Screen Time Experiment - Land Before Time characters

[Rattymon]

I'm surprised that Ali got second place! 

[ManOfWar GT]

I'm kinda sad to see ichy and dil at the bottom of the list but overall. Good experiment.

[DiddyKT2]

Okay, um, ... I was wrong to predict that things would go back to normal in this film ...

The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island

Petrie's siblings are finally back in the picture with their first appearance since the end of the first movie, but it didn't mean much as they ended up getting less screen time than even a Swimming Sharptooth!

As expected, Chomper did indeed end up having the most screen time outside the Gang with his triumphant return, and this may be as high as he's going to get.  We're not going to see him again until the 14th and last film, and chances are he may not get #6 for that installment.

Getting the Gang's numbers seemed to take an eternity because we spend almost the entire film focused on the five of them together as they get marooned on a dangerous island.

As we can see, all five members of the Gang exceeded 20 minutes of screen time for the first time.  However, 3rd, 4th and 5th may end up being quite jarring.  Even I did not see this coming at all ...
                         
                                                                             
This was so unbelievable that I had to make sure I wasn't going insane, but Spike unexpectedly ended up taking the Bronze for this movie!  There were certain scenes that simply didn't include Ducky and Petrie because of them being so tiny that either the animators just didn't include them or they got obscured by their bigger friends.  This was ultimately their downfall for their shot at a top three place for this film.

Cera has reclaimed the Silver after missing out to Ali in the previous film, but Littlefoot ended up with over half an hour of screen time once more and takes his fifth Gold in a row, keeping his perfect record.

With Spike having won a Bronze, this leaves Petrie as the last remaining Gang member to have not yet won a single medal.  Poor Petrie.  Poor, poor Petrie.  It seems they found nothing for Petrie to do in these earlier sequels, and thus he ended up with less screen time than Spike for the second time in a row and is almost the least relevant of the main characters at this point.  As we know, though, he does have a focus film coming up pretty soon ...

Up next, one of the lesser films in the series, in my personal opinion; The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock.

[Sneak]

I am shocked to see Spike so high too. :O
And I expected Chomper to have a little more screen time.

[Rattymon]

I'm so happy Spike got 3rd place! 

[DiddyKT2]

And so, we've reached the end of an era, as following Secret of Saurus Rock, the LBT film series will make the transition from traditional hand-drawn animation to digital ink and paint from Stone of Cold Fire onward.

The horrible picture quality of this film made it almost unbearable to watch, and it also wasn't helped that this is one of my least favorite LBT films, but I endured it and gathered up the numbers.

The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock

Yeah, Mama Flyer had 19 seconds of screen time ... without a single closeup shot of her.  Even small characters like her couldn't escape my eyes despite this movie's terrible video quality.

I was sorta stunned that Topps ranked lower than I thought he would, but then again this was kind of a Longneck-themed movie.  The Threehorns were pretty much the secondary focus in this case, and Topps' role ended up being smaller than I remembered.

Sure enough, the annoying twins got the most screen time outside the Gang, as they have a big focus during the second quarter of the film where they absent-mindedly run away to Saurus Rock.

Spike has beaten Petrie again! This is the third time in a row that the Spiketail has beaten the Flyer for screen time!  Again, this was not expected.

And now, here are the top three.
                
                                                                         
Ducky receives a warm welcome back into the top three with her third Bronze after missing out in both the fourth and fifth installments.    However, she almost didn't make it, as she only ended up beating Spike by just five seconds!  Spike was that close to what would have been his second straight Bronze.

I knew Cera was going to be the runner-up without question.  The film essentially made her the secondary focus by adding the twins into the fold.  That makes it 4 Silvers out of 6 films for the Threehorn.

However, Littlefoot remains untouchable.  He again smashes everyone so easily and topples the half hour mark for his sixth Gold in succession, making it a double hat trick.  There was no doubt he'd easily destroy the competition in this one, though.  I knew from the beginning that he'd take an easy Gold.

So now, there's just one problem left ...

Poor Petrie has now gone 0 for 6 in the medal count, and even worse, after Spike beat him three times in a row, the Flyer has now fallen to 5th place on the overall leaderboard behind Spike, meaning Petrie is the least relevant member of the Gang. 

However, ... it appears the producers had taken notice of this, and may be looking to remedy this with a sinister plot for the next film ...

Coming up next, Petrie may finally have his first true chance to take a medal in The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire!

[Rattymon]

I wonder if someone else will ever take 1st place? 

[somerandomfangirl]

I wonder if someone else will ever take 1st place? 

Complete guess as I haven't watched the films for a while, but I think Littlefoot might get knocked off his pedastal in either the 8th or the 12th film. I'm interested to see that Spike has overtaken Petrie a few times, especially considering he has no dialogue like Petrie does.

Littlefoot's grandparents were just utterly confusing throughout the time I studied their scenes.  This is actually the only film in the series where they have the scientifically correct coloring (based on gender), as these were mysteriously swapped out from the second movie onward.  Their numbers were simply based on assumption after I decided to go with my gut.

It's weird that that the grandparents' voices were swapped for this one, especially as, if I recall correctly, the design sheet for the film does show them as they appear in the sequels. That and when they appear just after Littlefoot's birth, and in the ending scene, the one with the good old female-distinguishing eyelashes is who we see as Grandma in the sequels. It's strange. It's kinda funny how even the first movie got them mixed up. 

Good work on this project, Diddy! There have certainly been a few surprises so far!

[DiddyKT2]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially reached the halfway point of the film series!

So, let's see how everyone fared in this movie to wrap up the first half ...

The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire

Petrie's siblings are AGAIN in last place despite the fact that TWO of their relatives are prominent characters in this movie.  It honestly seems that they can just never avoid last place.

The Spokes Dinosaur counted because he was included in the end credits (voiced by Jeff Bennett) and was the most prominent Far Walker in the meeting at the beginning of the film.

For the first time since the first movie, Topps has come out on top over both of Littlefoot's grandparents.  His part in the meetings was apparently bigger than I remembered.

The big shock here?  Pterano actually beat one of the Gang members!  He topped Spike by just eight seconds to win a place in the top 5 for his only appearance in the series!

I'm sure some of you were thinking that Ducky was going to make the top 3.  It seemed reasonable to believe so, given that her kidnapping and subsequent escape from the Flyers boosted her screen time quite a bit, but not enough.

And now, here are the top three!
                   
                                                                           
Honestly, 2nd through 6th places all felt rather unpredictable for me, but in the end, some of my predictions ended up being correct.

Cera takes her third Bronze, again beating Ducky by less than a minute.  However, she ended up being no match for the top two ...

YES!  Petrie finally win medal! It took seven films for him to pull it off, but thanks largely to his uncle Pterano coming into the picture, Petrie comes back from an 0-6 record to finally win his first medal!  Even better, he went even further by toppling the 20-minute mark to take the Silver!

Despite Petrie's valiant efforts, though, Littlefoot still tops everybody to win his seventh Gold in a row, sweeping all seven Golds for the first half of the film series.  His margin of victory was only four minutes, and it seemed that Petrie looked like a threat to challenge for the Gold, but Littlefoot was more prominent, being the one who saw the Stone of Cold Fire crash into Threehorn Peak.  That, along with the opening meeting and his conversation with the Rainbow Faces at the end ultimately ensured that he remained unchallenged for the top spot.  Thus, Littlefoot is perfect for the first half of the series.

With halftime now upon us, it's time to delve into the second half, beginning with The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze!

[Sneak]

new surprise: Mama Swimmer got more screen time than Mama Flyer. :O

[RainbowFaceProtege]

[DiddyKT2]

So, here we are, ready to kick off the second half of the film series!  I'm sure many of you were anticipating surprises in this film, and I ended up finding quite a number of them, but before we get to the top three, we have to look at everybody else first ...

The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze

Right away, shockers are out in the open.  For the second time in a row, the main focus family had a pair of siblings that ended up in LAST PLACE for screen time!  This seems to be becoming an unfortunate trend.

What's even more jarring is that Tippy actually got LESS screen time than his mother, but by just two seconds!  This might be the only time in the entire series where a child character has less screen time than his or her own parent.

Yes, even I went into this thinking that Spike might be a medal contender, but in the end he was NOT EVEN CLOSE!  This was because the Spiketails got very little screen time in the second half of the movie.  A majority of Spike's screen time was actually in the first half, but by the time he left the Great Valley, he only got about 5 minutes on screen for the rest of the movie, and thus he shockingly failed to even reach the top five.

Mr. Thicknose made a big impact during the second half of the film, and that included screen time, where he even managed to take down Petrie by just six seconds to take a stunning 4th place.

And now, the top three!
                   
                                                                           
What's this? Oh! OH! OH MY GOODNESS ME!  Littlefoot is finally defeated!

Then again, many of you came here anticipating that Ducky would be a serious contender, and now I can officially prove that Ducky did indeed get more screen time than anyone else in LBT 8, including Littlefoot!  Ducky has the honor of being the one to shatter Littlefoot's undefeated record!  The lovable Swimmer has her Gold medal, and she can now smile bigger than ever with her moment of glory!

Meanwhile, as Littlefoot's streak of seven consecutive Golds comes to an end, Cera was the only other character to reach 20 minutes and easily wins her fourth Bronze.  Nobody else really came close to consideration for the 20-minute mark in this movie.

Now that we at long last have our second different character to clinch a Gold medal, we can have a little more fun with this project as we swim under the sea in The Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water!

[rhombus]

Finally, it has happened.  Littlefoot has been knocked off of his pedestal in favor of Ducky no less.  Though I think we all know the person who is most happy for this event is  and will no doubt give Littlefoot grief over it. 

[Sneak]

So, it happened... I thought Littlefoot will be defeated only in 12th movie... 

I am very surprised to see Spike being so low in this one... It is supposed to be his movie too after all.

[Rattymon]

So, it happened... I thought Littlefoot will be defeated only in 12th movie... 

I am very surprised to see Spike being so low in this one... It is supposed to be his movie too after all.

Same! 

I'm very happy for Mama Swimmer and Mr. Thicknose. I have a soft spot for those characters.

Also, congratulations to Ducky for winning the gold! 

[chomperrules1993]

I am quite surprised that Littlefoot lost 1st place in the 8th film, I truly believed that would only happen in the 12th film! Congrats to Ducky though!

[somerandomfangirl]

What's this? Oh! OH! OH MY GOODNESS ME!  Littlefoot is finally defeated!

I KNEW it!  I had a feeling both Littlefoot's absence in the Mad Song and more focus being on Ducky with just Spike and/or their mother would tip the scales in the swimmer's favour.

What I wasn't expecting, however, was Mr Thicknose taking 4th place, but then I suppose that makes sense with him joining the gang in the second half... and he gets a song.

[DiddyKT2]

Took me a couple days, but here are the results for the ninth movie!

The Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water

Petrie's siblings continue their trend of being in last place for screen time in EVERY film they've appeared in thus far!  It appears we're not gonna see them come out of their shadow until the 12th movie.

I hesitated in adding Petrie's imaginary friend into the mix, but I decided to go for it after seeing that he'd clearly have more screen time than the sibling groups, so here he sits in 16th on this list.

We saw so little of the supporting characters in this movie that NOBODY made it to 5 minutes besides the Gang and Mo.  Once the kids were off to the Big Water, everyone else was essentially out of the picture after that (except for two scenes).

I'll be honest, I was expecting Petrie to have a shot at a medal for this one, considering he had a scene of nearly two minutes all to himself, but he wound up taking last place among the Gang once more (which greatly disappointed me), mainly because of a certain surprise I'm about to reveal ...

Here are the top three, and get ready for a MAJOR surprise ...
                 
                                                                             
Yes! There was no way this should have happened, but Spike beat Cera and took the Silver! 

I have no idea how this happened, but it seemed the Spiketail managed to just throw himself into as many frames as possible, and he ends up doing something I was NOT expecting him to do at ANY point during the film series!  This now means that all five Gang members have won at least one Silver medal!

As for Littlefoot, it seems that he couldn't stand a certain someone giving him hell over his defeat by Ducky in the previous film, so he decided he was going to get the best form of revenge possible.  He DESTROYED the entire field by miles to win his eighth Gold medal.

Oh, but wait!  That wasn't enough for Littlefoot!  He had to kick it up a notch!  He was so hellbent on reclaiming his pedestal that he did more than just obliterate the competition.  He went so far as to come within ONE SECOND of beating his own record of 34:36 from the original movie!  We so nearly ended up with a new series record for screen time right here!  His screen time almost tripled Mo's, for crying out loud!

So now that Littlefoot is back on top, we're about to get ready to see his long lost father come into the picture in The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration.

[Sneak]

...
ok, I wouldn't be suprised to see Spike above majority of the gang in some movie...
but he has almost twice more time than in previous movie? srsl? :O

[Rattymon]

I'm surprised (and happy) that Spike managed to get second place!