Outcut land before time scenes

[Pikkutassu]

Hey ya'all, I am 99% sure that my original VHS copy of The Land Before Time is the uncut version, because I distinctly remember that exact same scene with the skin torn from Littlefoot's mother's back.  If someone could guide me as to how to share that scene on YouTube or somehow else, I'd be happy to share it with those who haven't seen it.

Also if there are any other scenes that were edited I can try and share those as well, or even attempt to set up a recording process to send VHS copies via mail, though I'm not a technically savvy person.  I also remember that berry scene with Spike!  100% certain of that.  I must have seen it somehow in my childhood...

Easisest way is to do it is a DVD/VHS combo player which lets you to transform the tape onto DVD with the press of a button. I bought the LG RC388 which let's you do that.

[fenroyal]

My VHS has "1 hr. 9 mins." listed for length, so 69 minutes vs. 64 minutes?  I am about to pop it in the VHS player and see, because I watched the DVD-cut version on Netflix and I did notice that the Sharptooth/Littlefoot's mom fight scene was shorter/different than I remembered, etc.  I couldn't tell you how old my VHS tape is, except that I remember watching it from at least 1994, and I believe it might have a preview for LBT3 on it...

[Allicloud]

My VHS has "1 hr. 9 mins." listed for length, so 69 minutes vs. 64 minutes?  I am about to pop it in the VHS player and see, because I watched the DVD-cut version on Netflix and I did notice that the Sharptooth/Littlefoot's mom fight scene was shorter/different than I remembered, etc.  I couldn't tell you how old my VHS tape is, except that I remember watching it from at least 1994, and I believe it might have a preview for LBT3 on it...

Well, if it does turn out to hold the cut scenes, then get it converted as soon as you can, because VHS only gets worse with age. But from what I have seen around the net, the gearto do such a conversion is pretty simple, just an adapter that connects your VCR to a USB port, and the software can convert the footage to a video format. Plus, it's alot cheaper than I expected it to be. I saw an adapter kit that went for about $40.

But anywho, good luck!

[fenroyal]

Well, my copy of the VHS appears to run exactly the same as the Netflix DVD version, including only showing the fight with the Sharptooth in silhouette.  BUT.  I do distinctly remember seeing it differently as a child, and I very often watched the movie at my grandmother's house and she had a copy, so i think I will ask her if she still has my old movies, and see if that might be where I remember it from!

[Dilopho]

I hope the quality of your grandma's tapes isn't too bad after such a number of years.

[jansenov]

I'm confused. The TV program states two dates for the airing, 14th May and 21st May. :huh:

It doesn't change things one bit, though. Whenever it is on, I will record it.

[Malte279]

Shows are often repeated once within short order on German TV channels.

[fenroyal]

I hope the quality of your grandma's tapes isn't too bad after such a number of years.

My own VHS was pretty much the same age and it wasn't atrocious quality, the only real problem was a bit of fuzziness watching it on our big LCD flat screen TV, and the colors seemed more vibrant on the Netflix DVD version.

[jansenov]

Any news, fenroyal?

[Pikkutassu]

Here's something that proves the fiddling with the ending:



Not brilliant quality, but the cel obviously is from the original ending where they head straight to great valley together after they cherish petrie being alive - there is no mom's ghost and you can see petrie on littlefoot's head and cera/spike coming right behind him. In the released version it's just littlefoot alone with the ghost, clearly the early discovery of the great valley there.




And on the trailer, you'll see littlefoot running from farther away from the tunnel with petrie on his head, while in the released version it's cut further away to make it seem like littlefoot just sat there and called others. And of course the sudden change in background speaks when you watch the movie speaks for itself.

[Allicloud]

Here's something that proves the fiddling with the ending:



Not brilliant quality, but the cel obviously is from the original ending where they head straight to great valley together after they cherish petrie being alive - there is no mom's ghost and you can see petrie on littlefoot's head and cera/spike coming right behind him. In the released version it's just littlefoot alone with the ghost, clearly the early discovery of the great valley there.




And on the trailer, you'll see littlefoot running from farther away from the tunnel with petrie on his head, while in the released version it's cut further away to make it seem like littlefoot just sat there and called others. And of course the sudden change in background speaks when you watch the movie speaks for itself.

Yeah, I'd say that's where the editing stands out the most. Take from after Littlefoot calls for the others after he discovers the Great Valley. He calls them, we see them running through the tunnel, and then we get a brief bit of Littlefoot skidding to a stop and the others following him, and Petrie has suddenly appeared on his head.

My guess is that in the original, instead of simply calling the others to him, he physically ran back to them and led them to the Valley.

[Almaron]

He did far more than that, and there's plenty of evidence to prove it. Several screenshots/cels earlier on this page show Littlefoot gleefully leaving the tunnel, and leaping across the waterfall. In addition to this, the original soundtrack lists the events in the following order, or rather, lists the music for the following scenes in this order;

After the fight, Cera leaves Littlefoot, attempting to find her own way through the mountains. Ducky, Petrie and Spike follow her, as hers is the easier way, leaving Littlefoot to climb up the hill alone. As they travel through the dangerous lands, Spike stops, separating him and Ducky from the rest of the group.
Meanwhile, Littlefoot reaches the peak of the hill, and sees the ghost of his mother in the sky, which ultimately guides him through the hill to the Great Valley. He is overjoyed to have found it, but turns back to find the others.
By this point, Cera, with Petrie on her head, has made it to a ridge over a tar pit. Cera jumps, but Petrie falls in.

The rest of the film roughly follows this order, and I seem to recall Malte mentioning an older novelisation for LBT that lists this ending too, as well as a part where Littlefoot convinces the others to stop Sharptooth once and for all so that he doesn't follow them into the Great Valley. It's worth noting that on the soundtrack there is a segment of music around the scene where they make their plan that is missing from the film; perhaps it was for that scene.

There's also several hints to the original ordering - aside from a few odd jumps in the film, when Littlefoot talks to his mother's ghost shortly before discovering the Great Valley, you can see below him the pool that they bathed in shortly before finishing off Sharptooth. In addition to this, the very rock that they pushed onto Sharptooth's head, as well as the promontory it was on, can be seen over it; more clues towards the original ending.

BTW, there's one other missing scene on the soundtrack near the end - different music is played after Sharptooth (and seemingly Petrie) perishes. It stays fairly tragic, before becoming a soft instrumental of If We Hold On Together, and fading into the music that plays when they discover the Great Valley. This could suggest that there was another scene here - perhaps we actually saw Littlefoot leading the others up the hill and through the tunnel?

EDIT: Here's a link to another page on this forum, where I listed the running times of each of the soundtracks. This is an update to my old soundtrack analysis - this time I listed the times for each segement and identified the scenes they played in! It's at the bottom of the page, or at least it is at the moment.
Updated Soundtrack Listing

[Malte279]

Indeed the early discovery of the Great Valley is one of the changed / outcut scenes for which there is most evidence in spite of the fact that it is also a change about which (unlike in case of "scary Sharptooth scenes") we got no word whatsoever from Don Bluth or anyone else involved with the land before time. The best guess is that they thought the passing was improved by putting the Great Valley as the big effect to the very end rather than let Littlefoot discover the Great Valley and then let the story continue anyway. While I do see the positive effect on the passing I'm afraid it also came with a number of drawbacks:

1. Littlefoot's turning back IN SPITE OF having found the Great Valley to lead his friends there would have been a very powerful emotional scene.
2. Without this scene the point that his way was the correct one while Cera went wrong is somewhat lost. In the movie as it is we basically see Littlefoot following Cera and the others after all and the only indication that Cera went wrong were the dangers of the route (which come to think of it matched well the describtion of the mother of Littlefoot (Littlefoot's way after all did not lead past any "mountains that burn")).
3. While it made good sense for Littlefoot to be despaired and downhearted after the quarrel with Cera it can come across a bit strange that in the movie as we know it he happens to be so hopeless right after succeeding in getting rid of sharptooth and the rescue of Petrie.

One thing that would have interested me in particular would be if in the early discovery of the Great Valley scene there would have been any exchange whatsoever between the "spirit" of Littlefoot's mother and him regarding his non-longneck friends, or if there would have been a monologue, or no spoken explanation at all for his turning back.

[Pikkutassu]

BTW, there's one other missing scene on the soundtrack near the end - different music is played after Sharptooth (and seemingly Petrie) perishes. It stays fairly tragic, before becoming a soft instrumental of If We Hold On Together, and fading into the music that plays when they discover the Great Valley. This could suggest that there was another scene here - perhaps we actually saw Littlefoot leading the others up the hill and through the tunnel?

 

That would be this scene, when they cherish petrie coming back from death:


After that I have a memory image of them struggling to go up hill, then littlefoot jumps on those things sharptooth was climbing on and urges everyone to do the same.

[Almaron]

Hmm...I wonder if we should make a list of the scenes we know (or can guess at) to be missing - this page just keeps on getting longer and longer.

Evidence Key:
S - Soundtrack
N - Novelisation
P - Promotional Stills
D - Director/Producer/Film Worker Insights
V - Video Footage From Film Trailers

*A longer version of the fight between Sharptooth and Momma Longneck - at least nineteen seconds worth of additional fight music appears on the soundtrack, yet we know the scene to be longer. (S, D)
*Possibly an extension of the "Berry Scene" - the soundtrack goes on fairly intensely for nine seconds. (S)
*A scene where the others find Spike sleeping after eating the plants surrounding his egg. Cera attempts to convince them to abandon him, but they ignore her. Ducky then lures him along with berries on a stick. (S? N? P)
*A scene where the GOF encounters an oasis inhabited by two rivalling factions of Dinosaurs, who refuse to share their food or water with one another, out of racism. Cera acknowledges such prejudice to be foolish. (N)
*Possibly an extension of the GOF eating the Green Food obtained from the tree. (P, V)
*The original ending scene - Littlefoot finding the Great Valley, leaping through the waters of the waterfall, then turning back to rescue the others from the Mountains That Burn. (S, N? P, D?)
*An extension of the scene in the lake, where they plan to kill Sharptooth to prevent him wreaking havoc in the Great Valley. (S, N)
*A short scene where Ducky makes faces at Sharptooth from the lake. (P, V)
*A brief scene where the others realise Petrie has survived the fall with Sharptooth, before all heading up towards the Great Valley. (S? P)
*A short scene taking place after the characters hug one another, where Littlefoot states “Now we’ll always be together.” (V)

Have I missed any? I wrote this from memory, and from briefly looking over the images of deleted segments that I’ve tracked down (mostly the ones listed here).

BTW, for sake of ease, here's the links again to the two video clips that I know of -someone linked to them further up the page.
LBT Trailer
LBT Pizza Hutt Commercial
Hmm…does the bit at 0:08 happen in the movie? If not, that may be part of Littlefoot leading the others up to the valley!

[Malte279]

One thing I am not absolutely certain about though is to what degree additional music on the soundtrack is a certain proof of additional scenes. I don't know if the writers of soundtracks like James Horner only start composing after seing the exact scenes the music is supposed to be for? Is it not possibly that in some cases scenes may have even been made after the music? Maybe he was told in some cases about what scenes contain and about how long the music would have to be. I am certain that there are plenty of cases in which Mr. Horner definitely must have seen the scenes the music was composed for, but I am not sure if this holds true in every case and if perhaps the soundtrack may not include snippets of music that were composed but not for a specific scene already produced.
I don't know, but does anyone know for certain how this music / movie scene production is usually handled / was handled in case of LBT? From the voice actors we know that movie scenes may be made to match earlier voice recordings rather than the other way round. May the same not apply for music as well?

[Apple]

I think my version might have a different fight scene like fenroyal but I'm not sure. I will check after I convert it to DVD.

[Almaron]

Good point Malte - I've got another soundtrack by James Horner (Titanic), and all throughout the music are areas that have been cut from the final film, and I assume by looking at the script, listening to the film & watching the cut parts that they probably weren't ever in the film. Perhaps they just let him compose, and then cut the parts that didn't quite go with the scenes.

If we update the list with more scenes, I'll move the "Possible Scenes" suggested by the music to another area.

[Pikkutassu]

Hmm...I wonder if we should make a list of the scenes we know (or can guess at) to be missing - this page just keeps on getting longer and longer.

Evidence Key:
S - Soundtrack
N - Novelisation
P - Promotional Stills
D - Director/Producer/Film Worker Insights
V - Video Footage From Film Trailers

*A longer version of the fight between Sharptooth and Momma Longneck - at least nineteen seconds worth of additional fight music appears on the soundtrack, yet we know the scene to be longer. (S, D)
*Possibly an extension of the "Berry Scene" - the soundtrack goes on fairly intensely for nine seconds. (S)
*A scene where the others find Spike sleeping after eating the plants surrounding his egg. Cera attempts to convince them to abandon him, but they ignore her. Ducky then lures him along with berries on a stick. (S? N? P)
*A scene where the GOF encounters an oasis inhabited by two rivalling factions of Dinosaurs, who refuse to share their food or water with one another, out of racism. Cera acknowledges such prejudice to be foolish. (N)
*Possibly an extension of the GOF eating the Green Food obtained from the tree. (P, V)
*The original ending scene - Littlefoot finding the Great Valley, leaping through the waters of the waterfall, then turning back to rescue the others from the Mountains That Burn. (S, N? P, D?)
*An extension of the scene in the lake, where they plan to kill Sharptooth to prevent him wreaking havoc in the Great Valley. (S, N)
*A short scene where Ducky makes faces at Sharptooth from the lake. (P, V)
*A brief scene where the others realise Petrie has survived the fall with Sharptooth, before all heading up towards the Great Valley. (S? P)
*A short scene taking place after the characters hug one another, where Littlefoot states “Now we’ll always be together.” (V)

Have I missed any? I wrote this from memory, and from briefly looking over the images of deleted segments that I’ve tracked down (mostly the ones listed here).

BTW, for sake of ease, here's the links again to the two video clips that I know of -someone linked to them further up the page.
LBT Trailer
LBT Pizza Hutt Commercial
Hmm…does the bit at 0:08 happen in the movie? If not, that may be part of Littlefoot leading the others up to the valley!

There should also be a scene showing cera leaving the others before it jumps to the lake scene. It cuts just as they are going down that slope to her.

[Dilopho]

I wonder that there was never a statement about the uncut movie from Bluth or another person which was involved in the creation. Sometimes it seems to me that they would like to erase it from memory.