Universal's staff should put the songs up on YouTube themselves. People would get to listen to the songs whenever they want. Univeral would get to collect add revenue and advertise the movie. Everyone would win.

Counting only the sequels I've seen and have clear memories of, my ranking looks like this:

1. The Stone of Cold Fire
2. Journey of the Brave
3. The Mysterious Island
4. Journey Through the Mists
5. Secret of Saurus Rock
6. The Great Valley Adventure
7. The Time of the Great Giving
8. Invasion of the Tinysaureses

Out of all the sequels, I find The Stone of Cold Fire the most interesting. Mostly, I like that it gave us a compelling antagonist: Pterano, who had both a tragic back story and motives that didn't involve eating the main characters for once. Add the surreal weirdness of extraterrestrials showing up, and the movie easily takes my top spot.

Maybe it's just the movie's newness befuddling my impressions, but I actually think Journey of the Brave is my second favorite sequel. I liked its simple, but exciting adventure. I liked its songs. I liked its character interactions. Honestly, I was surprised by how good it was.

The next two sequels, The Mysterious Island and Journey Through the Mists, were both enjoyable adventures with memorable settings. My Chomper favoritism gives his movie the edge, but Journey Through the Mists featured lots of great characters too. Ali, Archie, Dil, Itchy - the list goes on. Also, am I the only one who finds the Old One unintentionally hilarious? She's like a walking stereotype of stuffy old people.

Secret of Saurus Rock would be higher on my list if it weren't for Cera's nieces, who seemingly exist only to distract us from the movie's serious moments. It's a shame, since Doc is a great, mysterious character, and the legend of The Lone Dinosaur adds a welcome layer of history to The Land Before Time's mythology.

Even though it introduces one of my favorite characters, The Great Valley Adventure is lower on my list simply because I find the others stronger. That said, it deserves credit for giving us our first prolonged look at The Great Valley. It also gets points for exciting scenes with the Sinking Sands and the erupting volcano.

In general, I don't like generic bully characters, and The Time of the Great Giving constantly shoves three of them in our faces. It makes up for it with Mr. Threehorn's strong role and the surprisingly touching "Kids Like Us" lesson. But otherwise, I find it to be one of the weaker sequels. Still, it's not as mediocre as Invasion of the Tinysaureses, which was way too silly -- even by the standards of the other sequels.

Journey of the Brave is currently listed under "Top Picks for Kids" on Netflix. And on my account, it's the first one to show up on the horizontal scroll, before shows like Young Justice, Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated, Uncle Grandpa, The Garfield Show, Pokemon XY, and the 2015 Inspector Gadget cartoon.

Impressive streaming numbers are probably just as important these days as DVD sales, if not more so. If the movie does well, Netflix will no doubt gladly buy the broadcast rights for future ones, giving Universal a bankable Land Before Time revenue source.

What I meant was that there were times they were out of character, but for some reason, they made plot work so well, it hardly mattered.

Interesting - I didn't notice any glaring out-of-character moments. What examples stood out to you?

Weird. I don't remember these cartoon sound effects people are talking about at all. I knew about them before watching the movie, but I flat-out didn't notice any that stood out. Guess I'll have to listen for them when I watch the movie again tonight.

I also don't get why Chomper and Ruby were soo underplayed. Their members of the gang now so why not have them come along with them!?

I imagine the filmmakers wanted to give the original gang of five most of the focus, to make the movie feel more reminiscent of the other ones.

That, and having fewer characters on screen likely helped them save money on animation.  

I see the personality flaws, but they make the plot work so well.

I'm curious what you mean by this, pokeplayer. The only personality flaws I noticed in the film were the ones that the characters have always had to a certain extent. Stuff like Littlefoot always wanting to be the leader and Cera complaining about various things. These flaws make them who they are. Without them, they'd be rather boring to watch.

As I wrote in the spoiler-free thread, I enjoyed the new movie quite a bit. It actually surprised me with how good it turned out - especially the art direction. Those were some genuinely stunning backgrounds - the texture of them added a charming richness to the art. On the other end of the quality spectrum, the CGI effects were questionable at best, but the animators thankfully didn't use them much. Maybe my standards have become more forgiving from having to endure how mediocre Dragon Ball Super looks a lot of the time, but the animation pleased me for the most part.


MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD


Even though Ruby and (especially) Chomper are two of my favorite characters, I liked that the original gang of five were the central focus of the film. It felt more nostalgic that way. At the same time, I'm glad the writers gave the newer gang members a noteworthy role in the story. Chomper was as adorable and charming as ever - and it seems he's grown a bit since we last saw him. He at least looked bigger next to Ruby than he did during the TV series, though that might have been just an artistic license the character designers took, rather than a deliberate way to make him look older.

The new characters made good impressions. Wild Arm's frantic, self-centered antics were amusing and I liked Etta's sense of humor. For a moment those lizards Petrie ran into stole the show for me too. I always love tiny creatures with tons of energy. The science geek in me also appreciated the feathered dinosaurs. Their modern designs don't fit perfectly alongside the older characters, but I'll take what little scientific accuracy I can get when it comes to a cartoon. I appreciate that the staff put in that extra effort when they could have easily side-stepped the feathers entirely like Jurassic World recently did.

In the grand tradition of the Land Before Time series, the movie introduced a new natural disaster for Littlefoot and his friends to survive. The Sand Cloud was a nice touch. On a side note, I still find it hilarious how disaster-prone the Great Valley and surrounding areas are. Littlefoot's mother conveniently left that detail out when she was advertising the place.

Despite a few nitpicks here and there, I largely adored the new movie. It delivered a simple new adventure starring our favorite dinosaur friends. There really isn't much more I could have asked for. As far as Land Before Time sequels go, I'd rank it among the better ones, easily. The plot might not have been as memorable or complex compared to movies like Journey Through the Mists or The Stone of Cold Fire, but it was definitely just as fun, if not more so.

For a direct-to-video 2D animated movie, the animation was solid, and the painted backgrounds stunning, I'd say. Voice work was top-notch too. Littlefoot and Chomper opened their mouths and sounded like Littlefoot and Chomper - not just poor imitations. The new voices for Grandpa Longneck and Mr. Threehorn were notably different, but not bad by any means. Most importantly, all the characters behaved like their old selves, and the new characters entertained with amusing personalities and quirks. The songs didn't take me out of the movie, and most were actually pretty catchy.

Oddly enough, both this and another animated film I've been looking forward to -- Batman: Bad Blood -- come out on the same day. That's going to be an interesting double feature.

I doubt Universal would bother with a second trailer for a direct-to-video kids film. One trailer should more than suffice for its advertising needs. Besides, the announcement trailer already gives us a fairly comprehensive overview of the movie.