If nobody minds, most of my focus here is on Littlefoot's voices since I have the most to say about them. Also, I'll only discuss the English versions of them since I've heard them in other languages very rarely.
Well so far, I think Scott McAfee has had Littlefoot's best voice. His talking part seems to match Littlefoot the best so far to me, it just sounds more "chipper" than others for some reason when I hear it. In my opinion, he also has the best singing voice for him so far overall- such grace. I think his main solo part in "It Takes All Sorts" is his best moment in that area (0:57-1:16). Also, there aren't many children singers I've heard that can vibrate their voice in the middle of a song. When used at the right times, it can really add to the majesty of a verse. Scott McAfee did it perfectly and I feel that made the verse stand out more to poeple who really focus on the song. If the singer makes it really obvious he or she is doing it, it can actually take away from the feeling. Since so little attention is drawn to things like this, especially here, some people probably didn't notice it happening at all in this song. Even I didn't hear it the very first few times. But after I listened to it a lot, it really stands out to me whenever I hear it on the movie or soundtrack. Listen closely when he says "things" during 1:10-1:13. That's kind of the equivalent of shaking your finger on a guitar string. It's the same note but it "shakes" in a nice sounding way. Check it out for yourself! By the way, does anyone recognize who put this video up?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs8PFWmRbGoAs far as which voice actor I think didn't fit quite as well for starring Littlefoot, check out Cody Arens in The Land Before XIII: The Wisdom of Friends. He wasn't the only actor for Littlefoot like it had been in 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12, or even one of two actors like they did in 5. Believe it or not, they called in two other people to help him with the various parts for Littlefoot in this film. Yes, there were three actors for Littlefoot in total here. Cody Arens didn't sing at all and had help with the speaking part too. Here are the excerpts from wikipedia:
This was the second film in the series in which Littlefoot is voiced by a different actor for a song only (Anthony Skillman provided Littlefoot's singing voice); the first being The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island (where Thomas Dekker provided Littlefoot's singing voice).
According to the film credits, both Cody Arens and Logan Arens (aka Logan Riley Arens) are labeled as the voice of Littlefoot, being the second animated film to star two different voice actors as the speaking voice of the same character, the first being Meet the Robinsons.
Surely there was someone who can talk alone and sing for Littlefoot somewhere to be found. To think they had to pay three people to act out one character's role.
Now one thing I did notice about voice talent is that Jeff Bennett can voice Petrie
and Spike just fine. Even in the same movie. At least, I sure didn't hear any complaints about the voices on The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock. Spike wasn't voiced at all in 1. In 2-5, Rob Paulsen took care of him. But when Jeff learned to do it and did so in VI, I wonder why the makers didn't try to save money and simply have Jeff do the same thing in The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration. In movies 7-9 and 11-13 and in the series which all happen after Jeff gets that talent, Rob voices mulitple characters in each, so he would have had to have been in all of those anyway. But after the sixth movie, there is one film where Rob does only Spike's voice- 10. So if they simply had Jeff do what he did in 6, Rob would not have needed to come to this one and money would have been saved. I wonder what they were thinking.
One quick comment is Anndi McAfee. She has quiet the talent for voicing opposite personalities. She voices Amber, one of the friendliest dinosaurs in Dink, the Little Dinosaur, then she came to voice Cera in The Land Before Time and, well, you can see the change she had to go through with this. Quite impressive, I think.
Another quick note is that I think Anthony Skillman did an excellent job on Littlefoot's dramatic solo singing part in 13, "How Do You Know?". In 6, "On Your Own" wasn't really made to be a "pretty" song anyway, I don't think. It was dramatic, but I feel it focused more on the lyrics than the tune. In 9, "No One has to be Alone", I don't know how to explain it very well, but the way Littlefoot sang certain parts seemed to take away from the song's "flow." Certain words and phrases seem to have been sung too quickly by him. This what I mean. Maybe someone else can explain it better when they hear it. You should hear what I'm talking about if you listen closely to "you're given" during 0:32-0:34, "alone" from 0:46-0:47, and "alone" again from 2:16-2:18. There are ways to add emphasis to words in a song without changing the rhythm in an out of place way. I couldn't find a video on youtube that shows it sung by Donny Osmond, who sang this song during the credits of the 9th movie, but if you have it available to watch, you'll hear that he makes every part flow into the song without making any disruption to the content, even though he adds a lot of extra emotion to several parts. (Gee, this movie poster looks familair too.) Here is what I mean about Littlefoot's part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ9ZRkNBmFcIf he slowed down a little during these parts or had slowly set the tempo up to be increased at the right monents, this could have been better.
Now, as for what I feel to be the best dramatic Littlefoot solo singing part (quite a mouthful) as I mentioned at the top of this paragraph, have a look see:
His main part is from 0:19- 1:19. (Am I noticing a video poster pattern here?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EExc-IIXbVcBeautiful, huh? Also, in my opinion, the part from 2:28- 2:44 was probably the hardest part to sing for the gang out of every LBT song ever made that they took part in. Do you agree? I mean, all of their timing, rhythm, and tone of voice had to fit in perfectly with each others. I think that would be pretty tough. If anyone thinks otherwise, it was only an opinion anyway, as is most of what I've said in this. I have more to say on this topic, but since this is reaching a reasonable size limit, I'll sign off until another post of mine here. Does anyone think I focus on details too much? Later!
