The first ever Land Before Time forum is here! Feel free to Role Play or have discusions!
Which Great Valley?
by
(no login)
Hi!
I have a question to all the native English speakers here. The Great Valley of course is the place where Littlefoot and the others live; the work "great" however is ambiguous. It could either mean great in the sense of "very large" or it could be great in the sense of "outstanding quality". When you hear "Great Valley" in the movies, which of the two meanings of great do you understand to be meant?
Possibly it could be that the name refers to it's size, as well as like it's a safe haven. But I think it's mainly the size, the "Great Wall" on the universe was named for it's length, same with the Great Wall of China. But when I first heard the name, I recognized it as like a safe haven, it could be named for that, for it's size, or both.
In the German version of LBT the Great Valley is named "Das Große Tal" which means "The large (Great) Valley" without any other connotation. I was just wondering as I could well imagine some dinosaur creating the name by stating what a great place this valley is to live in.
a while ago i was looking for pictures at http://www.google.nl
and last night i was talking about Malte with it so i decided to look for the url again and i found it again http://www.landbeforetime.com/friends/main.html . Malte checked for me if the other pages were still up and yes we found a better url with a site bar: http://www.landbeforetime.com/friends/ so the old site is still up, but when you click on the index button you are directed to the new site. When you visit the main site: http://landbeforetime.com you won't find any directions to the older 1. Although the old site has never been updated since LBT 8 it still exists. Maybe the have forgotten to delete it or they are gonna re-use it someday.
But still in my opinion the older site looks much better.
What you can find there are some of the pages of www.landbeforetime.org as they looked before a redesign that was done before LBT 9. Personally I prefered the old design, so I am happy that parts of it can still be found online. The new design in comparison seems too commercial to me.
Land before time copyright violation at Wikipedia?
by
(no login)
Hi!
I just went to Wikipedia to post summaries of LBT 2 to 6 there just to find that there were links to all these sequels already. However the lings will only lead you to a page telling you that there was a possible copyright violation about the text that has been posted there. Apparently text from the official page www.landbeforetime.com had been copied and pasted there.
The one of LBT 2 is fine and they seem to have no problem with it. The pages for LBT 3 to 6 seem to make trouble. Funny why someone posted those of all sequels leaving out 6 to 11.
Recently there was a little discussion about the character Pterano from LBT 7 in the GOF board. It turned out that opinion about him seem to be quite different so an interesting discussion was the result. So I ask all of you, what do you think of Pterano?
This may seem a bit pushy, but what the heck: I think it's all well to post it again.
I find Pterano to be overly melodramatic. An interesting concept for a character, but delivered in a way that didn't do what they could have done with him ANY justice (and they somehow managed to mess it up even with a heavy-weight talent like Michael York providing his voice).
My main problem with how they portrayed only shows how mucht he filmmakers underestimate children's intelligence. Heck, when I was six-ten: I'd have appreciated a character that was not obviously a villain, but appears to be more of a good guy (which would actually justify Pterano being the charismatic individual he was set up to be), but then does turn out to be a villain (heck, it worked in "Titan A.E."). Perhaps the filmmakers could have even set up another character who was a WAY more obvious villain than Pterano and fooled us, big time, when it come down to realizing that you were wrong in judging Pterano's character. Another cool twist would have been having the other "villain" character turn out to be good guy with a rough exterior.
I didn't mean to be pushy Drew L. but rather enable people who do not participate in the network54 discussion to take part in it. Also you brought up points here you didn't spell out there.
They certainly could have made Pterano less obvious a villain to take the audience more by surprise. However, in that case I suppose it would have been more difficult to fit in the incidence with the trap, for if it was known Pterano would have certainly been dispised by the grownups as it was the case in LBT 7. The kids would have noticed. I think it was not the point to make Pterano a very good pretender, but rather to depict his relationship with Petrie. A kind of semi-villain among all the black and white characters (a concept introduced perhaps already by Hyp, Nod, and Mutt)seemed a nice change for me.
Yes, he had more shades of gray than most LBT guest characters, but there was so much more that they could have done with his character which could have been done if they'd just be willing to make the films a little longer. There's no reason to believe children won't watch a film longer than 1 1/2 hours long, because I remember being able to sit through 2 hour films quite readily as a child.
I went to the Gang of Five board but in those unfamiliar surroundings I couldn't seem to find any thread about Pterano.
Pterano is proud, hypocritical, stubborn, and a good talker who wishes to achieve his own "evil" ends believing them to be good. Kind of like the evil vizier in an Arabian Nights tale. Yet he is also idealistic and independent (so much so that he will not give up an idea unless he has proven its folly to himself. Note the line in "Very Important Creature": "When others say no it can't be so, my answer is always yes!") He does have a conscience, as we see from when Ducky falls into the cave, but a hardened conscience. When he feels its prick, he simply brushes it off. He is also something of a coward and a sneak, as was shown during the battle with the sharpteeth.
He is not really a villain but a "fringe" type who could be a villain one day and a hero the next. (Indeed, he was.) To him, the end justifies the means.
In a nutshell, he is an idealist who believes anything is possible (especially for him) and anything is permissible in the achieving of a goal.
Very sorry to anyone who couldn't follow this twisted thread.
Well my opinion on him is that he wasn't a villian, just misunderstood, but I guess he kinda resembled a modern-day extremest a bit. His goal was to make the Fliers the dominant species, which resembles a bit of islamic extremeists that attack countries that contian a high population of Christians and Jews to achive their goal of making muslims dominant, and having "the infedels bow down to Allah."
But as Petrie said, "You don't need to fix, just not break." Pterano was able to see the light after all, but that did not make up for his actions.
I think he was a bit self-confident, after all when he attmepted to get the "powers" from the stone, he refered to himself as "The Chosen One", but there was nothing to confirm or deny he had a destiny with the stone.
...epsecially with the muslim connection. In reality, the muslims have a stone at the Kaaba which might really be a meteorite (although they won't let anyone test it to see if it really is.) Perhaps Pterano's mentality is along the Islamic lines (although not that extreme, of course.) Another similarity that Pterano shows is one to... well.. I won't mention his name here, not wanting to make controversy, but I will make a comparison between the "Very important creature" song scene and the begginning of "Triumph of the will", as both scenes show an evil leader flying through the clouds, wanting to make a race dominant above all others ("master race".)
Another point is that Petrie's story in the begginning of the movie (about how "fliers" were once the dominant race) resembles ideals of so called "white superiority" (a racist, wrongheaded idea.) This is why Petire seemes to attached to his uncle, even after he proves to be an antagonist.
P.S. If this is too controversial or disturbing, please feel free to delete this post, or to share your ideas with me. Also note that comments about muslims are limited to the extremists, recognizing that the majority of muslims are peaceful and moderate.
We've not yet answered the question of the last round. I think it would be somewhat rude to the asker if we just leave that question and the answer is almost at hand. Anyone who can check out LBT 8 at the moment (or knows the last word for volcano we don't have yet) is welcome to give the answer.
I daresay the reason for Chomper's third claw in LBT 5 is that he did more complex things with his hands (dragging along the large leaf with the foot for his friends for instance) and the creators probably thought that these actions would look awkward with only two claws.
But who knows. Perhaps the egg Littlefoot and the others found in LBT 2 did not belong to the T-Rexs at all (I see no proof that it was). There is room for speculation It wouldn't be the first adoption in LBT.
...I think the claw matter was just to make Chomper's hands look more "handlike". If the LBT V Chomper had not been the same as the LBT 2 Chomper, how on earth would he have recognized Littlefoot and the others?
It is an interesting question though how he gained perfect command of "leafeater language" within one day; the first day of his life even. I suppose that Chomper did "play with the food" more often since LBT 2 and thus learned to speak their way. I wonder how he could manage to conceal these contacts from his parents all the time.
For quite some time now I have been unable to access the Land Before Time Archive. Does anybody know why? Is Arvens updating, or has he broken a few site rules, or what?
That's the correct link, and no I'm not updating. No time to. Perhaps one of the Gang of Five members will find time to add stuff about LBT 11 (which I do not have).
List of what we do NOT want in an animated series.
by Noname (no login)
Here are a few things that we should hope NEVER to see, in my opinion. Too many times in the past have there been animated series that leave the parameters of their original movies; just look at the disney channel! In order to prevent the Land Before Time from becoming another inane "Aladdin" or "Hercules" animated series, it MUST stay within its setting and NOT introduce the following:
-Technology of ANY level (using sticks and stones as tools does not count, but space ships do; please note that this includes "alien" concerns about the rainbowfaces of LBT VII.)
-Humans at ANY time (I would have too bid you all farewell if this happened; fortunately, this is unlikely to occur, as if it was going to happen, it probably would by now.)
-Human items appearing in the dinosaurs time (we probably don't need to worry about this one.)
Can anyone think of what we do NOT want to see? Fortunately, the odds of these things happening are very small.
Re: List of what we do NOT want in an animated series.
by Drew L. (no login)
My list of thinkg I DON'T want:
1. Gay dinosaurs.
2. Hip hop songs.
3. Hip music of any kind.
4. Will Friedle.
5. More than one song per episode.
6. Sit-Com humor.
7. Jive talking dinosaurs.
8. Rap songs.
9. Episodes obviously rippes off from other TV shows or movies.
10. Music from 'the Nutcracker'.
I hope that they do not create plots which contradict each other or contradict earlier stories. I strongly hope that they stick to the limits set by the original movies and the first few sequels, which of course includes all the human and technology stuff which was named already. Some of the the later sequels already scratched on that border I'm afraid.
Reading his description I don't think what noname means can be equated with ghosts (defining ghosts as some kind of visual remaint of a deceased being). However, if the rainbowfaces were such spirits to guide someone and leave once their task is done, I don't really see what their task was. After all there was nothing special about that supposed stone of cold fire and if there task was to help Littlefoot and the others I don't see why the one of them always tried to stop the other one from doing precisely that (this however makes it evident that they are subjects to either another being or a law-like instance). Also the Rainbowfaces appeared before the story we see in LBT 7 (they must've travelled for a while with the far-walkers though they don't seem to have done anything to name them more than strange but harmless). Another thing that speaks for the alien theory is the Star Treck like ray of light at the end of the movie and the shiny moving object on the sky (spaceship?). Personally I like neither idea and if the plot of the movie didn't compel me to, I wouldn't consider them as anything but "normal strange" dinosaurs.
The Rainbow Faces were really pointless characters.
by Drew L. (no login)
Granted, it seems to be a rule that there be a guest character of some kind (although in more recent sequels, it seems that they're just having them just for the sake of having them, but at least have some moral and/or plot point behind the guest. Like, say, Chomper, Hyp and his cronies (Nod and Mutt), Ali, Tickles, Doc, Mr. Thicknose, Mo, Shorty, and Bron. There was, at least, a point of some kind to those characters. Not with the likes of the Rainbow Faces, that pink spiketail (shudders in remembrance) in "The Big Freeze", those twin little "siblings" of Cera (can't thik of their names), and that female longneck that saves Littlefoot's life from the croc in #10.
I doubt that even in ten years movie producers will be eager to be slaughtered by outraged parents. This is one point I really don't think we need to worry about.
Re: List of what we do NOT want in an animated series.
by AndrewAnorak (no login)
Preaching moralistic storylines
Any of the little dinosaurs getting "Grounded". This is the only punishent from parents in cartoons nowadays, and how are they going to ground them anyway?
Cera calling everything "Dumb". This is just lazy character
It wouldn't be the first adoption in LBT.