There have been many references to the way the sharpteeth developed throughout LBT, but I don't think they were given an own thread so far, while the importance of the topic certainly warrants doing so.
Most people will agree on the original movie's sharptooth being among the most impressive (perhaps even THE most impressive) we have seen so far. He is definitely presented as a perilous thread to the kids who escape by a hairs breadth several times. Littlefoot's mother was not so lucky making the original movies sharptooth one of the very few whom we ever saw killing (or mortally wounding another dinosaur). Even the original movie's sharptooth was tamed down though. There are many references of Don Bluth to "scary" sharptooth scenes making up for most of the eight minutes cut from the original movie. For example he wrote in his Toon Talk Magazine:
The Tyrannosaurus Rex, now in color, was unusually dramatic. John, Gary, and myself set out for the meeting at 20th Century Fox's screening facility in London. The unveiling of our work was embraced, as expected, with grins, merry laughter, and even applause.
As the lights came up, so did Steven [Spielberg] and George [Lucas]. "It's too scary," both remarked. "We'll have kids crying in the lobby, and a lot of angry parents. You don't want that," Steven said. "Believe me guys, you don't want that." "Let's meet at Elstree Studio tomorrow, they have an editing room there," suggested George. "Good," Steven agreed, "we'll tame it down and cut some of the biting moments." John was speechless, Gary stunned and I was in retreat, into my head, behind bolted doors.
Directing a movie is like birthing children. To see it rushed into surgery, even for commercial reasons, somehow fractures one's enthusiasm. On that day, nineteen fully colored Rex scenes were cut from the movie, I mourned for a week. Were Steven and George right to do it? In hindsight I think yes. Land grossed $72 million worldwide, and became one of the supporting pillars for the animation renaissance.
Least you chose to forget, Land Before Time has been followed by six sequels, direct to video, that have generated in excess of $250 million.
That, you can't forget!
While Bluth reluctantly admits that in hindsight Spielberg and Lucas were probably right it is obvious that he thinks so mainly for commercial reasons, while not thinking of the cutting out of the sharptooth scenes as an improvement of the work. We can only speculate about what the "scary" parts may have included. Probably a lot of close snapping and biting and possibly more about the Sharptooth's eye
Sharptooth's eye as a motive of revenge (as was suggested in one land before time story book; the same which included the oasis scene).
It is likely that the "eye-revenge" motive was originally meant to be more included in LBT, as Don Bluth had a problem to consider Sharptooth a "villain" for merely wishing to eat and survive. In his Toon Talk Magazine he wrote about Sharptooth:
Was he deficient in kindness and mercy? No! Was he evolutionary arrested or retarded? No! Simply put he was hungry. It is the law of nature to seek out food to satiate the appetite. So I reasoned, how could I hate the beast for doing what nature instinctively ordained? Just because he was big, growling and hungry didn't make him malevolent. He needed to step outside nature's boundaries to be a bad guy, embrace brutality over compassion, and harbor a vendetta or grudge that could twist his soul into an unnatural existence. That would be a true villain. Creative ideas are born out of conflict. I wanted a more dimensional bad guy, but I was outnumbered and finally gave in. Steven and George, in fact the whole team, felt that the Rex's teeth did the job. More evil could be over-kill. If something can bite you, that's reason enough to fear it. The dinosaur children, simply put, are terrorized by their natural enemy. Although I knew our story would pack a dramaticwallop to the audience if they could hate Rex, not just fear him, I grew weary of pitching the idea. The most horrific villains are those who appear confident, cool and in control at first glance, while beneath the skin, you sense something is terribly wrong, and you never suspect the magnitude of the twisted horror inside until it is too late.
There is one scene in which sharptooth is slightly ridiculed in a kind of slapstick manner we will also come across in case of several other sharpteeth in later movies. However, this scene doesn't make sharptooth any less threatening as he is unconscious when Cera is pulling faces at him and starts to attach him. In fact from the moment he opens his eyes again he appears very threatening in that scene. From what little we know about the outcut scene in which Ducky was pulling faces at Sharptooth we can presume that he wasn't made any less scary in that scene either.
In LBT 2 we have an immense break with the situation as it was depicted in the original movie, where a friendly relationship between sharptooth and leafeater would have seemed rather impossible. By biting Cera Chomper becomes the only Sharptooth ever to directly injure any of the characters (while they possibly all got their share of indirectly inflicted injuries of bumps and bruises during their flights through rough terrain). Chomper however was never meant to be a scary sharptooth, so we should focus more on his parents.
There were some more scenes in which the sharpteeth were presented as a little ridiculous (one of Chomper's parents biting the other when trying to bite Ducky, a rather silly look when hit by a rock Spike dropped on the head of one of them, sharpteeth missing the kids and "biting the dust") and they didn't come across as quite as scary as the original movie (being relatively easily distracted and attacked by the kids). The most questionable scene is perhaps the one in which Littlefoot and Chomper trip one of Chomper's parents with a vine. Considering the difference in strength it is not really likely that it would work out. Moreover there is the question why they would risk their lives by trying to trip the Sharptooth rather than trying to hide from it and stay out of danger. They only provoked the sharptooth and I don't see what more they could have possibly hoped to achieve. When outnumbered by the grownups Chomper's parents don't make any serious attempt to attack.
Nevertheless Chomper's parents in LBT 2 were clearly threatening and the impression was that when the kids were running from them they were running for their lives. Littlefoot's father is clearly defeated by one of them (who is only kept from killing Littlefoot's grandpa by a distracting flyer). Chomper's parents trample down trees like blades of grass. Perhaps the discrepancy between their threatening appearance and the lack of causing real harm (by attacking the grownups, being not overly persistant in pursuing their prey etc.) can be explained by the fact that they were not out for prey but looking for their lost egg. Having recovered Chomper they leave the Great Valley (obviously a rather hostile place for them) on their own accord.
While the LBT 2 sharpteeth were still threatening there was a major change as they were presented more sensitive and not as the ultimate catastrophe for the Great Valley as which the original movie's sharptooth came across.
The sharpteeth of LBT 3 played a minor role compared to the earlier movies. With the raptors a new type of sharptooth was introduced, smaller in size, but dangerous for their numbers and coordinating their attacks. Faced with an even larger number of stronger leafeaters they didn't come accross as dangerous as they might have. They didn't kill Mutt's father when they had the chance (why were they so much after the kids when they could have had a grownup?) and were relatively easily defeated.
In LBT 5 we had a sharptooth who was again kind of "de-sharpened" through slapstick scenes including being bitten by Chomper, biting the dust etc. Still that sharptooth did come accross as a thread for the kids. It was also the first since the original movie's sharptooth who drew blood (from Chomper's mum). The sensitivity of Sharpteeth was even more pronounced by Chomper's parents.
The sharpteeth of LBT 6 came across in a similar manner as that of LBT 5. Threatening, but not too much. There was some slapstick again (Cera being drooled on and Littlefoot climbing into the sharptooth's mouth), but also the flight for life and death of Littlefoot, the fact that the one sharptooth proved very durable (surviving the fall into the canyon without any real injury which kind of reminds of the original movie's sharptooth), and the fact that Littlefoot's grandpa would have been killed if it hadn't been for Doc. The previous lessons about sensitive sharpteeth apparently didn't sink in. The kids cheered the execution of the two unconscious sharpteeth who were burried alive by Doc and Littlefoot's grandpa. While not presented in very scary pictures I think some scary pictures would be more tolerable than the kids cheering hat execution after all their experiences with Chomper.
The sharptooth from the story about the Lone Dinosaur was described as the "biggest, meanest, most ferocious sharptooth ever" though I suppose that was said for the sake of the story rather than for any possibility to proove these claims as fact. It was another of the few sharpteeth who drew blood.
The flashback of LBT 7 showed the first sharpteeth since the original movie who killed other dinosaurs while the main story didn't include any sharpteeth but an implication of how dreaded they are. The mere call "Sharpteeth" is causing a stampede in the night when Ducky is abducted.
LBT 8 had the first sharptooth I was thoroughly disappointed with. That sharptooth didn't come accross as any thread at all. It was too silly to step aside when a snowball is rolled at it and there just weren't any scenes in which one had the feeling that anyone was really in danger because of that sharptooth. Mr. Thicknose even credits it for giving the push he needed to get up that slope.
As if to make good for the poor LBT 8 sharptooth the one of LBT 9 (though it played a relatively minor role) came across as perhaps the most threatening one since the original movie. The threatening appearance is again modified through some slapstick (Mo hitting it with his flipper) but especially during the thunderstorm scene there was a very real danger for the kids. Mo was hurt (no lasting damage, but you could see his pain when "whacked" by that Sharptooth) and even presumed death causing a very emotional scene.
Again as if in reaction to the very threatening LBT 9 sharptooth the three from LBT 10 were the dumpest and most harmless dinosaur kid's toys ever! You just can't defeat a sharptooth by throwing small pebbles at it or trip it by throwing pebbles at its feet. Tripping a sharptooth by crawling under its feet was the worst idea ever! Shorty would have been squished if he had tried crawling under the original movie's foot! Bron is kicking the corpse by talking of Sharpteeth in general as cowards and by suffering not even a minor scratch when a sharptooth bit his foot (a scene which could have been so meaningful. Just imagine what it would be like for Littlefoot, who lost his mother to a sharptooth, to see his father in a fight for life and death with a sharptooth).
In the two sequels which came out since the sharpteeth didn't improve but turned out to be rather ticklish :huh:
Charles Grosvenor is very concerned about the sharpteeth being too scary for kids which he considers the only real target audience. For example he said in
this interview (which I recomend everyone to read as it contains several things we might want to discuss):
We have a very narrow window of audience age-wise, so we have to constantly be aware of what is too much for them to deal with. If we have an attack by a T-Rex or a predator, or even a guest dinosaur, how nasty can we make that? We always have to keep in mind what is tolerable for the kids to watch.
I'm afraid Mr. Grosvenor is overdoing the taming down of sharpteeth. What wasn't too tough for kids in 1988 shouldn't be too tough in our times in which I'm afraid many kids are confronted with a much higher degree of violence in the medias which is indeed a reason to be concerned about. Even the most scary LBT sharpteeth however are not really the kind that would cause nightmares to many children. If the sense of sharpteeth being a really perilous thread is lost I'm afraid so is much of the exitement in LBT plots.