Odd ideas about the film

[Allicloud]

Being a huge fan of this film, and always being eager to hear what people think about the first LBT movie, I've heard some pretty odd thoughts in discussion. Here are the choicest:

1. It's all a reference to the Divine Comedy. One person claimed that different parts of the story all alluded towards different parts of the Divine Comedy. We get Littlefoot and his friends being separated from their families (death), traveling through the post "earth-shake" wasteland (Purgatory), passing through "the Mountains That Burn" (Inferno), defeating The Sharptooth (Lucifer), before finally being allowed to enter the Great Valley (the Kingdom of Heaven).

As one TVTroper said:
"...dude, you blew my mind."

But then again, this is the basic formula for the dark family film with the happy ending: The protagonist undergoing some sort of loss or separation, travelling through a crapsack world that slowly gets worse and worse as they go, then undergoing some big final confrontation, and only then getting their happy ending, sometimes only after having given up on life altogether.


2. They actually all die at the ending. I've heard this one going around alot. It claims that Littlefoot and his friends did defeat Sharptooth, but died in the process. The scene of Littlefoot and his Mother's spirit was his "passing over", with her leading him to the Great Valley, or the afterlife.


And a little misinterpretation, and possibly simply memory-decay: For some reason, I always used to think the death scene with Mama-longneck happened in some sort of cave, and perhaps underwater. I have no idea why, I just used to think that... But then again, I also used to remember Strut as a female for some reason...


Anyone else got any others? Either something you used to think, still think, or heard from another person?

[DarkHououmon]

I've heard the one about Littlefoot and his friends dying at the end. I've heard it was completely false. I'm pretty sure someone who worked on the film at some point confirmed there was no such ending (where they're all dead in the end), that it was never even considered.

[jansenov]

I heard a lot about the Great Valley being a dino paradise, but there's no evidence for this. There is that one line uttered by Littlefoot's mom: "Some things you see with your eyes, others you see with your heart", but in my opinion this is not strong enough evidence, because I think it simply means that Littlefoot's mom never saw the Great Valley with her own eyes. She heard of it's existence and location from somebody she trusts (possibly her parents), and she believes them. The fact that she has specific directions (go west) shows that the Great Valley is located in this world. No further religious symbolism is shown in the movie in connection with the direction of west, and in Christianity and Judaism, religions that had a high probability of influencing the movie's authors, paradise (the garden of Eden) is located in the east, not in the west.

There is a stronger line however. At the very end of the movie, when Littlefoot says: "Now we will always be together". This does look like a referce at the etertniy, but only when you take it out of context. For the narrator then says: "All that remained of his herd was his mother, grandmother and his grandfather. He knew them by sight, by scent, and by their love. He knew they would be together, always." If this was indeed a reference to paradise, and the rest of the herd is dead, shouldn't the rest of the herd be with Littlefoot too? Or are they in dinosaur hell  :unsure: ? It looks like "always" simply means "a very long time" here.

[Dilopho]

If it is heaven then Littlefoots mother must also be there because beside his friends it is the person he loved most.
Otherwise there must be a second heaven.

[jansenov]

A valid point, Dilopho. But I must say the entire second paragraph of my previous post is wrong. The narrator's line is to be found at the begining of the movie, near the end of the scene when baby Littlefoot sleeps on his mother, and the Gang says nothing at the hugging scene at the end of the movie. I mixed things up.

It seems that the idea of the Great Valley being a paradise was never seriously considered, although it wouldn't surprise me if the authors discussed that possibility at some point.

[Allicloud]

I've heard the one about Littlefoot and his friends dying at the end. I've heard it was completely false. I'm pretty sure someone who worked on the film at some point confirmed there was no such ending (where they're all dead in the end), that it was never even considered.

Yeah, I know it's not really true. I'm not stating it as any sort of secret meaning behind the end, I'm just posting it as a way that one viewer interpreted it.

As it turns out, there are quite a few "religious allusions" theories about this film floating about. Another one theorises that the relationship between Littlefoot and Chomper in the sequel is a reference to the Good Samaritan story. As I recall, some book on kid's films has a whole bunch of these.

Oh, and a little misinterpretation to add to the list: In Roger Ebert's review of the original, they misunderstood the statement that all that remained of Littlefoot's herd was his mother and grandparents, thinking they meant that he was the last of his kind, not just the last of his herd.

[WeirdRaptor]

I can see where they get the idea about The Divine Comedy, at least on a sumbolic level, but I refuse to take it on a literal level, because this film reduces me to tears easily enough as is.