This one I managed to nail quickly because a few of these were done weeks ago during the early stages of the project. This was one of the big ones for me, and the rest of you made it clear that this would be the one to keep an eye on.
BTW, before I bring the results up for the 12th film, I want to thank you all for your kind words regarding this project.
This has been a massive undertaking, and I'm happy to see so many of you interested in this! I know this was conceived as an idea just for fun, but given how time-consuming it can be, it's no easy task. I'm even ecstatic to see that this project made the front page for the forum this month! It shows that I've succeeded in my intended goal of building a productive start to 2023 after the Stone of Cold Fire voiceover project faded into obscurity.
Fittingly, the showcase for Great Day of the Flyers popped up just as I started working on this one! Thank you all for your support, and keep it going! I'll especially need the good luck considering what the next film is ...
Now, here are the results for the 12th movie!
The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers
If there's one thing we can notice immediately, from this point on, the movies will be in widescreen, as the series had just made the transition from fullscreen to HD widescreen.
I was honestly surprised that neither Mama Swimmer nor Grandma Longneck ended up in last place, even though neither of them had dialogue while Mr. Clubtail did (in TWO scenes). They just did a better job at looming in the background than he did.
Big shocker: Mama Flyer did NOT make the top ten. I thought for sure she'd get into the top ten, but she ended up with much smaller numbers than I anticipated, and thus Tricia exceeding five minutes effectively ruined any chance she had of getting into the top ten. Nevertheless, Mama Flyer did score a personal best in both screen time and rank, as she previously ranked no better than 13th (which she did in Journey to Big Water).
Topps and Tria ended up in a tie (quite fittingly). I placed Topps above Tria, though, because he was in more scenes (even if a few of them only lasted a few seconds or so).
As we expected, Petrie's siblings do indeed finally avoid last place. Even better, they broke the ten-minute mark and ranked at #7.
Ducky and Spike were mysteriously absent from the final scene of the movie. The last time we see them is when the Gang start running after Tricia after hearing her cries for help. As such, their screen time numbers suffered in comparison to the rest of the Gang, and Ducky ended up with her new personal worst film rank at #5, her first time outside the top 4.
EXTRA big shocker: Littlefoot did NOT make the top three!
We have just seen something which I think none of us saw coming. Not only does Littlefoot fail to reach the 20-minute mark, he ends up a personal worst #4, and to make matters even worse for him, he even lost to Cera!
Oh, how the mighty have fallen ...
Yet another big shocker: although Cera finally defeated Littlefoot, she has suffered her second loss to a one-off guest character. The Threehorn could only settle for her sixth Bronze medal, whilst Guido achieved what Ali pulled off in the 4th film. He built up a 43-second margin over Cera right at the end to win the Silver in his one-and-only movie appearance!
Even though Cera was a secondary focus character due to her getting a newly-born sister, her defeat by Guido was really due to the slow-paced scenes of the Gang following a sleep-walking Guido during the third quarter of the movie. His time on screen during his sleep-flying and his run-in with the Sailback Sharptooth also boosted his numbers so much so that Cera could not keep ahead of him.
And, of course, the moment that EVERYONE saw coming; Petrie is a Gold medal winner!
But wait, it gets even better! He not only won the Gold, but he pulled off something that even Ducky wasn't able to do while beating Littlefoot in the 8th movie. He ended up winning by a margin of more than five minutes! He practically delved into Littlefoot territory with his screen time and showed us why this was truly a Petrie film. I now have proof why Great Day of the Flyers deserves its name.
We even saw Petrie do something he NEVER would have done at the beginning of the series, which only further boosted his screen time. He showed true bravery (previously uncharacteristic of him) by rescuing Guido from the Sailback Sharptooth, initially unaided as he led the rescue effort before his friends followed him in. He did it again when he willingly abandoned his flying test to help Guido rescue the newborn Tricia from certain death. He did both of these heroic acts despite knowing full well what the potential repercussions were, shown when he overruled Littlefoot's suggestion of staying in the Great Valley and resting up for the Day of the Flyers, and he even ignored his siblings' frantic worries that they had to finish their flying test or else everything could fall apart, knowing that the precious life of a newborn hatchling was far more important. Honestly, that is just so original for him. Petrie is a BIG winner in this one with superstar screen time numbers!
We now have three different characters whom have won a Gold medal, as Petrie joins ten-time winner Littlefoot and Big Freeze winner Ducky. I'm fairly certain, though, that chances of that list growing are probably next to nothing. Meanwhile, Cera is the ONLY remaining character to have placed in the top three in EVERY film thus far. She now takes over the lead in total medals won, winning 12 medals in a row whilst Littlefoot stays at 11. Despite this, Cera still has NO Gold medals, and you can imagine this is beginning to drive her insane.
Up next, I shall spend the next few days torturing myself with the worst film in the entire series; The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends. Uh, ... wish me luck.
