Casually bumping this topic.
^^
It could be Littlefoot's mother, but because that longneck is so small and we can't see much of the detail, it could be anyone, really. Perhaps it was one of Grandma and Grandpa Longneck's other children, or perhaps it was one of Saro's children. However, it is presumed to be Littlefoot's mother, since she's the only known child of Grandpa and Grandma or Saro and his mate.
As for this episode, it's one of the few TV episodes that I like... for the first half.
Hey, any episode that would focus solely on Grandpa Longneck and his past will catch my attention.
Anyway, it was interesting and nice to see Saro introduced as Grandpa's best friend. He seems like an interesting enough character. I see Saro as carefree most of the time but can get too easily offended or irked when someone turns something important to him away, like Grandpa refused to come back to be a story speaker again. I can perfectly understand his reasons why; I think Saro is younger than Grandpa and probably doesn't realise how old he is getting. The Mysterious Beyond would be dangerous for Grandpa, Grandma and Littlefoot, if he decided to bring them along, and I know he wouldn't leave his family to do his job.
The idea of Grandpa being a story speaker does explain how he is able to tell his stories so well. I also enjoyed how this showed us a bit more of his past. My guess is that he probably learned a lot from his own grandfather (he did mention in 6 that most of the stories he told the children had been told to him by his grandpa when he was young. This to me raises the question of whether Grandpa's grandpa was a story speaker himself, but I doubt we'll ever know that) and he went about telling the stories before he and Grandma became mates and he settled down to have his own family.
Even so, he probably migrated for some time with them and carried on with telling his stories in the process. Saro mentions nothing about Grandpa ever retiring, and since we see that little longneck who could be Littlefoot's mother during the 'Remembering' scene, it shows that Saro probably stuck around with Grandpa for a lot of his life. I suppose the Great Drought halted Grandpa's story speaking with the struggle for survival, and may have also separated him from Saro in the process. I like the idea of Saro being like a younger brother to Grandpa in some respects; he really looks up to him and seems to think much higher of Grandpa than himself, especially with the story speaking job.
Right, I'm thinking waaaaay too much into this now.
Back to the episode: I like the idea of Littlefoot going after Saro to make sure that he and Grandpa make up again. Uh, wait... he says he has to find Saro to pretty much tell HIM to be the story speaker. Never mind the friendship troubles, then.
Anyway, after Littlefoot and Chomper reach Saro, a convenient earthshake traps them all out, and gives Saro the perfect opportunity to tell them a story to calm them down. This story is quite interesting, but I dunno, there's something about it that I don't like. Oh well, this isn't really a big thing, so I'll let it pass.
One thing I definitely didn't like was the second song that Littlefoot and Chomper sang. It wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary to put two songs into every episode. There was nothing else to sing about in that episode, so they just sang a conversation that could have just been said.
Second thing that confuses me is Saro's sudden storming off. I can understand he was disappointed but his reaction was a bit extreme if you ask me. By the looks of it, Grandpa and Saro hadn't seen each other in a very long time and may have possibly presumed each other dead or doubted they would see each other again ("I had given up hope!"), so I don't get why Saro would just walk out of the Great Valley again after just arriving because Grandpa said no to taking up the job. It almost felt as if Saro didn't want to see him again. I don't understand why he would think this when he was acting like Grandpa's best friend at the start of the episode. Surely he can't have always been like that, or else their friendship was likely not to have lasted so long. I suppose the writers just decided that it made enough sense to do this to carry on the plot of the episode. I don't really agree that this was the right approach, but there's not much that can be done about it now.
Overall, I think it's one of the better episodes, but it had it's faults. Still, an interesting episode, and at least Grandpa and Saro made up in the end.
That was one heck of big review from me...
