The Gang of Five
Beyond the Mysterious Beyond => The Arts => Attic Treasures => Topic started by: NewOrder on August 23, 2007, 02:18:29 PM
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I know Malte has it. Who's the author? Is it any good? Where can I find it? Is it worth it? Was it written before the actual movie?
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I have a couple of land before time books. I'm quite sure that most of them were written AFTER the movie was produced or during the production. Some of the books includes scenes which were changed or left out in the later movie. Other books include scenes which I doubt were ever part of the script but are based on the imagination of the author (a German LBT book written by Karin J‰ckel for example gives a short speaking role to Ducky's dad in the scene right before Ducky's hatching).
The land before time book I've most frequently referred to here in the GOF (as it includes most of the interesting stuff from earlier or longer versions of LBT) was written by Jim Razzi and illustrated by David Kirschner and Beverly Lazor-Bahr (all three people were involved with the creation of later land before time books as well. Sadly the later two switched from their very beautiful style in the book mentioned above to a style of characters with knobbly knees and a bat-like Petrie in their later land before time books.
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I checked amazon and most of the books have like 24 pages, there are only a couple of versions from 1988. Are these the ones you're refering to Malte? I thought they were bigger books.
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There were a couple of books in 1988 which should rather be described as booklets. Those were titled "Friends in need", "The Search for the Great Valley", "Cera's Adventure" and there was yet another book which I presume to be similar in nature (but I can't be sure as I don't own it yet) which had Littlefoot in its title. Those books included screenshots from the movie including a few from outcut scenes, and they were based on the earlier script of the movie in which Littlefoot returned to get his friends AFTER he found the Great Valley. Neither of the book includes the whole story from the beginning to the end, and they are not meant to be a series (with one book being the sequel to the other) either.
The land before time book by Jim Razzi is longer and more elaborate, telling the whole story including several outcut or changed scenes (e.g. Sharptooth's eye, Cera's reaction to the idea of taking Spike along, the Oasis scene, the early discovery of the Great Valley etc.) The book includes very beautiful pictures rather than screenshots.
There are quite a few books which appeared later. One of them tells a very sumarized and version of LBT in verses which are clearly meant for a young audience and another one (I need to check out if that one was English or German) manages to tell the story without a single mention of Sharptooth! That book has Littlefoot's mother injured (they never explicitly say that it was fatal) by a volcanic eruption.
Many of the books which appeared later didn't tell the story of the original movie or any of the sequels but totally independent short stories. Most of them are rather simplistic, but some of them stand out as somewhat more elaborate. In Germany some audio plays were made based on the short stories from that books and I must say that they did an excellent job in elaborating the short stories from the books so much as to make them really good audio plays each of which lasts about 20 minutes (there are six altogether).
There are two very elaborate and I three less elaborate books in Germany telling the story of the the original movie. One of these books is written by Karin J‰ckel and was published along with the movie. It is closer to the plot line of the movie (Littlefoot finds the Great Valley AFTER reuniting with his friends) and is illustrated with screenshots. There are a few short scenes not included in the movie, but I strongly suppose that they were entirely based on the imagination of Mrs. J‰ckel rather than some script. The story is nicely told in that book.
The other book appeared later (in the late 90s I think) and it too does a good job in retelling the movie as an exciting story but doesn't reveal any outcut scenes or anything. Instead of screenshots it is illustrated with paintings on every page and they are very well done. A second book by the same author and illustrator was published. It tells the story of the second and third movie in the same style as the first does with the original movie. Those books were published repeatedly with no changes but different cover images <_<
There also is a version of the two books (telling LBT 1, 2, and 3) in one issue and one altered version of the first book in Din A5 rather than Din A4 format (there are minor changes in the text but many pictures were left out and of course the cover was changed to mislead people into thinking that it was a totally new book).
There are also two books (again one of them was published with two various covers) telling the story of LBT 5 along with a number of kid games (find the way through the labyrinth, find the differences between these two pictures etc.). Sadly the quality of the images in the LBT V books is poor (bat version of Petrie etc.).
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Yeah, Friends in Need has some interesting dialogue with "crown horns" or something, I'd have to check again, but it reinforced that species (or races, if you will) do not work together for the greater good.
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What's the title of Jim Razzi's book? Jim Razzi (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/jim-razzi/)
Is it any of these 3? How many pages those it have?
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Jim Razzi was involved with several land before time book including "Friends in Need" and "The Search for the Great Valley" which are shown on that webpage you found. There is no picture of THE Jim Razzi book (the one which is most interesting) on the webpage though I am pretty sure the book titled just "The land before time" is the one. The full title is "The land before time - The illustrated story". So far I have seen two different versions of the book (or perhaps it is one version but with a wrapper which the book I have no longer has). Either way I have seen ebay auctions of the book with a great Valley scene as a cover picture while the book I have has a brown cover with a red Littlefoot imprint in the lower right corner. I am currently not at the place where most of land before time stuff is. Therefore I can't check out the exact page number at this time. I checked out ebay, but it appears that the book is currently not being offered. In general it is offered at ebay quite regularly though.
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Up until recently, I never even knew there were any LBT books, as I had never seen any in stores. Now, I'm hearing of more than I thought possible. There's so many different "versions" that's it's really quite confusing.
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Is it this one?
It's the only one I found with more than 24 pages (64 to be exact)
Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Before-Time-Picture-Corgi/dp/0552525677/ref=sr_1_4/026-5101675-0945209?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187971128&sr=8-4)
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This one matches your description
eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Land-Before-Time-illustrated-story-1988-J-C-Penney_W0QQitemZ320129495121QQihZ011QQcategoryZ279QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem)
But tell me if the one above is the same, the one from amazon.
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I suppose so (though I cannot be entirely certain about the amazon one without a picture; but I don't know of another book that would match the description). Either way, the ebay auction which you found while I failed to find it is indeed about the Jim Razzi book I am talking about and it also confirms my guess that rather than two cover versions there is just a wrapper, which I don't have, around the book.
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Ok, the book is kind of sheep, do you think it's worth buying? It's only 64 pages long, that's pretty small.
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Kind of sheep it is? Baa baa
SHEEPish grin --> :rolleyes:
The book is certainly one of the most interesting land before time books I have. It includes many interesting scenes (many of which have been quoted in discussions) and beautiful pictures.
If the book is so sheep I'd say you should let some bucks loose for it :lol
I don't think you will find an English land before time book with more than 64 pages (not counting coloring books). Sadly most books are very short.
But tell me, is there any land before time merchandise (books but everything else too included) in Portugal? Many countries seem to have their own LBT items which are not sold internationally. Quite recently a set of six land before time figures was released in Italy as a content of "Kinder Surprise".
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This is the first time I've seen you make a joke Malte, right on dude :D
As for the Portuguese merchandise, yes there are some but I never looked into it. If I see something interesting I'll let you guys know.
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This is the first time I've seen you make a joke Malte, right on dude
Is it? :(
Actually I have been joking in the GOF before, but I'm afraid people don't notice when I do. Sometimes I'm afraid people consider me much more of a cold fish than I am.
As for the Portuguese merchandise, yes there are some but I never looked into it. If I see something interesting I'll let you guys know.
Please do! I'm really interested to know about all the merchandise in Portugal you can tell us about, even in case it may not strike you as particularly fascinating.
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Ok, I'll check around, I'm not the kind of fan who buys everything, and it would be a bit weird for me to walk in toys r' us or something like that, so I've overlooked most of the merchandise, the only exception is the DVD's.
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I think I recall seeing an LBT book at my aunt's one time. It was kinda short, and wasn't really as good as the actual movie.
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I'm not particularly fond of the "read along" things included in the DVDs, either. However, I guess that's teenage thinking for you. How many of the LBT movies have been novelized, anyway?
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So far I didn't find a book on any but the original movie in English language. There are quite a couple of English LBT books containing short stories not based on any movie.
In Germany there are book versions of the original and the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th movie.
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This is sort of related, besides the tax over the value of the product, which taxes do you have to pay to pass stuff from the US through costumes? This is only for people living in the UE.
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I am not aware of any special taxes I had to pay for ebay auctions. The shipping is of course higher when the items have to cross the US borders and the big pond, but apart from the item itself and the shipping costs no further expenses were involved.
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I bought something from ebay from the US, a couple of years ago, I had to pay the price, the shipping and the IVA (which is a tax of 21% over everything you buy), I don't remember if I paid something else. all I know is that the final bid was 40 dollars and I end up paying 89 euros on the whole.
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I bought something from ebay from the US, a couple of years ago, I had to pay the price, the shipping and the IVA (which is a tax of 21% over everything you buy), I don't remember if I paid something else.
This is strange. I never had to pay any additional IVA whatsoever for any ebay auction (and I won many auctions of items offered in US and UK). I think so far most ebay auctions are still considered as private dealings rather than business trade over here. I do not know if there is any different legislation for ebay auctions in Portugal. In any case I'm sorry to hear that it was so expensive for you.
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The IVA had nothing to do with eBay, from eBay I only paid the shipping and the item. It's just that in costumes I had to pay the IVA (each country has its own denomination for this but its that tax over every product, IVA translates to "added value tax"), back then it was 19% now it's 21%, I don't know if I had to pay some extra costumes fee. A friend of mine usually buys things from Canada, he told me they cheat the taxes and that he only pays the value of the item and the shipping, however apparently, ether the seller didn't know how to do this, or in the US they can't do the same thing.
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But this tax wouldn't usually be raised in case of a private ebay auction. Of course it would if you bought a product from the manufacturer for a set price, but not if you bought a used book from a private person (and as the book is out of print for all I know you couldn't buy it from some online bookstore anyway).
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I'm actually thinking about buying it through Amazon, sent a couple of e-mails to the sellers to check out the state of the item and shipping. Let's hope you're right.
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Well, I bought it. Let's see, amazon says it will arrive in 3 to 12 days after its posted on August 31st. The thing is I'm going on vacation September 1sr, I hope it doesn't get mixed up in the mail.
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I've read it, it has many scenes that don't feature in the original movie, some I think would add more to the movie. others - like the one with dino's not sharing the water and the food - not so much. There are also a couple of scenes missing, like Cera and Littlefoot's fight. It's also way too quick of a read, the writer could of explored a lot more of the story. On the whole, for what I paid for it, 7 euros, I guess, it was worth it.
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They fail to mention that crucial line of Cera's about Littlefoot's mother thereby avoiding the actual cause for the fight in the movie (I don't suppose that Cera's determination to go a different way would have made Littlefoot attack her). In one of the German LBT books I have some special attention is given to her abuse of Littlefoot's mother as both Littlefoot's feelings at that moment and Cera's thoughts about it later on (after her rescue from the domeheads) are mentioned.
I've read it, it has many scenes that don't feature in the original movie, some I think would add more to the movie. others - like the one with dino's not sharing the water and the food - not so much.
I strongly disagree about the oasis scene being one that would not have added much to the movie. On the contrary, I consider it extremely potential. It was at that oasis that Cera really came to think of the racism between the different kinds as utter nonsense for the first time. Earlier drafts of LBT meant to stress the topic of racism much more. I think it could have been an improvement even of that awesome movie; while on the other hand there would have been the risk of the matter of racism going on the expense off the simple harmony brought into the movie through the perfectly non-racist characters.
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while on the other hand there would have been the risk of the matter of racism going on the expense off the simple harmony brought into the movie through the perfectly non-racist characters.
That's exactly why I don't like it. Of course the "say no to racism speech" can be found throughout lbt, but they shouldn't turn it into a consciencioulising film.
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I found the book at a local thrift store(one of the best places to find classic books without the shipping :p). Overall, I enjoyed it but noticed differences between the book and the movie itself. It's a good read and I will most certainly read it to any children I may have someday for their bedtime story :^.^:. Long live LBT!