Land Before Time Retrospective #33
I had started to cover the TV series back in November and December of 2019, although I only made it eight episodes in before I stopped. That was around the time Disney+ debuted, and with it came The Mandalorian. And soon after that came the final season of The Clone Wars. Being the huge Star Wars nut that I am, you can imagine that I got distracted with that instead for a while.
But then I returned to the Land Before Time TV series several months later, this time setting out to cover all the episodes. I started back over from the beginning, and so the first set of episodes got covered again, before I reached the point where I’d left off last time.
Episode 1: The Cave of Many Voices (re-review)
Watched the episode again today. My opinion of it hasn’t changed much for the most part, although I do have a few new thoughts.
You know, the first time I saw this episode, I thought that “Adventuring” was a song created exclusively for the TV series, despite having seen LBT 10 prior. It wasn’t until a few months after I saw the episode, when we had a Discord live stream of LBT 10, did I come to realize that “Adventuring” originated from there instead, and the version in the episode is simply a reprise. Seems that my memory was a little faulty on that one. 😛
I complained before about Ruby’s rather abrupt introduction to the series. Although this time around, I did notice that they show her quirky way of speaking right with her very first line. I like the way they established that, at least. (“That sky water, Chomper, it just keeps coming down until it doesn’t.”)
Chomper: “I gotta make it stop!!” *proceeds to smash open the stalactites*
Oh Chomper. What would we do without you?
Quote from Little Bro: I just saw this episode, and I can’t stop thinking about Chomper’s tantrum at the start! It is just so ridiculously hilarious! I loved Ruby’s face after Chomper destroyed the cave. It just screamed, “What did you expect?” It’s the same face RainbowFaceProtege would give me after I did something like this.
Her expression was pretty funny, gotta admit.
Episode 2: The Mysterious Tooth Crisis (re-review)
I wasn’t crazy about the pilot episode, “The Cave of Many Voices”, but this one I enjoyed quite a bit more. It’s pretty ridiculous that something as mundane as Chomper’s tooth falling out ends up leading the Gang on such a dangerous adventure, but something about that premise actually works really well. There is something darkly comical about the fact that the whole tooth thing almost gets the characters killed twice.
I did notice there was this stock scare chord sound effect that they used three times in the episode (at 13:12, 14:04, and 17:00) which I got a kick out of.
As for the songs, “I Feel So Happy” was pretty corny, but I did like “Fix Your Tooth”.
Quote from Noname: Chomper being unusually frightened about losing his body parts (especially his tail for some reason).
Quote from pokeplayer984: It is said that, if a T-Rex didn’t have that tail of theirs, they would lose their balance and be unable to do certain tasks that require the legs. In a strange way, I think Chomper knows this about his species, and understands how important his tail is.
Huh. I didn’t think of that before, but that’s a great observation.
Quote from Nick22: Both Cera and Ruby, sounded almost stoned… “man this stuff is good’ stoned.
Another great observation. 😛
Quote from Kor: They could have had a maybe funny scene if Tria had found out what Topsy said to Chomper. Maybe that happened a bit after the episode ended.
Ah, yeah, I agree. That was a missed opportunity.
Quote from Kor: Topps’s sense of humor was interesting. But I’m sure most of us have had an uncle or grandfather with a similar sense of humor.
Indeed, I have an obnoxious uncle with a very similar sense of humour. *rolls eyes*
Episode 3: The Star Day Celebration (re-review)
This episode was a mixed bag for me. I didn’t really care for the main adventure. I also think it’s kinda funny that “I Feel So Happy” debuted in “The Mysterious Tooth Crisis”, the show’s second episode. Now it’s only the third episode and they’re already playing that song again. 😛
But the segments showing Ruby’s backstory were captivating, and the “Remembering” song is lovely. That said, even the flashbacks left me wanting more. I still want to know why Ruby separated from her family like that. In fact, it kinda makes me wish they’d just gotten rid of the main storyline altogether and devoted the entire episode to her backstory. It definitely seems like there’s some missing chunks to the backstory as it currently stands, although granted, it is only the third episode of the series. I really hope this is something that will be further explored in some of the later episodes. I want to see more of Ruby’s family as well.
Quote from DarkHououmon: I do like it they have Chomper in the show, and I don’t want him to be a temp character. However they could have explained how and why he got there in the first place, and how come he’s allowed in the valley. I don’t like how they just have Chomper appear like that without explaining the why or the how, or even the when.
Agreed.
Quote from Kor: I don’t recall Chomper ever mentioning missing his parents. Though maybe since he initially imprinted on Littlefoot, he may at least subconsciously regard Littlefoot as another family member, another father type, so Chomper may miss his parents less since he’s with his other family while in the great valley, though they should have had him mention his parents now and then.
Agreed here too.
Episode 4: The Canyon of Shiny Stones (re-review)
I remember being rather “eh” about this episode the first time I saw it, but I was a bit surprised to find that it grew on me this time. Certainly not a flawless episode, but all in all it was a pretty fun adventure.
When they play hide and seek, I get a kick out of Ruby counting up with, “One treestar, two treestars, three treestars, etc.” Too bad my friends and I never used that as kids. I also notice how Ducky points out that Spike is eating their hiding spot “again.”
There’s a lot of really good musical cues when the Gang first journeys to the canyon and then when they’re wandering through it. Although it’s a bit of a shame that so far I’ve been enjoying the background score more than most of the songs.
The ending kinda annoyed me though. The grown-ups seemed too easygoing and relaxed about the whole thing, considering that their kids nearly died to lava. They should have shown some more initial alarm to see the kids in peril like that. And then it seemed too predictable to me that Cera would end up losing the second shiny stone as well. I understand that it was to establish the message of family being more important (which is a good message), but it still bugged me.
Episode 5: The Great Log Running Game (re-review)
Saw the episode again today. Although I don’t really have much to add beyond what I said last time. The one scene that I did think was cute and touching was the way Cera and Topsy look at each other silently after he rescues her from the river and lifts her up.
…
Alright, I guess that’s it then. See you guys at the next episode. 😛
Episode 6: The Brave Longneck Scheme (re-review) / Rhett Showcase
Getting caught up on all the previous showcases I missed earlier in the year.
Anyway, I watched “The Brave Longneck Scheme” for a second time. Back when I did my first review for the Ali Showcase, before the showcases for this year had been announced, I remember wondering to myself if we were going to get a Rhett Showcase eventually. And indeed, here we are.
When I first joined the Discord server last year, I didn’t know who Rhett was, due to my at-the-time unfamiliarity with the TV series. The only thing I knew him as was the grouchy bot who did the level/rank updates…
(“StardustSoldier” is me) (click images to enlarge)
Just wanted to share that story with you all.
Other assorted thoughts:
It’s funny how, even though Petrie only hears about Rhett second-hand and doesn’t meet him right away, Petrie also falls for Rhett’s stories.
As for Rhett himself, for how much of a meme god he became around here, when I first watched the episode I found that I was surprisingly neutral about him. I can see why he’s controversial in the shipping community; which I even agree with to an extent, being a ‘Littlefoot x Ali’ fan myself. But aside from that, at the time I found Rhett to be just another guest character in the series. If it hadn’t been for all the Rhett memes, he probably wouldn’t have stood out as much to me.
Ironically, despite my opposition to Ali and Rhett as a pairing, it does seem appropriate that the first time I reviewed this episode was for the Ali Showcase, and now I’m reviewing it a second time for the Rhett Showcase. Heh.
Either way, my views on Rhett have since shifted from before. I feel less neutral about him now, but I still don’t really know what to make of him. There is something about his character I find kinda intriguing. I can’t really put my finger on why exactly. He would be an interesting character to write about in fanfics.
Episode 6: The Brave Longneck Scheme (re-re-review)
Here I am with yet another review of “The Brave Longneck Scheme”. Although I never actually posted in this episode discussion thread before (previously it was in the Ali and Rhett Showcase threads), so here we are now.
I am intrigued by the opening scene. We see Littlefoot and Cera by themselves, with Cera leading them to a “shortcut.” But beyond that, we never find out where exactly they’re going, or why. The writers probably didn’t intend for it to be anything significant, but it did make me wonder what they were up to all the same.
I also love this shot of Cera riding atop Littlefoot as they’re sliding down the hill. It’s probably the shipper in me, but they just look cute together like that.
And this shot is just funny.
After the first encounter with Ali and Rhett, and then Littlefoot and Cera storm off, it’s refreshing to see the normally gentle and soft-spoken Littlefoot get angry for once. Also, Ruby’s line, “Well the longer you’re mad, the less you’re happy,” is both a captain obvious statement and yet insightful at the same time.
When Ali meets Chomper and questions the Gang on why they’re friends with a Sharptooth, Ducky mentions that he and Ruby live in the Secret Caverns. And then Chomper says, “It’s kind of a long story,” but leaves it at that. Ugh! What a tease. I really wanted to know more about this long story.
The first song, “We Need a Plan”, was kinda lame (I had to look up the title on the LBT wiki because I didn’t even know what it was called, lol). But I did enjoy the “Friends for Dinner” reprise. Ironic as I’ve complained in the past about that being my least favourite of the songs in LBT 5. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The chase near the end is also a lot of fun. Good action scene.
Quote from Nick22: …and the first meeting of Ali and Chomper, which imo deserved its own episode or pair of episodes, was brushed off in a few seconds.
Interesting viewpoint, and in fact I agree. It ties into my earlier sentiment that this episode should’ve been a 2-parter or more.
Quote from Kor: …Though the [song] from the 5th movie had funny moments, especially when one of Chomper’s parents sees him gathering plants and says “Sometimes I worry about that boy.”
At first I read that as “gathering implants.”
Quote from Littlefoot3897: I wish they made another LBT movie with romance with Ali and Littlefoot.
I would enjoy seeing that as well. <3
Quote from Ducky123: …Having Rhett (wonder where they picked up that name)…
That is a weird name when you think about it.
I still feel that Rhett got off a bit too lightly at the end. Also, why was Ali so nonchalant when she found out that he’d been making everything up? It annoyed me that she wasn’t annoyed.
That said, despite my complaints with this episode, it has a strong plot, it manages to be consistently entertaining, and it shows the Gang as a cohesive group. Like many others, I do feel that they could’ve handled Ali’s character better here. But on the other hand, it was still nice just to see her again at all. I give the episode 6 out of 8 tree stars. [This was the first episode where I started rating the episodes while reviewing them.]
Episode 7: The Meadow of Jumping Waters (re-review)
Re-review time!
Quote from Ratiasu: I liked the tribal, Africanish music.
Same. 🙂 And, as trexmaster noted, very appropriate for a prehistoric jungle.
Quote from Ratiasu: When the gang ran away from the fire…did anyone else think the animation was sped up? Never seen Spike or anyone else run so fast in all my life.
Ah, yeah. I didn’t notice that the first time I saw the episode, but it stuck out to me on my rewatch.
Quote from pokeplayer984: When was the last time fire appeared in the series? Wasn’t it LBT 3? Why did they keep such a dangerous thing off for so long? It’s so great to use. :^.^:
Haha, I agree. Fire should appear in the series more often.
Quote from Little Bro: What happened to Petrie? It’s bad luck this and bad luck that! It can be funny at times, I’ll admit, but Petrie seemed a little ridiculous at times. “This all Spike’s fault!” (Falls into water.)
Indeed. In The Secret of Saurus Rock, I liked the creepy, mystical aspect of the Saurus Rock statue containing a curse. Here, however, it does seem kinda silly that Petrie would be so worried about bad luck being caused by simply eating a certain type of plant. But I do love the bad luck concept in general. Kinda makes me wish the series had used it more often.
I do notice, in both cases, they ultimately left it ambiguous whether it truly was a bad luck curse or if it was just a series of bizarre coincidences.
Speaking of which, I notice this is the first time in the series that we see red tree stars. I’ve seen fellow community members joke about how eating red tree stars is basically their equivalent to consuming hallucinogens. At the time, I only knew about the regular green tree stars and so I thought the concept of red tree stars was just something that someone in the community came up with. I was kinda surprised to later discover that they are actually official LBT canon… albeit probably not with the same psychedelic effects.
Quote from Little Bro: I don’t get why the jumping water made it into this episode. It seemed like it was there to just be a place for the kids to go see. Didn’t add much to the story. I don’t get why it’s called “Meadow of Jumping Water.” The episode seemed to show that bad luck is superstitious, but the name didn’t fit that theme.
Another good point. I guess the jumping water was there to kickstart the journey in the first place, whereupon everything else happens. But yeah, they already had enough of a plot hook with Red Claw and the bad luck that they could’ve just built the episode around that.
Overall, though, I thought this episode was pretty good. I give it 6 out of 8 tree stars.
From my original review: I had a good laugh at Red Claw and the Fast Biters’ reaction to stinky Spike.
And seeing it a second time made me laugh again.
Episode 8: The Days of Rising Waters
Last time I looked at “The Meadow of Jumping Waters”. Today I will be looking at “The Days of Rising Waters”. The previous seven episodes I watched and reviewed this summer were all ones that I’d seen before. But this one is brand new to me, so it’ll be uncharted territory from here on out. Or should that be… uncharted waters? 😛 😛 😛
Things sure kick off on an exciting note, with a vicious lightning storm that destroys Petrie’s home, all while epic music plays. It gives a strong sense of action and danger right away. But alas, the episode quickly loses momentum after its great opening.
Ducky: “But threehorns are not the best of swimmers, Cera.”
Cera: “Hmpf! Threehorns can do anything.”
Oh Cera. Did you not learn your lesson from “The Great Log Running Game”?
When Chomper mentions him and Ruby first moving into the Secret Caverns, again it feels like an annoying tease. There’s clearly a backstory there, but we still only have scant details of it.
Chomper: “I love my new home!”
Oh? Even after you ended up flooding it when you smashed open the stalactites? 😛
*sigh* Petrie’s singing voice…
Even though I like seeing Tricia, the scenes with her and Cera learning to swim were just dull and felt like they were padding out the episode. As with the mud bath subplot from “The Mysterious Tooth Crisis”, I wish they’d just taken that out and focused more on the main adventure. Especially because, as abbicus pointed out…
It was odd how the two stories never intertwined. Ducky and Cera’s story and Petrie and Litlefoot’s story were completely and mutually exclusive (not to mention Petrie’s story got all the songs). I just found it odd, usually the episodes address one story, or all the stories kinda intertwine.
Quote from The Friendly Sharptooth: I just wish I knew what happened between The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers and this episode. I mentioned this in a joke topic before but now I’m serious about it. Watch that movie while Petrie flies in formation. You will see quite a large number of Petrie’s brothers and sisters. Now, in this episode, his siblings are greatly decreased. The others weren’t just off somewhere. I don’t think their mother would move out to find a new home while most of her children are off somewhere. She definitely would have gotten her whole family before leaving a place that they won’t return to. Continuity errors are getting repetitive. Cera lost all her siblings from movie 1. Ducky got several new ones in movie 2 that we never see again. Now Petrie loses half of his. Did new writers think it would be so much easier with less characters to work with that they decide some family members just no longer exist? They don’t even give an explanation why siblings disappear. If they don’t want so many characters to work with, can they please give us reason that goes with the story why we’ll never see them again? Making problems simply vanish here only makes new ones appear. (Sigh) Later.
Quote from NeoGenesis005: I totally agree on this one. <_< I still wonder what happen to Cera’s mother and her siblings for the first and second movie. These animators are so mixed up.
Siblings in general just don’t seem to fare well in Land Before Time, do they?
*sigh* Petrie’s singing voice again…
I think this episode had a great concept with the rainstorm and the dangers that come with it, but it just wasn’t realized to its full potential. Still, there were some entertaining scenes. I give the episode 5 out of 8 tree stars.
Episode 9: Escape from the Mysterious Beyond
OwlsCantRead has told me before that this is one of his favourite episodes. I can see why. It was definitely my favourite episode so far. Certainly the most exciting so far. 😀
Quote from RainbowFaceProtege: When Ducky and Chomper break away from the rest of the group and Chomper falls to the ground, he’s got this really weird, crazed grin on his face…
Haha, wow, he does. I didn’t even notice that the first time, so I went back to rewatch that particular segment. XD
Quote from RainbowFaceProtege: YESS–sharptooth subtitles! We haven’t seen those since LBT V!
Oh, you’re right. Interesting. I didn’t pick up on that either. Nice observation.
Quote from RainbowFaceProtege: Ruby: “You’ve gotta take the good with the bad. Otherwise…you won’t get to take anything!”
That’s actually a good insight there. Ruby has a way of saying things that border on Captain Obvious, yet are insightful at the same time.
Quote from Gentle Sharptooth: I love the non-lyric music in this series, I would buy an album of it with its Jamaican, Bahamian, and tropical tunes.
I agree; it’s great.
I did find it a bit predictable that either Ducky or Chomper would end up wanting to save Thud. But on the other hand, it did lead to a nice moment at the end when Thud decides to repay the act of kindness.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I give it 7 out of 8 tree stars.
Episode 9: Escape from the Mysterious Beyond (re-review)
[I later came back to briefly revisit this particular episode after I’d finished with the rest of the TV series.]
Regarding Red Claw’s two raptor henchmen, Screech and Thud. When the episode first aired in 2007, there was initially some confusion in the fandom whether the second raptor was called Thud or Thug, with many people ultimately calling him Thug, which I thought was funny.
Quote from Littlefoot Fan: Why would Thud give them a “second chance” just because they helped him, even though he’s going to continue hunting them later. Unless maybe we’ll see in a later episode that Thud has changed.
Indeed, we do see in his later appearances that Thud goes back to being an antagonistic hunter. Which I was a bit disappointed by, as I was hoping the events of this episode would’ve come into play later on, and maybe even started to change Thud for the better. Oh well, the thing with Thud here was still a nice touch. I guess ultimately he wasn’t able or willing to give up his predator status, but he was feeling grateful and so he was like, “Alright, I’ll let you go just this one time.”
Quote from NewOrder: Why are Red Claw and the others after the gang? It’s like they’re after them for a reason other than eating them.
I didn’t think of that before, but you’re right. It really does seem like there’s some sort of extra motive there, or a missing piece to the backstory, but we have no idea what it is. Weird.
Quote from NewOrder: This series gives more questions than answers.
Alas, yeah, it does.
Oh well. Having seen the entire TV series now, I can say that this is still my favourite episode.