The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => 1988 Theatrical Release => Topic started by: NewOrder on September 19, 2010, 06:52:32 AM
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I've thought about this before, but it came to me just now. I realised that during the original Land Before Time we witness the birth of 4 of the main characters. Ducky, Cera, Littlefoot, and Spike latter on in the film. Why is Petrie the only character of the gang of five that just shows up?
We know nothing about his parents or his siblings until the very end of the story. Why wasn't this character presented in the same way as the others?
This also brings up the issue of Petrie's age. Could it be that he's much older than the others, or maybe just a hatchling like Spike?
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I have never noticed this. And now, that I'm reviewing the film in my head... maybe they cut it out for some reason. But I think Petre got lost somehow, because he couldn't fly from the beginning. His family maybe rushed off in hurry (during the earthquake?) and forgot him?
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I suppose the reason why they didn't include his hatching was what it might have been to repetitive to include yet another hatching scene. Also they probably thought that it would distract from the main plot if they had shown the hatching and then show nothing at all about the character anymore until the joining up with Littlefoot (which is what they did with Ducky in particular).
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Petrie is the oldest because I said so! :p Even in the books, Petrie's hatching is never mentioned. It would be the same song and game. Probably just extra $$$ to animate, so why bother?
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I guess you could say what you want, Petrie may be the oldest as the 3 oldest, or only older the Spike, or hatched at the same time as one of the other 3 oldest ones. With no real clues anyone can say what they thing and have just as much chance of being right as someone else with another preference or opinion.
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If that were the only reason to exclude his hatching, then why show Ducky and Cera's? It's probably amongst the cut material Spielberg has.
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I think it's also possible that they hadn't even thought of Petrie at that point. He could have been put into the movie at the last minute.
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...That would also be a sufficient explanation, given the relative uselessness of the character.
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That just doesn't happen. Before a movie goes into production the script and the plot's final drafts are already finished, especialy in animation, you just don't throw in a character in the last minute.
What they did with the begining sequence was present the main characters, maybe, for some reason, they cut Petrie's hatching scene during editing.
Anything we might discuss here is just pure speculation, since the only ones who know the real reason are the crew that worked on the film.
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I personally do side a bit to the fact he might of been a last minute character, even before production. The script may of just been edited to include him right before production was started, or it may of been cut from the movie ( for reasons unknown. Possibly may of had a "scary" part to it involving some sort of incident. ). Often times there is something added / removed last minute leaving many mysteries to it, it's a way of movie life :p
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I'm not so sure about him being a last minute character of sorts. If they wanted to have a mixed group of "dinosaurs" (though technically Petrie doesn't fall under that term) a Pterosaur is very likely to be included to have all groups covered. Moreover it brought in this important element of overcoming the own fear (of flying) into the movie. Personally I think that it is not unlikely that they decided against yet another hatching scene to merely avoid repetitions. After all the minutes of dinosaur hatching in a relatively short movie they might have feared that with yet another hatching parts of the audience might have started eye rolling wondering if there was anything else to come.
Involved as Petrie is in so many of the movie scenes I really don't think it would be very likely for him to be a last minute addition nor is there any indication of this in any of the texts published by Don Bluth (which alone of course doesn't say anything at all).
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I always assumed that Petrie's birth wasn't shown specifically to give him a different introduction. Littlefoot's birth being shown is obvious; he's the main character. Ducky's birth appears to be just to give an example of hatching dinosaurs at the beginning, and so does Cera until Littlefoot meets her. Spike being born alone and then being discovered gives him a different origin from the others. Finally, having a new character appear from nowhere fills another option.
Plus, not seeing Petrie being born adds an element of surprise to his character.
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I agree with you Al.
It gives a suprise to the viewers when Littlefoot eats the "talking tree."
Hard to say why his hatching was'nt shown. Im gonna go for either suprise or the fear of repeating.
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(Zenoah! :wow I thought you'd stopped coming around here! Great to see ya! :yes)
I think that if the births of all of the main characters (excluding Spike) had been shown, then it would have made the movie less interesting to the viewers to some effect, because when the character shows up onscreen, they feel like they've already met him or her earlier in the movie. We got a pretty good hint of Cera and Ducky's (assuming that swimmer was really meant to be Ducky) personalities during their brief appearances at the beginning. Ducky shows herself to be curious, energetic, innocent, and affectionate; before she is even all the way out of her egg, she chases after an insect, then pursues a small mammal, and finally attempts to explore the inside of a giant tortoise's mouth. Upon being rescued and returned to her nest, she immediately begins playing with her siblings and nuzzling her mother. Cera, meanwhile, indicates her plucky, headstrong, and rambunctious nature by chasing and butting her siblings and parents before she can even see outside the eggshell (also demonstrating her flighty reaction to perceived danger when she is frightened by the thunder). If Petrie's hatching had been similarly shown, not only would viewers likely have an idea of his personality and find his official introduction less amusing, but they might notice a pattern of Littlefoot meeting each of the dinosaurs that were shown hatching earlier, and think “Oh, he's going to meet the pterodactyl next”. So I also think that a big part of the reason Petrie's hatching wasn't shown was to provide more surprise and novelty for the audience.
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That is some pretty good reasoning. That could be why they did not show Petrie's hatching. I do wonder if it was animated and cut or not animated in the first place.
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If it was in fact animated I'd imagine it was meant to be shown at a different moment in the film. My firm belief is that the writers just didn't include that scene in the script for the reasons Pangaea stated.
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((I took a small hiatus, but I think Im back now ^^))
Right, I belive they wanted Petrie's personality and lack of flying ability to really make him the true comic relife.
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I think that with Petrie's birth it can go in different directions.
Perhaps they had included it originally in the film but had to cut it out as it was repetitive, what with four dinosaur births already in the film,and would thus have been boring for the audience to have to go through it again.
They may not have included it at all, as to give the element of novelty suprise in Petrie's character appearance. I mean, if there had been a birth scene of Petrie and we discovered early on that he couldn't fly, then that would have spoiled one of the important (in my opinion :p ) aspects of the film.
He may have been born before, but I don't think that is acutally so otherwise he might have been dead long before from predators etc.
However:
That just doesn't happen. Before a movie goes into production the script and the plot's final drafts are already finished, especialy in animation, you just don't throw in a character in the last minute.
Actually, there have been several cases in which an animated character survives pre-production; various story boards and drafts etc, then during the actual movie-making process, the character is dropped completely from the film. An example of this is from the The Lion King film, in which a fennec fox named Bhati was dropped (along with Mheetu; nala's brother-although I believe that he was dropped during pre-production at story board).
I don't believe that the animators placed Petrie in, as a last minute character. To be honest, animated film makers are generally quite organised, they may drop characters during story boards (like Mheetu for the TLK) or during the film makng process (like Bhati) but they, as far as I know, they don't add characters with the amount of personality and story line that Petrie has, into a film part way.
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You know? I've always wondered that. It's probably in those 10 minutes of deleted scenes we'll never get to see. :cry I try to imagine it in my head whenever I hear something I'm not sure about in LBT. Petrie probably might be older than maybe...Cera? I'm not sure. And what's more, it never mentions how old he is in the sequals. All we get is in number 5 when their fighting over the first treestar of the day and Cera says that it should go to the oldest, but then Littlefoot says, "but that's YOU." Then Cera goes, "I know." Then smiles. But we all know from the first movie that Ducky hatched first. Then Cera. Then Littlefoot. It just makes no sense at all. But I'm thinking that Ducky might be a little bit older than Petrie. Maybe? :unsure: I don't know. I just don't think it will ever be explained. Sadly. :(
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But we all know from the first movie that Ducky hatched first.
While we know the order in which they (excepting Petrie) hatched in the movie, they don't. Even in case they had a calender accurate enough to determine the day (as suggested in the TV episode the star day celebration as well as in Cera's reference to "waiting for your hatchday" in LBT 5) they are still not likely to be able to determine the minute if we assume for Ducky, Cera, and Littlefoot to share the same hatchday as the original movie suggests (though there remains the highly unlikely possibility of a time leap between the hatchscenes).
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The timeskip doesn't have to be a very long, though. They all could just have a few days separating one another's "Hatchdays". We really don't know what the timeframe of the events we see in the opening is.
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Somehow, I had always interpreted Ducky as being quite a bit younger than Littlefoot and Cera. If this is what Bluth & co. intended, than either her hatching scene is temporally misplaced (actually taking place some time after Littlefoot’s hatching), or the hatching swimmer shown in that sequence is not actually her (although you certainly get the impression that it is). However, there is the possibility that, being different species of dinosaurs, the characters mature at different rates. Perhaps, in the LBT universe, swimmers simply grow more slowly than other kinds of dinosaurs (though ironically this is the exact opposite of reality; hadrosaurs are believed to have been nine feet long by the time they were a year old :p), which might also explain why Ducky is so much smaller than the rest of the gang (excluding Petrie), even though she will be about the same length as Cera or Spike when the gang is grown up.
This brings me to Cera’s statement in LBT V on being the oldest of the gang. It could be that LBT threehorns grow more quickly than other dinosaurs (although if that is the case, then it’s strange that Cera has not yet shown the slightest indication of brow horn growth), and the gang do not yet comprehend the aging differences between their respective species, so Cera just assumes that she is the oldest because she is the furthest along in her growth. Though I strongly suspect that the real-life reason for the inconsistency is that the makers of LBT V either did not check the first movie to make sure they weren’t contradicting it (I even wonder if they forgot that the gang had not known one another their whole lives), or just didn’t consider the logic issues with the line (the gang needing to know their exact comparative hatching times) when they put it in the script. Possibly both. :rolleyes
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How much you wanna bet the missing footage provides a few answers?
Those are all very good points. I hadn't taken different rates of majoring in the dinosaurs into consideration before as they're...very humanized by being able to speak. For all we know, Ducky could chronologically be the oldest, but because she grows at (perhaps) the slowest rate she's physically and mentally the youngest. This would make for interesting character study.
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In my opinion the birth scenes at the beginning do not show a chronology. They where arranged to show some characteristics of the main characters in order of their relevance for the movie.
It starts with a funny scene that shows Ducky. Then you can see Cera, which pretends to be brave but deep inside she is an afraid creature. At last and as climax you can see the main "hero" Littlefoot, which has to master adverse circumstances during his whole live.
It would also be a daunting introduction for children if the movie would start with the relative brutal scene of the egg stealer combined with the flashes of the thunderstorm
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Another question would be what different the age difference (which I suppose most will agree to be a rather small one) would make. Apart from Cera's deducting a greater claim to food or the like (which I daresay she would rise no matter her real age) the difference may be much less in the perception of the LBT dinosaurs than it would be to some humans. I still doubt LBT dinosaurs to be able to figure out their age precisely enough to be able to tell the difference of a few days.
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So Cera claiming to be the oldest could just her own perception of the situation shown in LBT5, then? That's...perfectly in character for her. I suppose who is the oldest doesn't matter in some ways, since we all mature differently. Littlefoot could very well be the youngest and still be the only one with a single lick of common sense.
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Gosh, finally. I’ve been trying to come up with something to add to this thread for weeks now. I was just about ready to hang up the towel. Yet, I decided to give the movie one more viewing to see if anything came to mind, and low and behold, I finally found something to add. It’s not profound or anything, but it is something I didn’t see mentioned in this thread yet. I hope I can say this clearly. This is my opinion of why Petrie’s birth was not aired like the others:
At the end of the movie, Petrie exclaimed to his family that he was a flyer. He was indicating that he had gained the ability to fly, not informing his family what species he was. This is made evident by his showing off of his flying ability after he said that. Therefore, when Petrie was with his family before the separation, both he and they knew that he could not fly. In short, if he was shown with his family like the other kids were, viewers would have already known he could not fly, making the discussion he had with Littlefoot and Ducky pointless to viewers. That scene would have lost significance since the information would have already been known.
Now, why didn’t they simply just not make that scene where the kids talked about Petrie’s flying and had his life with his family shown instead? If not for that scene, they may not have bumped into Cera, and bumping into her was a big plot development. Littlefoot started running to help Petrie start flying, then ran into her. Therefore, the scene where Petrie explained his problem needed to be there in order to lead up to that run. Now, the writers probably didn’t want the discussion of Petrie’s inability to fly being repetitive, but needed the scene to exist, so simply did not add his association with his family prior to that scene. Without Petrie’s explanation of being unable to fly, Littlefoot would have had no need to start running off when he did, which is how all formed a group.
Now, you may be thinking, “Hey, it takes a while for any flyer to learn to fly. They could have easily shown his birth without getting into the time period where he should know how to fly.” Well, this takes me into further speculation about the song during the ending credits of The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure. The scene shows several hatchlings moving about. Baby three horns, baby swimmers, even a baby spike tail. Now, as they are showing these off, they show tiny flyers flying into the distance. They must be babies too, because why would they show babies of three species then show older flyers? The flyers must be babies too. Based off of this, I believe that flyers learn their aerial movement ability just shortly after hatching in the Land Before Time universe. Therefore, were baby Petrie given air time of his hatching and shortly afterwards like with the others, his inability to fly would have surfaced quickly.
In conclusion, I feel that they just needed a scene to get the kids together in one group and wanted to make sure it didn’t have anything in it that viewers already knew. Well, I hope weeks of brainstorming hasn’t produced stupid fruit. This post is my best effort of trying to analyze this, so if this explanation is out of place in any way, I’m clueless, sorry.
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At the end of the movie, Petrie exclaimed to his family that he was a flyer. He was indicating that he had gained the ability to fly, not informing his family what species he was.
Why would he be telling him that? I thought what he was trying to say was clear
Now, you may be thinking, “Hey, it takes a while for any flyer to learn to fly. They could have easily shown his birth without getting into the time period where he should know how to fly.” Well, this takes me into further speculation about the song during the ending credits of The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure. The scene shows several hatchlings moving about. Baby three horns, baby swimmers, even a baby spike tail. Now, as they are showing these off, they show tiny flyers flying into the distance. They must be babies too, because why would they show babies of three species then show older flyers? The flyers must be babies too. Based off of this, I believe that flyers learn their aerial movement ability just shortly after hatching in the Land Before Time universe. Therefore, were baby Petrie given air time of his hatching and shortly afterwards like with the others, his inability to fly would have surfaced quickly.
What was with all those hatchlings at the end of movie 2? I mean, we all know Ducky had a bunch of unhatched siblings, but what's with the baby threehorns? It looks like Cera's sisters somehow made it to the valley after all but never grew up! :lol And the baby spiketail? What was with that? MarzGurl, in her review, is like, "Are u seriouly insinuating that Spike has a younger sibling?!?!" I know, it makes little sense.
As for the flyers flying off into the distance, they are almost certainly babies, I believe we even get a close look at them in the final shot as everyone runs forward. Plus, we know baby flyers can fly already, from the scene with some fighting over a cherry in 1, and 3 who make a cameo in "Grandma's lullaby" (I like the think the one who didn't go home immediately, but just looked sad, was the one who offered Littlefoot his cherry in 1), as well as the one in "Flip Flap and Fly", who, I believe, flies just moments after his birth.
The big question is, if there's a bunch of hatchlings around who theorectically aren't siblings to Cera, Spike and Petrie, where are the baby longnecks? Oh well, we see some in movie 9. ;)
By the way, if we ever do get the extended cut of the film, I hope Petrie's birth is in it! :D
Even in the books, Petrie's hatching is never mentioned.
Wait I've never read the books and have no method of doing so unless I buy them but I'm not going to but does that mean it's was definitely never in?
Well, the "Great Migration" piece doesn't have any cuts in it so I suppose it never was.
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How much you wanna bet the missing footage provides a few answers?
Oh yeah. :smile
Here's what I hope it would answer:
Why Spike seems so big when he steps out of the grass
Why Petrie was left behind
What happened to Petrie's dad
Why Petrie was a black flyer in his first moments onscreen
How Littlefoot and his mom got seperated in the earthshake
How they escaped from the tar
How Petrie escaped from the sharptooth
and, of course, what happened to Cera's mom and sisters.
Can't believe these are still mysteries after all these years!
Could it be that he's much older than the others, or maybe just a hatchling like Spike?
Is Spike a hatchling? Cause from the looks of it, when he stepped out of the grass, he grew up to the age of the rest. Or maybe he just looks bigger then and the real size change comes in the next scene, which could take place days later for all we know.
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Hmm...I think you might be looking a bit too deeply for meaning in some of those scenes;
How Petrie escaped from the sharptooth
I doubt this is a missing scene; it's an old film cliche, a character making a miraculous escape at the last minute - same thing happens in Indiana Jones 3 when the tank goes off the cliff. You think Indy must have died, then without any indication how, he climbs up the side alive.
To speculate, Petrie's dripping wet when he climbs back up, so we know he got out when Sharptooth fell into the water. Come to think of it, the large rock falling onto Sharptooth's belly in the water probably knocked the wind out of Sharptooth, and as such caused him to loosen his grip on Petrie; who was forced to climb back up since he wouldn't be able to fly with wet wings.
Why Spike seems so big when he steps out of the grass
Why Petrie was a black flyer in his first moments onscreen
Nah, that'll just be a continuity error - more likely, the animators intentionally sized Spike up quickly lest he be very tiny for the whole film. As for Petrie being black in his first appearance, it's more likely they intentionally did that so it wasn't clear what Petrie was when he fell on Littlefoot, so he could seem scary, and then be "unmasked" (alternatively, it is an old cartoon; and the colours aren't always consistent).
Why Petrie was left behind
You might as well ask why/how Ducky or Spike were left behind. We don't need to know; Ducky sums up that she "lost her family in the big earthshake", and that's all we need to know; we can assume the same applies for the others. It is odd that Petrie's mother wouldn't come looking for him, but this is probably just a mistake in the story that nobody thought about.
When you consider all of the parents on the other side effectively abandoned their kids and continued on to the Valley, it's likely that she thought he was dead (we know they were working together not long afterwards; why didn't they get the flyers of the group to go across the divide and search for their lost kids?). In fact, I think there was a post about this somewhere else; I know I speculated he could have fallen from his nest in the earthshake and become lost, and his mother could have returned after the earthshake and failed to find him, and was forced to move on, meaning that by the time Petrie found his way back to his nest - the tree - he had little other option but to climb it and hope his mother would come back.
What happened to Petrie's dad
Since he's never mentioned in the story at all, I doubt he was ever meant to be a character. It was probably just an idea someone came up with that he didn't have a father at the end. Besides, the only way you could work this in without having a scene at the end where his mother tells him his father is dead would be for him to have died during the earthquake; perhaps protecting Petrie. But there's no indication for this in the story or the soundtrack, it would add little to Petrie's character and it takes away from the emotional impact of the death of Littlefoot's mother.
How they escaped from the tar
There could have been a scene for this, but there's no indication for it in the music - this bit is the same on the CD and in the film. Besides, it's likely that it's intentional; to show the characters escaping from the tar means the audience doesn't get the emotion of shock when the "Tar Monster" arrives and is then revealed to be the main characters.
How Littlefoot and his mom got seperated in the earthshake
Hmm...that is an odd one, but again, there's no indication for it in the music. And besides, why would they have cut this or a scene where they get out of the tar? We know they only cut scenes considered too disturbing (and potentially that bit in the story with the two racist groups of duckbills); what would either of these scenes have done to warrant a cut? Likely the audience is just meant to think they got additionally scattered when the earthquake continued.
and, of course, what happened to Cera's mom and sisters.
I don't think this was a scene in the original film; for one, where would it fit in to the story? They'd either have to show part of the parents' journey (which wouldn't suit the film's story), show them dying in the Earthquake (which we know didn't happen) or being found dead later on (which would have changed the last scenes of the film completely), or awkwardly work in a line when Cera finds her father, which would have killed the scene.
I think we can blame the sequels for this one. It's not said in the original film that any of Cera's family are dead; we simply only see her reuniting with her father (with another Threehorn visible nearby when we cut to Littlefoot), and so it could be that when the second film was made, the story-writers didn't bother to work Cera's mother (aside from potentially a brief cameo when the parents rush to rescue them from drowning) or siblings (again, also potentially shown at the ending), and by the time the third film came around, they decided to abandon those characters completely and continue without explanation. Compare how Ducky's father vanishes after the fifth film; presumably since he didn't add anything to the story, the storywriters decided to drop him and make Ducky's mother a solo parent (then the fans come along and conclude he could have died on the way back to the Valley after the events of the fifth film).
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Is there a gap for when Ducky and Spike fell into the lava? We never saw how that happened either?
Your explanation of why Spike is suddenly so big is just odd. What's wrong with him being a baby when Ducky and Petrie are that size?
And Petrie being drawn a black flyer was intentional?
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Is there a gap for when Ducky and Spike fell into the lava? We never saw how that happened either?
No gap; Track 6 (The Rescue/The Discovery of the Great Valley) opens with Cera leading the others, then after Ducky's line "Spike, we must stick together!" cuts to Littlefoot being led by his mother's spirit to the Great Valley, before there's a different track of music (Littlefoot turning back for them; a cut scene), and then it goes back to Cera, and Petrie falling into the tar.
It would seem then that we didn't get to see Ducky and Spike get stranded; in both the original and final versions of the film, we're simply supposed to figure that they both got stranded at some point.
On the other hand...didn't one person suggest (or have a line from the storybook suggesting) that Ducky and Spike became surrounded by lava after stopping?
Your explanation of why Spike is suddenly so big is just odd. What's wrong with him being a baby when Ducky and Petrie are that size?
It is odd, but there's no evidence of another scene there; Spike's birth appears to be the same in the storybook, except afterwards Littlefoot and the others find Ducky, and she introduces Spike to them, only for Cera to suggest they leave him behind as he'll eat a lot; the others ignore this, and they wake him and lure him with berries on a stick, which then fades into the "There had never been such a herd before" scene. Annoyingly, the music from this scene (and quite a few scenes from this one to Littlefoot and Cera's fight) is not on the soundtrack, so we can't use that as a guide.
Perhaps the animators just got the scale wrong, or they drew Spike smaller than normal for the hatching so that Ducky would fit in the scene, and then hoped people wouldn't notice the size change (or perhaps they hoped people would assume he got bigger from eating all the food around his nest; which is what I always assumed). Either way, there's not really any scene that would fit between the hatching and the eating to explain the size differences, so it's either a goof or an intentional error.
And Petrie being drawn a black flyer was intentional?
Yup. Either a goof or an intentional error, or a stylish colouration. Characters do change colour throughout the film; Littlefoot is orange for parts of the film, Mr. Threehorn is pink at the end, etc. I still think it was done so that the audience wouldn't know what Petrie was at first.
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There's only about 2 minutes of cut music on the track though, compared to the 30 that didn't make it into the film, so we shouldn't base it all on the soundtrack.
And what did happen to all that missing music?
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True, a soundtrack doesn't always match the film - look at the Titanic soundtrack (also by James Horner); there's plenty of stuff there that got cut from the film that doesn't appear to fit at all - but it's the best guide we have so far; that and the book.
As for the "Lost Track", as I call it, it might have been recorded at a later point? I know there's a mention in the credits about "additional recordings". In any case, some of it is edited versions of other tracks. However, some things - such as the horn that plays for scenes involving Spike - are completely new.
For a guide, see this page;
Lost Track Analysis (http://amcalmaron.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=72#/d30ctom)
Complete Soundtrack Analysis (http://amcalmaron.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48#/d3f2f7z)
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So is it possible it originally did show things like the gang escaping from the tar, Littlefoot and his mother being seperated in the earthshake, and Ducky and Spike nearly falling into the lava?
Perhaps the animators just got the scale wrong, or they drew Spike smaller than normal for the hatching so that Ducky would fit in the scene, and then hoped people wouldn't notice the size change (or perhaps they hoped people would assume he got bigger from eating all the food around his nest; which is what I always assumed).
Nope, we see him as he eats it after poking his head out and doesn't grow any bigger.
So it's possible the size Spike's been all this time is actually the size a baby spiketail should be, and he only looked smaller when he hatched? Doesn't seem likely.
I want to know what went on in the grass :anger Why did they have to shoot it from outside for the 7 seconds before he came out? Obviously something important happened in those 7 seconds!!
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So is it possible it originally did show things like the gang escaping from the tar, Littlefoot and his mother being seperated in the earthshake, and Ducky and Spike nearly falling into the lava?
For the reasons I stated above, I consider it highly unlikely that they were scenes.
Compare Littlefoot's birth; his egg gets scattered some distance from his nest, and yet his mother and herd are able to catch up with him (admittedly, they are insanely huge, so the egg wouldn't be too far away for them). We don't see them going after him in the film, but we assume they did (and there's no place for an extra scene in the music at all; Track 1 is the only track which is the exact same in film and soundtrack), and that's enough information.
This sort of thing is likely what's going on with the scenes you mention. We don't see Littlefoot and his mother get separated, but we see throughout the whole scene the land shifting constantly, so we can assume they were affected by that (or it could be like Bambi, where the kid keeps running and doesn't realise the parent isn't following). We don't see Ducky and Spike getting trapped, we just see them trapped, and assume it happened offscreen during the last scene. We don't see the Gang escaping from the tar, but we see them covered in tar and awkwardly stuck together when they rescue Cera; so we can guess they eventually managed to free themselves.
I want to know what went on in the grass Why did they have to shoot it from outside for the 7 seconds before he came out? Obviously something important happened in those 7 seconds!!
Again, I think you're looking too deeply into things. Spike's size change must be a mistake by the animators and not the leftover of some cut scene; how could they work such a change into the story on such short notice? For him to grow that fast realistically, he'd need to eat lots of food for several weeks, and to do this inbetween the hatching of his egg and his emerging from the clearing, there'd have to be several scenes where Ducky left and foraged for him; at the same time the others looking for her. Such a scene would be far too long, too much of a deviation from the plot, and unnecessary.
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For the reasons I stated above, I consider it highly unlikely that they were scenes.
Compare Littlefoot's birth; his egg gets scattered some distance from his nest, and yet his mother and herd are able to catch up with him (admittedly, they are insanely huge, so the egg wouldn't be too far away for them). We don't see them going after him in the film, but we assume they did (and there's no place for an extra scene in the music at all; Track 1 is the only track which is the exact same in film and soundtrack), and that's enough information.
This sort of thing is likely what's going on with the scenes you mention. We don't see Littlefoot and his mother get separated, but we see throughout the whole scene the land shifting constantly, so we can assume they were affected by that (or it could be like Bambi, where the kid keeps running and doesn't realise the parent isn't following). We don't see Ducky and Spike getting trapped, we just see them trapped, and assume it happened offscreen during the last scene. We don't see the Gang escaping from the tar, but we see them covered in tar and awkwardly stuck together when they rescue Cera; so we can guess they eventually managed to free themselves.
But does the lack of gaps in the score mean those scenes don't exist? Because there is only about 4 minutes of extra score, and about 11-30 minutes (sources vary; it was most likely 11) minutes of footage were cut. So it is possible. I mean, despite no gap being present in the soundtrack for it to take place, people have suggested in this topic that Petrie's hatching was part of the original opening sequence...
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It starts with a funny scene that shows Ducky. Then you can see Cera, which pretends to be brave but deep inside she is an afraid creature.
Hey...DON'T...CALL CERA...COWARD! She had only just hatched, and was doing her best to be brave. Really, I'm sure her dad is just like this too at times!
At last and as climax you can see the main "hero" Littlefoot, which has to master adverse circumstances during his whole live.
Well don't look at anyone here, you can blame God for that. I didn't force him into any of that.
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^But Bruton, Dilopho wasn't refering to you at all. You weren't even a member of this forum when that post was made.
BTW, it's good to have you back. Just relax. Don't be angry.
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Thanks. I just don't like that he called Cera a coward.
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Well, this takes me into further speculation about the song during the ending credits of The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure. The scene shows several hatchlings moving about. Baby three horns, baby swimmers, even a baby spike tail.
What was with all that? Was it mating serason in the Great Valley? :huh:
Now, as they are showing these off, they show tiny flyers flying into the distance. They must be babies too, because why would they show babies of three species then show older flyers?
I think you even see them close up when the gang, plus the new hatchlings, run towards the camera at the end.
No baby longnecks though. :( Thankfully we do see some in 9 ;)
The flyers must be babies too. Based off of this, I believe that flyers learn their aerial movement ability just shortly after hatching in the Land Before Time universe.
But we already know that from 1, when we see those baby pteranodons fighting over the cherry.
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Thanks. I just don't like that he called Cera a coward.
^ For the record, he did NOT. He wrote:
Then you can see Cera, which pretends to be brave but deep inside she is an afraid creature.
You are the one to read this as Cera being called a coward, but actually there is an important difference between being afraid (especially of something that is out to eat you) and being a coward (as in the fear controling ones action to the point that one is no longer able to act sensibly if acting sensibly does include any risks).