Today –The Mysterious Tooth Crisis“ was aired over here and again I have a large piece of paper scribbled from the bottom to the top. Many of the points mentioned on that paper don’t really deserve too much attention and if I made too much fuss about some of these points I would rightfully be accused of nitpicking. Many of the elements just have to be accepted as the story would not go on without them. One of these funny things is the question why Tria would want to take seven fidgety children to what she descriped as her “secret getaway”? It sure sounds like a good way to make the place less suitable for relaxing if the whole kindergarten is around. I reckon it is simply that Tria really is simply a kind and selfless character and exemplary in her patience for Cera
Another of these strange things we cannot explain is why dinosaurs are always slipping when it is convenient for the plot. Ducky, Chomper, and Cera all slipped and at least Chomper stood on very level ground when he did so. We can hardly take a gust of wind as a possible explanation as that one would have affected Ducky as well and... ouch, here I go on nitpicking
Further nitpicking questions are why Chomper’s nose failed him when searching for Tria, so they ended up in the cave? Maybe it could be explained with him being so upset about his tooth that he could not really focus on tracking Tria and that he was to proud to admit it once he had lost the track.
When Chomper was sinking in the quicksand Petrie could have “evacuated” Chomper’s tooth, thereby freeing up his hand. Obvious as that solution is, it would have made the whole thing much less dramatic.
I also wonder why Chomper did not swallow that “spicy” wasp which he already had in his mouth. I doubt this would be for regard of his friends who are not eager for “details” about his eating. That wasp had to live in order to get the rest of the tribe and chase the kids out of the cave. From an LBT character’s perspective there is no good explanation. I wonder if that wasp tried to sting Chomper in his mouth. If it did Chomper prooved much less snivelling about that than about his tooth.
When I mention Chomper as “snivelling” this sounds very negative, but it shouldn’t. I find it is a very, very funny idea to introduce such a side of Chomper’s character. While LBT 2 and 5 both told us very little about Chomper’s personality he certainly is becoming more of an individual rather than a sidekick of Littlefoot in the TV series. Certainly a positive development.
It was very obvious in this episode that Ruby is meant to fill the so far unoccupied place of the “whiz kid” (to some degree) of the Gang. I think they are overdoing it a little when she appears to be the only dinosaur in the whole Great Valley (including Mr. Thicknose) who seems to have ever heard about loosing teeth. The movie apparently assumes that only sharpteeth ever loose their teeth which of course gives at least some basis to the idea that Great Valley dinosaurs are not familiar with the whole issue (not wanting to get in touch with sharptooth’s teeth). However, I wonder why Ruby would have so much information on this. Wouldn’t she be potential sharptooth prey too? Omnivore that she may be I still don’t think a sharptooth would like her taste any less than that of a herbivore. Ruby must have been in contact with Chomper’s parents of course (mentioned in the cave of the many voices), but I don’t see why they would tell her about their teeth, but not their son. In general it is strange Chomper’s parents (wherever they may be... another big mystery of the series) would not tell Chomper about this. Ruby was in the Mysterious Beyond, but so was Chomper. Perhaps she is just more inquisitive. Having a smart “thinker” in the gang is certainly interesting, but perhaps they are overdoing it a little at times.
We saw a very cruel trait about Cera’s Dad in this episode. I have thought too much about Cera’s Dad to abhor him the way some of us do, but his frightening Chomper was really mean. It seems like he at least did know about sharpteeth loosing their first teeth. I really wonder what Tria would have told Toppsy if Chomper had mentioned the horror story Toppsy had told him before. It is not really clear if they all took that story for real. There are several scenes implying that they at least had doubts about that story, but nobody really claimed it to be nonsense. I wonder if Toppsy would have played that cruel trick on a planteater as well.
As for the music in this episode it struck me as kind of strange that they were singing about chomper’s teeth after the failing of Mr. Thicknose’s attempts as a dentist. Of course one might argue that it is always a little strange for dinosaurs to sing, but from Chomper’s perspective it must have been rather strange to have everyone singing about his misery.
As for the background melodies they had a rather Hawaiian tune in the scenes at the mudpool, didn’t they? Once Cera endorsed the relaxing in the mud she was acting rather queer which was certainly good for a laugh. I think it was even more pronounced in the German version.
One lapse in the German translation was that it had Petrie refer to himself as a bird(!) while in the English version he just said he didn’t think mud was good for his wings.
Wasn’t it Petrie of all character’s who seemed to enjoy the mudbath in LBT 6? “My skin feel softer already!”
One thing I noticed was that Littlefoot and Chomper almost forced Ducky to come along with them even though she apparently would have preferred to go with Tria. This might support the “Ducky = Underdog thesis” Tails_155 brought up a while ago. It was somewhat regardless to force her to come along like that. Even though Ducky seemed to be happy either way, I doubt they would have tried to force Ruby or even Spike to come along like that.
One last thing I noticed is that several scenes always shown during the title song of the series were taken from this sequel.
