Review: The Land Before Time

Set in Prehistoric times, with changing climate making precious vegetation scarce for the Earth’s herbivores. Young brontosaurus Littlefoot (voiced by Gabriel Damon from “RoboCop 2”) hears of a promised land with plenty of vegetation and no danger from the carnivirous dinosaurs who prey on his kind. He leads a band of herbivores on a journey to their new home. Pat Hingle (who also narrates) and Helen Shaver voice Littlefoot’s parents, the late Judith Barsi provides the voice of the excitable Ducky, Candace Hutson voices ‘three horn’ triceratops Cera, and Will Ryan is the voice of anxious pteranodon Petrie, who hasn’t quite mastered flying yet.

 

No one will confuse this 1988 Don Bluth (“An American Tail”, “All Dogs Go to Heaven”, “Titan A.E.”) animated movie for being the best animated movie of all time. However, for those of us of a certain generation it holds a special place in our childhood memories and hopefully our adult hearts. Basically “Bambi” with dinosaurs, my childhood love didn’t extend to the eleventy-squillion sequels that I still haven’t seen, but this one was a joy to revisit. Like “Bambi”, here’s an animated story that teaches kids about important stuff such as death (especially death of a loved one) and friendship, and does it nearly as effectively as that film did in my view. I know there are other dinosaur films out there that people love, but this and Hammer’s “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” are the only ones I truly enjoy.

By design, former Disney employee Bluth does his usual thing here by giving us earthy tones in the animation and an overall story tone that is a touch more sombre and serious than what Disney often delivered. Technological advances not withstanding, the 2D animation, whilst not exactly bright and colourful, is really good for what was intended. You also won’t get any Robin Williams or Eddie Murphy star comic relief here either, if that’s a distraction for you. Instead we get lesser-known names like Pat Hingle, Gabriel Damon, and Helen Shaver, people you’ve seen and heard before and since but not in that Disney star-filled way (The ubiquitous Frank Welker might even be the biggest name/voice here). The real scene-stealer is young Judith Barsi, voicing the plucky Ducky. Poor girl, please don’t read what happened to her in real life – it’ll wreck you. If there’s any Disney-esque element to this film (outside of the “Bambi” story comparisons), it’s Barsi’s work as Ducky, an absolutely adorable creature. All of the characters here are immensely likeable and great company. Meanwhile, several years before “Forrest Gump”, this movie gets as much mileage out of a leaf as that film did from a feather. Low-tech by today’s standards or not, there’s also some really lovely scenery shots throughout.

 

I won’t deny that nostalgia plays a big part in this review – and y’know what? As far as I’m concerned nostalgia is valid, I don’t think it should be so easily dismissed when critically praising a film. I kept getting these warm hits of nostalgic goodness from a lot of the dialogue here, including Petrie’s signature ‘I climb?’ and of course ‘Three horns never play with long necks’. I’m right back to being eight years old. If a movie makes you feel something, that is valid. I have no issues with someone’s positive opinion on a film being heavily boosted by nostalgia. It perhaps doesn’t make for the most interesting review, I will grant you. However, I pride myself on being honest. I honestly just plain had a lovely time re-visiting this one after about 30 years. If I had to be critical I suppose I could carp that a bunch of herbivores of different species of dinosaur might be reluctant friends given they’re competing for the same food. But that’s being an arsehole. This ain’t the movie for that.

 

A beautiful, sweet film that is like “Bambi” with several Thumpers. It may not be a bonafide cinematic classic, but I love it nonetheless. The characters, the animation, the classic story – it all works for me as an adult as it did when I was 8. This is a more enjoyable dinosaur film than “Jurassic Park” and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. There, that’s not a  controversial take at all. The screenplay is by Stu Krieger (“In the Army Now”) from a story by Judy Freudberg (“An American Tail”, TV’s long-running “Sesame Street”, the big-screen adventure “Follow That Bird”) and Tony Geiss (ditto).

 

Rating: B+