I suppose it's about time I posted here!
My LBT story actually didn't begin with the original movie but with
Journey to Big Water. As a dinosaur-obsessed kid, I first saw it soon after it had been released on video. I didn't realize it was the ninth in a series at first (or I probably wouldn't have started there, good thing most of these movies can stand alone), but once I realized there were eight more to collect, I was thrilled! It took me no time at all to gather the whole collection and snap up whatever new movie came out.
I guess this is as good a time as any, though, to admit the embarrassing fact that I was unable to become as attached to the original movie as I've become to the sequels. Why? Because when I was a kid, I lost my videotape of the first movie and didn't get around to replacing it until way later, which meant the other movies got way more watch time out of me. That's the weird reason why I get a lot more nostalgia (and correspondingly, more enjoyment) from the sequels. Now, wait, wait, don't get me wrong! I'm definitely not saying I
dislike the first movie, just that it doesn't personally mean as much to me as the others. And I know my reason why is pretty random, but that's just my experience.
The Stone of Cold Fire was always my favorite LBT movie, which isn't really gonna surprise anybody.
I had this kids' book about the Roswell incident, so I was already fascinated by the idea of aliens landing on Earth...and when that happened in LBT, I was MIND-BLOWN. You wouldn't think characters with as little screen time as the Rainbow Faces would be such a big deal to a kid, but they sure were to me. I wanted to be every bit as intelligent as they were, and I wouldn't be surprised if the value I place on knowledge today was something I first learned from them back in my childhood. I have no doubts they increased my interest in outer space, too. Of course, these days, I don't much believe in the idea of aliens actually landing on Earth. But Roswell aside, there are plenty of wonders out there that we
know exist...not to mention an infinite amount that we
don't know.
Anyway, a few years later or so, I began getting into franchises other than LBT. Figuring I was outgrowing LBT (guess I thought I was a big girl
), the movies got packed away for a while. Turned out that didn't last very long, though.
I don't even know if two years went by before I discovered my old movies again and decided I wanted to introduce them to a certain
@Little Bro.
I put on Journey to Big Water, the movie I'd first fallen in love with years ago, and we watched it together. While he enjoyed it,
I enjoyed it even more, and I soon began entering a full-blown LBT phase all over again.
Ah, this is where things get interesting...the only LBT movie I hadn't seen at that point was
The Wisdom of Friends.
Upon first watching it, I was really dumbstruck. I was astonished at how silly they let that movie get, and my first thought was, like many of you, that I wanted nothing to do with it. BUT: a certain goofy little kid I knew thought it was hilarious. That LBT movie soon became one of his favorites, and as I watched it alongside him, the enjoyment I watched him get out of its pure silliness made it grow on me. Objectively speaking, of course, I'm not gonna try to say that
The Wisdom of Friends isn't one of the worst LBT sequels, but I don't hate it, either, thanks to Bro.
Then there was the LBT TV series. That definitely felt like a letdown for me during its run. I had expected a lot more from it
like a Rainbow Face reappearance, which I'm still annoyed didn't happen, absurdly enough. But these days, I have to admit there were some episodes in there that were quite good...but there were also some I thought were really bad, so overall, my opinion on the whole TV show is just neutral.
By the way, did I mention that LBT was the reason I ended up learning to sew? Somewhere in that second phase, I decided I was gonna make the LBT plushies I'd always dreamed of when I was little. I had official plushies of the main characters, of course, but I wanted MORE! *cough*rainbowfaces*cough*
So I started teaching myself to sew by hand, and after several initial failures, I was able to make plushies that I was happy with. (I think Guido was my first success.)
Not all my sewing is LBT-related anymore, but I've got LBT to thank for moving me to get started in the first place. (And I'm actually in the middle of a Strut plushie right now...just gotta push myself to finally make the feet and hands, which, let me tell you, are not fun to sew.)
I was disappointed that the LBT franchise stopped after the TV show and
Wisdom of Friends, wishing it would have ended on a higher note. You can probably imagine how thrilled I was when news about the movie then called "Journey of the Heart" surfaced years later. It brought back all the feels, setting off a third LBT phase for me. I mean, I went ahead and sewed plushies of Etta and Wild Arms after they appeared in the previews, before the movie had even come out. Once the movie's release was close enough, I even used my computer to set up a countdown to when the movie was going to be released, with a different LBT desktop picture each day for...what was it, 30 days or so? Look, when you get your first opportunity in years to geek out over a new LBT sequel, you don't let it go to waste!
Yeah, at this point, it's pretty safe to say that LBT is always going to be with me. There's no getting rid of it now!
I've loved plenty of other shows and things before, of course (and I still do), but my long history with LBT alone will always make it one of the series I hold closest to my heart.