Changing sizes

Chomper98 · **on:** August 09, 2012, 01:47:11 AM

Something that really bugs me about Land Before Time is the size changes of the kids, like when their close to an adult, they are smaller then their feet, but when it zooms out, they are larger, to give an example, look at this:

See, kids shrink and get bigger in the Land Before Time.

vonboy · **Reply #1 on:** August 09, 2012, 02:05:09 AM

Well, that example is 9 sequels, and I don't know how many years later, so you could argue that Littlefoot grew.

At least give a better example. One that's shows it happening in the same movie.

Chomper98 · **Reply #2 on:** August 09, 2012, 02:45:31 AM

Well, I don't have a screenshot for this, but an example is in the tv episode The Lone Dinosaur returns, when Petrie sees Doc and Littlefoot from a distance, Littlefoot is about 2/3 bigger then Doc's foot, yet when Littlefoot tries introducing Doc to Chomper, their all 2/3 smaller, and I highly doubt kids suddenly shrink and get bigger in minutes, thats just an example, look at the episode, and you will see what I mean.

Malte279 · **Reply #3 on:** August 09, 2012, 03:27:08 AM

Their sizes indeed vary a lot. It is not just with Littlefoot and his mother / grandparents but also with the gang. We got some scenes in which Ducky is small enough to comfortably sit on Littlefoot's head, even with Petrie sitting next to her, and we got other scenes in which she is as tall as to reach well to the shoulders of Littlefoot so sitting on his head would likely cause a herniated disk for him

Ludichris1 · **Reply #4 on:** August 09, 2012, 08:14:40 AM

Yeah they go from big to little to big to little all the time with (especially) parent scenes. Sometimes if it's too zoomed out, they may feel they need to show a big enough picture of the characters, rather than have them look like a bug.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #5 on:** August 09, 2012, 09:36:06 AM

I believe this was brought up before, the changing sizes. But I forget what topic it was.

Ghostfishe · **Reply #6 on:** August 09, 2012, 12:34:06 PM

The first image also seems like there's a foreshortening effect going on... look at the size of his mother's head compared to her own body. Cartoons just aren't always very good at communicating distance, since there's so little shading.

But yeah in other examples, I have noticed it a lot. I think Ludichris is correct; given that the sequels were made for VHS and didn't appear in theaters, it would have been especially important that you be able to see the characters on a smallish screen.

Blais_13 · **Reply #7 on:** August 09, 2012, 01:28:42 PM

Yeah they would be just too little with the proper sizes.Also I think it's kinda hard to always keep the proper sizes in a cartoon,especially if it has got twelve sequels.