The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => Land Before Time TV Series (2007) => Episode Discussion => Topic started by: Noname on January 28, 2007, 12:48:03 PM
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I thought it was good, but we missed something that happened in the twelth movie. It appears that Tricia's birth may have made "Topsy" become less harsh and more tolerant (he's definitely changed since the first movie.) Also, I wondered what would happen if a character got injured in some way... although this injury is much more slight than I had in mind.
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I thought it was a boring episode. It seemed like filler - nothing really happened. There wasn't a lot of character development. No huge event that happened. Just the gang running on logs for 22 minutes. It's nice to know that the gang can actually get injured. I kind of miss the days when there was actual violence, too (Doc vs. T. Rex, Chomper's parents vs. the Giganotosaurus, Littlefoot's mom vs. T. Rex)...and I didn't really like how Cera's ankle was instantly healed, either. I did notice that Cera's dad was far less harsh than in the movies. I hope he doesn't stay that way.
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I know... not much happened. Still, one can't expect there to be a major event for all 26 episodes (in the first season, anyway.)
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That's true...but I would like it if things weren't solved over the course of an episode.
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It was an ok one. There wasn't really anything going on except the log running game. And for the first time, we see one of the little dinos get injured! I think this calls for a toast :lol
And of course one of the gang is in danger right towards the end. I thought it was weird the way Topsy couldn't even budge the big boulder on his own, but when Littlefoot and Spike helped him, the thing easily tipped. I mean come on :p
Also, I noticed too that Topsy has softened up alot, heh.
And I agree with your last post Ratiasu. It would be better if there was a large journey that extended over the course of about 4 episodes or so.
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-toasts- Hurrah for injury!
...Ahem. In any case, I wondered about the boulder thing, too. I thought it was strange that that happened...and that Mr. Threehorn (I refuse to call him Topsy) could bash his head straight into the thing without getting one of his brow horns snapped.
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Isn't it strange that we should cheer injury? Maybe if we're "lucky", someone will break a bone; remember, at least some, (if not all) dinosaurs had hollow bones. Actually, that could make for good drama; it's something that they would have for at least several episodes and would make any task harder, thus increasing the odds without having to come up with a coincidential situation. Chances are, we probably won't see another injury for a while, if at all.
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Isn't it strange that we should cheer injury?
Heh, yea I know, it was kind of a joke :p
Yea that would make for an interesting twist if one of the gang was injured severely.
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I noted that what was used to help heal Cera's ankle was treestars. Littlefoot's mother did say that treestars were very special. For quite some time, we only saw them as a food source to help Littlefoot and the gang grow strong.
But who knew that they could speed the healing process of certian injuries?
I think by itself, Cera's ankle would've taken at least two eps to heal. We knew them to be special, we just didn't know how special they truly were. :)
And Action, expect the new songs sent to you by tomorrow morning. I'm having trouble figuring out the titles of these, "just there" songs. <_<
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I don't think the leaves healed anything; Cera's ankle is still hurt later in the episode. I guess the leaves acted as an ersatz bandage... or something. I don't know. The animators must have had a hard time trying to show a sign of injury. Note that we see leaves over Ducky and Spike in the sixth movie; after they were stung by bees.
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I'm sure there are certain degrees to how bad you can sprain your ankle. Her's could've just healed right away.
I don't really believe the leaves healed anything. Unless there's literally some magical force inside the treestars, it's not really possible. But it's still cool to think about :p
Mr. Threehorn (I refuse to call him Topsy)
Heh, I was actually wondering why everyone just started calling him Topsy. Tria's really the only one that does call him that, but he's just so much better known as Mr. Treehorn. Topsy just doesn't sound right.
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An old healing process consists of gathering some leaves and rubbing them on a wound, never seen it applied to an ankle injury.
I agree, with the idea of some big event taking up multiple episodes, I believe this will happen, in most series there are at least 2 or 3 major events that take more than one episode per season. Speaking of which, do you believe that land before time series will have more seasons?
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I don't see why there woulden't be more than one season, especially if the series has a good deal of viewers. It seems that Universal is optimistic about it, especiallyin ligh tof their recently redone website.
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I think there will be more seasons, especially, as Noname pointed out, because they took to the time to re-do the website. But for some reason I expected there to be an entirely different website for the TV series.
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I don't think the leaves healed anything; Cera's ankle is still hurt later in the episode. I guess the leaves acted as an ersatz bandage... or something. I don't know. The animators must have had a hard time trying to show a sign of injury. Note that we see leaves over Ducky and Spike in the sixth movie; after they were stung by bees.
I shall counter this easily with two special notes.
1. Spike had to assist her back home. He used his tail as a crutch for Cera's ankle. This indicates that her ankle was so badly damaged, it hurt move it even the slightest.
2. Mud was applied to her ankle to keep the treestars where they were applied. This indicates that mud was used as a bandage. The treestars were just applied there, they weren't wrapped around the wounded area like that of Ducky and Spike.
With this information, we see that the treestars actually did help in quite a unique way.
Besides this, why else would Tria say, "These will ease the pain." when she applied them?
Oh look! A third point that I forgot about until now. Hee! :p
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I thought it was a boring episode. It seemed like filler - nothing really happened.
Totally agree! The episode with the lava is my fave so far. :lol
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Which is the Episode with Lava?
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I think at least 1 of them is the Canyon of Shiny Stones.
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Cool, then that one's next on my "to-watch" list. Thanks Kor!
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I liked how Cera's little sister wound up being better at swimming then Cera is. :lol
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The great log running game is another of the six episodes I saw last year already, but I don’t think I wrote about it back then.
The initial scene has Tops in the role of a somewhat clumsy “gentleman” as which we have seen him in LBT 11 already. The point may be arguable, especially with regard to the other things he says / does in this episode, but I still think one might count it as an example that he is not only the jerk as which some of you see him. I thought so much about Tops for a story that I doubt my view of him is “objective”, but with all his mistakes I don’t really believe that he can be reduced to the “jerk” as which he comes across in some of the episodes. Also note that he is making a little fun of himself and perhaps even about his “threehorns are best at anything” statement when he says about Tricia: “I’m glad someone believes me.”
Tria is so untouched by all that threehornism (Cera: “I’m a threehorn” Tria: “That’s what I’m afraid of”) that I’m wondering about her bringing up. She must have known Cera’s father before the original movie, which suggests that she had been in the lands that turned into the wastelands of the original movie. We saw the less hostile ways of different kinds interacting with each other only in the Great Valley and among herds of farwalkers who are likely to visit lush and green places frequently (thereby minimizing competition for food or other potential causes for rivalry). Is it possible that Tria was lucky to never get into a situation that broods the kind of racism shown by many threehorns? Or is it possible that her parents were extremely liberal? I don’t think we will ever know or be able to prove any theories, but she is certainly more easygoing than we might expect threehorns to be (not that this is a new realization. She already was more easygoing when she first appeared in LBT 11).
The episode is the first case I know in which the characters refer to their difference as four- respectively two-“fooders”. I find it interesting to see Ducky being very good at something, being well aware of it, and showing a playful kind of competitive spirit about it, challenging Chomper.
They translated a human idiom (what was the English version of it?) to dinosaur talk: “Don’t count your hatchlings before they hatch”. I think it might be very interesting to translate human idoms into dinosaur talk. We have had other words and phrases from human talk being translated into dinosaur talk before, but long idoms are more interesting. Picking up a “human” idioms dictionary and try to translate them into dinosaur talk may perhaps be an idea for a new game in the party room (funny how an episode about a game might give ideas about a game in the GOF ;)).
There are some somewhat strange phrases in the German translation. Not for the first time Littlefoot says “Das kannst Du knicken” which litteraly means “You can flex that” and is an idiom meaning so much as “no way” or “forget about it”. The use of the phrase sounds a bit strange as the phrase is probably a kind of temporary fashion used by few people. Perhaps it is fashionable among school children at the moment and they are trying to make the characters use their language so to speak.
Another funny thing about the German translation is that once Cera calls her dad “Papsy”, which I suppose is meant to be a “pet name” derived from “Papa”, but it sure sounds very much like “Topsy” and we know how much Cera likes that name.
The episode also reveals that Tricia, though unable to talk herself, is understanding even complex things “you bring some nice soothing mud and put it on the hurt”.
We saw Spike bringing down a tree for the log running game and Littlefoot asked him to do it rather than felling the tree himself. Is it possible that Spike is the strongest of the group? I don’t think it really matters, but usually we perceive him as a glutton while his “volume” may also provide him with more strength than Littlefoot or Cera.
As for bringing down trees, we saw Tops bring down several on his way to help Cera. Though it didn’t seem to slow him down it is a rather strange thing to do while one is in a hurry. Also I wonder if it wouldn’t provoke some protests from other dinosaurs if trees are being “senselessly slaughtered” like that. The dinosaurs are well aware of how long it takes for a tree to grow to a respectable size and I don’t suppose they would bring them down for the fun of it (at least not too often).
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We saw Spike bringing down a tree for the log running game and Littlefoot asked him to do it rather than felling the tree himself. Is it possible that Spike is the strongest of the group? I don’t think it really matters, but usually we perceive him as a glutton while his “volume” may also provide him with more strength than Littlefoot or Cera.
I was wondering about this. It surprised me Littlefoot did not help Cera walk back home, as he is the most protective of his friends. Perhaps Spike is stronger than him? I guess it would be difficult to fully bear another individual's weight along with one's own weight :rolleyes:.
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It seems that Spike is the strongest, for now, though eventually Littlefoot will be. Though this may not be till sometime during their fast growth time (teenage years in human terms).
It does seem wasteful to knock down trees as often as Threehorn does. And knocking down a lot of tree sweets since his mate (never can remember which is her name and which is the hatchling) or Cera wants just 1 treesweet. He has gone on often how wasteful other dinos are but he seems to be among the most wasteful of them. Along with maybe the domeheads (at least seen in the bitten into, vanishing, tree sweets around their feet seen during Cera's mad song. In which they vanish also.)
It seems likely that her parents were more open minded then Threehorn's parents. Maybe a reason Threehorn and she lost contact. Their parents may have had some sort of fight or something and the moved away somewhere.
To bad no one is brave enough to ever call Threehorn on that threehorns can do anything (including fly like Petrie or his mother can?) or how wasteful he is if he mentions how wasteful others are.
It does make sense that 4 footers may be best a certain things and 2 footers at certain things. Neat that Ducky discovered a skill she had and made up a new game.
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Not to mention the animators screwed up on the part where they missed and draw Cera next to littlefoot instead of Spike. Not only that Topsey was telling Cera bunch of crap on how threehorn can do anything if they set their mind to do it, later he said something completely different. Seriously if Topsey Knew if somethings weren't meant to be than why did he correct himself sooner instead of put all the wrong on Cera? :mad the nerve of him.
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I doubt he can admit that he is wrong and that there are certain things that threehorns can't do. Though there would be certain things, & he never seems to learn or if he does he quickly forgets so they can repeat the lesson at a later time.
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Well, this episode was basically okay. Nothing that surprises or excites me and nothing that annoys me so it should be fine :)
The Log Running Game was actually quite funny to watch and Cera's situation was somewhat amusing :smile.
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I thought it was a boring episode. It seemed like filler - nothing really happened. There wasn't a lot of character development. No huge event that happened. Just the gang running on logs for 22 minutes. It's nice to know that the gang can actually get injured. I kind of miss the days when there was actual violence, too (Doc vs. T. Rex, Chomper's parents vs. the Giganotosaurus, Littlefoot's mom vs. T. Rex)...and I didn't really like how Cera's ankle was instantly healed, either. I did notice that Cera's dad was far less harsh than in the movies. I hope he doesn't stay that way.
Yeah, I agree. On one hand, I think it's good for a series to have lower-key episodes sometimes. And the log running game was an interesting concept, at least, but the episode itself was a little dull.
And of course one of the gang is in danger right towards the end. I thought it was weird the way Topsy couldn't even budge the big boulder on his own, but when Littlefoot and Spike helped him, the thing easily tipped. I mean come on :p
Agreed here too. And for that matter, why didn't Topsy back up and take a running charge at it? Surely that would've helped.
And I agree with your last post Ratiasu. It would be better if there was a large journey that extended over the course of about 4 episodes or so.
Once again, I agree. Having a story arc unfold across multiple episodes would be nice to see.
Isn't it strange that we should cheer injury?
Heh, yea I know, it was kind of a joke :p
Yea that would make for an interesting twist if one of the gang was injured severely.
Agreed x4.
I felt bad for Cera. The episode had a good moral message, but still, I kinda wanted to see her figure out a way to participate in the game. Likewise, it annoyed me that Topsy was the one who got Cera going in the first place by giving her that egocentric speech and song about how threehorns can do everything and anything. :rolleyes Although at the end, he seemed to realize that he was somewhat accountable.
More great dialogue:
Ducky: "First, you get on the log. This is the hard part. Then, you stand up. This is the harderer part. Do not fall off. The harderest part is next. Now, you start running on top of the log. The fasterer the betterer. Now I am going faster and fastester."
Tria: "Remember Topsy; you were young once too."
Topsy: "I was? ... Huh."
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Saw the episode again today. Although I don't really have much to add beyond what I said last time. The one scene that I did think was cute and touching was the way Cera and Topsy look at each other silently after he rescues her from the river and lifts her up.
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Alright, I guess that's it then. See you guys at the next episode. :P
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Like others have said, not terribly much to comment on here, but I do really like how, despite Topps' continued threehorn superiority complex and temperamental nature, his relationship with Cera is far, far more outwardly affectionate compared to say, LBT III. Don't know if it's necessarily intentional development from that point, but I enjoy it nonetheless.
Also interests me that Littlefoot just kind of intuitively knows that only bipeds can take part in log running. I would think that would take some trial and error before the physics became clear to our dino crew, and I can't think of any other instances where the gang had to run on a log or something similar. It wouldn't be so strange to me if Littlefoot wasn't so specific about why only two-footers can log run. If he'd just been vague like "I don't know if I'd feel safe doing what Ducky's doing", it might have been less puzzling.
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Agreed. I've really enjoyed seeing the progression of their relationship as well. :)