The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => General Land Before Time => Character Discussion => Topic started by: RFZT on March 22, 2009, 01:52:21 PM
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In this poll, I'd like you to answer not based on your actual favorite dinosaur out of the choices, but which species you liked best in the movies.
Out of all dinos, my favorites are velociraptors and any flyer, but in LBT I like the longnecks best! They're my favorite species in the movies because they are fair, caring, understanding and supportive. I also find them less speciesist than some of the othes.
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The most developed characters are the longnecks, so it would have to be them
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To be perfectly honest, I don't care what species the characters are. I like the characters for their personality, not what they look like.
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landbeforetimelover, I guess my poll was misleading. What I mean by this poll is that the different species tend to have certain personality traits that make them different, characteristically, from the other species. I wanted to know which species are peoples' favorites based on that. :)
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Because of Cera and her father I guess we have come to understand threehorns in general to be tougher, rougher, and somewhat more racist than other species. The best argument in favor of this view is Cera's LBT 5 statement about Threehorns being so bossy. But if we look at it objectively, I think we end up with Cera and her father being the only concrete cases of threehorns acting that way, while we never actually witness any other threehorn to do that. Tria is behaving completely different and so does Mr. Thicknose; Dinah, Dana, and Tricia are perhaps to young to be brought up in such a discussion, but I guess we can agree that they seem to be acting different from the way we saw Cera act just after her hatching in the original movie.
Longnecks, that would be Littlefoot, his mother, and his grandparents, but also Ali, her herd (old one included), Doc, Sue, Shorty, and Rhett (even with several more longneck characters not included I think it is obvious that there is a variety of characters here.
It may be safe enough to label spiketails as somewhat gluttonous judging from the very few we have seen, but there too is a variety of characteristics if we compare good natured Spike for example to the almost "threehornish :p" leader of the Spiketail herd in LBT 8 / forbidden friendship.
For lack of anyone to compare them to we can assume Ducky's kind to be gentle and good natured in general, but as we have none of her kind with a speaking role who is not part of her family there is hardly a way to make this more than an assumption.
And as for flyers, even within Petrie's family there is a variety of characteristics very notable in the sequels 7 and 12.
So my main point is to bring up the question if we have a really good point to link particular traits to a kind (rather than individuals) in general at all?
With several more references to this I guess some of the threehorn characteristics are more present than we see with the many "exceptions" in the movies, but other than that I think we would have a hard time basing characteristics ascriped to a species as a whole on facts presented in the movies.
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You know Malte, I was thinking about this earlier today and last night, and then I realized that the species have members that act a lot different from one another, like you said. So I guess this is in order:
:slap
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Well in personality Terms the longnecks are standing out real nicely.
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Threehorns have always fascinated me since I was a kid :yes.
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Well in personality Terms the longnecks are standing out real nicely.
It is hard to base that one on the species alone though. Shorty, Rhett, and all those unhelpful longnecks of Ali's herd would be included in the statement though one can name characters of almost any species who showed a kinder personality throughout the sequels and the series.
While I admit the following example is very far fetched (due to the dinosaurspecies being physically more different) and I absolutely DON'T want to suggest anything about anyone at all (really don't), but isn't there, in principle, a bit of a similarity to judging humans by their skincolor or nationality?
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Flyer most definitely. ^^ If I could fly...my goodness the endless possibilities of what things you could do. I could actually fly to people in different parts of the country or the world without paying a single penny.
I used to like those saroupods like it seems most people here do, but now I just find them boring... :p
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isn't there, in principle, a bit of a similarity to judging humans by their skincolor or nationality?
Yes, except we're dealing with a fictional franchise, written by humans. Writers have a tendency to group personality traits with species because it's easier to write that way. This is especially true as the scripts have never been one of the finer aspects of Land Before Time. :rolleyes
That said, of course it would be erroneous to preemptively classify personalities with species. But in hindsight, I can see that the writers weren't too preoccupied with fleshing out the diversity among any species other than really longneck, and the simplification is there.
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^ Scientifically speaking flyers were probably somewhat restricted in their movements though. No way (without tremendous risk) for the larger kinds to get into a forest. They are also more subjected to the moods of the weather. Finally they are also vulnerable by comparison (If one of those hollow bones breaks or the skin of the wing rips they were all but lost, clumsy as they were when they had to "walk"). Of course this is about LBT rather than real dinosaurs (and in LBT we have often seen flyers subjected to treatment that might have seriously endangered or even killed a real one) and I am not writing this to suggest anything negative about them. I mainly mentioned it because I several times included such considerations in my fanfictions.
Yes, except we're dealing with a fictional franchise, written by humans. Writers have a tendency to group personality traits with species because it's easier to write that way. This is especially true as the scripts have never been one of the finer aspects of Land Before Time.
Granted. That's also why I was calling the statement "far fetched" myself. This example is not so bad and I may have been overly ""political correct"" (but aware of it) in this context.
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Sharpteeth would be my fav because I've always preferred the therapods over the herbivorous dinosaurs.
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^ Scientifically speaking flyers were probably somewhat restricted in their movements though. No way (without tremendous risk) for the larger kinds to get into a forest. They are also more subjected to the moods of the weather. Finally they are also vulnerable by comparison (If one of those hollow bones breaks or the skin of the wing rips they were all but lost, clumsy as they were when they had to "walk"). Of course this is about LBT rather than real dinosaurs (and in LBT we have often seen flyers subjected to treatment that might have seriously endangered or even killed a real one) and I am not writing this to suggest anything negative about them. I mainly mentioned it because I several times included such considerations in my fanfictions.
Actually, pterosaur wings are now known to have been considerably tougher than previously believed. The wing was not a simple sheet of skin, but a complex, multi-layered structure supported by strengthening fibers, called actinofibrils. Bat wings (to which pterosaur wings are often compared to, though the actual similarity is really only superficial) lack these structures, but even they are quite resilient to damage, and some of the fastest-healing tissue in the animal kingdom, such that even a large tear is not necessarily fatal. (A broken bone usually is, but then that is the case for just about all flying animals.) So pterosaur wings were probably all that more durable. Large pterosaurs still probably wouldn't have flown into a forest, but some smaller species may have not just lived in them, but actively climbed trees and scurried along branches to hunt small animals.
Of course, this information is probably not known to the LBT people, as their pterosaurs are far from accurate anyway. (I'd have to ask a real pterosaur expert, but with so many layers of tissue, I doubt that pterosaur wings were semi-transparent as the moviesónamely VIIóoften portray them.)
P.S. I didn't vote. :p
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Interesting :yes
Indeed my information came from a book that may not be really up to date with the newer discoveries. The reference with regard to the forest was mainly to the larger flyers (Pteranodon and the like) rather than the smaller kinds. While of course it makes sense for the Pterosaurs' wings not to be too vulnerable, how did Paleontologists prove this though? Or is it mainly a theory?
Lacking the additional support of more than one finger bone (which can be found in bat wings) it seems likely that the wings' skin would not have been quite so thin. But how can they tears in the wings could heal up again? This sounds not very likely to me if we are talking of more than a skratch on the outer skin layers.
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There are a number of pterosaur specimens fossilized in volcanic ash or extremely fine-grained sand that allowed for very intricate details to be preserved. In addition to actinofibrils, these details include a fine covering of hair on the body, imprints of wing membranes (though paleontologists are still divided on whether said membranes attached to the legs or only to the sides of the body), and in some species soft-tissue crests (i.e., crests made of keratin, the substance that comprises skin, nails, etc., and does not fossilize under most circumstances). Many of these details are only observable when the fossil is examined under an ultraviolet lamp, and paleontologists have only recently become aware of them. Needless to say, they have drastically influenced the way many pterosaurs are reconstructed; a trend which popular culture has sadly been very slow to pick up on.
As for the healing of damaged wings, I had to do a little research to find more specific information about how bat wings heal. I found a Web site for an Australian bat veterinary clinic (Tolga Bat Hospital) that had some helpful information. The site showed some photographs of bats whose wings had been torn on barbed wire (some of which were positively stomach-turning :x), but stated that even these are capable of healing, provided the bat is given the appropriate attention. Apparently the membrane simply grows back, and the hole closes up. (It is actually important for the bat to be able to fly during the healing process, as the scar tissue must be stretched if the wing membrane is to repair itself properly.) A large tear that extends all the way to the edge of the wing is more serious, and if the damage is too extensive, the bat's chances of surviving in the wild are greatly reduced. But considering that bat wings evolved to cope with injuries from branches and thorns (not barbed wire), we can imagine that the damage sustained by these bats is far worse than what they would naturally be at risk from.
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I voted flier...some of which for personal reasons. I should give more thought to it, but I've liked fliers since I was seven/eight. However, if Therzinosaurus was about (perhaps as "longclaws"), it would be a pretty hard vote.
Heh. I've been seeing longnecks as "goody-two-shoes" (four-shoes?) as of late, especially in the tenth movie with the whole "saving the world" thing. Annnd what about the non-longnecks who say, "Uhhh, the bright circle isn't falling, what the HECK are you guys doing?" Here come our alien rainbow faces. And there's definitely too much longneck focus in the movies themselves...mostly Littlefoot, that's understandable. But again with the "goody-two/four-shoes" thing. Ducky. Needs. Her. Own. Movie. She. Should. Save. Someone.
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I think seeing it as an ensemble (not sure if I choose the right spelling) cast is best. Each char is treated as equal and there are many more plots possible I think then where 1 char is the main and only focus.
Not sure of my favorite species. Flier I'd say likely if I had to pick just 1.
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Whilst I like longnecks, I'm quite partial now to Sharpteeth. They are just the best villains one can have, especially since (I'm basing of on the first sharptooth) they can be very scary in a sly kind of way.
Although not all sharpteeth are like that. After all, Chomper is another favourite character after Littlefoot. So I think that is another reason. Chomper.:)