In Defense of the Cool Gray Sharptooth

[Hypno]

Here is the second "In Defense of" blog post that Logo has made.

This is the second blog post in what is essentially a new series I am starting in which I delve into some of the most hated characters in TLBT to determine if they really deserve the hatred they get from the fandom. To be clear, this blog is not an attempt to force any readers into liking the character in question. This is just an attempt to tone down the sheer hatred of many characters, something I really should have mentioned in my Red Claw blog post. The subject of this post is the Cool Gray Sharptooth, one of three Tyrannosaurus assailants from the tenth film.

Unlike the hatred of Red Claw or the Yellow Bellies (who will be covered in the next blog post), the hatred for the Cool Gray Sharptooth appears to be much more recent. The Sharptooth's first appearance is after the Gang, sans Littlefoot, have escaped from the Belly Dragger and are resting against a boulder. The next morning, they find out that the boulder is the Sharptooth, who promptly wakes up and begins to chase them. The gang hide in a cave, with the Sharptooth arriving at the entrance. He is strangely unable to smell them and proceeds to continue to run forward, believing that they were still running ahead of him. The Sharptooth was likely unable to smell them due to the size of the cave in question. The cave is seen as extremely small next to the Sharptooth. It is unlikely that much smell could come out of an opening that small, particularly when the Sharptooth didn't even look at or put his nose to the cave. He likely had no clue the cave was even there.

However, the core reason why he is hated is his failure to crush Shorty, a much smaller Longneck, under his foot during the battle at the climax of the film. In the scene, Shorty runs beneath the foot of the Sharptooth, who is already stumbling down the cliff, and pushes the Sharptooth's foot over his back to trip him and send him crashing into the Orange-Brown Sharptooth below. Upon watching the clip again, it is clear that the reason the Sharptooth doesn't crush Shorty is that he is not putting his full weight on him. The Sharptooth has one of his feet on the ground, while the other is only touching the ground by the toes. That means that the weight of the Sharptooth is concentrated on the completly grounded foot and the toes of the raised foot, not the back of the raised foot. Due to this, Shorty is easily able to support the little amount of weight. This also explains why he is so easily tripped, as he not only doesn't have good balance on the cliff but also doesn't have good weight distribution.

My final point is not just about the Cool Gray Sharptooth, but also encompasses the three X Sharpteeth as a whole. Many fans criticize how the three flee as soon as the eclipse arrives. A solar eclipse is an extremely rare phenomenon, one that likely had never happened in any of these Sharpteeth's lifetimes until the film in question. A sudden event that these animals had never seen before coupled with the removal of much of the visible light (the solar eclipse makes the scene instantly darker the moment it shows up) would eaisly scare away even the most hungry Sharptooth.

In conclusion, the Cool Gray Sharptooth doesn't deserve the hate he gets, as he was defeated by a technicality of weight distribution. This blog post was a lot shorter than the Red Claw one, as the Cool Gray Sharptooth only appears twice in a single film, which doesn't give me much to work with. However, I believe that I have found the definetive answer to explain the Cool Gray Sharptooth's actions in X, and it's all down to science.

(Also, if he really is the Sharptooth from the opening of XIV, he may or may not have redeemed himself. We don't know if he killed the Stegosaurus in the opening, so it is open to debate.)

Any thoughts? Did this change your views on the sharptooth?

[Sneak]

still have the same opinion.
They could bring muuuch more treat and wounds to characters. But failed.

[Sovereign]

I never hated that particular sharptooth even if he wasn't much of a thrill in the film. It isn't hard to accept Logo's points about tripping him or their fear of the eclipse. It doesn't take much to fell a large sharptooth already struggling keep his balance and it's surprising that the main characters weren't afraid of the rare phenomenon themselves. Even then, the gray sharptooth never offered major threat and everything about him was just lackluster. I don't hate him though and I haven't heard major controversy regarding that villain either. He's as average as a LBT predator can go.

[Hypno]

People on the wiki seem to consider him as just as bad as Red Claw, I don't know :

[Dr. Rex]

While I admit that I was pretty confused about the way the Cool Gray Sharptooth was defeated, and ticked that the action sequence got so unceremoniously interrupted by the solar eclipse, I didn't see a really big problem with either. It's just a cartoon movie, and I've definitely seen worse.