"...we all keep to our own kinds. The three-horns, the spike-tails, the swimmers, the flyers... we never do anything together... because we're different. It's always been that way. ...When we reach the Great Valley, there'll be many, many long necks for you to play with." -Mama Longneck
The Land before Time 4, or "The One Where the Mentality Attributed to this Quote Makes a Comeback as the Main Theme because a New Herd Rolls into the Neighborhood". I have to give kudos to all the people responsible for the sequels. Even when the series was at its very worst, they NEVER forgot this core component of the original film.
In the other half of the conversation I cut from the quotes above to join together Mama Longneck's lines, Littlefoot expresses confusion at the alleged "need" for the herds to isolate themselves from each other. The message Bluth was conveying is clear: racism is not only hurtful and destructive, it is also dumb. Imagine if the herds were already together like in the Valley. Mama Longneck probably wouldn't have died, because the adults would have been able to just gang up on the Sharptooth like they do with Chomper's parents in LBT2.
I am, of course, talking about the first film and its themes so much because LBT 4 feels the most like an proper extensive of it out of the three Roy Allen Smith sequels. It also covers a lot of the same tropes featured in it.
1. An isolationists herd rolls into town fully intending not to interact with anyone.
They also want move on soon. "Why?" I ask to that latter part, considering the lands outside are basically different shades of Purgatory and Hell.
2. A dinosaur child needs to overcome her own learned specism to work together with the Gang.
3. Littlefoot is faced with the loss of a family member (again).
4. The Gang is constantly stalked by a carnivore with a damaged eye/poor eyesight.
5. Someone in the Gang learns how to do something they couldn't before (Petrie flies/Spike speaks).
6. They traverse another God Forsaken hellish landscape and manage to barely make it alive back to the Great Valley.
Thankfully, they play around with them enough as to avoid being totally unoriginal. I honestly don't have many problems with this one. It's a straightforward tale that has smooth A-to-B points and the moral works, even if its the same one Bluth and company already pushed with the original. But then again, you can't really push the "racism is bad" card too much, even in today's world... Actually, more like
especially in today's world.
So a new herd of longneck migrators arrive in the Valley, lead by "The Old One", or as I like to call her, "Granny Killjoy." Her opening line for greeting the Great Valley Denizens is to tell them a horror story about how climate change turned their own once peaceful valley into croc-infected marshlands and they should totally expect the same thing to happen there. Uh... thanks for that? But seriously lady, you should have been here last week when the whole Valley almost dried up and everyone was nearly killed by raptors trying to unclog the river. Or the week before when Littlefoot and friends punched a hole in the protective wall surrounding... wait, how'd you guys get in? So, a herd of longnecks can just walk in but Sharpteeth can't, somehow? How does this work? Does the Great Valley have guards who keep watch and fend off any intruders carnivores or have their constructed a crude moat and drawbridge?
Okay, yeah, this whole "we're completely protected from the lands outside" catch all plot device that's pervasive through all the sequels doesn't really work when dinosaurs considerably bigger, slower, and clumsier than your typical T-Rex are seen coming and going from the Valley willy-nilly. The filmmakers are taking quite a bit for granted here. They seem to be under the impression the Great Valley was ever intended to be anything other than a glorified Oasis. At no point in the original is it ever promised the leaf-eaters would be completely safe from carnivores. The Great Valley was only supposed to be a guarantee food source.
Another frustrating thing about this "we're totally protected" thing is how unnecessary it is. The first sequel shows us how the adults would handle any carnivore who does show their face in the Valley: they'd gang up on them and beat them to a bloody pulp. They could have actually negated this plot hole with opening the second film by demonstrating the adults driving off an offending Sharptooth.
This is not a flaw specific to this film, but one shared by all of them. I'm bringing it up now because I forgot to before.
Anyway, their visit has Littlefoot very excited, because he and Spike the only ones of the Gang who haven't really had the opportunity to hang out with someone of their own age AND species. Enter Ali, the girl longneck raised with an isolationist mindset. She and Littlefoot quickly bond, but to the unintended neglect of his other friends, which of course has Cera in a huff and rightly so, actually. Thankfully, this time they don't treat Cera like the bad guy for taking issue with something. Littlefoot really IS kind of casting them to the wayside to hang with Ali, and yet it's understandable. He just got caught up in the moment, because Ali's only going to be there temporarily because her elders are gluttons for punishment. Seriously, you morons, stay in the Valley for the time being and then just move on if things go South! You'd only have to wait for LBT 5. Or 6. Or 8. Or 9.
Meanwhile, Grandpa Longneck seems to be coming down with something and by the end of the migrator's first day visiting the Valley, he's too weak to even walk. Granny Killjoy identifies the disease and knows how to cure it, but its "far too dangerous" (said the lunatic leading a herd that's decided traversing endless deserts is a good idea) because the flowers which can cure Grandpa Longneck are back in their original home, which is now a swampy hellhole full of deinosuchus.
Littlefoot immediately wants to make the trip, but he's forbidden from doing so, because the outside lands are Mordor. Another missed opportunity, they could easily have played up Littlefoot's desperation to save his Grandpa, but of course that would require them having the balls to acknowledge that pesky little tragedy from the original.
Universal... seriously, we all saw the first one. That's why we bothered with the sequels. Plus it was 1996. Everyone and their dog already bore witness to Mufasa being murdered by his own brother and
Hunchback of Notre Dame, also released in '96, already pre-traumatized us. Just being reminded Mama Longneck is dead wasn't going to break our fragile little brains.
While Grandma Longneck seems resigned to her fate of losing her husband, Littlefoot is filled with DETERMINATION and sneaks out in the middle of the night to convince Ali to lead him to the Valley of Mists, as her old home is now called. However, she only agrees to do it if its just the two of them. Not feeling like he has time to argue the point, Littlefoot reluctantly agrees and off their go. So she leads him through the poorly named Mysterious Beyond into the tunnel her herd passed through to leave, but they're separated by a cave-in which traps Littlefoot inside the cave and Ali outside. So the latter is forced to return to the Valley to get help.
Littlefoot, a bit later, meets up with a turtle named Archie, voiced by the always delightful late Charles Durning. Archie is a grumpy, but ultimately well-meaning character, and he agrees to help find his way out of the cave. Meanwhile, we meet our new villains, Itchy and Dil. The former is a Ichthyornis, a scavenger bird and the latter is a crocodile-like beast known as a deinosuchus. They hate each other even they're each other's meal tickets. Itchy can only eat what's already killed for him, because scavenger, and Dil is near blind and needs her avian companion to guide her to their next meal. I get that Universal wanted to push the "friendship and work together for a better future" moral by contrasting these two with the Gang, but honestly, I'd have preferred if they just cut Itchy and let Dil be a silent, menacing force of nature like the Sharptooth from the original film.
Moving on, Ali returns with the Gang, sans Cera, except not really, and they manage to break through the cave-in and reunite with Littlefoot. Then Archie guides them through to the other side into the Valley of Mists. Archie tells them to be careful and they're on their way to find the flower. Along the way, they meet Tickles, who ranks among the most disposable of Guest Characters. He is a rat and he has no dialogue. He has no point and serves no purpose. However, I won't give the film much flack for it because he avoids being annoying unlike certain other Guest Characters in the later sequels. I honestly forgot he was even there half the time. I'd have preferred if the film just kept Archie around.
After a few more encounters with Itchy and Dil, culminating in the moment when Spike calls Ducky's name to wake her up and save her from falling into Dil's open mouth, they find the flower, which only blooms at night and take it back to the Great Valley. Itchy and Dil part ways and both almost immediately get their just desserts.
Grandpa Longneck eats the flowers and soon recovers to full health, but alas, the Masochistic Herd of Migrators "must" (
: ) move on to die horribly out in endless desert, but Ali promises to return to the Valley someday and the film ends on a hollow promise that would never get fulfilled until a terrible episode of the lackluster animated series.
Overal, I give this a 7/10. It's probably my favorite of all the sequels, because I feel its the closest to the original. There are still some definite flaws, but they are not that big a deal. Ali was a fun new character and her progression through the story is well-done. It was also refreshing that she's not hateful or vicious, just uncomfortable, around other species initially. I also liked how the threat of losing Grandpa Longneck added a lot of weight to the story, though it could have been even more impactful if they had gone the full distance and acknowledged this is not the first time Littlefoot has lost someone. WE WATCHED HIM WATCH THE LIFE LEAVE HIS MOTHER'S BODY, UNIVERSAL!
All the working parts of the story mesh well, but sadly, this is the last entry in the series Roy Allen Smith would direct, and he would be succeeded by... The Horned One, Charles Grosvenor.
