YMMV / The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Cera's immediate dislike of Ali comes across this way. Is she just upset about Littlefoot having a new friend outside of the group because she's worried Littlefoot will stop hanging out with them in favor of Ali? Or is she jealous of Littlefoot hanging out with a new female dinosaur? None of the other kids have a problem with Ali and want to invite her to play with them; it's only Cera who shows hostility towards her.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: Ichy sings to Dil "I need you like a sock on the nose!" This was presumably a slang term for being punched on his nose, but some thought he meant wearing a sock on his nose, which would be a blatant anachronism for the setting.
• Awesome Music: Littlefoot's grandmother sings a genuinely lovely and bittersweet solo song, titled simply "Grandma's Lullaby," about the circle of life and its many ends and beginnings to try to help Littlefoot understand and cope with his grandfather falling deathly ill. The fact that it's Littlefoot's maternal grandmother singing it makes it even more poignant.
• Designated Hero: Old One is supposedly a wise leader to be admired, but really comes across as a Jerkass who isn't willing to do what it takes to save a dying fellow longneck.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The film is about Grandpa Longneck having a terminal illness and the children going off to find a cure. Kenneth Mars would die of prostate cancer in 2011.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The first of what's generally considered the stronger sequels. Reasons include some well-executed Realism-Induced Horror with Grandpa Longneck's terminal illness and his family's reaction to it. It also has the strongest connection to the original movie thus far; while Littlefoot's mother is not directly mentioned, her shadow is still felt due to the fact that her father is the one that's dying, and her mother is the one that sings the popular "Grandma's Lullaby" to help Littlefoot cope. The generally spooky air to the Valley of Mists also resembles the feel of the original. Last but not least, Ali is beloved among the sequels' Guest Star Party Members, and the only one to compete with Chomper in popularity.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Dil tries to eat the heroes, yes, but she has to since she's a carnivore and is generally the nicer of the Big Bad Duumvirate (for example, she apologizes to Ichy when she almost accidentally eats him), so getting chased and possibly killed offscreen by a plesiosaur seems like Karmic Overkill.
  • Ichy can be seen as this, too, since (while the less pleasant of the two) he’s also a carnivore, and (in addition to almost getting eaten by Dil), he gets tail-whipped over the horizon.

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