Those "last minute" action scenes...

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

Three times throughout the series now they've given us some sudden, unexpected conflict packed in to the last 5 minutes of the movie. "What?" you might say. Well, it's true, and here's the list and my thoughts on them:

LBT 8: The kids and Mr. Thicknose have found a mini paradise and have found a way to bring the adults to it. They come and are all relaxing, and then, to top it all off, Spike and the Spiketail herd comes. Ducky reunites with Spike, and it seems it all good when---suddenly Spike falls into the frozen pond and shouts "Mama!"   and Mrs. Swimmer dives in to save him. Some seconds of suspense---and then she comes out with him, Mrs. Spiketail realizes this is really who Spike's family is,  Ducky hugs Spike, and all is cool.    I really thought it was good of universal to put this scene in, however last minute it may have been. It shows Mama Swimmer is really devoted to her son, that Spike can talk if he wants to, and clears up any doubts about whether Spike was gonna go back with the Spiketail herd. It even added edginess we rarely see in the sequels. All in all, a last minute part that worked well.

LBT 9: Littlefoot gets to see the beautiful underrwater world, but---oh, slips in just after finishing looking! After sinking deeper and deeper Mo finally saves him. Everything's fine now. This...gave Mo a good moment to be the hero (he is my favorite character) but it didn't exactly feel as intense as the Spike scene and wasn't as useful. So while I think it worked well, it would have worked probably just as well without it.

LBT 12: Three years later, we finally get another one. Marzgurl on her review even said about this one, "Oh, but wait! There's just had to be one last action sequence!" The song "Flip Flap and Fly" has just finished and it seems the film's gonna end...but then Tricia, who's out exploring, falls into the river. And it's Guido who tries to save her, but remembering what the gang said about him being able to fly. So he tries to go save her, they both n early drown, and then Petrie and his siblings all save them. And, as usual, everything's cool.This wasn't a bad one, better then the Littlefoot scene. It gave Guido his moment to try out his newly discovered powers.

Anyways I noticed they alweays had to do with a character drowning. Is this becoming some sort of formula? Or is it all just coincidental?

[Coyote_A]

You forgot the scene from LBT 4, where Chomper fell into the sea with an unnamed vicious sharptooth and Littlefoot jumped after them... Each of these scenes had some value to the plot though. Like in the nineth movie it emphasizes that Littlefoot and Moe belong to a completely different worlds and in the twelfth it allowed young flyers to show off their skills some more. Otherwise they could fail their right of passage.

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

Chomper wasn't even in LBT 4.

[Malte279]

Obviously a little typo missing a 5 for a 4 as can most easily be deducted from the context Bruton. No need to rub it in for the sake of rubbing it in :

[Coyote_A]

Yup. I always confuse the fifth movie with fourth one. Probably because I've seen the "Mysterious Island" before "The Land of the Mysts".