Hi!
It's not fantasy I'm oposing. Yet I think there is an important difference; one ought to draw a line where fantasy ends and indolence of the story tellers begin. For indolence it is if they don't bother at all to make their stories conform with the previous movies.
I think there is a tollerable amount of unrealistic story elements. In LBT 9 for example Petrie could have certainly crossed the landbreak by just flying a little higher. In movies like LBT 10, 8 and partly LBT 7 however they story tellers avoid problems by just creating a world in which a sharptooth will be defeated by a longneck kid crawling under its food. They also created an image of the world in LBT 1 which was just false. They avoided almost all the conflicts and problems that would have made a good story.
To me the land before time is not just a cartoon for Pete's sake, and because I care very much about LBT it makes me sick to see how they change it for the worse.
When I'm talking of LBT 10 in particular it is because I consider that one the worst of all. Like I said there are quite questionable elements in LBT 8 and 7 too. In LBT 8 they roll a snowball down a mountain and even though he is much closer to it Mr. Thicknose is able to step out of the way, while the sharptooth just stands there watching the snowball untill it hits him.
In LBT 7 it was the leaving of the rainbowfaces in particular that bothered me. I know that you are less demanding than I am concerning keeping non LBT like elements such as aliens or humans out of LBT.
As for your claim that I can't look at a movie anymore if there is one flick that is under par in my opinion, you will find that all the problems I have with LBT 10 makes quite long a list of flicks. You'll also find that I'm not rioting against LBT 7 and 8 even though there is more than one flick that is under par in my opinion. So I don't think that this reproach is really fustified.
If movie makers need to make crap movies in order to be successful later on I'd prefer them not to make crap LBT movies, and as Mr Grosvenor created some really good sequels already, I don't think that this is the reason for the decreasing quality of the sequels anyway.
As for how I'd like an LBT movie to be made the answer is quite simple and in a way it was given already. If all the negative points I listed about LBT 10 were avoided in a land before time sequel, I'm quite confident that it would be a pretty good one. Sometimes not even an elaborate storyline is necessary to make a good story. The plot of LBT 9 for example was actually quite simple and yet the movie itself was really good in my opinion.
If you've read my critics of LBT 10 countless times I as you say I find it a bit strange though that nevertheless you claimed that no reasons for my dislike of LBT 10 were given. And with the problems being addressed like that I really don't think that this is to be considered moaning for the sake of it. I did say WHY I have problems with the scenes I always criticize.
I'm going to quote some pessages of my earlier land before time critics and underline the parts where I made direct suggestions on how it could have been done better:
Some of the characters in a way act very different from the way one would expect them to act after seeing the previous nine movies. There are for example Littlefoot's grandparents, and the whole thing about the dream that makes all dinosaurs head for they don't know where. They didn't explain it long enough. From the other movies we know Littlefoot's grandparents as very careful characters (just think of any scene when there is talk about the Mysterious Beyond), yet in the movie their decision two leave the Great Valley (just two old longnecks and a kid) appears almost rashly. I'm sure these dreams were something important enough if we had been told a bit more about it. It would have been time for a "some things you see with your eyes others you see with your hard"-type of message. Maybe they could've even included something more than dreams by just making the legend Pat told a bit just a little more known.
Also when Littlefoot’s grandfather tells him that Bron is his Dad it appears almost tactless. Of course there is no use in tarrying around too much, but just telling somebody, who doesn't even know he has a Dad, in this straight from the shoulder way, that it is the very one in front of him doesn't seem to be very sensitive. Littlefoot’s grandparents didn't even try to get a word with Bron before telling Littlefoot about it.
And Cera, Ducky, Petrie and Spike too did act strange I think. The scene when Littlefoot is unsure about what to do, going with his Dad, or returning home the Great Valley, is the emotional climax of the movie. Cera's, Ducky's, Petrie's and Spike's behaviour sure is very considerate towards Littlefoot (making things not harder for him than they are) but it's much too quick much too rational. They are so close friends of Littlefoot that I would expect them to be shocked at first at the idea of him leaving. They didn't shed tears they hardly stopped smiling. They didn't make the slightest attempt to convince Littlefoot to stay with them. After all this the understanding that it is a choice Littlefoot has to make and that one mustn't try to influence him because of the own interests would have been more realistic. If I found a friend like Littlefoot, a friend with whom I have gone through many things (I suppose we would not exactly be running from sharpteeth together, but still there is enough in this world that can forge people together), if I found somebody so precious to me I sure would react more emotionally at the view to be separated again (emotionally mainly in personal grief).
I was not too fond of the solar eclipse because they made it somewhat unrealistic. They showed the moon as a black circle long before it even came in front of the sun and the colouring of the sky too appeared almost as if a solar eclipse the way it is is not spectacular enough. I experienced a solar eclipse in august 1999 and memorized my impressions. It was amazing. The eclipse could be felt before one saw it. The air became chilly. There was no sudden shadow falling whose edge one could see, but the light became twilight and finally darkness when the moon moved before the sun...
As for the animation they have the habit to tinge the sky red almost always when there is danger since LBT 5. I didn't like this, but it's not too bad. However, this habit had a "tragic" climax in LBT 10 that gave me a real shudder. Not only the sky, but also the landscape, my goodness, even the characters turned red! I really hated that! (I guess this is clear enough to be understood as a suggestion to keep this red tinging in case of danger out of the LBT movies)
Unlike most other people I do not like the new 3D animation very much, at least not all of it. There are elements created by the computer which fit very well to the hand-drawn characters or landscapes. The water in LBT 9 for example looked great. However, much of the photo realistic pictures to me looks almost as if it had been taken from a different movie and just "inserted" into LBT (the mossy tree-branch Littlefoot climbs up for example).
What probably upset me most was the way they showed past events. They didn't seem to mind what happened in LBT 1 at all! Where were Bron and Littlefoot's mother (whom they did not even bother to make similar to the way she looked in LBT 1?) in a lush green place! Are they implying that all the leafs died all of a sudden once Bron left? He didn't seem to have heard about the Great Valley ever before (otherwise he would have known that it was the purpose of his wife). And even if he did not know about the Great Valley before he left (which presupposes that Littlefoot's mother and his grandparents had very suddenly made up their mind to go there and not bother any longer about Bron) he sure could have heard about it elsewhere (LBT one quote of Littlefoot: "My mother said its were all the herds were going). The LAND before time has changed a lot since the first movie, and of course I see the necessity of revising the point that the Great Valley was the last lush and green place in the world (I don't think it would have been possible to write many good stories if they were always bound to the Valley), but meanwhile it has been almost totally de-enchanted. They really seem to forget how the LBT characters came to the Great Valley in the first place. People who try to make it a continuous story seem to be a dying out species... (Here too it is quite easy to conclude how I'd rather have it.)
Also the realism of the story was partly very poor. Shorty tripped a grownup sharptooth by crawling under its foot while it was walking backwards. Just remember the sharptooth in LBT one. What do you think would have happened if a longneck had crawled under its foot? That’s right! And that is why young longnecks should not deliberately crawl under a sharptooth's foot. And when the thing with the stones, I really don't think that any of the LBT characters is strong enough to kick or hurl a stone, large enough to do more than bothering a sharptooth, over such far a distance. And a sharptooth tripling about a few little stones thrown in front of his feet, really that must be either extremely smooth and slippery stones or an extremely clumsy sharptooth. The sharpteeth in LBT 10 were for my opinion almost reduced to a ridiculous entertainment for the young dinosaurs. Just compare these sharpteeth with the one in the original movie, or (if we don't want to look back that far) with the swimming sharptooth in LBT 9. When Bron fought one of the sharpteeth the sharpteeth bit him in one leg, but Bron didn't seem to receive any wound or anything. They could have made something really great and emotional of that scene (think about it, Littlefoot saw his mother being killed by sharptooth and now he sees his newly found Dad fighting with and being wounded by a sharptooth!) They could have really shown a bit more emotion from Littlefoot, but his reaction was nothing different from several similar scenes throughout the other sequels (in LBT 2 and 6 for example).
And generally we learned very, very little about Bron. I would have a hard time if I was given the task to write a characterization of him that consists of more than general phrases (he is brave, he is strong, he is nice... etc.). Of all the new characters in the movie Bron seems to be the most colourless one to me. (Again, stating the problem here makes the solution rather self-evident)
Looking at this I really think that it is unfair to claim that I wouldn't make any suggestions on how they should do it! This text certainly isn't mere whining!
