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The Party Room / Dinosaurs vs. Dragons!
« on: September 07, 2013, 02:10:59 AM »
From a fantasy viewpoint, Dragons would win.
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I, for one, would have preferred the death ending. It's just more poetic and junk.
The earthquake near the beginning was a result of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, AKA the extinction of the dinosaurs. Meaning everyone was Dead All Along. The film is their journey through purgatory towards heaven, represented by the Great Valley. The dinosaur that comforts Littlefoot directly after his mother's death is an angel trying to get him to overcome his anger over his mother's death, for which he blames both her and (secretly) himself. The lava field is where Cera overcomes her sin of excessive pride, and where the rest of the group learns that there are no "shortcuts" to heaven, and that they must go on the path set for them, and have faith in it, or they'll never get there. The sharptooth is representative of the kids' fear of their own mortality, and by killing him, they have finally let go of all of their earthly attachments, aside from Littlefoot, who still has guilt for the death of his mother. When he finally accepts her death, he finds the Great Valley, along with everyone else, where the rest of their families are waiting for them in the afterlife.
*So his mother went to hell?
**And she still came back to lead Little Foot to Heaven!
***No, she's in heaven. The rest of the dinosaurs are in hell, aka the sequels.
Littlefoot represents Christian faith. He believes that if you follow the path, no matter how difficult it may be, you will find heaven. Cera represents temptation. She too wants to get into heaven but doesn't want to have to work at it, and so is always looking for an "easy" way. These two spend much of the movie trying to convince Petrie, Duckie, and Spike to follow them. Cera's Heel Face Turn at the end represents the heroes overcoming temptation.
Petrie, Duckie, and Spike each represent a different type of follower. Petrie follows out of fear. Duckie follows out of innocence. Spike follows out of stupidity. All three are easily swayed and have to constantly be kept in line.
The Sharptooth, a mindless force of destruction, represents the sin that threatens to consume our heroes' souls should they ever stray from the path. Notice how when Sharptooth is presumed dead at the beginning of the movie, it is Cera (temptation) who finds and revives him. Notice also that Sharptooth normally only shows up if the heroes stray from the path. Symbolically, just before entering heaven they kill Sharptoothókilling Sin (in a pool of water, similar to a baptism ceremony, as it happens).
The tree-star represents a material possession, which keeps Littlefoot and his followers bound to their mortal coil. They are incapable of transcending the earthly realm while they are dependent on material possessions for comfort. Symbolically, it is destroyed at the halfway point of their journey.
Littlefoot's mother tells him that he can reach the Great Valley by following the sun. In many ancient religions, the Sun = God, so she's essentially saying to follow God. Littlefoot's mother herself could represent the Holy Mother (though combined with the fact that Littlefoot has no father, this interpretation turns Littlefoot into Jesus).
I was sure I'd read that somewhere too, but I wasn't able to confirm this when I tried to search for it online.
However, I do remember reading a bunch of threads on the IMDB message boards for the LBT movies, and one user was (or claimed to have been) a former animator at Sullivan Bluth Studios, and talked a fair deal about events during the production of one or two of their movies (in one thread he talked about the discovery of Judith Barsi's murder). He said in one thread that the "original ending" rumor wasn't true, and noted if it had ever existed, he'd never heard Don Bluth mention it (or something like that).
Could be worth looking for again...although this was a LONG time ago that I read this; around the time I joined the GOF? Prob >2006?
...Methinks I might have posted this before?
Anyway, I want to add something before I end my post... The lake in which the Sharptooth drowns could be seen when Littlefoots talks to the cloud looking like his mother and when the Gang (w/o Cera at first) were at the lake the cave (aka the entrance to the Great Valley/the cave I was refering to earlier in this post) could be seen as well
Tippy is pointless and gender is somewhat undetermined for a child that may not know if it is male or female due to its voice pitch and color scheme.
Falling in love with dinosaurs... Hmm, well I don't really rememer exactly when I started loving dinosaurs, it was kind of a gradual response after watching the dinosaur-mania of the early nineties: We're Back!, LBT, as well as Dink the Dinosaur ahh, obscure vids of the nineties.