Well, I finally saw an episode of the Land Before Time TV series. Well, I most certainly did not like what I saw. Hoo boy, if this entire series was like this episode I can see why this stinker only lasted one season!

Here goes: For whatever half-baked, insane reason the writers of the series have evidently decided that Petrie is a fanatical worshipper of the frikkin' sun! I'm dead serious. In this episode, Petrie worships "the bright circle" for whatever reason and the others (except Cera, who I agree with for once) just kinda go along with it. It's actually pretty creepy hearing a childhood icon rant on about this celebration like a fanatic. Worse yet, he's actually pretty damn smug about it.
Anyway, Cera thinks the whole bright circle what's it is just a bunch of nonsense (which it is), sense she seems to be the only one who realizes that the sun isn't even a living thing. It reminds me of the conservation about the stars Pumbaa and Timon had in The Lion King, except the one who realizes the true nature of the object in question is shown in a negative light.
Apparently, if your Bright Circle Celebration makes said ball of burning gas happy, you get a longer summer. If not, the Cold Times begin. I would love to know how this little belief even came to be or what exactly constitutes making the sun "happy". The show sure as heck didn't explain it. The entire episode takes place in what looks like the middle of summer, so I have no clue how "failing" the celebration ever caused the Cold Times to come along. Considering that weather conditions alter with each year, the idea of them somehow managing to configure a method to madness is beyond the impossible.
To conclude, freaking meteors strike and almost burn down the valley which somehow culminates in her learning a lesson in respecting others' beliefs! Frankly, I was hoping for Petrie to be knocked down from his high perch.

So, wow. Just wow. In just 23 minutes, they manage to completely derail Petrie's personality as far as I was concerned. You know it's bad when I was spent the entire time on Cera's side, when that was never happened before. On top of that, the atmosphere of the show was so saccharine sweet that it almost felt like watching an old episode of My Little Pony and Friends...or that I was coming down with Diabetes. All the same.

Yeah yeah, I know. I'm 25 and watched a show aimed at children, but keep in mind that this overly sentimental crock came out after Avatar: The Last AirBender] had been on the air for two whole years, so it's not like a successful children's show with depth and edge is an untested concept!

I've seen just a few episodes of the TV series.

No offense to any of you hardcore LBT fans out there, but what I've seen of this TV series was terrible garbage. I much prefer the movies (and not all of those were that great).

Of course, I'm just stating an opinion. If you like the TV series, then cool for you bro! But I'll just stick to the classic Don Bluth masterpiece

I disagree with my previous speakers on the quality of the TV series and the quality of the episode. Yes, it may be banal for some of us, but it makes perfect sense for the dinosaurs to worship the sun as it would make sense for us. Without the bright circle the dinosaurs would die same as mankind would cease to exist within days (and that's an extremely optimist guess) if the sun ceased to exist. The cold time / winter is a constant reminder to the dinosaurs / us of what happens even if the sun is just around for a few hours less each day. Humans who were so much more advanced and sensible than the LBT dinosaurs have worshipped the sun and it seems more fitting for us and for the dinosaurs to worship that which allows for us to live and exist than to worship less "banal" things the way we nearly worship all kinds of weapons of mass destruction. Would you rather have the dinosaurs make a great celebration out of the birth of a being in some 64 million years after their own decease? I reckon that would make much less sense for them and will not go further into this as this is not the place for discussing human religions (we do that in the AM section of the the GOF).
The importance of the sun is not a new thing in LBT either. Does it not make sense for the LBT dinosaurs to pay some respect to the "bright circle" that they followed in the movie that started it all which led them to the Great Valley in the first place? In LBT 8 we see what happens when the bright circle doesn't stay around for as long as it used to and though I personally dislike LBT 10 it is yet another example of how important the sun must appear to the dinosaurs of the great Valley.
The characters Petrie and Cera are not out of character either. Cera has very, very often shown a dismissive attitude about whatever may be important to others because it is her way to put on a tough mask even when in perfectly honest moments she tends to be more interested than she lets on. As for Petrie it is a bit more tricky as he has been inconstant about such matters (e.g. he was skeptic about the bad luck claims in LBT 6 while in LBT 7 he claims to believe "anything"). Shaky though as he has been about such things all along I do not see it as a basis for a claim of him being out of character in the episode.
It has been a very long time that I saw the episode and like most of the episodes I have seen it but a single time only (not for dislike of the episodes but for dislike of watching LBT movies all by myself and also for a certain wish to keep some of the episodes unexplored for more exploaration when no more LBT stuff is likely to be produced) so I cannot get too much into detail about the episode right now. However as far as I'm concerned I don't have a major problem with the idea of the characters having such a "banal" thing as a live aside from saving the Great Valley every single day. I don't have a major problem with seeing just a "normal" day in the Great Valley for a change. In any case I like that MUCH better than the gut ripping massacre kind of stories which almost all LBT fanfictions are which we can find. To all those who do nothing but bitch about the TV series but claim it to be too difficult to write a single LBT story without crossing overs, massacres, and non-LBT stuff being involved I ask how the heck the makers of the TV series then managed to write 26 episodes some of which may not have been as good as others but most of which were higher in quality of story than some of the latest sequels? For the reasons I posted in this thread I really think that the series deserves better than just to be s*** on permanently without any attention being paid to its positive aspects of which there were much more than I had expected when the TV series was announced (as anyone can verify who reads what I wrote in response to the announcement made public in August 2005).

...or that I was coming down with Diabetes.

...and thanks from the diabetic

I'm sorry I'm late with my response.

I can respect that. However, Cera, being far from the brightest of the bunch, had already ascertained the nature of the sun on her own. It is not a living thing, however necessary it is, and she was absolutely right about the celebration having no impact on the weather. Now if the celebration were just to respect to such a necessary element, I wouldn't mind it so much.
In a children's show it bugs me greatly that she was treated as the bad guy for this. Yes, it is a good thing to respect others' beliefs. However, if you know for a fact that the character's beliefs are dead wrong, it kills the impact of the moral.
Also, where did the idea of them celebrating Christmas come from? I never said anything of the sort. My problem with the episode is that Cera was right and she gets the short end of the deal while the validity of Petrie's little celebration is never even brought into question whereas the kids have been challenged to consider and reconsider the world around them in previous installments. The whole thing just seemed too one sided for me in this instance. It always really rubs me the wrong way when a character I know to at least by partially right gets shafted unfairly.

I think the main point was not so much the question of justifying Petrie's superstitions. Unaware as the LBT dinosaurs must be about astronomy Petrie's way of thinking would be a lot more understandable than examples of modern day faith based resistance to facts (e.g. denial of evolution or the like). However, if I recall correctly (and I need to watch it again to be sure about the details) it would have been easy enough to just let Petrie have his fun and otherwise ignore him in a live and let live kind of manner. The intolerance against something that causes no harm is probably the "failure" for which Cera is put in a negative light.
You surely did not bring up Christmas, but I did as it seems like a fitting example. There are many people who are no Christians and for whom celebrating Christmas is more of a family matter rather than a particularly religious one. In this context Cera would be one who tries to to abolish Christmas altogether. While there may be a number of people who would want to do that (on the one hand religious people who don't want to see Christmas so secularized and on the other hand non-religious people who see no basis for it) the huge majority of people would not want to get rid of the celebration for either reason.

I also wouldn't mind the Bright Circle Celebration had the show not just introduced it as a common belief when it has never been mentioned before. While you are right that the importance of the sun is nothing new to LBT, it's also never been worshipped before.

And there are plenty of movies about humans that don't mention Christmas. If something has not been mentioned before it does not rule out its possibility.

The other problem I had with Petrie's portrayal is that he's been fooled by similar falsehoods before, like with his uncle Pterano. After the whole Stone of Blue Fire thing turned to be just that (a stone that just happened to be burning blue), it really doesn't make a lot more sense for him to buy into something so easily a second time. Then again, Petrie is a very innocent personality.

One could either read it as annoying that he is portrayed that way or on the other hand one can read it as "keeping him in character". If you dislike seeing him as the gullible, superstitious, and extremely nervous and fidgety one of the group then there are many episodes which you will definitely not like for these are common traits of him. However as these are common traits in the sequels as well I'm inclined to book it under "keeping him in character" though I will readily admit that there is very little character development in LBT. A problem is that the flaws of characters like Cera or Petrie are very often integral parts for the plots. For that reason they probably cannot allow for them to "get any smarter" without barring many plot possibilities for themselves
The series does not include any "truly epic" stories as the 25 minutes are rarely sufficient to fit an epic in (plus in some cases they are wasting time with songs that wouldn't be necessary and are sometimes an actual pain. They also do make mistakes with the animation (all too often Littlefoot looks kind of square-jawed, and we also get errors such as a Cera with three horns or a Cera (instead of Spike) standing beside her father when she is supposed to be drowning in a river in that scene ). However, there are not many plots as leaky as the ones of the later sequels.
Like I said, there is no "truly epic" story or any that one could not criticize for the one or the other point. I found the episode "Escape from the Mysterious Beyond" kind of interesting though. "The hermit of black rock" also had some interesting ideas. I hope, not for any pleasure of "convincing" you, but rather because it would be more pleasant for you too, that you will find something enjoyable in at least some of the episodes WR

There are several episodes too in which Petrie's gullibility and superstitions are disproven. Examples for this would be "The Canyon of the shiny stones" and "The meadow of jumping waters".

The word "disproven" was poorly chosen I think as it is very ambiguous. It was not meant to say that he was not gullible or superstitious in the said episodes (he certainly is) but that his superstitions are not presented as justified or anything but coincidents.

Well, believe it or not but this episode is a lot better than many other episodes. True, Petrie is acting funny like in some other episodes but, like Malte pointed out so long ago, it's actually logical for Petrie (and dinosaurs in general) to have such a sort of belief. The episode, in my opinion, kept characters in-character. Petrie being the gullible guy he always is, Cera being stubborn (but eventually giving in which is typical of her... hard shell, soft heart) and the rest of the bunch, while not being on the focus much, are also kept in-character. The songs... The song by Cera and Topsy was alright... for a tv-series song anyway "I feel so happy" is in every second episode anyway... but why not? I mean, why ranting about something you can't change anyway? Enjoy what you get That's how I see it.
In that regard, I'm happy that the series has been made in spite of the obvious flaws of it.

So yeah, I liked the episode though it wouldn't end up very high in comparison to some other episodes.