The eighth film in the Land Before Time series. It was released on December 4, 2001.
The Valley is hit by a surprise snowfall. Though the children enjoy the snow at first, as the cold spell continues, the food situation is seriously threatened. Spike meets a migrating herd of fellow spiketails, and finds himself torn between them and his friends and family in the Valley. Meanwhile, the children are made to learn under Mr. Thicknose, a dinosaur who's supposedly had a lot of experiences they can learn from.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Paleontology: The Sharptooth seen in the prologue is shown to not be able to swim, when it's been confirmed that theropod dinosaurs were perfectly capable swimmers.
- Chekhov's Skill: The last skill Cera tries to teach Ducky is to scream really loud when she's angry. Towards the end of the film, Cera does it herself which is so loud it gets the Valley residents' attention and clears a path back into the Valley for them.
- Cowardly Lion: Mr. Thicknose lampshades this when he is successfully getting away from the Sharptooth while the kids aren't; he berates himself knowing he needs to help them. He still ends up running for his life once he finally gets the Sharptooth's attention, distracting it from the kids.
- A Day in the Limelight: As the core emotional story of the film revolves around Spike and Ducky, their mother also gets a lot more focus than usual as she also laments the widening gap between her children, and the prospect of Spike wanting to go with his own kind for good.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: People's first reaction to finding out Tippy is male was "So many Fan Fics suddenly got much, much gayer."
- First Snow: This is the first snow the children experience. Thicknose has heard about it, but he claims that the region the Great Valley is in is not the kind of climate you would usually experience snow in, explaining why the Valley's residents are completely unprepared for it.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Mr. Thicknose turns out to be this. Originally respected as the smartest resident of the Great Valley, having "been everywhere and seen everything", he soon confesses to the kids that he gets most of his knowledge from second-hand sources. That said, it doesn't mean those second-hand sources are worthless, as Thicknose is able to use his knowledge to figure out where he and the kids are in the Mysterious Beyond towards the end of the film.
- Loud Sleeper Gag: Ducky's adopted brother Spike keeps her up all night with his snoring.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Lampshaded by Mr. Thicknose when he thanks a sharptooth for an adrenaline rush.
- Pet the Dog:
- Mr. Threehorn rips into Mr. Thicknose for the food shortage caused by the snow, but when Grandpa Longneck points out that they can't possibly blame him for the weather, Threehorn begrudgingly concedes the point. And he begins blaming Thicknose for not preparing the Valley for the long-term consequences of the snowfall.
- When the spiketail leader announces he is leading his herd out of the Valley, Threehorn says he shouldn't get the idea that they blame him and his herd for the shortage.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: An important plot point is the falling out between Ducky and Spike.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Thicknose goes to report Littlefoot's apparent misbehavior to Grandpa Longneck, and Littlefoot dreads facing punishment for it. However, when Grandpa comes to speak with him, he doesn't reprimand him at all, and understands that Littlefoot truly meant no harm. Instead, Grandpa recognizes that Thicknose felt his dignity and pride was being attacked, and it's very precious to him given he has no family, and asks Littlefoot to simply try to be more considerate of Thicknose's feelings.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Debatably; in this movie, the cold spell comes as a complete surprise to all the dinosaurs, even Mr. Thicknose, so it's apparently a new phenomenon. However, at the end of the previous movie, Pterano was sentenced into exile for a period of 5 cold times, proving that the dinosaurs in the valley are well aware that cold times exist and that they happen with a certain frequency, thus can be used to keep track of the passing of time. Though with “cold times”, they could have simply been referring to annual drops in temperature during the winter months, but never experienced one where the temperature dropped so much that the “sky water” turned to snow.
- Much of the plot hinges on Spike's experience meeting the spiketail herd as it's described as his first real interactions with others of his own kind. This is despite the fact that the series has always featured stegosaurs as background characters.
- Snowball Fight: At their first experience of "white ground sparkles" (snow), the kids get into snowball fights, the ones with hands throwing them, and the ones without finding other ways like dropping the snow from branches, snow sculptures, and so on. Even the grown-ups get in on the fun, with Mr. Threehorn making a large snowball and rolling it down a slope, and up Grandpa Longneck's body and into his face.
- Suddenly Speaking: Spike shouts out "Mama!" after falling into the ice water. As of movie 14, it's the last film where we hear him speak.
- Teach Him Anger: Ducky asks Cera this, who delivers it in song.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: A Sharptooth roams in the cold winter looking for food, and proves to be a menace towards Littlefoot's group when they are searching for Ducky and Spike.
- Was Too Hard on Him: Ducky gets mad at Spike for inadvertently causing inconveniences to her that she yells at him to leave the Great Valley with the other spiketails, for which she comes to regret and she goes to find him.
- You Just Had to Say It: When the gang is lost in thick snow:Littlefoot: How could this get any worse?
[cut to the gang struggling through a blizzard]
Cera: You just HAD to ask, didn't you?!
