Krieger responded to me yesterday:
My questions were:
"A. Were there any other scenes extended when you watched it? For example, there is a known scene where Littlefoot and Cera climb into a dead tree to unsuccessfully escape Sharptooth at the very beginning of the chase, but the T-Rex dives his head into the tree and rips it up. Did this make it into the workprint?
B. Littlefoot’s original name during production was Thunderfoot. Was his old name still intact during this early cut?"
His response:
Hi -----,
"After reading all of the internet speculation over the last few years about extended and missing scenes, when I watched the two cuts side by side (one on the TV, one on my laptop) I was honestly surprised by how much alike they actually are. There are a few minor trims but no "missing scenes" and no major trims to the T-Rex fight. No mystery ten minutes cut for violence; that's all just the internet rumor mill. The biggest change was that, in the early cut, Littlefoor finds the Great Valley first and then goes back to get his estranged friends before heading down there. It was changed because, upon viewing it, we all felt the double reveal of the GV was anticlimactic and, in line with the theme of the importance of solid friendships, it made more sense for them to get there together.
In terms of Littlefoot's name, it was changed before production ever started because the rights-clearance team discovered there was a brontosaurus in a children's book in England named Thunderfoot.
That's what I've got for ya.
Best,
Stu Krieger
My initial thoughts (pasted from Discord):
- I’m not sure what he considers “minor trims” but I guess he counts those extra bits with the Sharptooth chase in the swamp to be minor trims haha.
- Original ending arrangement is in the early cut. We know there were some edits there.
- I suppose there was no Oasis scene in the earliest cut. I’m still leaning towards it never reaching the animation stage.
Another thing I realized today:
- He must have converted the VHS tape into a digital file, since he watched the cut on his laptop.
edit: i misread him lol
Aw man, that is kinda disappointing. Perhaps he could mean minor as in not really story-relevant? Because let’s be honest, as neat as a lot of this deleted footage sounds, the movie doesn’t really need it, rather than them being minor as in hardly different from the final film.
Also I didn’t know we had a discord lol.