#1: The Big Freeze (VIII). One of the ones that's hard not to cry during. The plot's really good, with the only really inconsistent thing being Mr. Thicknose claiming he'd never been outside the valley when he had to have left during Mysterious Island. Mr. Thicknose was an engaging and interesting supporting character, and of course Ducky and Spike's arcs were nothing short of amazing.

#2: Journey of the Brave (XIV). In terms of objective aspects like animation quality, soundtrack (including songs), and writing, I think this is actually the best of the sequels, even if I personally prefer Big Freeze. The primary conflict was engaging and actually focused on the main characters, the supporting characters were will done in terms of being interesting without taking focus away from the main ones, and everyone actually acted in-character. I also really liked that it has a nuanced moral: "Don't just recklessly charge into danger to help others, but sometimes, it's worth it to take risks for those you care about."

#3: The Great Longneck Migration (X). I overall like the plot and think they handled bringing Littlefoot's father in late in the series in the most... respectful way possible, other than the explanation of why he went missing not completely working. The reason for the great migration and gathering seems a bit silly though, and why would Littlefoot's family know about the crater and the fertile lands between it and the Great Valley when they migrated from far away? Oh, and I wish they could've brought Ali back at least briefly.

#4: Journey Through the Mists (IV). Plot has really serious stakes, characters have good reasons for leaving the valley and making the decisions they did (mostly), and good performances by the VAs. But there's a lot of small nitpicks that lower its score for me, like the villains being non-threatening, and weird cartoon physics stuff like that one branch hitting Dil repeatedly which distracted from the overall darker tone.

#5: The Time of the Great Giving (III). Again, an overall good movie brought down by little things. My point about ineffectual annoying villains still applies. Also, I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually think the later sequels had overall high-quality animation than the II-V era, in terms of things like expressions and avoiding animation errors like drawing body parts the wrong color.

#6: The Stone of Cold Fire (VII). Like others have mentioned, Pterano's one of the most interesting villains in the series, and while in the end it was kind of a shaggy dog plot I mostly enjoyed it. Not great songs though, and I wish the Rainbowfaces had been more... subtle. I'd have loved to see years of arguments over whether they were aliens or not!

#7: The Mysterious Island (V). The first half of this was looking like a really good movie, with everything mostly fitting together logically, characters being, well, in-character, one of the best songs in the entire series... but the second half, pretty much from when Chomper starts taking them to the hiding place, just falls apart and is a mess of action sequences that don't really change anything. Also, while 'Always There' is one of my favorite songs from the franchise, 'Big Water' and 'Friends For Dinner' are two of my most-hated.

#8: The Great Valley Adventure (II). Well, I like the basic plot, but Ozzy and Strut are kind of obnoxious, dialogue is actually not as well-written as some of the later movies, and the songs? This is one of a small number of movies in the series where I genuinely don't like any of the songs. Most of them have at least one good one.

#9: The Great Day of the Flyers (XII). Both the main plot (Petrie's important rite of passage test) and the subplot with Cera and Tricia are interesting and compelling, but I strongly dislike the way the test ended up being resolved, and the "be yourself" message was applied really poorly since flying in formation is an actual life skill flyers would need to know. Guido, however, was just plain obnoxious, and added a ton of pointless padding. The movie would be greatly improved without him.

#10: The Secret of Saurus Rock (VI). Err... the main plot was just not that interesting, Littlefoot was IMO out-of-character for much of the movie, and trying to shoehorn a Western theme into this franchise worked out poorly. Honestly the Cera/Dana/Dinah subplot was a lot more compelling and I wanted to see more of that explained. Oh, and another one in the "I disliked all three songs" category.

#11: Invasion of the Tinysauruses (XI). Hoo, boy... Almost the entire valley was totally OOC, starting basically the equivalent of a lynch mob and attempting to murder other creatures over... flowers? The Tinysauruses themselves were just... who thought this was a good idea? The only good thing about this was the Tria subplot and the death of Cera's mom finally being acknowledged (basically).

#12: Journey to Big Water (IX). Mo is a flat-out TERRIBLE supporting character, and every aspect of the plot revolved around him, so he completely took away the spotlight from the main characters. He clearly didn't need any help, and it was bad enough that most of the cast had to be forced into going with him by an earthquake. If he'd actually had a believable reaction for a child separated from his pod and lost all alone in an unfamiliar place, and the gang had helped him (and he genuinely needed their help) because they know what that's like, that would have made for a much better movie. Oh, and I strongly suspect a Walking With Dinosaurs cash-in, given that the two aquatic characters are literally the same species as the focuses in Cruel Sea.

#13: The Wisdom of Friends (XIII). I... good lord. Literally the only thing that even remotely approached being good about this movie was Cera complaining about everything else. It starts out mediocre, then becomes terrible the instant the Yellowbellies show up. Despite apparently being targeted at pre-schoolers it even managed to have a bad moral for the kids: don't worry about following safety rules or thinking your actions through, just trust your feelings and do whatever like these guys who are too stupid to remember their own names!

@Sovereign:

It's nice to see another writer here. This story was rather well-written and your descriptions of the Gang's antics certainly were nicely thought out. I liked the banter about their journey and the slow build-up to the main drama of the story certainly paid out. Cera most likely has many misgivings about her role in that journey and the way she tried to hide her real problems seemed rather in-character.

Thanks a lot! I'm glad you liked it!

It's more than probable that more than just few of the main characters had severe nightmares of the last days and that the tensions between Littlefoot and Cera wouldn't solve themselves instantly upon their arrival into the Valley.

On one hand, I liked Cera's innocent question about Littlefoot's mother and his reaction to that but I have to wonder if she truly didn't know about her death (in canon that is). Se referred to her in a past tense in the lead-up to the duo's fight after all but your version worked just as well.

Oh, that's right, I forgot to post the supplemental information. Yeah, on the one hand, she did use the past tense, and she really ought to have realized that Littlefoot's mother was on the same side of the divide as them. On the other hand, the "was" could have meant "she was a stupid longneck when she told you that." It's not really grammatically correct, but I've definitely heard and used phrases along the lines of "Well, whoever told you that was an idiot" without making any assumptions about their status. And, well, "ought to have known" isn't a standard that works very well with Cera. She has a tendency to tunnel-vision and not notice things she hasn't thought about the possibility of, and memory is often imperfect in a situation as terrifying as Sharptooth's attack anyway. The evidence in favor of her not knowing is that, well, Littlefoot's mom being on the same side of the divide was her only way of knowing. Rewatching the movie, I realized that not only does Littlefoot not mention her death to any of the others, but she wasn't actually present for any of the scenes like Littlefoot getting annoyed at Petrie for tearing the treestar. The last time Cera saw Littlefoot's mother, she was alive enough to be walking around, and even in our modern society I think someone bleeding to death from an injury that doesn't look like it would be fatal is something that would be on most little kids' radar.

My thoughts on the later part of the story are a bit mixed as I did enjoy the mutual reconciliation but I'm a bit skeptical about Cera's mental breakdown. Yes, her mother's loss was probably a terrible blow but I'm not sure this is the kind of reaction she'd have. The ending was nice though, as it's clear the Gang needed to get over the worst trauma of their losses.

Yeah, I was kind of unsure how far to take her breakdown. Characterization in situations that go far beyond what they've experienced in canon is hard, especially with characters who are so rarely honest about their emotions! But the limited material I had to work with, both from the original and the sequels, points to Cera being able to keep her emotions concealed up to a certain limit, but when things go far enough that she can't keep up the "tough girl" facade, it goes down hard. E.g. her reactions to Sharptooth and the Domeheads weren't any different from Littlefoot's. I'll admit I'm also working from personal experience that if your only way of dealing with negative emotions is repressing them, you won't "fail gracefully" as it were.

Cera taking out her feelings on inanimate objects is something I know she does. Early in Mysterious Island, when the herd finds the skeleton of a swimmer, Cera looks very uncomfortable, then she immediately goes and uproots a tree stump - which worked out a bit better that time. Her anger management advice to Ducky in The Big Freeze also involves kicking rocks - albeit safely. Would she keep doing it to the point of injury? It's hard to say, but I've definitely heard plenty of stories of people seriously hurting themselves while punching a wall or door. Running off to sulk alone is also something she's done.

While the premise of the Gang trying to get over a parent's death isn't exactly a new theme, your take on this issue was certainly a good one. The dialogue, situation building and the rather emotional drive in this fic were certainly nice even if I think there were some issues with characterization. Still, it's a solid first LBT fic and I hope we'll see more from you in the future!

Thank you so much! I'm not sure if I'll do another story for LBT, at least not for a while. I don't really have any other well-developed ideas, especially not ones that other writers haven't done well. I'd sort of like to try adapting the plots of some of the sequels to fit a more adult tone like that of the original, but that would be a huge project, and I have way too many half-written stories for other fandoms lying around at the moment. I'll be sticking around here for other writers' stories and for the discussion stuff, though.

@Sneak:

Only thing - maybe there were extremely small gap between original movie and this story. And when each of character beside Littlefoot lost their relatives - I think some time should be passed before they gather and start to try to play like they did at the beginning of the story. I dunno, Cera and Petrie could be more depressed.

Well, part of the goal of this story was to show the transition period between when they get to the Great Valley and the start of the sequels. They're definitely not as happy and carefree as they were by the start of Great Valley Adventure, but I don't think they'd just be sitting around moping. They're dealing with loss, but at the the same time they had the HUGE stress of being in constant danger on their journey lifted off their shoulders. And even during the journey, Littlefoot and the others were still joking around a little bit. Distraction and humor are very common and effective coping mechanisms.

Cera definitely was depressed, although she tried to hide it. At the start, she was the first one to try to open up to the others, although that ended up going sideways due to various communication problems. The others were as well, to a lesser extent. Everybody wanted to talk about what happened, but they didn't know how to bring it up, and they saw all the others acting normal, so they didn't want to be the first one to "ruin the mood." Ducky and Petrie also had it much easier than Cera because they still had the support of their parents and other siblings. Cera lost nearly her entire family, and couldn't really turn to her dad for support because he's not open with his emotions either.