The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => 1988 Theatrical Release => Topic started by: WeirdRaptor on November 24, 2004, 11:15:03 PM
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Well, sure, it gave him a reason to keep going, so his circle of life could someday be complete, but do you think he could have made it without her death. You know, if she'd just simply got stuck on the other side of the divide?
Just a simply question.
Edit: The title actually was supposed to say "Was it altogether necessary for Littlefoot's mother to die".
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I'm quite sure that if Littlefoot's mother had survived and just ended up on the other side of the the divide, Littlefoot would've taken every effort to get to the Great Valley, not only because of the Valley, but also in order to see her again. One remarkable thing by the way is, that Cera did "talk" to her parents on the other side of the divid (calling them at least), while Littlefoot apparently didn't.
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Well, had she not passed on into dino heaven, there would've been no film and we wouldn't be having this discussion because Littlefoot would have never learned what he did by meeting and becoming friends with other species. ;) So if his mother was still alive he'd be open to all those prejudices about other species that she had grown up with.
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Littlefoot was with his mother just before the break you see with Cera. Cera runs towards her parents before the break and Littlefoot at this time is with his mother and the final push pulled them apart till the sence in the rain seeing his mother die.
-Threehorn
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True. Very true, guys.
It was just an interesting idea I had
Oh and Arvens: Spielberg, Lucas, and Bluth would still have figured out a way to have a film. They don't call them "filmmaking geniuses" for nothing, you know? Plus, don't you ever notice how Littlefoot's Grandparents changed their views of the prejudice somewhere between the original and the sequels. Littlefoot's mom was intelligent, I think. I think that her getting used to being with other types of dinosaurs could have been an interesting sub-plot somewhere down the road.
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I actually don't think Littlefoot's grandparents had much of a choice...many were travelling to the Great Valley so they all were probably together for some time and they learned to like each other along the way. *shrugs* It would've been much harder to make the story work the way it did with Littlefoot's mother there. Littlefoot needed the reliance of other species to make it to the Great Valley...had that need not been there, it's possible he might not have made it.
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Right, and with his mother and grandparents on theother side of the divide. He would have done the same thing. After all, Ducky and Petrie were willing to set aside differences almost right away. Plus, Littlefoot is the inarguably the most intelligent of that group, and he really didn't like the idea of species segregation, anyway.
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My version of how the herds came together would be, that it was the great earthquake (which made no differences among kinds when it tore herds and families apart), which mainly made the different kinds move togerther on their migration to the Great Valley (as shown in LBT 7).
As for the flyers, I think that they may have been sort of a special case, not as much into this segregation thing. Here are two short excerpts from the prologue of my current LBT story Old Threehorns which deal with this. As for the flyers:
One exception by this segregation; an exception Tritus took by himself always as a proof that his thoughts were right; were the flyers. Most dinosaurs didn’t really count the flyers as dinosaurs at all as they had so few in common with them. The flyers didn’t avoid any other kind of dinosaurs. That was not because they hadn’t had this feeling of superiority of the own kind when they flew high up looking down at that giant lizards, that seemed to be so clumsily compared with themselves, but because the flyers had learned that they could profit from the walking dinosaurs and these could profit from the flyers. A flyer who could tell the walkers about the terrain around, about other herds nearby or who could even warn of dangers ahead like sharpteeth was welcome by the herds of the walking dinosaurs. On the other hand the flyers gladly shared their knowledge about the environs with those walking dinosaurs for they knew that this would gain them a save sleeping place among the bigger dinosaurs, something that couldn’t be underrated in the waste lands where sharpteeth were hunting even at nights and easily could catch a sleepy flyer who hadn’t chosen a resting place within a herd of walking dinosaurs or on a tree high enough to be out of a sharpteeth range in its top, but those trees had become rare in the waste lands. Sometimes the flyers even got a share of food if the herd had found some. But there was another thing the dinosaurs exchanged with the flyers; news. Herds told the flyers of what they had seen, heard or experienced and the flyers would tell it the next herd they would reach and that herd could be of a different kind than the one where the flyer had spend the night before. Thus news, tales and rumors were kind of common possession among the herds although they varied and changed very much when they were spread by the flyers among the herds. However, one tale was told more and more frequently in the waste lands and the tale hardly altered although it soon became the most often told story of all. It was the tale of the Great Valley.
And as for the aftermath of the big earthquake:
And there in this terrible desolation and hopelessness Tritus old ideas were realized. The earthquake hadn’t made any difference between the kinds of dinosaurs. Herds and families of longnecks, spikedtails, clubtails, thornthumbs and even flyers were torn apart as well as those of threehorns. The common misery brought them all together and in this worst of all times they finally found they had the same purpose; to reach the Great Valley and to life on; and that their chances to reach this purpose would be better if they stuck together now.
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I don't quite see how that effects littefoot and the others while separated from them, but okay.
If there is anything that looks unkind in the above comments, I meant no offense.
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You are perfectly right about this having no direct effect on Littlefoot and the others. However, the prologue of the the story is more focused on the characters I invented myself, one of whom is a grownup from whose point of view the prologue is told. The only of the maincharacter mentioned in the prologue is Cera.
But in a sense one could say that this unification of the herds (including the grownups) is similar to what Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike experienced.
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Right, and with his mother and grandparents on theother side of the divide. He would have done the same thing. After all, Ducky and Petrie were willing to set aside differences almost right away. Plus, Littlefoot is the inarguably the most intelligent of that group, and he really didn't like the idea of species segregation, anyway.
Hmm...no guarantees she would've been on the other side since she was with Littlefoot through much of the earthquake scene whereas the grandparents were clearly not. True, Ducky and Petrie were indifferent to spicies--they were just looking for friends...any friends.
Malte, that is an excellent response. In times of peril they all come together regardless of status, class, race etc. It has happened before (i.e. 9/11) so you do prove a point there.
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Arvens, it was a movie. It IS guaranteed that she would have been on the other side of the divide.
Plus, just like Littlefoot's Grandparents, she would have had to accept the other creatures as they were. Why should it have to be Littlefoot who never saw his mother again, whereas Cera, Ducky, and Petrie all had families to go back to. As for Spike, well, until LBT, he showed no discontentment.
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I think if Littlefoot's mother had not died, she would have Littlefoot and Ducky and the others to be friends. I mean, if she had survived or something, surly she and Littlefoot would not have left the kids to fend for them selves. I know she wasn't heartless.
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An example of this too, was when, in LBT 1, Cera and Littlefoot were falling down the cliffside just above Sharptooth. Littlefoot's Mother grabbed both Cera and Littlefoot from danger, and brought them to safety. In serious matters, I'm sure that Littlefoot's mother would be more than reasonable when it came to different species working together, especially towards common protection or survival.
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I still think there is a difference between saving someone's life when you have a (rather riskfree) chance to do so, and becoming really good friends in the process as Littlefoot and the others did. Not saving Cera in that situation would have required really a great deal of indifference.
I am not saying that Littlefoot's mother was a hardcore racist (as I said before she might have learned just like his grandparents), but I do think there would have been a different friendship between Littlefoot and the others (if any) had his mother survived.
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Hey, do they ever talk about his mother in any sequal other than LBT 10?
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There is a mention in LBT 9 when Littlefoot says he wished his mother had given him a brother. Also there is sort of a cloud image of her in the sky that moment, but nothing like the one we saw in the original movie.
Also there is a line in the LBT 5 song "Always There" which certainly refers to Littlefoot's mother:
I remember now
like it was yesterday
she would hold me close
and then I heard her say
'You know I'll never leave you
you can find me everywhere
in the morning light
and evening star
I'm always there
The twinkling "evening star" in that particular scene might also be a reference to her.
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Sothey mentioned her in LBT 9? I haven't seen LBT 9 or 11. Were they any good?
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9 is pretty good, 11 is decent.
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^ I agree. For my part LBT 9 was the best LBT movie that has been produced in recent years. LBT 11 was not bad either. Not as good as LBT 9 with more points to criticize, but still not bad. If you want to know more F-14 Ace Im quite sure there are threads about both movies.
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Thing is, everytime I try to rent either of them, my bratty sister who hates Land Before Time comes along. I wouldn't worry about her knowing I am a fan except she has a huge mouth and will tell everyone in both her class and mine. It would really hurt my reputation, not that it is any of those kids business. One of them is a LBT basher.
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Most everyone on this floor of the dormitories here knows I'm a huge Disney fan, and I don't see how its hurt or stinted my reputation. They know I've watched Land Before Time. They know I've watched Bambi. They know I've watched Roger Rabbit. You know....be yourself....who gives a rats tail if they know? I wouldn't let it get to you.
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I too never made a secret of my passion for the land before time. Not like I was carrying a banner around at school reading: "I love the land before time", but no raised eyebrows kept me from drawing LBT characters in public or the like. When I was in America I made by no means a secret of it either and in fact most of the projects from the arts class I participated in were about LBT. I don't blame people for raised eyebrows, they don't hurt me and they too will get over the fact that a 21 years old can love LBT. If those people do more than raising their eyebrows, you may want to ask yourself if they are the people whose opinion matter to you F-14 Ace. Are they the kind of people among whom you want to have a good reputation?
There is only one way of avoiding causing any negative impressions by anyone. Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing!
But I doubt anyone of independent mind could live that way.
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Yeah, well she also went around the school saying I am gay which is totally untrue! I have had little kids come up to me and ask if I am gay. We were on a fieldtrip when she started that rumor.
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Ouch. That must have hurt.
what kind of reputation do you hold in your social circle of classmates, anyway? If you're known as the "tough guy", yeah, I'd keep your love of "Land Before Time" secret, but if you're not a particularly tough guy, I don't see the difference in them knowing or not knowing. Tolerence is what the civilized world is built on.
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I am what you would call a geek, dork, poindexter, bookworm or otherwise known as a nerd. Actually, it wouldn't be so bad except the people I am friends with are the cool kids who just happen to hate Land Before Time. However, one of them does know but he really does not mind. It was mainly when my stupid little sister spread that friggen rumor about me being gay. :mad
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I think there would have been some way for the story to work if she had survived. However, it wouldn't have been as good.
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Perhaps. Perhaps not. There are a number of ways it could have been just as good withher surviving.
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^ No doubt about that. But it certainly would have made a very different story.
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I am currently writing a story about what I think would have happened if she had survived. By the way, I don't think she was a racist. I just thikn that rule was the law of the herds and had always been that way.
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Actually that's a difficult question.
I wholeheartedly agree that Littlefoot's mother was no racist by conviction but rather because of her sticking to old rules. But does that disqualify anyone from deserving the shameful title of being a "racist"? It's interesting for me as it is one of the topics of the land before time story I have been writing for a long time already.
If acting in a racialist manner doesn't make you a racist if your acting is based on sticking to laws and tradition that would take the blame from many of history's worst racists!
Therefore I strongly disagree with the thesis.
Littlefoot's mother was a racist.
She was not a hard-core racist, she didn't act on conviction, she saved Cera, but by definition she was a racist.
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Hear hear Malte. ;) She wasn't so indifferent as to let Cera die, but she didn't seem to want to do any more than that. Even Littlefoot was pushed in a different direction as Cera ran in another.
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Hear hear Malte. She wasn't so indifferent as to let Cera die, but she didn't seem to want to do any more than that. Even Littlefoot was pushed in a different direction as Cera ran in another.
That's true, and that's why I don't consider her a hard-core racist. Had she been more convinced of it I reckon she would have answered in more detail to Littlefoot's question about why longnecks can't play with other kinds (rather than cutting of the topic with the promise of many longnecks in the Great Valley). Littlefoot's mother was certainly not a bad character.
Still she was raised as a racist and as for that we can conclude that her parents, Littlefoot's grandparents were racists too. It seems so mean to apply that term to Littlefoot's courageous mother and I cannot repeat often enough that she was a good character and not a hard core racist.
But how would you call (to transfer it to our time) anyone who told a white kid that white kids never play with black kids because they are different and because it has ever been that way. No matter how friendly a person would say this, it would make the person a racist!
It is interesting to pursue the thought about Littlefoot's grandparents. They must have been racists too and despite of their advanced age they learned to overcome their old prejudices. It is admirable to be able to learn such important things at such a late time.
Most of the other Great Valley dinosaurs were most likely racists too but learned to get along with the other kinds. In fact I think the changes that took place were never ever given due credit so far.
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In fact I think the changes that took place were never ever given due credit so far.
I never noticed that before. You know, now that I think about it: it is kind of funny that, other than Cera's dad (of course :rolleyes: ), the herds were just suddenly getting along and working as a team in the sequel, without any qualms about species. And, judging, by the lyrics of the opening song for LBT2 ("Peaceful Valley"), it must have only been a few days since the kids arrived at the valley, which means that the adults hadn't been there for that long, either.
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According to the tale about Pterano the different kinds must have united on the way to the Great Valley already. My theory is that the big earthquake was the ultimate trigger. Leaving the majority of families and herds torn apart I suppose they had hardly a choice but to get along with each other or stand but a little chance to survive.
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Probably, but still, it's a shame that they never go into any of these ideas very deeply. The adults getting over their prejudice on their journey could almost make for a movie, in itself.
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I agree and quite frankly, I'm glad about your interest in this matter. It is a part of the story I've been writing all the time and your interest in the question gives sort of a boost of motivation for me to get on with it. :)
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Cool.
You know, it's actually a shame that it's us fans that who have to even consider these things.
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I wouldn't mind reading a story like that....or even a film where they have to overcome those differences either. That isn't something that happens overnight - sometimes, if ever.
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It does not really happen in my story either as I agree it is not an overnight process. In fact the end will be neither a white nor a black one.
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All the same, I'm sure we'd all like to read it.
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I'm making good progress these days. I cannot say when it will be finished but I reckon it will end up with something around 300 pages (or slightly less) and I am on page 225 now.
Thank you for your interest it sure gives some motivation to get on with the story :)
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:o 300 pages??? Whoa. Not surprising. Your stories tend to be decent in length, but they're pretty good, none the less.
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Thank you :)
I have a certain tendency towards long windedness which in some cases comes as a drawback. There are other land before time stories considerably longer than this one. Littlefoot-1616 is writing a story which is already longer than mine will ever be :)
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I don't think that I am cabable of writing a story that long. The longest I've ever written is 67 pages.