Tell Your Story About LBT

[Dracorider19]

I remember first seeing LBT as early as age 5 or 6, but I don't remember seeing most of it, though the scene I remember most was Littlefoot hatching and sleeping on his mom's back.  When I attended kindergarten through the 1st grade, my teacher would sometimes play some of the sequels for the class. I distinctly remember the 4th movie with Ali meeting Littlefoot.

Then just before I entered middle school (around age 9 or 10) I seemed to have almost forgotten about LBT; the original film and sequels faded from my mind. Then at the age of 14 (in 2008), I rediscovered the first LBT at my grandma's beach house  in
Galveston, TX. My family had left except for me to go on some two-hour outing.  I decided to watch a film while I was alone, and I found a VHS for LBT. Curious, I decided to watch it. And let me tell you, it was one of the most memorable experiences in my life. I rediscovered something that I realized was my childhood icon, and the music, story, and characters moved me. The end credits song was incredibly beautiful. I went back to LBT again in the summer of 2014, as I mentioned in another reply,
and then after viewing a piece of fanart, I clicked the link and found myself here
on this wonderful forum.

[Rustam]

Beginning at the age of nine, I began to get seriously involved with LBT. By that time, they created only three parts of the cartoon, but for me it was like "as many as three parts!" In my hobby, I bought videotapes with the same parts of the cartoon in the hope that there would be just another dubbing. Videotapes in the early-90's were a rare and expensive treat, so you can imagine a child who, instead of buying a new cartoon, took what he had already seen. It was a serious sacrifice in favor of my passion. The covers on my tapes were exactly the same as in the photo below, only the inscriptions were in Russian.



I had videotapes with "like an official translation", videotapes with the translation of our Central Channel, when they undertook to broadcast these cartoons (I recorded them on a VHS), as well as videotapes with single-voice amateur translation. How many different names have received Littlefoot in different versions of the translation! Crumbs-Feet, Little Leg, Melkonog.  Then I took these videotapes, turned them on, and brought the audiotape recodrer to the TV when the characters were beginning to sing. So I created a collection of different songs on the audiotapes. I listened to these songs quietly, so that my neighbors would not hear them and did not think that I was a too childish, if I was addicted to such children's songs.
But there were no toys with Littlefoot and the gang. And there were no books with pictures, and in general, there was nothing but the cartoon. But there was something else: my dreams of the Great Valley and the belief that in the future I necessarily I will get there. And that I, perhaps, even become my favorite hero - Littlefoot. It can be said that the LBT was also for me a religion, a place where one can hope to get to avoid cruel reality.
The Great Valley, I later found it - it was closer than it seems - in my memories of childhood. True, by the time I was already an adult, but better late than never. But Littlefoot and remained my idol, even despite the fact that it took many years. Subsequently, I was often asked "Rustam, what's your fursona?", To which I replied "I do not have it, I do not associate myself with any furry-character." But now I can say with confidence: my fursona is a little dinosaur! After all, I carried the feeling of unity with Littlefoot through the years and did not lose faith in him.
I can say about Littlefoot: he always did the right thing. And did not hesitate to show weakness. And everyone loved him. For this I liked him. For something that I did not have myself. Other characters from the cartoon I also liked. On the second place in the list of my favorites was Strut - an egg-stealer, who suddenly decided to become a vegetarian. It seems to me that there are many positive qualities hidden in it, and if he succeeds, he could even become friends with the Littlefoot company, and stay in the Great Valley.
But my friends did not support my enthusiasm and mocked the "too childish cartoon". So I had to fan myself.
One of my favorite songs from the LBT it is Kids Like Us.  In this part of movie, Littlefoot surprised me when he went to save the bullies, who always verbally attacked him.
"He's so compassionate!" I thought. I certainly would not have had the heart to do such a good deed in relation to the guys, from whom I received only pokes and tricks. So my idol Littlefoot outstripped me and in part of kindness too.

[Coyote_A]

I had videotapes with "like an official translation", videotapes with the translation of our Central Channel, when they undertook to broadcast these cartoons (I recorded them on a VHS), as well as videotapes with single-voice amateur translation.

Lucky you. All I had were the latter ones until pretty late in the 90s when I watched LBT IV with a professional dub on TV and recorded that. Before that all I had were the original movie, LBT II and LBT V where all the voice were done by one guy.

[ADFan185]

I rented all of the VHS Tapes back in the 90s and watched them and I enjoyed them even tho they where not that good but I still liked watching them.

[Metro717]

I was VERY young when i first saw the Land Before Time (the first one, to be precise). Before rewatching it a week ago i only had a very vague memory of what was the movie like. The only thing i remembered for sure are the gang of five (but mostly Cera and Spike for some reason) and the earthshake scene. Of course i stumbled open the famous "Littlefoot mother's death" scene once in a while, and despite being one of the most emotional scene i don't seem to remember it from my childhood.
And when i remember watching LBT back then was still the early days of DVDs and we had it on VHS. (which i'm willing to guess isn't even a legit, bought one)

[DiddyKF1]

Well, ... here it goes ...

I was born in 1992, so I obviously would not have been around to see the first movie when it came out.

So, in 1998, I was five years old, and I had this fascination with dinosaurs. My mother and my kindergarten teacher took such great notice of it, and eventually, my mom rented a VHS of the original Land Before Time. I had wanted to see a dinosaur movie, and I had never had that chance (I wouldn't see Jurassic Park until some years later, so I missed out on quite a lot back then... ).

The very first time I watched it, I felt speechless. I wasn't just fascinated by the fact that it was a dinosaur movie, but it became the first movie ever to pull on my heartstrings (maybe because of my Asperger Syndrome making it difficult for me to understand emotional movies until I watched LBT). I had never shed a tear while watching a movie until I watched Littlefoot's mother die, and again when he mistook his own shadow for that of his mother's.  I watched the movie as many times as I could until we had to return the tape back, and while we were in the video store, I noticed some tapes of the sequels that were around at the time (II-VI), so I asked my mom if we could rent those, too, and she told me we could only rent one at a time, to which I reluctantly agreed. So, we left the store that day with a rented copy of The Great Valley Adventure.

Over the next few months, I greatly enjoyed watching the first six movies (although, my view of The Secret of Saurus Rock has obviously changed since then). They became my childhood favorites, but I have great regret in having never owned a copy of any of them. 

That was until 2002, where we, by random chance, happen to buy a copy of the latest sequel at the time, The Big Freeze. It wasn't until sometime later where I saw parts of The Stone of Cold Fire on TV. However, by the end of that year, my love for The Land Before Time had apparently started to dwindle. We had stopped renting (or buying, in one case) tapes, and never once did we get a DVD of any of them, and my dinosaur movie interest had shifted over to Jurassic Park.

By 2003, after I had taken a small glimpse of The Great Longneck Migration on TV, my interests had taken a completely different turn, and my love for The Land Before Time had seemingly died completely. I distanced myself from LBT for the next 13 years, believing myself to have grown out of it. It was during this 13-year hiatus when I discovered the disturbing story of Ducky's original voice actress, Judith Barsi. However, it wouldn't be until 2016, by which time I was 23, when things would finally change ...

Believe it or not, how I rekindled my love for the series was NOT by watching the first movie again, or the sequels, or even finding out at some point that it had a TV series... Instead, it was fanfiction that brought me back...

In 2013, I became a fanfiction author, and for a few years, I focused mainly on the Donkey Kong Country and Sonic the Hedgehog fandoms, but one day in 2016, curiosity simply got the best of me, and I thought I'd, just for a moment, browse the Land Before Time fandom. That was when I found ... The Swimmer Trials by The Lone Dragon. I quickly found the story so interesting. The idea of Ducky being chosen to do something that no Swimmers are known to have survived was so intriguing that I couldn't take my eyes off my laptop's screen until I got to the end of what was the most recent chapter at the time I discovered it. I then read a few more stories on the fandom, and that was when I found myself looking back at the old memories of watching movies of those lovable characters. In that respect, I owe The Lone Dragon my thanks for bringing me back and rekindling my love for The Land Before Time which I thought I had outgrown. Thanks to you, I realized that I could never outgrow any of my childhood favorites!

In 2017, I started watching the TV series on YouTube, and soon after, I finally started writing my own LBT stories on FanFiction. The first one was simply a ridiculous movie parody which I wonder why I even wrote, but the one after that, "Secret Love," a Ducky x Petrie romance story, became my fanfiction highlight of 2017, even though it clearly shows signs of the fact that I spent years away from the series.  Although "Secret Love" gained good reception on FF.net, I now have an ambition to write an improved version of that story for this forum next year!

Finally, this year, through my connections with the LBT fandom on FF.net, I discovered this wonderful forum where I could talk about LBT without the fear of being looked down upon or shammed just for talking about movies which we are believed should have outgrown, which I believe is absolutely ridiculous. I am happy to have rediscovered my passion for the Land Before Time series, and to have never lost my childhood enthusiasm for dinosaurs, even though I have NO intention of becoming a paleontologist.

I also now have all 14 movies and all 26 TV episodes on my computer, after I tried a couple of other methods of watching the series in secret without my family finding out. I've left them sitting in my videos folder for a few months now, but I hope to, at some point, marathon the entire series so that I can really understand the dinosaur world I've wanted to visit again since my childhood VHS days, and also to see what I've missed out on during my long absence from the series. I've only seen bits and pieces of each movie I didn't watch during my long hiatus, but not enough to fully understand the movies or give a proper review on them. Perhaps, after I've watched the whole series, it will give me a better idea on how to write my planned new version of "Secret Love." Surprisingly, my youngest brother, who is 17 and knows nothing whatsoever about LBT, recently bought me a VHS copy of the first movie, along with "All Dogs Go to Heaven," but we have not yet watched either of them.

So, yeah, that's pretty much my Land Before Time story. I might have had the strangest of all comebacks, but I'm glad it happened nonetheless, and I'm proud to be a LBT fan again as I once was when I was a little boy. 

[Littlefoot505]

Well, here's mine:

I was born in 1998, so I'm a full decade removed from having been able to see it in the theaters. When I was a kid, I really loved dinosaurs (and I still do, actually). and I really wanted to see Jurassic Park, but my mother didn't feel that it was very age-appropriate (I was around 5 or 6 at the time, and I was sheltered from a lot of the more intense movies out there), and told me that there was another dinosaur movie that might be a little bit more age-appropriate called The Land Before Time, then we rented it from Netflix DVDs (back when that was a thing). I saw it and I really loved it, then we rented some of the sequels, and I saw up to LBT 6 before my interest in LBT subsided. I did stumble upon an LBT 4 DVD a few years ago, but sadly, I think I got rid of it not knowing I would get back into LBT .

Fast forward to 2017: I'm browsing Netflix, and I stumble upon LBT 14. Reading the synopsis, I see that there was quite a bit that I missed (like Littlefoot having a father, and there being eight movies I hadn't seen), and that inspired me to get back into LBT. A little bit later in the year, as I'm getting ready to start my first year of college, I started binge-watching the movies, and the interest in LBT was back, and is likely here to stay forever. One little random note: I watched Great Longneck Migration for the very first time the day after the solar eclipse last August, not knowing that it was about all the longnecks going to a solar eclipse.

For the majority of the time I was binging LBT, I hadn't told anyone, and would've died from embarrassment had anyone found out, until I admitted to it on a camping trip I did as part of my college orientation, then I started being more outspoken about my love of LBT, and in fact, after I returned from that trip, I was watching the original and LBT 2 (even though I think the next movie in line at the time was LBT 11 or 12 ) in the lobby of my dorm building, when someone came up, started watching with me, and we quickly became best friends over our mutual love of LBT. I forget exactly when I started watching the TV series in relation to the movies, but I remember watching it on Kisscartoon for a little bit before I found out that it was on YouTube.

When I was almost done with my LBT binge, I started looking for LBT fan sites, and I joined every semi-active one I could find, (including GOF, obviously ), although the only ones I've ever really been active on are GOF, TheLandBeforeTime.org, and the LBT wiki.

[LeventeII]

For this year's anniversary I would like to take the opportunity to tell my complete story about The Land Before Time.

The Land Before Time... I have often wondered whether it has influenced me since childhood.
I didn't have a real "first time" with LBT. It was just one of many movies that kids get to see. When I was still in kindergarten, my father brought me some movies that my cousin didn't need anymore. He is many years older than me. These movies were no longer useful for him. Among these movies were:
-LBT 1
-LBT 2
-LBT 3
-LBT 4
-LBT 6
I don't think I saw them in the right order, at least I couldn't count at that time, especially not read.

I saw only a few other Sequels on TV, including Sequel 9 and 10. I didn't know anything about the others at that moment.
LBT made sure that I got a love for dinosaurs. When I was allowed to choose a school bag for primary school, I immediately chose the one with the dinosaurs on it. In addition there were pencil cases and gym bags. I still use the pencil case since then.

At that time, I was pretty good at Jump'n'Runs, mainly Super Mario. I especially liked Yoshi, who quickly became my favorite character. And why? Because he was a dinosaur. He was the reason I didn't lose interest in Jump'n'Runs. I would even say that I was the best in my class.

At the same time, I started writing stories. Very short, but... creative ones. My first story was about Mario meeting Yoshi in a stable. It was short, but my teacher praised me for it.

In the 3rd grade something small happened, but it is still bothering me today.
In fact, I was glad when I found out that we would be talking about dinosaurs for the next few weeks. Finally I could prove my knowledge!
We were split into groups. My group had the task of writing down the reason why the dinosaurs disappeared.

I explained and wrote down that a giant Meteorite and its consequences was causing it. I am still convinced of this today. However, the others of the group saw this thing differently. "It was a gigantic volcano! Together with earthquakes! Nothing survived!"
I will never forget these phrases. One of the group then took my note and tore it apart. A luck that I don't know anything more about this person today...
So, if since this „trauma“ somehow the topic "death of the dinosaurs" is discussed, whether in conversation, on television or elsewhere, my mood sinks, unintentionally.

This caused a small minus point for my interest in dinosaurs, but not for LBT. On the contrary. My father bought me the remaining LBT cassettes up to Sequel 10. At first I knew nothing about 11 and 12. But 13 was different. I soon saw The Wisdom of Friends on television and, in fact, I was more than impressed! I realized that there are more LBT movies than 10.
And the yellow bellies? Well, I've been in The Gang of Five for 11 months now. It's time to solve my secret at this point... As already mentioned I loved Yoshi more than anything. And the yellow bellies, they reminded me of him. I don't know why. I found them great. Their jokes or even their silly way didn't bother me, after all I was only 10 years old. Back then I was only concerned with the fact that LBT had dinosaurs and something was happening. For this reason, the Sequel that bored me the most back then was actually Sequel 7. It was too much talk for me.

Soon I got LBT 11. As DVD! Something different... What was also special about it was the fact that it was not in German language, like every VHS of LBT I had until then, but in Hungarian! That's my mother tongue, so it wasn't really hard to understand. Nevertheless, my German is much better.

After the 4th grade came the secondary school. In the meantime the dinosaurs and reptiles have moved into the background. The interest disappeared. It even went so far that when someone said "dinosaurs" I thought about Jurassic Park than about LBT. It's not as if I felt it was too childish and therefore no longer concerned with it. Rather, I just forgot it. In the same way I forgot other interest at that time. What remained was the computer and Jump'n'Runs. And of course Yoshi.

My interests were pretty lonely. Everyone else in the new class was playing shooters, disliking strategy games, and unwilling to learn. So they were the opposite of me. That made me an outsider.

I've changed a lot since then. Old interests disappeared and new ones appeared. Including history that had a very strong influence on me.

At the end of 8th grade I wanted to see the Jurassic Park series. Simply because almost everyone I knew had already seen it. I was quite skeptical about Jurassic Park, probably because of Antimainstream. However, I didn't have time to watch them.

A year ago, I was busy every day with history. For my knowledge of history, I am known in the entire class. At that time I was in the 9th grade.  I know a lot about the first half of the 20th century. So I was glad when we discussed this as a topic in history.  About 80% of the class was bored, while only a few were present. For many I am only such a history nerd without hobbies. Some even wrongly describe me as a person without dreams.

And then came the day... On which the course of my life, at least inside, but also outside changed significantly. Unfortunately I don't know the day any more, which I find very sad. I guess it was December 7th. It was the last lesson of the day, physics. Our teacher told something about isotopes. For me it was nothing new, I already knew this topic. The teacher went to a website where one could play around with protons and neutrons. With it one could build different isotopes and see their status.

And miraculously, Pterano came into my head, and with it LBT. I thought nothing big about it. Arriving home, I did my daily routine. In the evening I packed my bag for the next day and talked a little to my sister. Then I remembered that I wanted to google something! So I went on the internet, went to Wikipedia, and read the article about LBT. At first I thought it was funny that I informed myself about it. When I read about the latest sequel, I laughed about the name together with my sister. I mean, the German translation is "The Journey of the Brave Dinosaur Friends."
I laughed, quite strongly even. But somehow... there was something else than mockery. I couldn't get LBT out of my mind anymore. Over the next few days I informed myself more and more about LBT. I read the Wikipedia article about 10 times in the next week.
That about 10 minutes were deleted from the movie, was worth knowing, but not meaningful to me. I pretty much ignored them.

On the weekend, I decided to watch all the sequels I had. From 1 to 11. After the first two sequels I felt strange. It's a feeling I can't describe until today. I can feel this feeling in my fingers and all over my body. And then a feeling of sadness comes up.
On the last day of school in 2017 my friend gave me a DVD of LBT 13. He is the only one I told about my new love for LBT. He told me when I was gambling on the computer: "Well, you know, this thing with LBT doesn't suit you at all". And I can only agree with that. Most people think I'm going into the military because of my knowledge, like playing tank commander. And then comes something like that? That's exactly why only very few people know about my interest in LBT.

I set my record the following week. On one evening I saw Sequel 3, 4 and 5.
Soon came the winter holidays. That was a bit of a problem for me as I knew that we wouldn't have a VHS player until then. I got a little under time pressure, so I saw LBT 10 only a few hours before we left. I could take Sequel 11 and 13 with me as a DVD. Over the holidays I had enough time to watch the DVDs.
Meanwhile I kept myself informed about LBT. I came across a German LBT forum through some websites. Actually cool, I thought to myself, but on the other hand I noticed that nothing had been posted there for years. Even the number of members wasn't very high.
However, there was a reference to a still active forum, which is English speaking. This was the first time I heard about The Gang of Five.

LBT made me get interested in dinosaurs again. Besides history and computers, it's my third big interest that makes me different. But what amazes me the most is that it took me several years for my greatest interest, the history, which is now one of my most important things about me, until it really got to me. Before that it was only a "hobby". In the meantime it has become an important part of my personality.
And then came such an interest, dinosaurs, that didn't suit me at all. And it took only 3 days until it became equal to history for me. Does that mean that dinosaurs and LBT are more important than what I've lived for all these many years?

It may be that for my young age I am not really allowed to write about my life that way. However, I am very sure that LBT has changed a lot in the course of my life, at least in the long-term. Just like the Butterfly Effect.

Besides, I was wondering one other thing. My interest in Jump'n'Runs was because Yoshi is a dinosaur, just like Littlefoot. Does that mean that without LBT, I wouldn't have been playing Jump'n'Runs? Would I never have become a "gamer"? Playing computer games has definitely influenced my life. So if my assumption is true, then LBT has actually changed the course of my life, because without Jump'n'Runs and later through modern games, I would never have gotten interested in history or computers, as I do today.

Where would I be today without all this? Thank you very much for that! LBT has got a very special place in my heart!

[Bruno]

I think the first Land Before Time movie I saw was The Mysterious Island, and in fact some of my earliest memories involve watching it and the other movies in the series. The song "Big Water" is still referenced by my mother, jokingly, whenever we go anywhere close to the ocean or I make a comment related to a large body of water. I remember having my parents buy the different movies whenever we went to Sam's Club as they had the movies back in the late 90s. I can't remember when I saw the first movie, though I know it was early on. I followed the movies a bit a longer than some people, as the last movie I bought was the 11th movie, which came out when I was 9 years old. Following this, my interested faded and I essentially forgot about it until I was 14 when I rediscovered it, though I can't remember how I did.

[StardustSoldier]

I wasn't old enough to have seen the original movie in theaters, but I did see some of the films back in my elementary school days in the 90s. As LeventeII said above, I too didn't have a real "first time" with LBT. I can remember it was a popular series back then and it was just something I happened to get exposed to. In particular, I saw films #1-3 and #5 & 6, but the others I never watched until my adult years. I also remember my family used to own a VHS copy of the original film, but it wasn't until many years after elementary when I saw the film again.

In 2009, a couple or so years after I graduated from high school, I composed a long list of "movies to watch or rewatch," and the original film was on that list. Yet, for some reason, it still took me nearly an entire decade. The film occasionally lingered in the back of my mind, but I just kept not getting around to it. Finally, as the new year was approaching, I started seeing links on Fandom.com to this article discussing the film's 30th anniversary. And this is what inspired me to rent it from my local library. So, come December 2018, and here I am finally watching it one evening at home. By this point, it had been at least 15 years since I last saw it. Maybe even 20 years.

While I could still remember the characters, it had been enough of a time gap that I'd forgotten large chunks of the film itself. The very opening underwater scene and our first shot of the dinosaurs on land were ever-so-vaguely familiar, but most of the rest of the beginning was gone from my memory. I didn't even recall Littlefoot and Cera meeting for the first time, or Sharptooth's first appearance and the subsequent chase and battle.

I did remember the massive tearjerker of Littlefoot losing his mother (which made me cry when I watched it again), and the following scene where he runs into Old Rooter. Those were probably the two scenes that had stayed the most vivid in my mind. There were several other fragmented images I could remember, even if the context around them was forgotten. I remembered the treestar floating down to Littlefoot while he was out wandering alone, seeing his shadow and thinking it was his mother, Cera exploring underground and finding Sharptooth, the fake "Great Valley" the kids discover before the herd of dinosaurs eat up the leaves, and Littlefoot's treestar getting crushed. But that was pretty much it. Even other iconic and emotional scenes like Littlefoot and Cera's fight, or the journey through the volcano with the tar and the boneheads, or the climatic final battle against Sharptooth, I had no recollection of.

What I also forgot was just how good the film was! I knew I liked it as a kid, but it actually resonated with me more as an adult. Watching it again all these years later and I immediately fell in love with it. Things like Rooter's speech are more meaningful to me in light of some of the loved ones I've lost over the years. It might be my favourite animated film of all time now. I enjoyed it so much, it's the very thing that inspired me to join this forum.

About a month-and-a-half after I joined, I got around to watching the sequels as well, both the ones I had seen long ago and the ones I hadn't. I was apprehensive about it initially. However, I loved the characters enough that I wanted to be able to spend more time with them, and I wanted to more openly discuss the rest of the series with the community (and partly just for the sake of completionism), so that eventually motivated me to give them a chance.

The original film is still my personal favourite. Sometimes lightning only strikes once. But I like most of the sequels. Some were better than others, but overall it was a fun marathon and I enjoyed posting my thoughts about them on the forum. As of July 2019, it's only the TV series that I have yet to watch, but I plan to cover that as well.

(Edit: Updated this with a bit more information.)

[Anagnos]

I likewise didn't see the original in theaters, telling the truth, I didn't really see any of the movies in theaters, I just watched them on VHS or DVD later on. Right now those films that I owed are probably in my storage as of this moment, I might go see one day what I can find there, can't remember anymore. 

After that, I just sort of forgot about LBT in general, until I went to vocational college (where I'm still right now) and I just started to watch LBT once more one day when it popped into my head, and it was really great experience after so much time had passed.

I have watched every film, though, so no need to worry about that. However, I did watch Journey of the Brave after some time it was released, I did hear that LBT was coming back, and I thought it was cool, but then I just forgot about it and continued my life forward.

As of now, if I don't have the films anymore in my storage, I'm really interested in buying them online and starting to watch them from the start to finish. I really would like to visit one of my childhood favorites. 

[StardustSoldier]

Where did you get the VHS/DVD copies when you were in vocational college? Did you rent them from somewhere or someone?

[Anagnos]

Where did you get the VHS/DVD copies when you were in vocational college? Did you rent them from somewhere or someone?

Oh, nothing like that. Sorry, you might have misunderstood part of that. I continued to watch LBT online via YouTube or such. I'm sorry if I confused you for a second. 
But I believe I got those from stores over the years when growing up. That's really all I can remember. 

[StardustSoldier]

Oh, okay. Lol, no worries.

[Chomper123]

Well, my story began when i was a bit younger but enough to be a long time fan, there was a store that had the first LBT Movie and so i thought i wonder what this is about, and after i watched it, i felt a warm feeling and the credits, ending song "If We Hold On Together" added to that effect, so i started watching the tv series and sure enough fell in love with it, I've watched the same movies over and over again and still watch it alot to this day, so its felt like a wonderful journey with the gang and i wish it would continue on with more movies which would be amazing and so briefly, thats my story and if anyone felt similar then that is wonderful 

[RainbowFaceProtege]

I suppose it's about time I posted here! My LBT story actually didn't begin with the original movie but with Journey to Big Water. As a dinosaur-obsessed kid, I first saw it soon after it had been released on video. I didn't realize it was the ninth in a series at first (or I probably wouldn't have started there, good thing most of these movies can stand alone), but once I realized there were eight more to collect, I was thrilled! It took me no time at all to gather the whole collection and snap up whatever new movie came out.

I guess this is as good a time as any, though, to admit the embarrassing fact that I was unable to become as attached to the original movie as I've become to the sequels. Why? Because when I was a kid, I lost my videotape of the first movie and didn't get around to replacing it until way later, which meant the other movies got way more watch time out of me. That's the weird reason why I get a lot more nostalgia (and correspondingly, more enjoyment) from the sequels. Now, wait, wait, don't get me wrong! I'm definitely not saying I dislike the first movie, just that it doesn't personally mean as much to me as the others. And I know my reason why is pretty random, but that's just my experience.
The Stone of Cold Fire was always my favorite LBT movie, which isn't really gonna surprise anybody. I had this kids' book about the Roswell incident, so I was already fascinated by the idea of aliens landing on Earth...and when that happened in LBT, I was MIND-BLOWN. You wouldn't think characters with as little screen time as the Rainbow Faces would be such a big deal to a kid, but they sure were to me. I wanted to be every bit as intelligent as they were, and I wouldn't be surprised if the value I place on knowledge today was something I first learned from them back in my childhood. I have no doubts they increased my interest in outer space, too. Of course, these days, I don't much believe in the idea of aliens actually landing on Earth. But Roswell aside, there are plenty of wonders out there that we know exist...not to mention an infinite amount that we don't know.

Anyway, a few years later or so, I began getting into franchises other than LBT. Figuring I was outgrowing LBT (guess I thought I was a big girl ), the movies got packed away for a while. Turned out that didn't last very long, though. I don't even know if two years went by before I discovered my old movies again and decided I wanted to introduce them to a certain @Little Bro. I put on Journey to Big Water, the movie I'd first fallen in love with years ago, and we watched it together. While he enjoyed it, I enjoyed it even more, and I soon began entering a full-blown LBT phase all over again.

Ah, this is where things get interesting...the only LBT movie I hadn't seen at that point was The Wisdom of Friends. Upon first watching it, I was really dumbstruck. I was astonished at how silly they let that movie get, and my first thought was, like many of you, that I wanted nothing to do with it. BUT: a certain goofy little kid I knew thought it was hilarious. That LBT movie soon became one of his favorites, and as I watched it alongside him, the enjoyment I watched him get out of its pure silliness made it grow on me. Objectively speaking, of course, I'm not gonna try to say that The Wisdom of Friends isn't one of the worst LBT sequels, but I don't hate it, either, thanks to Bro.

Then there was the LBT TV series. That definitely felt like a letdown for me during its run. I had expected a lot more from it like a Rainbow Face reappearance, which I'm still annoyed didn't happen, absurdly enough. But these days, I have to admit there were some episodes in there that were quite good...but there were also some I thought were really bad, so overall, my opinion on the whole TV show is just neutral.

By the way, did I mention that LBT was the reason I ended up learning to sew? Somewhere in that second phase, I decided I was gonna make the LBT plushies I'd always dreamed of when I was little. I had official plushies of the main characters, of course, but I wanted MORE! *cough*rainbowfaces*cough* So I started teaching myself to sew by hand, and after several initial failures, I was able to make plushies that I was happy with. (I think Guido was my first success.) Not all my sewing is LBT-related anymore, but I've got LBT to thank for moving me to get started in the first place. (And I'm actually in the middle of a Strut plushie right now...just gotta push myself to finally make the feet and hands, which, let me tell you, are not fun to sew.)

I was disappointed that the LBT franchise stopped after the TV show and Wisdom of Friends, wishing it would have ended on a higher note. You can probably imagine how thrilled I was when news about the movie then called "Journey of the Heart" surfaced years later. It brought back all the feels, setting off a third LBT phase for me. I mean, I went ahead and sewed plushies of Etta and Wild Arms after they appeared in the previews, before the movie had even come out. Once the movie's release was close enough, I even used my computer to set up a countdown to when the movie was going to be released, with a different LBT desktop picture each day for...what was it, 30 days or so? Look, when you get your first opportunity in years to geek out over a new LBT sequel, you don't let it go to waste!
Yeah, at this point, it's pretty safe to say that LBT is always going to be with me. There's no getting rid of it now! I've loved plenty of other shows and things before, of course (and I still do), but my long history with LBT alone will always make it one of the series I hold closest to my heart.

[StardustSoldier]

@RainbowFaceProtege: Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading this. We were overdue for another response to this thread. I also think it's endearing that you watched the series with your brother.

[RainbowFaceProtege]

@RainbowFaceProtege: Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading this. We were overdue for another response to this thread. I also think it's endearing that you watched the series with your brother.

Glad you enjoyed it. I'd been meaning to post something here for ages--finally, I got around to it.

[Goldenwind]

My first introduction to TLBT was through a VHS tape my parents had. I think the first time I saw it was at the shore house and I may have brought it home a couple of times though they're vague memories. I remember the film being breathtaking with it's style and music... I cried everytime watching it (Littlefoot's mom...  ), but it didn't stop me from rewatching the film.

It was also through VHS I saw The Land Before Time 2 and 3. I think I saw 3 first and then 2, though I don't think I missed much as I could get into the 3rd movie just fine. I thought the villains in the 3rd movie were enjoyable as unlike Sharpteeth they were an actual foil to the gang that were still a threat despite being leafeaters and were on equal footing as the gang. I also enjoyed Hyp's song, it sounded like the big bad villain song that makes me want to like the guys while wanting to see them get stopped. I thought trying to combine the conclusion of Mr. Threehorn's arc with that of Hyp and his gang was quite clever. It almost made me prefer the third movie over the first when I saw it long ago.

The Land Before Time 2 is a movie that I also enjoyed, but it was more light hearted in my opinion compared to the other two movies I watched. Really like Chomper's introduction. He would become one of my favorite characters, along with Strut who also made his debut.  I thought it was awesome that Ozzy and Strut were the villains as to me, I thought the ending of the first movie foreshadowed it showing the egg stealer in the ending credits which in itself brought up a idea that would be expanded in this film, the valley, despite being a haven, still has it's own dangers. In the end, however, I still prefer the original and movie 3 over it due to their more serious nature. I am either all in silly or all in action, which is why I like movie 13.    Will say I felt like it would have been perfect that we get to see Chomper with his parents during the movie credits as well as Ozzy and Strut, because I wanted to know what happened to them. 

I don't think it was long after that I would get introduced to the sequels through airings on Cartoon Network. I even saw the TV show when it was first aired. I was immediately hooked on it. Fun fact, when I first saw Chomper in the TV series I was super shocked that 1. he was in the valley and 2. he could talk which blew my mind as I haven't seen movie 5 yet. I need to say I've been wanting a season 2 since I first saw it as a kid. Sadly, I didn't see much of the other movies till I was older, I think I only saw the rest including movie 14 recently. But now that I have, I still wish for the franchise to continue as least for it to cover any loose ends from the TV series and some of the previous sequels (LOOKING AT YOU REDCLAW, THUD, PTERANO, GUIDO, AND RAINBOWFACES!!... Maybe Shorty... Also Saro).

[Sharpely]

When I was around four years old in the early 2000s my grandparents gave us some VHS tapes. One of them was "The Mysterious Island", and at first glance I remember thinking it was some Jungle Book movie because I thought Chomper was a monkey on the cover  So we watch it, and I fall in L.O.V.E. Particularly around the part where they're lost on the outskirts of the ocean and get caught in an earthquake. I'd never seen anything so psychedelic and awesome in a movie before, and it was how I learned how destructive and powerful nature can be in real life. Oh yeah, and the part where they're debating who's going to cross the ocean to alert the adults of their whereabouts and then start singing about how "deep and dark and dangerous" the ocean is? My God, what an awesome sound! Little kid me would play that film on repeat and just wait all excited for that song to come on every time Particularly because I loved how adorable and scared Petrie looked in that scene. At first my favorite character was Littlefoot (because I thought he was a girl and he seemed like the "older sister" of the group), but eventually it became Petrie. His sweet, unique voice and awkward way of talking/moving really drew me to him, and I remember pretending he was real and I was protecting him from all the mean, scary things. I'd make up stories about how Petrie was friends with a little human girl (*cough*yours truly*cough*) and tell them to my mom. I was disappointed to learn that dinosaurs had gone extinct long ago and that I'd never get to play with the Go5 in real life (let alone the part that they're cartoon characters), and I'd bring this up to my parents at unwelcome times. A lot. My dad got frustrated with me and told me that humans couldn't even have survived in the time of dinosaurs. I listened to his spiel, but I still wished I could still have Littlefoot and the others as my friends in real life. For Christmas that year (I was five), my mom gave me a cardboard box. Inside were stuffed toys of the entire gang of five, plus Chomper! I practically screamed, I was so excited. I'd take them outside with me and pretend we were exploring together 
I didn't grow out of LBT until I was around seven. By that time I'd seen most of the subsequent films (originally I'd just had the first one and V, which are still my favorites), but around that time Cera took the place of my favorite character. By now I'd realized she was a girl and not just another dumb, aggressive boy, which I thought was really cool. I started trying to act more like her, which led to me picking fights with my younger siblings a lot more. I thought her dad was cool as well; I had these little triceratops figurines I'd pretend were Cera, her dad and her little sisters I'd made up. But yeah, after that year I moved on to Disney Channel, Pokemon and stuff. Now that I'm an adult, I've accepted that I'll always love this series, both for the nostalgia aspect and for the general style of the whole thing. Plus it has awesome characters