• Why doesn't Petrie (or his relatives) eat fish? That would be a more accurate diet for their species. Or insects, at least. But they are only ever seen eating vegetation, which Pteranodon almost certainly did not eat.
  • Maybe Petrie and his family at some point encountered an aversion of No Cartoon Fish and decided to go vegan after that? Tyrannosaurs in this universe can apparently subsist on nothing but bugs if they choose to, so why not?