Land Before Time Sequels

I will say that the hate the Land Before Time sequels get is largely irrational. Most simply cannot forgive the series for having as many sequels as it does, regardless of what they think of the films themselves. I feel bad for those who do, because even as a college student, I still get enormous pleasure from this series. I don't expect others to, but that's okay. Like I said: their loss.

Still, if people want a fan's opinion on which sequels are good and which ones really are as bad as they're reputed to be (and as diehard a fan as I am, I won't deny a few really are bad) here's the oppertunity you never asked for! So here's the list, in my opinion:

1) The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration.

If I could use one sequel as an example that people have a big tendency to judge the series before ever actually watching the films, this would be it.

2) The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure

This is the movie that feels closest to the original, and it's one of the best to revisit if you ever saw it as a kid.

3) The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire

Probably the entry with the most fantastical aspects to it, but that's one of the reasons it stands out so much. It's a tad darker than most of the others. Contains the most memorable sequel villain.

4) The Land Before Time III: Time of the Great Giving

Probably the most well executed Aesop of the bunch.

5) The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island

My personal favorite. It reintroduces the most memorable sequel character and contains the only villain in the sequels that captures a bit of the malevolence of the original Sharptooth.

6) The Land Before Time IV: The Journey through the Mists

This one is more accessible for older viewers than most. The villains can be pretty damn funny in this one.

7) The Land Before Time VI: Secret of Saurus Rock

If you were reading this thread only wanting to find the better sequels, you can probably tap out now. If you're still waiting for when the sequels get less defensible, we're getting there.

8) The Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water

I'm personally not too fond of this film, but I know many others like it. It all boils down to wether or not you like the Guest Star Party Member.

9) The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Fliers.

One thing I will defend to the death about these movies is that their settings are gorgeous. The backgrounds are the best kind of animated eye candy you can find, and this one is especially nice. About all I can really say for it.

10) The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tiny Saurus'

This might actually be the darkest of the sequels, believe it or not. I'm actually not kidding.

11) The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze

I'll give it points for providing the 'Disappointed Ducky' screenshot. Other than that, there's not much to enjoy about it.

12) The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends

No one likes this movie. I certainly don't. Other fans I've met certainly don't. It's not even bad enough to be 'so bad it's good', so there's really no point in watching unless you want to see an academy award winning actor epically fail at making his character enjoyable.

Feel free to share what you loved about the sequels, either as a kid or an adult. Feel free to share what you hated about them, too. Every opinion is fair game.

edited 31st Jan '13 3:29:07 PM by Lyiofcycleprotector

No it's not.

/thread

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

They all just merge in my mind to the degree I don't remember exactly which ones I have watched and which ones I haven't watched, or which is which.

I certainly have no desire at all to sort them out and catalogue them in my mind.

The TV series is hideously bad, but still not as bad as the American Tail show. Far below the All Dogs Go To Heaven series, tho' (which was no high art either, but mostly enjoyable).

edited 31st Jan '13 6:23:10 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

If nothing else, Rob Paulsen had fun making them apparently. That said, I watch clips of several of them recently, and they were pretty bad.

That's fine. Like I said, your entailed to your own opinions. Personally I found the All Dogs Go to Heaven show to be abominable. And really, they AREN'T as bad as you think they are. Most of them, anyway.

I will say that the hate the Land Before Time sequels get is largely irrational.

No it's not. /thread

---

I disagree. A lot of people hate the sequels without having ever seen them. I can understand disliking them for being inferior to the original, but people almost seem offended when you mention the sequels, like they're a giant taboo. It's only because the original was such a heartbreaking, dark film that people seem so offended that the sequels take such a gentler tone and lesser quality. So I stand by my claim: the intensity of the hate people seem to have for the films is pretty irrational given that there are far, far worse animated movies that are direct to DVD.

edited 31st Jan '13 7:48:19 PM by Lyiofcycleprotector

It's been a while since I looked at them, but I remember thinking the first couple could have been rather enjoyable if they edited out the musical numbers (the second in particular had a decent Sympathy for the Devil storyline and kept some of the first film's heart despite the lighter tone). After that though the stories became more juvenile and badly scripted. Granted I only got up to the first half dozen or so.

edited 31st Jan '13 8:21:02 PM by Psi001

...Uh, no, that's not how this works. If you're trying to be a sequel to a movie, the audience has a right to bring expectations that you keep consistency in tone / themes and characterization. That's what part of being a sequel is. It's why Spiritual Successor exists as a trope. The only near-as-obvious quality decline as LBT series has had in terms of DTV-sequels is Hunchback of Notre Dame II which was... pretty terrible.

edited 31st Jan '13 8:36:07 PM by Ronnie

Number 6 was the first one I remember seeing. I know I've also seen #1, #2, whichever one has Dil and Ichy, and whichever one has Spike screaming DUCKY! at one point. But this was ages ago.

edited 1st Feb '13 12:22:12 AM by Twentington

That's the 4th and probably the last one that was watchable.But yeah,the second one was the one that was the closest to the original,and really wasn't that bad.

It's just in comparison to arguably the greatest animated film of all time,it's just too tough an act to follow.

And there's no way The Hunchback of Notre Dame II could be worse than The Secret Of Nimh II.

Really?

- No more than ten characters on screen at one time, in a "sequel" to one of the biggest-in-scale Disney films. - Replacing Frollo with a gay circus guy. - "Trendy" celebrity actor. - Bell with jewels on the inside. - Massively reduced animation quality.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Yup,...even Eric Idle taking over the third act in a Disney Acid Sequence won't cut it.

I haven't seen either Hunchback films yet, though I found Secret of NIMH 2 to be similar to some of the early Land Before Time films, low quality but watchable if not for the terrible showtunes.

I've always been mixed about the sequels being worse because they weren't 'dark', especially since a lot of the darkness in the original films felt somewhat superfluous. The first Land Before Time was better due to better script and endearing characters, not because it was super grim or anything. It had something of an atmosphere, but even that wasn't 'dark' per se. As said the second film may have matched up with a better budget and the omittion of the crappy numbers.

edited 1st Feb '13 5:57:39 AM by Psi001

I actually like some of the songs. The series made a total of 37 songs, and out of those, 4 are actually very outstanding: 'If We Hold On Together', "Bestest Friends","Always There", and "No One Has To Be Alone". In terms of quality, if you're picky about good music, those are the only four that really stand out, but they do stand out, even if you hate the movies. Hell, 'If We Hold On Together' was originally sung by Diana Ross and 'No One Has To Be Alone' has been covered by Donny Osmond.

But yeah, other than those four, most of the songs really only resonate if you're a fan. There are definitely some pretty wretched songs. But there are others that are good for direct to DVD quality, like 'Peaceful Valley', 'All Sorts', and 'Beyond the Mysterious Beyond'. I still like a lot of them. I know they aren't top quality, but hey, I don't think there's a shame in liking things that are less than the best as long as they give you something.

All I know is that they let this guy make the best videos I've ever seen in my life.

Lol, I love Jittery Dragon's videos. Most Land Before Time fans do. It's a shame he got a lot of his videos removed. Universal is pretty notorious for being copyright nazis.

Although Diana Ross still has the best version, the sequels Sing-Along version by Aria Noelle Curzon and Anndi Mc Afee is definitely worth it in it's own right.

Also I'd say only the 2nd-5th films would be really something without the showtunes. The 5th and 2nd ones even managed to get the Closer to Earth thing,after the 4th one decided to add a mythical element to it.

The 5th one simply needed better voice acting and a better third act.

The 4th needed better direction and none of that "Night Flower" business

The 2nd simply should've excised the showtunes and kept the menace of the sharpteeth just a little higher.

No,none of them would've matched the original with those adjustments,...but they could've become the equivalents of Fievel Goes West with that.

Fivel goes West was produced by Ambalin, Steven Speilburg's studio. The Land Before Time sequels were handled by Universal Animation Studios with a show string budget. I wish the Land Before Time could have had the backing of Fivel Goes West, but they didn't, so I try not to judge too harshly on production. The traditional animation through our the sequels is all very enjoyable, the voice acting goes up and down between films, and the CG effects in the later movies are all preeeety bad. I think making the second film T Rex malevolent would have taken away from the film simply because that's Chomper's dad. The T Rex from the fifth film was actually almost intimidating, though. Fourth film, I didn't have a problem with the night flower plot, but I agree, the film isn't very directed.

I agree I liked how they actually tried to humanized the Sharptooths a little in the first sequel, showing they were capable of showing grey morality to the nightmarish creature that killed Littlefoot's mother in the original. That and Chomper was at least rather endearing.

Give it a higher animation budget and take out the songs and you'd likely have a worthy sequel.

edited 1st Feb '13 11:20:23 AM by Psi001

I agree, Psi (although I personally like 'Peaceful Valley' ^^'). I also thought it was very sweet that It's Littlefoot who tries to raise and protect Chomper. This is the same creature that killed his mother, so he has the most excuse to hate him when he hatches, but instead he takes him under his wing. I think that's a sweet act of forgiveness and an assertion that his mother's teachings have had a stronger influence on who Littlefoot turned out to be rather than the Sharptooth. At least that's how I like to see it: for Littlefoot, the act of choosing to wether to forgive Chomper for what he is instead of kill him was to decide which figure ultimately shaped his view of the world, The Sharptooth or his mother.

But anyway, I can't say much about the third movie: I was indifferent to it as a young child, and even now that I've revisited the movies I'm still indifferent to it.

The fourth movie had a messy plot, but the character interactions were more interesting. Actually, I think it's the only sequel where every single one of it's songs are enjoyable, for me at least. I remember hearing 'who needs you' as a kid and thought it was boring, until I watched it later as an adult and realised how funny the lyrics were. I'm on the fence of wether I think Ali is a good character, but other fans seem to like her.

The fifth film was the first of three movies with a theme, in this case a shipwrecked theme. The other sharptooth on the island is literally the only Sharptooth that clearly sticks out as a villain in the sequels. It's too bad they didn't want to go to dark with him: you can sense they could have really made him frightening if they wanted to.

edited 1st Feb '13 12:01:44 PM by Lyiofcycleprotector

I think the Marz Girl reviews probably have a lot to do with making them cool to hate. I don't mind that, it just means you have to be an apologist to be a fan of these movies now. I do wish people would stop thinking they're all so bad that they've somehow 'ruined' the original movie, because really, only the thirteenth film is unforgivably bad.

Response below: Sorry. I think your tone is unnessisary accusatory and inaccurate, considering most of my posts have been responses and not 'gratuitous bumps', but I'll make additions in edits as per your request. Please only respond on this board if you have something to contribute to the thread topic, Napoleon.

edited 1st Feb '13 8:35:30 PM by Lyiofcycleprotector

Some advice: If you have something to add and no one has posted anything more in your thread, just edit it into your latest post. It's obvious you are just trying to gratuitously bump to spread your (highly YMMV) point, and that's in poor boards etiquette.

I'd say the whole thing went from So Okay, It's Average to bad around the same time Candy Hutson stopped voicing Cera (the only one that wasn't terrible with new Cera VA was the 5th) and the director changed (the current director co-directed the 5th with the one who directed 2-5,after the 2-5 director stepped down that's when it went downhill. Which is also when Cera got retconned in siblings)

I remember first thinking Franchise Zombie when the 7th came out.

Several days ago, I watched the original movie for the first time in 15+ years. Dang! I forgot just how good it was. It still holds up. One of the best animated films I've ever seen.

I haven't seen any of the sequels since I was a kid and they're quite fuzzy in my memory, but there's one scene in particular that stands out. I seem to remember Littlefoot and his friends getting stuck in mud and sinking, but then they were rescued by his grandparents. Does anyone know what movie that was from?

The second one, The Great Valley Adventure.