As good as this film is...

Littlefoot3897 · **Reply #20 on:** November 01, 2009, 07:44:30 PM

well I liked the movie but I really wanted the deleted scenes added and probably something explaining littlefoots father.

Flathead · **Reply #21 on:** November 01, 2009, 09:21:20 PM

i would have wanted the deleted scenes added and maybe some additional scenes to add more character development and conflict . i'd also would have liked it if they had rearranged parts of the film so that littlefoot finds the great valley first before going back to find his friends.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #22 on:** November 02, 2009, 07:12:39 PM

Has anyone ever liked the idea of the Great Valley being heaven and that everyone dies at the end?

Malte279 · **Reply #23 on:** November 02, 2009, 07:55:04 PM

I don't particularly like the idea (especially not as it would have made the sequels pretty much impossible), but I consider it more likely than not that at some point this concept may have been in the minds of the makers of LBT.
Death has never been much of a taboo topic in kids movies (there are quite a few with at least one important character dying) and the movie "All dogs go to heaven" had even made the killing off of a main protagonist a possibility.
Ignoring everything that was said in the sequels we never got to see a single character in the original movie who had seen the Valley with the eyes rather than the heart and with the introduction which pretty much paints the picture of a world no longer supporting the dinosaurs and with the general awareness of dinosaurs being extinct I think there are some points to suggest a likelihood of that claim being more than a mere rumor. It would have made a very different and much darker story that would have been ill suited for sequels. Though I think some of the later sequels in particular would have benefited from a bit more darkness I do not like the idea of LBT turning quite as dark as suggested by that Great Valley = Haven concept.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #24 on:** November 02, 2009, 08:13:22 PM

Hmm. Maybe. I'm still of the mind that Great Valley=Heaven is not the idea that Bluth and co ultimately went with, though. I think that the Valley is a physical place within the living world of LBT. Otherwise the ending narration "and they all grew up together in the valley. Each telling the story from one generation to the next of their journey to the valley...long ago" makes absolutely no sense if that were the case and I've never heard anything about the ending being part of what Spielberg and Lucas had a problem with.
While I agree that death is not a taboo thing in children's films (good lord do we all know that!), All Dogs Go to Heaven had an entirely different theme than Land Before Time, in that LBT was essential about overcoming differences and working together for a better future and All Dogs was specifically about redemption and the hereafter.

Malte279 · **Reply #25 on:** November 02, 2009, 08:40:05 PM

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Hmm. Maybe. I'm still of the mind that Great Valley=Heaven is not the idea that Bluth and co ultimately went with, though.

I do not contradict you there. They did not ultimately go with that idea and the original movie clearly shows the Great Valley as a real and tangible place which Littlefoot and the others reach quite alive.
But to me it looks like there may be substance to the claims that they did play around with the thought of making the Great Valley a dinosaur heaven but then decided against it.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #26 on:** November 02, 2009, 10:12:26 PM

Hmm. You might onto something, Malte, now that I think of it, and I think I may have an idea where it led.
I wonder if that Bluth and co did explore the concept of the hereafter during Land Before Time's production, but decided against it. It would actually sense for the idea to have been considered because that may have been the roots of the ideas that became All Dogs. Man, I wish Bluth interviews were greater in number and easier to find so this could be confirmed.

Flathead · **Reply #27 on:** November 02, 2009, 10:37:10 PM

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Has anyone ever liked the idea of the Great Valley being heaven and that everyone dies at the end?

I could seriously consider it for an alternative ending,( and one that would be considerable darker than the original), I would also would have considered another alternative ending, such as a bittersweet ending (not without sacrifices, for instance where petrie ( and I've got nothing against petrie here) appears to have died when he was dragged down with the sharptooth)

Littlefoot3897 · **Reply #28 on:** November 04, 2009, 12:44:16 AM

Quote from: Flathead,Nov 1 2009 on 08:21 PM

i would have wanted the deleted scenes added and maybe some additional scenes to add more character development and conflict . i'd also would have liked it if they had rearranged parts of the film so that littlefoot finds the great valley first before going back to find his friends.

actually they did that but they changed it. I heard when littlefoot separates from the gang after he fought with Cera, he finds the Great Valley and he returns to tell the others and he finds them in trouble. I heard this in a article a a long time ago on the internet but I can find the site anymore.

I dont know if it was a deleted scene or one of the story idea before making the film.
I dont like the idea of the Great Vally being heaven and all the dinosaurs dying. It wouldnt make sense. Littlefoots mother came as a spirit and showed the gang to the great valley. if it was heaven wouldnt they show Littlesoot more more alive looking like the others???? I think the deleted scene "Now we will always be together" means that they will be together in the valley. they became best friends so they will never be inseperable. "Well thats what they think" its like the Fox and the Hound when Tod tells Copper they will always be best friends forever.

Saft · **Reply #29 on:** November 06, 2009, 04:47:37 PM

Nothing really else to add on top of what everyone else has mentioned but I'll just mention... I'd quite like a change in the length of the movie to that of a longer story perhaps either .adding the delete scenes..or/and extending characterization of the characters because whilst I love all the characters from the first movie..you don't really know much about them with the exception of Littlefoot and maybe Cera.

Animeboye · **Reply #30 on:** November 08, 2009, 01:40:22 AM

I don't like the idea of Littlefoot and the gang dying either. It just leaves for a really sad and empty ending(Even though the actual ending is just that). And if the Great Valley is Dino Heaven, then where is Littlefoot's Mom? Where is Cera's mom and her sisters? Where are Spike's parents? Is there like a Dino Hell and the parents and siblings were sent there for some odd reason? I'll just take Don Bluth's word for it that that was never the intended ending.

Anyway, I would definately like the movie to be longer. Maybe witness more of the perils that the kids face on their journey. The deleted scenes I would definately enjoy. Also an explanation on some things: 1)How Ducky, Petrie, and Spike were seperated from their parents. 2)How Littlefoot's mom knows of the Great Valley if she's never been there. I guess Grandma or Grandpa Longneck could have told her at some point or she may have learned of it from another Longneck. She could have even visited the Valley when she was very young and just doesn't remember it too well. And finally, I'd like to see some character developement for Petrie. Like when did he hatch? How did he get seperated from his mom and siblings? And maybe even what happened to his dad.

Malte279 · **Reply #31 on:** November 08, 2009, 05:01:12 AM

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I'll just take Don Bluth's word for it that that was never the intended ending.

Did he say so?

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #32 on:** November 08, 2009, 05:22:15 AM

Given all the concrete evidence against the 'everyone is frikkin dead' ending, he may as well have.

Malte279 · **Reply #33 on:** November 08, 2009, 05:41:01 AM

I cannot repeat often enough that I am well aware that the existing ending does NOT suggest any of the Gang died or the Great Valley being anything but a real place which one could see with the eyes just as well as with the heart if the eyes happened to be in the vicinity.
It also is quite clear that if there was an alternative concept it must have been abandoned relatively quickly (just think of the original plot of Littlefoot leading the others to the Great Valley after he found it but decided not to enter without them. If the Great Valley had at that time still been interpreted as a dinosaur heaven that would be kind of... morbid?). For the same reason all we do see in the movie (absence of characters like Littlefoot's mother (though one could point out that of all possibilities it was her ghost leading him on the last steps)) is definitely on the assumption of the Great Valley being a very real place.
I cannot stress it often enough, in the movie as we know it the Great Valley is NOT a dinosaur heaven and none of the characters did die. All that I consider quite possible is that at an early planning stage there may well have been such a concept in the minds of the movie makers, a concept though that was quickly abandoned. Still some of the elements of that concept may have made it into the movie because "Some things you see with your eyes, others you see with your heart" of course sounds a lot better than "Grandpa told me"

Littlefoot3897 · **Reply #34 on:** November 08, 2009, 05:37:21 PM

who told made up the rumor that the Great Valley is heaven anyway????????????

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #35 on:** November 08, 2009, 06:09:53 PM

Well said, Malte. If the idea that the Great Valley was dino heaven was ever planned, it was obviously decided against. Though I think that if it had been considered at one point, it might have been what lead Bluth and co. to make All Dogs to Go Heaven. ANy thoughts of that, anyone?

Petrie. · **Reply #36 on:** November 09, 2009, 07:09:07 PM

Who knows what could've inspired All Dogs.

Maybe Bluth visited a mueseum or researched some native culture which considers spirits among animals, and well, the thought of if animals go to heaven when they die or is this just a human phenomina? I don't think the Great Valley could inspire All Dogs...these are waaaaaaaay different films here.

WeirdRaptor · **Reply #37 on:** November 09, 2009, 09:06:00 PM

Perhaps, but keep in mind that "inspired" does not equate to "directly based on". After something has sparked an idea, said concept will go through countless rewrites and charges before the finished product comes to be.
For example, remember that animated series titled Gargoyles http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108783/ ? Its biggest inspiration was this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088528/

You could list the similarities between the two with one hand, and if you wanted to list the differences you'd need to mutate and grow several more arms in order to get enough fingers.

dragoonanime · **Reply #38 on:** November 11, 2009, 08:19:54 PM

I would have loved to see the deleted scenes in the movie or as an extra on the dvd. It is too bad they got rid of them.

Leopardi · **Reply #39 on:** November 17, 2009, 11:56:21 AM

It's missing nothing, except the cut scenes. Even the animation is much more advanced in this, every spec of dust is there but not in much newer sequels?