The Gang of Five

The Land Before Time => General Land Before Time => Character Discussion => Topic started by: Lillefot on September 02, 2008, 12:46:17 PM

Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Lillefot on September 02, 2008, 12:46:17 PM
Discuss the little longnecks from LBT XI here.

So what do we know about them?

-...They are small.  :rolleyes:
-Only longnecks.
-They have only appeared in one movie, but can be seen during the Flip, Flap and Fly song in LBT XII, and Ducky refeers to them in a TV episode.
-They live in a underground cave system, that looks like it's reaching over almost the whole valley...
-Their leader is Big Daddy.
-Lizzy is the "only" daughter of Big Daddy?
-Lizzy has in common with Cera that her dad worries too much about her.
-Two of the kids, Rocky and Dusty are twins and speaks in fragments, filling in eachother.
-Skitter seems to be some sort of "leader" among the kid Tinysauruses (though, we haven't seen any more adults than Big Daddy) and he has a bad habit of getting crushed by people falling at him.  :lol
-He and Lizzy appears to be best friends.
-The Tinysauruses were accused for eating all the Treesweets and therefor hunted across the valley, this matter was happily solved in the end.

If I have forgotten something, go ahead and post it.  :)
This above is just basic facts.

For myself,

As one probably can tell, I love the Tinysauruses! LBT XI being one of my favorite sequals.
And as most things with me and LBT, I can't really say why for sure.
I just like them alot. Which seems to be quite rare around here.

My favorite character is Skitter. He's cool!  :yes
I like the way he is, he acctually reminds me of myself at times.
More on him later.

Big Daddy is a fun character who I fancy. His "big" entry is one of the funniest LBT moments in my opinion.  :lol

I wish that we could see more of them.  :o

I got alot more to say, but the ball is yours now.  :)
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Kor on September 02, 2008, 01:04:07 PM
They are interesting characters.  I guess they may not be liked much among fans or some folks in the lbt offices since they didn't appear in even a single episode.


There could be more adult tinysaurauces but it may be that the large earthshake may have separated them like it likely did many families early in the first movie and big daddy could have been the only adult to survive alone on one side of the earthbreak with the rest of the tiny sauruces being kids.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: f-22 "raptor" ace on September 02, 2008, 01:11:17 PM
I also like skitter.  I would like to see them return.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: landbeforetimelover on September 02, 2008, 10:25:42 PM
The tinysauruses.......they don't seem to be a likely species to exist.  I don't see any reason why one species would diversify so much and adapt to become larger or smaller.  They don't really have a lot of logic connected to them, but they are rather cute and fun.  I don't want them to appear in another sequel, but having them appear in a TV episode might be nice. :yes
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Cancerian Tiger on September 02, 2008, 11:59:06 PM
They are cute, and I like the friendship Lizzie formed with Cera.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Amaranthine on September 03, 2008, 12:06:53 AM
Me too CT. They both knew what it was like to have a over protective father and they knew what it was like to not have a mom.

I must say, I didn't think I would like the Tinysauruses, I thought they would be these weird little little things.  :blink: However, some of the lines some of them said made me chuckle and they weren't dumb or anything. :p

I do think this species was something that was completely made up from the creators of that movie. Unless someone else can prove to me otherwise, well, that's what I think. :p
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: The Great Valley Guardian on September 03, 2008, 01:01:08 AM
This is a bit off topic, but I remember seeing a walking with Dinosaurs tribute once...and a fully grown raptor was separated from his herd, washed across the sea, and wound up on an island...with miniature versions of itself, and even it's food supply! Everything (except the plant life) was half it's size.

So while it might seem unlikely that the Tinysauruses are an actual species per say, they could very well be a sub-species of the common Longneck. Just my two cents.  :^.^:
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Kor on September 03, 2008, 01:45:52 AM
In the lbt universe they may have a common ancestor.  One group went and evolved larger and larger, another group got smaller and smaller, perhaps.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Malte279 on September 03, 2008, 03:59:14 AM
The Tinysauruses may be remotely based on Mussaurus, an ancestor of the later sauruopods which is assumed to have grown no larger than 3 meters (so far only skeletons of young specimen have been found though which are just 20 to 37 centimeters large) hence the name which means "mouse lizard".
I always thought that it would have been interesting to have a group of tiny sharpteeth in the Great Valley. They would not pose a real threat to anyone, but still it is uncertain whether they would be met with tolerance. Unlike the Tinysauruses in LBT 11 they would have a good reason to hide from the other Valley inhabitants. This I think is a somewhat strange part of LBT 11. Is the fear that the larger animals might perhaps do something enough to choose a live apart from daylight and under the earth? And if they chose that live, then why were they out in broad daylight after Littlefoot had shaken the treesweets from the tree? I don't recall if these questions had been answered, it is a long time since I saw LBT 11.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: kjeldo on September 03, 2008, 08:59:02 AM
they're kinda funny to my opinion, :lol:
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Kor on September 03, 2008, 09:48:11 AM
Quote from: Malte279,Sep 3 2008 on  02:59 AM
The Tinysauruses may be remotely based on Mussaurus, an ancestor of the later sauruopods which is assumed to have grown no larger than 3 meters (so far only skeletons of young specimen have been found though which are just 20 to 37 centimeters large) hence the name which means "mouse lizard".
I always thought that it would have been interesting to have a group of tiny sharpteeth in the Great Valley. They would not pose a real threat to anyone, but still it is uncertain whether they would be met with tolerance. Unlike the Tinysauruses in LBT 11 they would have a good reason to hide from the other Valley inhabitants. This I think is a somewhat strange part of LBT 11. Is the fear that the larger animals might perhaps do something enough to choose a live apart from daylight and under the earth? And if they chose that live, then why were they out in broad daylight after Littlefoot had shaken the treesweets from the tree? I don't recall if these questions had been answered, it is a long time since I saw LBT 11.
Likely that is one of those plotholes that appear in many movies, tv series, books ect, where no one goes over the script or story, including the writer, and catches that.  

One type of tiny sharptooth type could be a Compsognathus.  I think the adults were around the size of a turkey.  & there are some species that were smaller then the Compy.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Lillefot on September 03, 2008, 09:56:07 AM
Good Malte. I was just gonna say the same thing.  ;)

Quote
In the lbt universe they may have a common ancestor. One group went and evolved larger and larger, another group got smaller and smaller, perhaps.
This is acctually good thinking, veiwing it trough an evolutionary perspective.  :yes

Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: DarkHououmon on September 03, 2008, 11:38:46 AM
The tinysauruses are kinda cute, yeah. But they kinda creep me out with their two noses.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Malte279 on September 03, 2008, 02:35:13 PM
^ I did not notice that one before, but indeed they do have more than two nostrils on some images.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Lillefot on September 03, 2008, 02:53:21 PM
It's a bit weird, but it makes them look extremly cute with those little nostrills!  :^.^:  :wub:

One can wonder why they have two.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Coyote_A on September 03, 2008, 11:22:24 PM
One pair is for breathing, other - for whistling. I once heard, some dinosaures could communicate this way. :)
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: rosie on September 07, 2008, 12:19:58 AM
I am surprised that there isn't any comprey or little biters in the show.Maybe they are scared of Chomper. He probably would chase them.I wonder what Chomper would do if he heard about them.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Kor on September 07, 2008, 01:33:13 AM
Chomper would likely be glad to see some Compeys, and would hope they are nice sharpteeth.  Then he'd have some to play with if they were nice.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: rosie on September 08, 2008, 09:11:20 PM
That would be fun. :lol
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Kor on September 08, 2008, 11:29:33 PM
It could be interesting.  The gang's reaction to tiny sharpteeth, Chomper having some sharpteeth to play with, though small ones, ect.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Coyote_A on September 10, 2008, 12:20:04 AM
I like the idea with compeys. :yes
How would Tinysaures react to these "small sharptheeth"? I believe, they won't be very happy. :)
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Kor on September 10, 2008, 03:20:30 AM
Very likely not since they may be around their size.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Coyote_A on September 10, 2008, 04:05:30 AM
Velociraptors are quite smaller then most of the herbivores, but they are still feared.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Ptyra on February 22, 2010, 10:02:26 PM
I just watched eleven for the second time recently. I saw it around the time it was released and forgot most of it.

Now that I have more of a clean slate, I can honestly say that I like them a little bit. While they were based of baby Mussasaurs from what we know (I include a "true" Mussasaur in my fanfictions) and appear to be entirely fictional...well...boy have a lot of made-up things popped up in the series. Like "magic" flowers that heal almost instantly...and "Star Trek crossovers".

I like how they feel insignificant to the "big world" personally. Of course, Big Daddy's skull was odd, but I loved the irony of his big, deep voice and being smaller than the others.

And the relationship between Lizzy and Cera was wonderful, since they had Daddy problems to associate with. But the question becomes, where the heck his Lizzy's mom/the female leader?

As for the tiny sharpteeth...The Great Hideous Beast from "Stranger from the Mysterious Above", anyone?
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Pangaea on February 22, 2010, 11:43:59 PM
^ The "Great Hideous Beast" was actually a Microceratus (formerly Microceratops), a small bipedal relative of Cera's, actually. :p It could have been an omnivore, but it was no sharptooth. (I think the little Ceratogaulus wanted it driven off because it was stealing their food.)

My personal theory about the Tinysaurus matriarch is that she is dead, either eaten or crushed (accidentally or otherwise), hence Big Daddy's extreme protectiveness of the others and fear of the large dinosaurs.

EDIT: Wow, I sound really callous when I state my theories so straightforwardly. :blink:
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Malte279 on February 23, 2010, 05:00:20 AM
^ She probably went the way of so many LBT parents who disappeared or were never shown or mentioned in the first place. Where have all the parents gone...
Littlefoot's father (yes, I know that after nine movies they let him hop out of a box with an utterly implausible story).
Cera's mother (last seen in the original movie).
Ducky's father (last seen in LBT 5 while he would have been obligatory in number 8 if he had still been around).
Petrie's father (never seen or heard of).
Spike's parents (okay, this is one which I consider not so bad as his being found as the lost egg was part of the story).
Dinah and Dana (are they really relatives of Cera in spite of looking totally different (with three horns for example) and in any case who and where are their parents?
Ali (never seen anyone but her mum while it wouldn't make much sense for him not to be with the herd unless he too was struck by the "one parent only" disease.
Hyp (yeah, his daddy didn't teach him manners, but where is the mother? We only ever see a father of his friend Mud and no parent whatsoever of Nod).

We cannot really say anything about Mo as his folks have no speaking roles and we don't know about the who is who in Big Water, but with Mo's temporary determination to stay with his friends and never wondering about his folks one bit there doesn't seem to be an example of an intact family either.
So we still have Ruby where all family members (get this, there are TWO parents there :blink:) seem to care for each others... but not quite so much as for them to work out a way to stay together :wacko

So to sum it up LBT doesn't seem to be a particularly "family friendly" set of stories :lol
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Kor on February 23, 2010, 02:38:13 PM
Dinah and Dana appear in one of the games on the lbt 4 dvd I think.  

The parenting of lbt does seem to be pretty bad also.  Dink seems worst with only 1 character having an uncle who shows up maybe once in the series.  Not sure if he shows up more since I've not seen all of dink.  The old turtle crusty has to be the stand in for the parents, everyone else's uncles,  and grand parents.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Cancerian Tiger on February 24, 2010, 02:50:46 AM
Quote from: Malte279,Feb 23 2010 on  04:00 AM
So to sum it up LBT doesn't seem to be a particularly "family friendly" set of stories :lol
Or it could be that the series is made to appeal to an audience by using the modern-day human family structures.  To make myself more clear, I'm referring to the various family backgrounds children come from in today's world.  LBT addresses the following family backgrounds:

*Blended family- Cera's family.

*Widowed (or possibly)- Mr. Threehorn, Mrs. Swimmer, Mrs. Flyer, Bron.

*Single-parent families- Mrs. Swimmer and Mrs. Flyer, Ali's mother, Mr. Threehorn for most of the series.

*Adoption- Mrs. Swimmer (though technically it was Ducky :smile) adopting Spike.

*Grandparents raising grandchildren- Littlefoot's grandparents.

*Parents still together (not seen as often in our world as it used to be)- Ruby's parents, Chomper's parents.

*Multiracial/multicultural family- Spike being raised in a swimmer family.

Since many of today's children come from these kinds of family backgrounds, it would not make much sense for a family-oriented series like LBT to be idealistic in that everybody's folks are still alive and together.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Bruton the Iguanodon on December 22, 2011, 05:07:56 PM
Forget that 11 was about accepting different species---this was just plain STUPID idea and the tinysaurs are among my top 10 least favorites. Don't get me wrong, Lizzie and Skitter were actually pretty cool (love Cree Summer in the role of Lizzie!) and Big Daddy was pretty interesting, but for the most part this diminutive group which never should have been brought in stood out as a whole and individuals were mostly lost. Topps and the rest of the valley had reason to not like these (well, yeah they were reacting ahead of time but seriously, the whole of 11 was immense with the crying party at the end, as if we'd never seen crying before, and the overwhelming gathering to top the whole thing off) When I first saw the trailer for 11 I thought, "How could I have ever loved this series?!"

But I still hate the yellowbellies 10000000 times more
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: DarkHououmon on December 22, 2011, 05:13:49 PM
The tinysauruses were probably based on...I think it's called mussaurus. The skeletons are tiny. The mistake the movie makes, though, is that these were babies, hatchlings, yet the movie portrays Big Daddy as clearly an adult (if he's a child I'd be disturbed). And the other mistake is that mussaurus is a duckbill dino I believe, or something more like Ducky's species, not a sauropod (longneck) as portrayed in the movie.

I believe Malte made a suggestion years ago that the movie might have been more interesting (and the adults' reaction more justified) if the little dinosaurs were a theropod (group consists of mostly meat-eaters). There are rather small sharpteeth they could have used, and while they'd be too small to do any real damage, since they're sharpteeth the adults would still react like they're a threat. This would have made their paranoia of the small dinos more believable.

Creepy Crawlies just made zero sense. These dinosaurs had been coexisting with other small things (like insects and lizards) for many years and for them to suddenly be all "oh small things are awful, they're eating our food!" is just silly.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: DaveTheAnalyzer on July 14, 2017, 11:45:22 AM
The three – five? – Tinysauruses who show glimpses of personality interested me. The valley showing prejudice against these harmless longnecks who probably don’t know the local norms is silly, but well…prejudice usually is irrational, often based on ignorance combined with whatever wrongly put together cobbled information (“These sneaky little longnecks are taking food from us hardworking larger dinosaurs!”).

From how Big Daddy talks, they are used to getting ignored or seen not as important enough to take care of. That’s got to affect how he trusts others. He seemed to have been forced to carry out surviving with just other Tinysauruses for a long time and since he found himself taking care of other youths (Since everyone else seems to be kids), he compensates for his size by having a large authoritative voice. Not to mention that as fond as he likely is of them all, dealing with all of their issues and idiosyncrasies must be trying, which explains his shortness with them. He would rather everyone stick together but foraging for food and trying to remain inconspicuous makes them need to separate. So he seems to check up on them and wants to know where they are or have been as frequently as he can. As for the Tinysauruses’ size being inconsistent with Mussasaurus’ actual size…Big Daddy seems to be the only adult among the group and you can handwave him as a case of dwarfism. That can add another interesting layer to Big Daddy, with how strict and commanding he is, and why he’s so protective. He’s at an even greater disadvantage when dealing with threats much larger than his kind. He can be stern and suspicious because of this, but he can grow to trust others as seen with the gang, and be forgiving as seen with Mr. Threehorn. With how protective he can be, some part of him could understand the motivations for Mr. Threehorn’s actions.

Even after they get accepted into the valley community, I could see him still being protective of his charges. Even if most of the valley doesn’t see them as a threat anymore, not everyone is friendly and there’s the perpetual danger of being stepped on. I assume that’s the Watsonian reason why they’re back to living in caves again as mentioned in the TV series. It’s great and practical not to have to worry about getting stepped on all the time. So he would still be concerned about what the others are getting up to and ask what they’ve doing. I could see him recognizing this might annoy the Tinysaurueses as they grow up (Whether they come to dwarf him in size or not) but after all they have been through, he might have trouble reigning it in.

As for the two to four others who had some focus, there is enough about them that I could tease out. For instance, Skitter struck even me as a bit bland. His most prominent traits are being mildly amiable and easily trusting. Nevertheless, I found two qualities that I teased out that interest me. The first is he seems a bit daring. In order to get a petal from the Tree Sweet Tree, he walks up on an unconscious adolescent longneck stomach and snacks it down. When he gets squished under by Littlefoot and Cera, he seems more mildly annoyed by the sudden intruders to their underground home than alarmed. He is quick and even eager to lead his compatriots in making friends with Littlefoot and the rest of the gang.

When Big Daddy comes along, he orders Littlefoot to hide despite knowing little to nothing about Littlefoot and insists he can be trusted and won’t rat them out. I’m kind of under the impression that he is eager to make friends outside of the group. Though he likely loves and considers them family, he might be longing to meet with other people, other species, and get to know them. Maybe being with the same group you like and trust for so long where the only levels of betrayal are tattle telling and good-natured (and not-so-good-natured) pranks lead him to be very trusting. He doesn’t doubt the gang until they learn about how Littlefoot was the longneck youth he encountered before who also blamed the Tinysauruses for knocking out all the Tree Sweet petals. Even then, he and his fellows remained worried about Littlefoot and the others, and don’t hesitate to rescue him. His trusting nature didn’t do too much damage in the long run but I wonder if that might get him in trouble with hostile or truly nefarious characters in the future.

Lizzie is another character with some notable teased out tidbits. She seems to be only direct child of Big Daddy and might or mightn’t be a bit of a troublemaker. When Littlefoot first comes around, Big Daddy immediately accuses her of having some responsibility and expresses disappointment before she says a word. She might tend to take risks, as shown when she and Skitter attempt to roll a walnut to their hole in broad daylight. Their situation necessitated it, but it’s notable that she and Skitter were the ones to take that risk. She also swings herself out of the hole to find out what was keeping the gang from their food delivery, so the mischief perception mightn’t be entirely unwarranted. I don’t know if this is a response to his protectiveness or that she had always been interested in going places and doing things that aren’t advised but Big Daddy’s response doesn’t appear to deter her. She is clearly fond of him but is exasperated at how protective he can be. It must feel crowding, especially to be with the same kind of people day in and day out.

Which is why she seems pretty open to befriending the gang and later coming to their rescue despite whatever mistakes they made. They expanded the circle of friends the Tinysauruses could have and they were willing to risk sleep deprivation and being caught to help them with their food problem. She is likely very grateful to the gang for allowing the Tinysauruses to live in the open and for Big Daddy to loosen up on some fronts. I wonder if Lizzie would still have some of a contentious relationship with her father as she grows up. Living in the valley means she could get out and explore more, so she might’t care as much for any rules or boundaries Big Daddy would still have. Even if she might understand his concern, she might still buck these rules. She understands the dangers out there but also sees the positives, so she likely has a more realistic view of the world. I don’t see her getting endangered or in too much trouble, since she has a good head on her shoulders but I can see some tension between her and her father as she tries to assert her identity.

As for Rocky and Dusty, there’s even less to work with than the others but there are fragments that give an idea of personality. They seem to be basically more innocent, diet Weasley twins. They seem to like some mischief. When Big Daddy got clunked on the head by a nut in one of the treestar deliveries, the twins looked at one another and giggled. Petrie talked about how he was going to tickle Rocky back and see how he liked it, indicating Rocky was the one who tickled him first. They seem otherwise rather benign though and don’t have the edge of mischief other such characters have. They also get dealt with the twin trope of being confused with one another and finishing each other’s sentences. For the former, they don’t seem at all irritated by the mix up. They might even be used to it. For the latter, I surmise that’s a matter of them thinking very much alike and being able to come up with the next appropriate sentence. They are still two distinct people, even if they get along rather well. Maybe that might change as they grow up, as they might get sick of being seen as similar and attempt to differentiate from one another. It could lead to conflict between themselves. Still, I’m sure they and their friends would make sure they patched things up.

There’s not much, but I wouldn’t mind them popping up and being explored more. With what prejudice they experienced, I wonder how they would have thought and acted when Chomper and Ruby came around and likely got a hostile reception.
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: Sovereign on July 15, 2017, 11:13:34 AM
Wow, I never thought you could say that much about the tinysauruses! You make a real good job trying to make them workable characters and even build a bit of a character in all of them. Especially Big Daddy's motives are really thought-out and they appear to make a lot of sense. Still, the character is close to my least favorite in the whole series so it doesn't really make me approve him any more.

As for the rest, there's very little to say except it's quite well done that you managed to find some personality in them. Overall, this film was really bad imo, but your character analyses are always nice to read!  :)
Title: The Tinysauruses
Post by: DaveTheAnalyzer on July 15, 2017, 07:02:49 PM
Thank you. They aren’t exactly my faves but I do discover they do pop up and even have a role in a few of my stories, so it’s good to flesh them out.

Since most of them don’t have much depth, I use a method I saw a Harry Potter fanfic writer use to flesh out a weak secondary/strong tertiary character – noting What A Character Says, What A Character Does, What Others Say About The Character, and extrapolating from those details. I do like expanding on characters, even those from not-so-great stories, while being faithful to them and even using and exploring them in fanfic.