The Land Before Time (1988)

Five orphan dinosaurs travel the ruins of their world, while grieving the loss of their families and banding together to face the odds of survival.

Director:

Don Bluth

Writers:

Stu Krieger (screenplay), Judy Freudberg (story),

Stars:

Judith Barsi, Pat Hingle, Gabriel Damon

2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Judith Barsi	...	Ducky (voice)
Pat Hingle	...	Narrator / Rooter (voice)
Gabriel Damon	...	Littlefoot (voice)
Helen Shaver	...	Littlefoot's Mother (voice)
Bill Erwin	...	Grandfather (voice)
Burke Byrnes	...	Daddy Topps (voice)
Candace Hutson	...	Cera (voice)
Will Ryan	...	Petrie (voice)

Storyline

An orphaned brontosaurus named Littlefoot sets off in search of the legendary Great Valley. A land of lush vegetation where the dinosaurs can thrive and live in peace. Along the way he meets four other young dinosaurs, each one a different species, and they encounter several obstacles as they learn to work together in order to survive.

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Plot Keywords:

dinosaur | brontosaurus | t rex | friendship | shadow | 

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Taglines:

A new adventure is born.

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Genres:

Animation | Adventure | Drama | Family | Fantasy

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Universal Studios

Country:

USA Ireland

Language:

English

Release Date:

18 November 1988 (USA)

Also Known As:

Em Busca do Vale Encantado

Box Office

Budget:

$12,300,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$48,092,846 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Sullivan Bluth Studios, U-Drive Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

69 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Because they were deemed as too frightening or could even cause psychological damage to young children, about 19 scenes, mostly pertaining to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and the five characters in mild peril or distress was cut or trimmed. Don Bluth was unhappy with the cuts, and fought to keep the footage, but felt like he had to do so, making this film only 69 minutes, one of his shortest.

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Goofs

Littlefoot's leaf is too small in the second half of the movie. If it could sit on his head, he'd be almost as big as his mother.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: Once upon this same earth, beneath this same sun, long before you, before the ape and the elephant, as well; before the wolf, the bison, the whale, before the mammoth and the mastodon, in the time of the dinosaurs. Now the dinosaurs were of two kinds. Some had flat teeth, and ate the leaves of trees, and some had sharp teeth for eating meat, and they preyed upon the leaf-eaters. Then it happened that the trees began to die. The mighty beasts who appeared to rule the earth, were, in...

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Connections

Referenced in The Nostalgia Critic: Rock-A-Doodle (2009)

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Soundtracks

"If We Hold On Together"
Music and Words by James Horner and Will Jennings
Produced by Peter Asher
Performed by Diana Ross

User Reviews

A Don Bluth Masterpiece

Don Bluth's masterpiece, The Land Before Time, is a wonderful children's feature with beautiful animation, a great story, adorable characters, and good direction.

As a director, Bluth's use of color and texture in this film is absolutely brilliant. He has this wonderful soft blending of mainly the background colors (usually most notable in the sky), which suggests use of chalk pastels to create this effect. In every film of his that I've seen, he always has great (what I like to call) atmospherics. In this film, you notice it in the blowing of dust/fog, some of the fire effects with the volcanoes (mainly the falling fire sparks), the falling black ash before the characters reach the "mountains that burn," as well as certain water effects.

The vocal cast was really well suited to all their roles. There were a few instances where some of the lines were a bit muffled and hard to understand, but for the most part, the cast did really well with their lines, made them sound natural, and child-like, and managed not to be overly cute and obnoxious as some characters made for children's films inherently are.

The score by James Horner is a wonderful addition to the film's atmosphere and really does a great job setting the mood. Horner always has a way of infusing his scores with a sense of romanticism that is often lacking in today's film composers, and this film is no exception. He makes really good use of his strings section, especially in this period of his work.

To be sure, this film is a masterpiece! All of its excellent qualities are apparent while watching the film, most notably the animation (which is excellent for a late 80s film), the voice cast, the score, the story, and the art direction. Without a doubt, it would be well-deserving of a spot in any animated feature hall of fame.

9 Stars out of 10!