The Gang of Five
The Land Before Time => General Land Before Time => Topic started by: Malte279 on October 06, 2004, 08:18:00 AM
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The cover of LBT 11 has triggered a discussion on wether people like it or not in the network54 forum. I consider this an interesting topic in general. What do you think of the LBT covers in general, which do you like or dislike?
As this is a message based on mainly my personal opinion I beg your pardon for any subjective statements on the look of the covers, and you are all most hearty invited to give your own oppinions which naturally are likely to be different from my own.
In general I think one can say the covers have changed a bit since LBT 7. From LBT 1 to 6 the characters on the cover looked pretty much like they looked in the movies. From LBT 7 on they began to look different. They had more (sorry if this sounds too storng, but my dictionary didn't provide me with any more polite term for the additional curves and different propotion sto be found on the characters since LBT 7) puppy fat. This was not a constant developement though. I refer to Ducky on cover number 7 and 10 while she looks alright on number 8 and nine. Littlefoot looks okay on number 9 while he sports "puppy fat" on number 7, 8 and 10 (and he is going to on number 11 with his face there being ripped from number 8). Cera has that lack on each single one of these covers (just look at her cheeks) while surprisingly Spike shows very, very few changes, though the color of his backplates and the crest on his back changed from dark- to lightgreen and finally to light brown (almost beige) on the covers.
Petrie went through some of the most scary changes looking like the old bat he resembles to on most products that bear the seal of the land before time collection. To be precise: Petrie got bat like wings, hairs on the head and the throat and a crooked beak on the covers of LBT 7, 8 and 9; while they mercifully spared him the large rings below the eyes and the wrinkles at the neck some of the "land before time collection seal product's Petries" sport with. With all my criticism of LBT 10 I have to give the cover of LBT 10 credit for letting Petrie look more like Petrie again.
I don't mean to talk on the characters outward appearance in the covers only, but also on the arangement of the characters and what else is to be seen on the cover. This brings us to the fact that covers don't always look the same in every country. The cover of LBT 7 for example looked better in US than it did in Germany. The US version showed the stone of cold fire and a volcano in the background. It gave an idea of the content of the story and made curious to learn more (which I think ought to be the basic idea of any cover). The German version however showed the characters (aranged just like in the US cover) in front of a clear sky looking out of a sort of frame of flowery jungle. It had NOTHING AT ALL to do with the story! However, even in the US cover I missed Pterano who seemed to important to me to keep him out of the story.
Here are the two different covers (sorry, they are tiny) so you can compare them yourself: (http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT7.jpg)
http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT7.jpg (http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT7.jpg)[/URL] http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT7D.jpg (http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT7D.jpg)
Another cover of which there were two different versions is the cover of LBT 3. In some countries (including Germany and I think the US) the cover showed the bullies in the foreground with Hyp sinking in the mud and Littlefoot and the others on (in Petrie's case above) a log in the background. Other countries had the maincharacters in the foreground at that lake they had found with the sun rising in the background and the bullies sneaking upon them between the reeds. Personally I prefered the lighter picture at the lake, which also gave reference to the water problem while the other one was mainly focused on that one scene with Hyp sinking in the pond. Here are the two covers: http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT3.jpg (http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT3.jpg) http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT3-2.jpg (http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT3-2.jpg)
Please note that whenever I'm talking of the covers of the land before time 2 to 6 I'm refering to the earlier versions of the covers like they can be found at www.landbeforetime.org, not to the new covers shown at www.landbeforetime.com. I do not like the new cover versions which contain less than the older covers, make a bat of Petrie and puppies of the others. The new LBT 4 cover doesn't even include Ali!!!
I think my favorites were the old covers of number 2 and 5 both of which show references to different parts of the story (Chomper with the egg, Chomper's parents, Ozzy and Strut / Chomper, the island, the Big Water the swimming sharptooth). It's the same with LBT 4, and to a certain degree with LBT 6. By the way, did you notice Ichty holds a binocular in the cover of number 4? It was mentioned in the forum before.
A drawback of the cover of number 10 was that most of the longnecks in the background (except for Bron, Pat and Littlefoot's grandmother) have been used more than once, with just a little change of size or color.
Much more can be wrote about the covers, but I'm afraid I begin to lull everyone here to sleep (I hope this essay will even be read). So what do you think of the covers? Which are your favorites or least favorites? And are they for particular reasons?
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I have LBT 7 on VHS and the cover is exactely the same as the german one you've shown in that site.. I do prefer the american one, but my favorite covers are the originals from lbt 1,2 and 4... 5 is ok, I didn't like the lbt 3 cover with hyp sinking but I prefer the other one with Littlefoot in the water, although it looks like a cd cover instead of a VHS or DVD cover... anyway I usally don't pay a lot of attention to the cover, I'm one of those guys who trully believes in the frase: "Don't judge a book by its cover"
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As soon as I saw the new covers I thought that it was going to be the way the films were animated!!! :o Needlesss to say I was relieved when that judgement proved false. What I don't understand though is why they did it. The old covers looked just fine--why change them?
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Maybe they found the new covers more appealing to kids.. as you can see the original lbt is for kids but older kids.. since I know people who are older than me and watch the original lbt and find it very interesting and emotional.. the first sequels were for a younger crowd but still very good plots.. after 7 they just tried to do it for 4 to 8 year-olds.. maybe we'll see lbt teletubie stiel.. I hope it doesn't get to that
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I think the newer covers actually turn people away from the series because they look way to cute. ;) Something for toddlers is what it actually looks like.
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Meanwhile the land before time 10 has been released in Germany too. I haven't watched it yet though. The German cover of LBT 10 varies a bit from the US version, mainly in color (the sky on the German cover is dark blue while in the US cover it looks like a reddish dusk sky). Bron is almost on the edge of the german cover. You see him on the side of a Video or DvD box rather than on the front. Also the landscape changed. It looks more interesting on the US cover with the waterfalls and rocks and stuff here is the US cover:
(http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT10.jpg)
And here is the German one:
(http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT10-2.jpg)
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Why change it though I wonder?
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^ The much the more as it is probably not "for free" to create two different covers. Why do they waste the money?
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Maybe to separate the region 1 DVD's from the region 2. People are more likely to look at a different type of cover than to that little globe with a 2 that most of the times is hidding on a corner in the back. I haven't seen the portuguese cover yet, but on the web site of one of our biggest cd, dvd's,books,etc store "fnac" (here is the url if you're interested: www.fnac.pt) if I look for lbt it shows lbt 10 and a price around 18 ? but on the ordering button it says contact us instead of delivery in 24/48 hours or something like that
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That's true, different regions often have different covers so there's no mistake as to which one you're buying. ;) I think the original one though is pretty much the same no matter what region you're in.
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Yup.. but I think the region 1 cover is a lot better than the region 2..
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I've never seen a region 2 cover of the first film...I know with the dvd releases that they are changing the way the original covers looked on the vhs tapes. I have all of the original release covers on lbt.org because I actually prefer them to the newer ones. The newer ones look just...cute... :blink:
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Cute in the negative sence of the word. The original cover did not differ in the various region. Nor did the other covers except for the case of LBT 3 mentioned above. LBT 7 was the first for all I know where there were these changes in background and stuff.
By the way, there was an alternative version for the cover of LBT 8. That alternative version showed a grownup spiketail rather than Tippy. There was only a poor quality version of that other cover in the web, and it was replaced soon by the final cover. However, I had saved that other version before it was taken away. Here it is: (http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT%208-2.gif)
and here is the version of the cover that was used:(http://mitglied.lycos.de/malte279/LBT8.jpg)
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Guess they changed the concept also because they forgot Petrie in that earlier one. :P :o
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I never did get Spike's friend.. (can't remember the name) he's on the cover but he only says about 2 phrases and they're all like "friend" or something like that.. maybe they should've given hima bit more protagonism for us to hear what he had to say
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His name was Tippy, and indeed he seemed unable to utter more than a few words. Maybe this is somehow to imply that Stegosauruses (whose brain had the seize of a walnut and who needed a second nerve centre to be able to coordinate their movements) are sort of well, less developed. I also recall a stegosaurus in LBT 3 not responding when being shouted at by Cera's Dad, but rather giving sounds that resembled Spike's in a way.
However, the many other Stegosaurus throughout the series who are fully capable to speak render this theory of mine quite baseless.
Anyway, I agree with you about Tippy. He remembered me a bit of a teletubby. His way of talking wrong sounded just silly if compared for example with Petrie's way of speaking. Maybe I'm only more accustomed to Petrie.
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^ Oh lord, not those Teletubbies. :angry: Where's my gun emoticon when I need it? :lol: I guess I can see Tippy being something like the uh, *cough*teletubbies*cough*. He really didn't say much did he after all was said and done?
Maybe he was another reason I didn't favor LBT 8.... <_< That was pretty much just a weak character.
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I'd have to say I prefer the original covers of the first four.
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I agree with that! Not only did they make the characters look extremely like either babies or a bat (Petrie), but they also don't show all of the characters on the new covers anymore and left out story elements that were shown on the earlier covers. I really don't see why they spend money to replace good covers by bad ones. Why do they change the cover when they have good covers already? I guess it was even the first 6 that were changed, not only the first four.
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There was one topic in the network54 I saw about Ichty having binoculars on the cover of LBT 4...indeed he does. :o I think that might have been there to show that they were after them as food...notice Dill is licking her lips....
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^ But that little joke certainly has nothing at all to do with the changing of the covers from LBT 1 to 6, does it?
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WR mentioned he liked the first four covers so I mentioned something about them. <_< It's just a continuing discussion about the covers as to why that might have been included on the cover when an object like binoculars are clearly a human invention.
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I wonder if the one who did include that binocular had to ask "someone in charge" (who would that be?) if it was okay? I don't even know who created / creates the covers. Does anyone have an idea?
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Actually, Ilike the binoculars. :lol: They really made me laugh when I really took a look at the cover.
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While I agree with what you're all saying, I only had a serious problem with two covers. First, was the DVD cover of The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving. While most will probably disagree with the extremity of my description, on that cover, Littlefoot's expression makes him look goofy and a little brainless. This mainly bothers me because Littlefoot is anything but goofy and brainless. Second was the DVD cover of The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island. It made Chomper look a lot smaller and younger than he had actually become in that movie. That representation of Chomper more resembled his appearance in II than V. Looking at that cover shows almost no sign that he's grown up at all. Yes, there are many cover oddities, as you've all validly pointed out. But these two annoy me the most.
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I heard about the original cover, not sure if it was the vhs or dvd, or 4 where Icky had binoculars. Though some of the recent ones can be annoying in that they seem to get a cheap artist to draw, instead of one of the ones who worked on the film or tv series. And why not just do a screen capture. If I can do that it's not that hard to figure out how to do it.
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I don't feel quite as strong about the cover of LBT 3. It is kind of stands out as it is the only one of the sequel covers in which the main-characters are more in the back- rather than the foreground. Not too good an idea I think, but I certainly prefer it over the way Littlefoot was pushed forward on the LBT 11 cover (for example). The cover did show a situation of distress and I guess Littlefoot did look accordingly, though I do see where you are coming from when you say it looks kind of goofy.
If they had put this kind of Littlefoot face :D in the context of the scene of that cover, it would have been the most macabre LBT cover ever :lol
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LOL :lol! Those binoculars are funny indeed. When I first got the movie when it came out, I did a double-take and blinked and squinted at Ichy 'cuz I wasn't sure if I was nuts or if it was for real :lol.
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I wonder if those were intentional or if the artist didn't know if there was tech in the movie or not.
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Perhaps the binoculars were purposefully put in there as a gag, or something?
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Or he stole them from the rainbowfaces and lost them before the events in lbt 4 happened. :lol
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The only cover I like is the cover for the original. I actually have an entire essay I wrote on just the LBT 1 front cover. (I was like 10 at the time, so I don't know what inspired me to write it.)
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They could hire fans to to the covers.
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Or take some screenshots from the movie and pick 1 to be the cover. Taking a screen shot can't be that hard for a big movie company. I'm sure at least 1 person in the whole company must know how to take a screen shot.
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I don't think I recall a single movie that ever used a screenshot as the movie cover.
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I don't think I recall a single movie that ever used a screenshot as the movie cover.
Neither do I! :wow
Anyways this thread---
http://z7.invisionfree.com/thegangoffive/i...6599.0#lastPost (http://www.gangoffive.net/index.php?topic=6352.0#lastPost)
I've made an entire history of LBT's movie covers.