Roy Allan Smith's sequels

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

I was recently responding to some stuff about the apparent differences between RAS and Grovsner's style. I feel this may be something we've given perhaps a little too much thought to.

Why? There really isn't a ton of difference. If you don't think I'm right, let's look at it.

Animation: movies 2-4 definitely use much more subtle color tones, but after movie 6, the animation isn't even the same as it was during movies 2-4.

Writing: The writing haven't changed a ton in quality; rather, throughout it's had it's ups and downs. John Loy, who wrote the first two sequels, has written many since. Dev Ross, who was involved in the writing of the first three, admitedly did leave, although she did return for movie 9.

Voice Acting: Admitedly, it's a tad different. Littlefoot starts sounding more young and cheerful around movie 6, Petrie's voice starts sounding higher, Cera sounds a little older. But that's mostly it. Ducy is relatively the same in 5 and 6 (Aria's voice matured by movie 7), and none of the adult dinosaurs sound very different (even Grandma Longneck, who got a new VA in movie 5 since her original one passed away, sounds mostly the same).

Songwriting: It's true the early sequels couldn't seem to make up their mind about who to use as writers, but for all we know, RAS could have hired Michelle and Amanda back for movie 5 himself since he was involved.

Characterization: I don't see a ton of change in the characterization either. Cera is a little more agressive, although that might be because her voice actor doesn't sound as young. Topsy is often a nicer character, although that could be chalked up to character development he likely had after the events of the third movie. Overall, I don't see a ton of change here.

Background Music: Grovsner continued to keep Horner's old score notably until movie 10, and a lot of Michael Taver's music from the first three sequels continues to be re-used.

All in all, I think RAS and Grovsner are less different than we think. The comparision is admittedly unfair, as Grovsner has four times the amount of sequels that RAS does. However, from what we do have that RAS did, it doesn't seem too different from Grovsner's style to me. At least, not as jarringly different as Bluth's is by comparision.

[Dr. Rex]

Yeah. I've never really seen a difference between the first three sequels and the later ones either. They can only be set apart by our subjective views of their respective qualities.

[action9000]

(Wow, this is going to be my first big post about the LBT series on the Gang of Five in...must be 5 or 6 years )

Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever really seen a topic that really digs into the similarities between RAS and Grosvenor's sequels. Good call.

We often see topics about their differences and the likes of "I don't like XYZ about Grosvenor's style"...

The question then is, why? Why do we give this so much thought if there is so little difference? There must be enough difference that we're picking up on it. Since we're picking up on it, naturally we are bound to gravitate more to one style than the other for various reasons.

To be fair, a big part of it for our older members (like myself, 29 years old) is likely nostalgia. We're so fond of the films we grew up with that the others just don't quite touch them. Like anything else that one knows intimately, one is going to pick up and amplify subtle differences, perceiving them as greater than perhaps they are from an objective point of view.

From my biased point of view, LBT 5 and later all mildly annoyed me because of the differences caused by the switch of so many elements simultaneously.

To list the most prominent for me:

1) Cera's voice actor.
I absolutely adored her voice actor in LBT 2-4. Losing that was so heartbreaking to me and the newer one never did grow on me. I've grown to accept it but at the end of the day I still miss her voice in LBT 2-4.



2) Character writing.
Honestly, there were more than a few changes in characters' dialog that I picked up on pretty fast.
For example:

Cera no longer says "heee" with the big grin on her face. Cera in general became...I'll just link to a massive post that I wrote on this topic years ago rather than re-write it. You did mention in your post that Cera became more aggressive and that's what my post primarily focuses on.

Does Cera seem angrier after LBT 4? (That post is 9 years older than this one so bear with me. )


Ducky starts using her "yep yep yep" thing in other contexts: "yuck yuck yuck" being one example. She never started doing this until LBT 5 onward (I haven't watched the films in ages so I can't recall many other precise examples of this).

Grosvenor seems to run with and play around with the characters' gimmicks more than RAS did.



3) The CGI openings.
My first impression of Grosvenor's work was that damn CGI galaxy at the beginning of LBT 5. Between that and the pretty horrible editing error found within the first few minutes of LBT 5, Grosvenor left a pretty poor first impression on me, which I'm sure didn't help my bias.



4) The introduction of more and more fantasy elements that feel out of place compared to the earlier films:
- The Lone Dinosaur character
- The Stone of Cold Fire
- Aliens (really?)
- Dreams shared by all Longnecks
- Great Day of the Flyers (dinosaurs have holidays now?)

Grosvenor quickly (by LBT 6) drifting away from the simple innocence that made the earlier films work and stepped into wilder and wilder territory. A damaged wall or a drought was no longer enough to hold a film.

...Now to be fair, LBT 4 had the fantasy element of the night flower. I will acknowledge this but I do feel there is one major difference between the night flower and the later fantasy elements:

The night flower is a concept that fits in a prehistoric world and doesn't rely on any humanistic ideas.

The Lone Dinosaur is based on the idea of a "Lone Ranger" or even superhero.
The Stone of Cold Fire, while ultimately proved to be nothing, introduced the idea of magic.
Aliens are a concept never before considered until the science of astronomy.

The night flower concept is little more than an animal eating something that eases its stomach. It seems much more in-tune with the prehistoric world than the clearly-human-inspired elements introduced later by Grosvenor.



5) Animation and style.
Here is another major difference. At first glance, without remembering which scene a screenshot is from, I can instantly tell whether it's a Grosvenor film or a RAS film. The two have distinctly-different looks.
In my mind, LBT 2-4 have a more "classic animation" look to them, similar to a cleaned-up version of Disney's The Rescuers or Watership Down. It's simple animation with gorgeous watercolour backgrounds that make it appear relatively timeless.

LBT 5 and later start bringing in the use of CGI to compliment its animation style. Even without talking about poorly-rendered galaxies, LBT 5 and later starts to look more like a Saturday morning cartoon and less like the original Bluth Land Before Time. The series is showing signs of evolution in its art style. The brighter colours, while crisp and inspiring, also do present an atmosphere of being intended of being presented to a younger audience.

While this may not inherently be a bad thing, I truly do feel like LBT 2-4 looked more like timeless animation classics when you see them in screenshots, whereas LBT 5 and later do start to look like Saturday morning cartoons. LBT 2-4 were just absolutely DRIPPING with atmosphere with its subtle but effective animation, LBT 5 and later started using its animation and bright colours to yell and scream at the audience a bit more with the art style. Gone was the subtlety; in its place was found more extravagant use of art style. Again, not necessarily a bad thing but the two do convey different emotions to their audience.



6) I don't really feel like I need to address the music or songwriting as it's stayed pretty much consistent throughout the series.
I feel like LBT 5 and later have a more modern and less "timeless" sound in general but there are more than enough exceptions and I don't really have much to say about the difference in the soundtracks. Tavera's music is brilliant and its use throughout the entire series is more than welcome as far as I'm concerned.


LBT 2-4 was a simpler time when all it took was adorably-enjoyable characters and some little thing to get them to hang out together in a slow-paced, simple adventure. I've heard it said that some people consider these to be the most boring films in the series and I can see why. They do tend to have less going on than the Grosvenor films...but honestly, that's what I like about them. They're all about the world and the characters and that's what I love most about LBT.

LBT 5 onward started taking a more dramatic direction and drifted away from the simplicity of LBT 2-4. LBT became bigger in many ways at LBT 5. Is this good or bad? Up to you.

[NewOrder]

You’ve said that there is a big editing error in the opening of LBT V. Where? Maybe it’s because I’ve watched it so many times that my brain somehow just ignores it, but I don’t recall any major mistake.

This is indeed a very interesting topic, and a good exercise in how different directors approach their work in animation, and how you can tell them apart.

I do feel that nostalgia does play a big part in remembering the first sequels. I’m only two years younger than you, I only took a break from TLBT after LBT VII, when I started thinking that the series was just becoming too childish and that we’d never see Ali again.

Animation has evolved a lot in the past years, and it’s difficult to see studios investing in 2D animation. Not that there’s anything wrong with CGI, but regular 2D animation is in and of itself an art form that is still relevant, if not, just because of the older fans.

Grosvenor’s sequels are more action packed, more fantasy driven and deal with less important issues. They’re not much about character development and about learning to live in an ever-changing and complex world, but more story driven. A means of entertainment. There are, of course, still some issues addressed in the later sequels, like single parenting, dealing with a new step mom, the return of a long lost father, bullying and so on.

I can sense a huge development of the characters from 2 to 4, they actually grew and become more “adult” in the way that they started to understand the world around them. In the later sequels, it’s like we start all over again, and, with a few exceptions, the characters are always learning the same lesson, over and over again. In the purist episodical sense of the movies.

I guess in a way, Grosvenor’s style, suited the generation that grew up with the later sequels, however, it sacrificed some of the character development that we saw throughout 2 through 4, and it took away some of the magic and more mature feel of the first TLBT sequels.

The later sequels are very entertaining, and I personally love 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12, however they all pale in comparison with LBT IV.

[Ducky123]

Nostalgia doesn't play a big role for me because I'm a bit younger than most of you guys I started watching LBT when The Big Freeze came out. Later, LBT 9 came out but I honestly don't have any memories about LBT 10-13 from my childhood at least. I know I've seen them all at some point but I honestly didn't remember a thing when I decided to rewatch them 3 years ago.
That being said, the movies which have a nostalgic touch to me are 1-9 so both RAS movies and Grosvenor movies. (strangely, I can't really count LBT 1 to the movies that have a nostalgic touch to it because I hardly ever watched it back then. I thought it was boring for whatever reason Stupid little me ).
LBT 5 is indeed in many ways different from 2-4. I can't say that either director is better than the other but I CAN say that I really liked all of RAS's movies while Grosvenor has a mixture of movies I really enjoy and movies I have some issues with.

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

(Wow, this is going to be my first big post about the LBT series on the Gang of Five in...must be 5 or 6 years )

Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever really seen a topic that really digs into the similarities between RAS and Grosvenor's sequels. Good call.

We often see topics about their differences and the likes of "I don't like XYZ about Grosvenor's style"...

The question then is, why? Why do we give this so much thought if there is so little difference? There must be enough difference that we're picking up on it. Since we're picking up on it, naturally we are bound to gravitate more to one style than the other for various reasons.

To be fair, a big part of it for our older members (like myself, 29 years old) is likely nostalgia. We're so fond of the films we grew up with that the others just don't quite touch them. Like anything else that one knows intimately, one is going to pick up and amplify subtle differences, perceiving them as greater than perhaps they are from an objective point of view.

From my biased point of view, LBT 5 and later all mildly annoyed me because of the differences caused by the switch of so many elements simultaneously.

To list the most prominent for me:

1) Cera's voice actor.
I absolutely adored her voice actor in LBT 2-4. Losing that was so heartbreaking to me and the newer one never did grow on me. I've grown to accept it but at the end of the day I still miss her voice in LBT 2-4.



2) Character writing.
Honestly, there were more than a few changes in characters' dialog that I picked up on pretty fast.
For example:

Cera no longer says "heee" with the big grin on her face. Cera in general became...I'll just link to a massive post that I wrote on this topic years ago rather than re-write it. You did mention in your post that Cera became more aggressive and that's what my post primarily focuses on.

Does Cera seem angrier after LBT 4? (That post is 9 years older than this one so bear with me. )


Ducky starts using her "yep yep yep" thing in other contexts: "yuck yuck yuck" being one example. She never started doing this until LBT 5 onward (I haven't watched the films in ages so I can't recall many other precise examples of this).

Grosvenor seems to run with and play around with the characters' gimmicks more than RAS did.



3) The CGI openings.
My first impression of Grosvenor's work was that damn CGI galaxy at the beginning of LBT 5. Between that and the pretty horrible editing error found within the first few minutes of LBT 5, Grosvenor left a pretty poor first impression on me, which I'm sure didn't help my bias.



4) The introduction of more and more fantasy elements that feel out of place compared to the earlier films:
- The Lone Dinosaur character
- The Stone of Cold Fire
- Aliens (really?)
- Dreams shared by all Longnecks
- Great Day of the Flyers (dinosaurs have holidays now?)

Grosvenor quickly (by LBT 6) drifting away from the simple innocence that made the earlier films work and stepped into wilder and wilder territory. A damaged wall or a drought was no longer enough to hold a film.

...Now to be fair, LBT 4 had the fantasy element of the night flower. I will acknowledge this but I do feel there is one major difference between the night flower and the later fantasy elements:

The night flower is a concept that fits in a prehistoric world and doesn't rely on any humanistic ideas.

The Lone Dinosaur is based on the idea of a "Lone Ranger" or even superhero.
The Stone of Cold Fire, while ultimately proved to be nothing, introduced the idea of magic.
Aliens are a concept never before considered until the science of astronomy.

The night flower concept is little more than an animal eating something that eases its stomach. It seems much more in-tune with the prehistoric world than the clearly-human-inspired elements introduced later by Grosvenor.



5) Animation and style.
Here is another major difference. At first glance, without remembering which scene a screenshot is from, I can instantly tell whether it's a Grosvenor film or a RAS film. The two have distinctly-different looks.
In my mind, LBT 2-4 have a more "classic animation" look to them, similar to a cleaned-up version of Disney's The Rescuers or Watership Down. It's simple animation with gorgeous watercolour backgrounds that make it appear relatively timeless.

LBT 5 and later start bringing in the use of CGI to compliment its animation style. Even without talking about poorly-rendered galaxies, LBT 5 and later starts to look more like a Saturday morning cartoon and less like the original Bluth Land Before Time. The series is showing signs of evolution in its art style. The brighter colours, while crisp and inspiring, also do present an atmosphere of being intended of being presented to a younger audience.

While this may not inherently be a bad thing, I truly do feel like LBT 2-4 looked more like timeless animation classics when you see them in screenshots, whereas LBT 5 and later do start to look like Saturday morning cartoons. LBT 2-4 were just absolutely DRIPPING with atmosphere with its subtle but effective animation, LBT 5 and later started using its animation and bright colours to yell and scream at the audience a bit more with the art style. Gone was the subtlety; in its place was found more extravagant use of art style. Again, not necessarily a bad thing but the two do convey different emotions to their audience.



6) I don't really feel like I need to address the music or songwriting as it's stayed pretty much consistent throughout the series.
I feel like LBT 5 and later have a more modern and less "timeless" sound in general but there are more than enough exceptions and I don't really have much to say about the difference in the soundtracks. Tavera's music is brilliant and its use throughout the entire series is more than welcome as far as I'm concerned.


LBT 2-4 was a simpler time when all it took was adorably-enjoyable characters and some little thing to get them to hang out together in a slow-paced, simple adventure. I've heard it said that some people consider these to be the most boring films in the series and I can see why. They do tend to have less going on than the Grosvenor films...but honestly, that's what I like about them. They're all about the world and the characters and that's what I love most about LBT.

LBT 5 onward started taking a more dramatic direction and drifted away from the simplicity of LBT 2-4. LBT became bigger in many ways at LBT 5. Is this good or bad? Up to you.

Wow...amazing post. Amazing points. I agree with everything! (Oh, and BTW, in case you didn't know, Cera's voice actor in 2-4 is her voice actor from the original!)

BTW, does anyone recall that old show Doug, and how it became all different when it switched from Nickelodeon to Disney? I see a lot of similarities in changing qualities with the shift in directors here.

[action9000]

(Oh, and BTW, in case you didn't know, Cera's voice actor in 2-4 is her voice actor from the original!)

Right, I completely forgot about that! Thanks for the reminder.  

I can't say that either director is better than the other but I CAN say that I really liked all of RAS's movies while Grosvenor has a mixture of movies I really enjoy and movies I have some issues with.

I think you brought up a good point here: Consistency.

With RAS you basically knew what you were getting and it was basically going to be pretty decent.

With Grosvenor, you're either going to get something crazy-out-there GOOD (Pterano, some of the best songs in the series such as Always There or Bestest Friends, or some powerful emotional moment like when Spike returns in LBT 8 or LF's father is seen for the first time) or crazy-out-there BAD (Red filters in danger, CGI galaxies, Aliens).  

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

While on the topic of directors, does anyone think Davis Doi will do a good job on this next one?

[action9000]

  While on the topic of directors, does anyone think Davis Doi will do a good job on this next one?

I sincerely hope so.

I just looked him up and he has a lot of animation credits:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0230669/

He's been around so he at least has that going for him. Here's hoping!

[Ducky123]

I'm also positive about him. Whether his style will be close to Grosvenor, RAS or completely different, will remain a mystery until it's finally released

[Ludichris1]

I may be a little late to the topic but I think, although I haven't verified it with IMDB credits yet, that there was a change of animation studios (not production studios, not distribution, you'll see it in the credits, I think it's some japanese company?), probably a number of background artists, and then direction by upper management according to what TV and movies were being released at the time both by Universal and other companies, which continued over the years

I think Universal had a bigger say in all of this than Grosvenor or even Roy Allen Smith themselves

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

I may be a little late to the topic but I think, although I haven't verified it with IMDB credits yet, that there was a change of animation studios (not production studios, not distribution, you'll see it in the credits, I think it's some japanese company?), probably a number of background artists, and then direction by upper management according to what TV and movies were being released at the time both by Universal and other companies, which continued over the years

I think Universal had a bigger say in all of this than Grosvenor or even Roy Allen Smith themselves

Thanks! Nope, not too late!  

[Ludichris1]

I also wouldn't be surprised if there was a new casting department but again I haven't checked  

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

Well they did bring in new Cera, Littlefoots and Ducky voice actors.

[Hypno]

Back on the main topic - I didn't notice much of a difference when I was little (and I'm sure I'm younger than almost every person on here!) because when I was little, I'd watch the pre-art shift movies (1-6) all together. Sometimes 7 as well. then I got 8, 9, and 10. 10 instantly became my favorite sequel, while 5, 8, and 7, all Grosvenor movies, were behind it. I think the Grosvenor movies are better overall, though it is probably because there weren't many Roy Allen Smith films.
Also aliens (yeah, Action was like seriously?) while I think they are a bit interesting. Exploring the more mysterious parts of the LBT universe is a nice addition.

[Sovereign]

I agree that it was a good idea in Grosvenor films to add more supernatural elements to the series while still keeping the tone (mostly) believable. Actually, I find the first two sequels to be on the weaker side of the films, easily losing to all of Grosvenor's six first films. I would have preferred for Universal to preserve the classic-looking animation but to be honest, it wasn't often too impressive. Especially Littlefoot's running animation in the first sequels looks bad and some shots look somewhat lifeless. The style itself was great but the quality was lackluster. I think 8-9 were the best looking films as the CGI shots in 10 begin to look terrible.  

Also, I prefer the newer voice actors. Scott Mcafee was the best Littlefoot of all time but especially Aria Curzon did a better job than Heather Hogan as Ducky. Hogan sounds far too childish and Ducky seems often to be a useless character in the first few sequels. Also, Anndi Mcafee is a better Cera, imo. As for other character development issues, thank god the gang stopped screaming with every sharptooth in Grosvenor films.

As for the music, the fact that the first few sequels reused so much of the original film is hardly a compliment, especially when some of them were rather obvious and uninspired. For example, reusing the Great Migration in the opening of the third film was just boring and drew direct comparison to the original film, bringing the unflattering comparison between the films to my mind. In contrast, the Big Freeze, the Great Migration and Invasion of Tinysauruses have great, original opening themes. Of all the sequels, I find the 10 and 11th films to have the best score (the only good thing I'll ever say of the Invasion of Tinusauruses ).

That being said, the fact that Smith stayed away from 11-13th films is a major plus for him!

[Hypno]

The screaming - yeah, thank god there wasn't much screaming. When the gang was being chased by Chomper's parents in II, they reused the same sound of them screaming about four times! It gets a little annoying.
As for the voice actors, I like most of the newer ones better. The "normal" voice for Cera, Ducky, Petrie and Spike (and Ruby as well) are the ones that are included the most. That's really where I get the true "voice" of the character. The five of them have had the same voice actors for a long time now (Rob Paulson didn't voice him in VI, so I'll say the same since VII).

The soundtrack for the tenth movie was really awesome. Most of the sharptooth music was new, and it sounded good
As well as the eclipse and a lot of other music, made exclusively for the movie

Smith's sequels are different for sure. There's a difference. Scott McAfee is one obviously, he's the best Littlefoot voice. The sharpteeth in those movies were a bit different, had different sounds, mainly Frank Welker (the raptors were even credited as being voiced by him!) and Chomper's parents had stock sounds he made.

[Dr. Rex]

(Wow, this is going to be my first big post about the LBT series on the Gang of Five in...must be 5 or 6 years )

Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever really seen a topic that really digs into the similarities between RAS and Grosvenor's sequels. Good call.

We often see topics about their differences and the likes of "I don't like XYZ about Grosvenor's style"...

The question then is, why? Why do we give this so much thought if there is so little difference? There must be enough difference that we're picking up on it. Since we're picking up on it, naturally we are bound to gravitate more to one style than the other for various reasons.

To be fair, a big part of it for our older members (like myself, 29 years old) is likely nostalgia. We're so fond of the films we grew up with that the others just don't quite touch them. Like anything else that one knows intimately, one is going to pick up and amplify subtle differences, perceiving them as greater than perhaps they are from an objective point of view.

From my biased point of view, LBT 5 and later all mildly annoyed me because of the differences caused by the switch of so many elements simultaneously.

To list the most prominent for me:

1) Cera's voice actor.
I absolutely adored her voice actor in LBT 2-4. Losing that was so heartbreaking to me and the newer one never did grow on me. I've grown to accept it but at the end of the day I still miss her voice in LBT 2-4.



2) Character writing.
Honestly, there were more than a few changes in characters' dialog that I picked up on pretty fast.
For example:

Cera no longer says "heee" with the big grin on her face. Cera in general became...I'll just link to a massive post that I wrote on this topic years ago rather than re-write it. You did mention in your post that Cera became more aggressive and that's what my post primarily focuses on.

Does Cera seem angrier after LBT 4? (That post is 9 years older than this one so bear with me. )


Ducky starts using her "yep yep yep" thing in other contexts: "yuck yuck yuck" being one example. She never started doing this until LBT 5 onward (I haven't watched the films in ages so I can't recall many other precise examples of this).

Grosvenor seems to run with and play around with the characters' gimmicks more than RAS did.



3) The CGI openings.
My first impression of Grosvenor's work was that damn CGI galaxy at the beginning of LBT 5. Between that and the pretty horrible editing error found within the first few minutes of LBT 5, Grosvenor left a pretty poor first impression on me, which I'm sure didn't help my bias.



4) The introduction of more and more fantasy elements that feel out of place compared to the earlier films:
- The Lone Dinosaur character
- The Stone of Cold Fire
- Aliens (really?)
- Dreams shared by all Longnecks
- Great Day of the Flyers (dinosaurs have holidays now?)

Grosvenor quickly (by LBT 6) drifting away from the simple innocence that made the earlier films work and stepped into wilder and wilder territory. A damaged wall or a drought was no longer enough to hold a film.

...Now to be fair, LBT 4 had the fantasy element of the night flower. I will acknowledge this but I do feel there is one major difference between the night flower and the later fantasy elements:

The night flower is a concept that fits in a prehistoric world and doesn't rely on any humanistic ideas.

The Lone Dinosaur is based on the idea of a "Lone Ranger" or even superhero.
The Stone of Cold Fire, while ultimately proved to be nothing, introduced the idea of magic.
Aliens are a concept never before considered until the science of astronomy.

The night flower concept is little more than an animal eating something that eases its stomach. It seems much more in-tune with the prehistoric world than the clearly-human-inspired elements introduced later by Grosvenor.



5) Animation and style.
Here is another major difference. At first glance, without remembering which scene a screenshot is from, I can instantly tell whether it's a Grosvenor film or a RAS film. The two have distinctly-different looks.
In my mind, LBT 2-4 have a more "classic animation" look to them, similar to a cleaned-up version of Disney's The Rescuers or Watership Down. It's simple animation with gorgeous watercolour backgrounds that make it appear relatively timeless.

LBT 5 and later start bringing in the use of CGI to compliment its animation style. Even without talking about poorly-rendered galaxies, LBT 5 and later starts to look more like a Saturday morning cartoon and less like the original Bluth Land Before Time. The series is showing signs of evolution in its art style. The brighter colours, while crisp and inspiring, also do present an atmosphere of being intended of being presented to a younger audience.

While this may not inherently be a bad thing, I truly do feel like LBT 2-4 looked more like timeless animation classics when you see them in screenshots, whereas LBT 5 and later do start to look like Saturday morning cartoons. LBT 2-4 were just absolutely DRIPPING with atmosphere with its subtle but effective animation, LBT 5 and later started using its animation and bright colours to yell and scream at the audience a bit more with the art style. Gone was the subtlety; in its place was found more extravagant use of art style. Again, not necessarily a bad thing but the two do convey different emotions to their audience.



6) I don't really feel like I need to address the music or songwriting as it's stayed pretty much consistent throughout the series.
I feel like LBT 5 and later have a more modern and less "timeless" sound in general but there are more than enough exceptions and I don't really have much to say about the difference in the soundtracks. Tavera's music is brilliant and its use throughout the entire series is more than welcome as far as I'm concerned.


LBT 2-4 was a simpler time when all it took was adorably-enjoyable characters and some little thing to get them to hang out together in a slow-paced, simple adventure. I've heard it said that some people consider these to be the most boring films in the series and I can see why. They do tend to have less going on than the Grosvenor films...but honestly, that's what I like about them. They're all about the world and the characters and that's what I love most about LBT.

LBT 5 onward started taking a more dramatic direction and drifted away from the simplicity of LBT 2-4. LBT became bigger in many ways at LBT 5. Is this good or bad? Up to you.

Wow, it takes me two years to see this post. Go figure.

Anyway, you bring up some very interesting points! I've never noticed any of them until now. Good point there (even though I personally think these differences never impacted my enjoyment of any of the sequels).

[Dr. Rex]

Bumping. Apologies for the double-post.

Having looked back on my LBT experiences recently, I realized something: the RAS films definitely had more scenes that would give me the chills and feel a little terrified. There was always this music cue that'd come up whenever there was a feeling of foreboding and impending doom. Case in example, when Littlefoot and Ali were playing in the cave in LBT IV before nearly coming across a deeper section of the lake they were in. I don't think I've heard that music cue as much in Grosvenor's films.

[StardustSoldier]

And here is my final wordy, opinionated thought piece for 2020. But do not worry, I will have more for you guys next year, I will, I will.

I never noticed a drastic change between Roy's films and Charles's films either. The difference between the earlier sequels and the later ones was much more pronounced to me when going from the 6th film to the 7th, due to the change in art style. The only real contrasts that stuck out to me between Roy and Charles were the change in Cera & Ducky's voice actresses, and Cera's characterization. That, and LBT 4 ends with the strong implication that Ali will return in a later film but she never does, which might have happened if Roy had stayed on board for the rest of the series (or then again maybe not, who knows?).

Reading the other posts in here, however, I can see there's quite a few other distinctions I never thought of before. Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful analysis, especially action9000!

Cera's voice actor.
I absolutely adored her voice actor in LBT 2-4. Losing that was so heartbreaking to me and the newer one never did grow on me. I've grown to accept it but at the end of the day I still miss her voice in LBT 2-4.

I loved her original voice actor too! ^^ Not that I have a problem with the newer actor per say, but yeah, they definitely nailed it in the first four movies.

Cera no longer says "heee" with the big grin on her face.

You know, even though I've seen most of the films more than once now, I never really picked up on that little catchphrase of hers before. I'll have to watch for that next time.

There was always this music cue that'd come up whenever there was a feeling of foreboding and impending doom. Case in example, when Littlefoot and Ali were playing in the cave in LBT IV before nearly coming across a deeper section of the lake they were in. I don't think I've heard that music cue as much in Grosvenor's films.

Hm, interesting. Another thing I never really noticed before that I'll have to pay attention for next time.

While I like both Roy and Charles and I'm not partial to one over the other, Journey Through the Mists is definitely my favourite out of Roy's films, and among my favourite of the sequels in general (along with #5 & #10). As mentioned, it's the last time we have Candace Hutson as Cera (who's also noteworthy for being the only returning voice actor from the original movie). And of course, there's Ali. I love her dynamic with Littlefoot, but she goes great with Cera too. Then again, they're my three favourite characters, so I'm undoubtedly biased here. Which of course is another reason why LBT 4 is special to me, as it's the only film where I get my three favourite characters all together.

[Charles's films had] the introduction of more and more fantasy elements that feel out of place compared to the earlier films [...] Now to be fair, LBT 4 had the fantasy element of the night flower. I will acknowledge this but I do feel there is one major difference between the night flower and the later fantasy elements: The night flower is a concept that fits in a prehistoric world and doesn't rely on any humanistic ideas.

Another good point. I have noticed before how LBT 2 & 3 have a lower-key feel and a bigger focus on the day-to-day aspects of their Great Valley society, but I never really thought about how it contrasts with the more outwardly adventurous and fantastical direction starting with #5. I'm a fan of the wilder elements myself. But the earlier films do have a more humble charm of their own. Maybe that's another reason I'm a fan of LBT 4, as it seems to bridge the transition between the two.

And it's just a fun adventure all around. One of the more emotional of the sequels for sure. The Land of Mists is a cool setting, and I also really like the aforementioned night flowers. Oh, and did I mention Ali?


Well, those are all the thoughts I have for now. This has certainly been a rough year for many of us, myself included, but here's hoping for a better and brighter 2021. Wishing you all the best. Bye for now!