I would not have been a happy camper if I never got to learn the real identity of Doc, if he was actually the Lone Dinosaur or not. At least that's one thing the TV series HAS done. Keeping a secret contained throughout the course of a film is one thing (and quite possibly a good thing, at that), but not spilling the beans at the end of the story or during another story is not good writing in my opinion. Where's the resolution in THAT?
And the obvious parody on The Long Ranger with LBT 6 is another mark against it for me. Of course, if we assume that the Lone Dinosaur is "real" on the LBT world, then we can't really hold that against it, but the parody cannot be ignored.
For the story of LBT 6 it didn't matter at all whether or not Doc really was the lone dinosaur of the legend or just some lone longneck capable of dealing with sharpteeth. Therefore it was not necessary to spill the beans. In case of LBT 7 I might have felt kind of uneasy and confused if they had not spilled the beans about the rainbowfaces, but I am quite sure that I would have preferred a more mysterious end to that Star Trek departure. I guess there are some things we are not SUPPOSED to be certain about.
The whole story ended with the creation of a new legend and who knows how the tale of Littlefoot's grandpa would be continued by future generations. We often see the heroism only in extremely spectacular actions or in people we are not accustomed too while we take a lot for granted from those people we know well.
As for the Lone Ranger, it may be that the obvious similarity doesn't disturb me as much as most of you as the "Lone Ranger" may not be as overused over here as it may be in the US.
As for LBT 11, I still think the whole story was a bit too simple, implausible (the freaking out of the grownups over the tinysaurs), and the sharpteeth were too harmless. Also I was disappointed that, first time she was mentioned since the original movie, no explanation was given on the whereabout of Cera's mother. If it comes to Tinysaurs, I think they could have made a much more interesting story if they had used tiny sharpteeth for example. A sharptooth species too small to pose a real threat to anything alive and above Chomper's dinner (insect) size. In spite of the lack of a real thread the frenzy of the grownups would have been a lot more understandable in such a story (if the grownups were to learn about it at all). The story could have been about Littlefoot and the others accidentally discovering the Tiny Sharpteeth (which might pose a threat to the not grownup dinosaurs) and being held prisoner by them to stop Littlefoot and the others from giving away the presence of the Sharpteeth to their parents. Such a story could have been really interesting. On the one end Littefoot and the others would have to learn that the tiny sharpteeth (while not threatened of being stomped out by big inhabitants of the Valley) pose no real threat. On the other hand the sharpteeth would be at odds about what to do with their unintended prisoners (some might be serious about killing the kids while others would see that in this case their parents would never stop searching for them). Also I expect the sharpteeth would have to device a way to prevent Littlefoot and the others from fleeing (e.g. by keeping them apart from each other so they couldn't escape as a group). The different reactions of Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike might also be more than a mere repetition of their conduct towards Chomper...
I'm getting of topic. Anyway, I think LBT could and should have been done better.
