Thanks to Michael (you are awesome
) I am now myself in posession of this book and it is only fair if now I give you the kind of review which I asked for from you in case one of you would have obtained it first
Alas my opinion of the book's contents may be a bit negative.
The style of the book differs from that of most books I have seen in a way that is perhaps best described by the description on the rearcover itself:
The role of the book within our culture is chainging. The change is brought on by new ways to acquire & use content, the rapid dissemination of information and real-time peer collaboration on a global scale. [...] The book you are holding in your hands utilizes the unique characteristics of the Internet -- relying on web infrastructure and collaborative tools to share and use rescources in keeping with the characteristics of the medium [...] -- while maintaining all the convenience and utility of a real book.
This means that the style of large parts of the book resembles the structures we know from Wikipedia articles, for example the chapters about different people involved in the making of LBT being subdivided into chapters like "early life", "carrer" etc.
Unfortunately Wikipedia articles are also the only sources given in the list of article sources and contributors with most of the contributors remaining anonymous. The articles in the book are quoted literally from the respective Wikipedia articles.
Large parts of the book are dedicated to Steven Spielberg, and (somewhat less) to Don Bluth, George Lucas and other people involved in the making of LBT. Personally I feel they exaggerated a bit (for example using six pages on the list of films made by Steven Spielberg which is more room than they gave to the actual content of the movie). Another large part of the book covers the history of the Universal studies.
There is a quote in the book which confirms the airing of the uncut version of LBT on Finnish TV:
However, the uncut version has aired at least in Finnish television in the years 1995 and 1998, by mtvmedia. This means that the uncut version still exists somewhere, though Bluth has stated that the original elements were possibly destroyed.
Unfortunately the respective (literally quoted) passage of
Wikipedia doesn't give any reference to the source of this information either.
The book also includes a passage on The land before time 2. The author sadly didn't verify the information and quoted the following error from the Trivia information of the respective
article:
In every sequel to the original film The Land Before Time, there has always been a guest character featured. Up to date, Chomper, Mo, Tria, Big Daddy, the other Tinysauruses, Tricia, Mr. Thicknose, Ali, and Guido are the only guest characters of the series to make reappearances.
(unless they appear in the one TV episode I have not yet seen neither Big Daddy nor the other Tinisaurs ever made a reappearance while not mentioned "only guest characters of the series to make reappearances" would also include Doc, Hyp, Nod, Mud).
So summing it up the book allows you to have fast access to the contents of many articles related to the land before time, but unfortunately there is no new information based on any sources other than Wikipedia and the percentage of reference to the actual movie, its making, or its content rather than the people affiliated with it falls a bit too short in my opinion.
