The Land Before Time

The touching story of Little Foot, the last remaining member of his family of Brontosauruses (Brontosauri?), is a great adventure as well. He joins up with younger members of other dinosaur families as they all journey to the Great Valley in search of food.

Along the way they encounter hunger, thirst, earthquakes, and, not least of all, the dreaded Sharptooth. The feel of the dinosaur age is well presented and the characters are cute without being saccharine (and they don't sing!).

The lesson that friends can be friends even though they don't look like you or act just like you is a nice one for kids to see. The idea that working together is important for reaching a goal is also a valuable one.

Having owned a VHS copy of the movie, I was anxious to see the DVD. The result on this particular version is very dissappointing.

First, the version is full-screen with no wide-screen option. This seems to be a minor problem since most of the action seems to take place center screen. It would have been nice to have the option for widescreen, however.

Secondly, the color and brightness varies widely from scene to scene (and, more jarringly, sometimes within a scene). The opening scene, which starts underwater, is actually darker and less sharp than on the VHS version. In several quiet, close-up scenes the picture will be perfectly exposed and then the picture will shift to a darker look and then back. Very annoying. Various nicks and scratches appear throughout the film - it appears that no effort was made to clean up the video master at all.

There were also no extras on the disc at all, and at the price of this DVD, you would expect a little more than just the movie and chapter selections. Disney issued their first few DVDs with little problems like this: no widescreen option, varying degrees of video quality, etc. They however, have moved to a more consistent product over the last six months. Hopefully, movies like The Land Before Time will be given better treatment in the future. This one in particular deserves better than it got.


The Only Good One   August 2, 2003
Drez (Barberton, Ohio United States)
16 out of 27 found this review helpful

Sorry If I sound like a killjoy or anything. But, what the [heck] is with the songs in the sequels of this movie? They put in songs in Sercet of NIMH 2 and that made it awful. They put songs in Land Before Time II and that made it awful too. If the oringal movie hasn't got a song, it's for a good reason. The only song in the first movie is the end credits.
Land Before Time follows the adventures of Littlefoot and his dinosaur pals in search of the Great Valley to find enough food to eat. A good moive and the only Land Before Time movie.


A Quality Film for Generations to Enjoy   March 23, 1999
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

This is possibly the landmark achievement in filmmaking of all time. Now, before you disregard the rest of this because of the opening statement, think about what I said. The Land Before Time is a movie which can cross the age barrier without effort: Young children are left heartwarmed by the story; adults are left misty-eyed. A young man like myself who grew up with this movie can watch it repeatedly and recollect a childhood; others can experience a brand-new one with such a film as this. To simply put this story off as a children's flick is to do it the least justice possible; watch the movie, regardless of your age, and you are guaranteed to be left with one of the most memorable movie experiences of your life. The major reason for its quality? JAMES HORNER'S BRILLIANCE IN COMPOSING THE SOUNDTRACK. The greatest injustice to the brilliance of Don Bluth, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Horner, and the others who worked to create this masterpiece? The abominations which attempt to pass as sequels to this work of art! Ignore them! Shun them! Do not go anywhere near these videos, if you value and cherish the purity of the original Land Before Time.


Special features appropriate for toddlers!   December 22, 2003
Bill J. Thomann (Port Charlotte, Fl United States)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

I can live with this dvd being only fullscreen (that is supposedly its OAR) but to call this an Anniversary Edition & provide the worst special features ever on dvd is outrageous. Bluth/Spielberg/Lucas should sue Universal to have there names removed from this atrocity & replaced with Alan Smithee. You know when the first "special feature" is "how to use your remote control" that this disc was produced for children 1-5 years old. My 7 year old nephews turn their noses up at it. What a great movie. What a HORRID dvd presentation. Do what you like with the 101 sequels but give us a quality dvd of this classic original movie. PLEASE!


American Animated Classic   July 20, 1999
8 out of 12 found this review helpful

I was VERY young when the movie came out, and I STILL love it. It's an animated classic, basically what you would expect from Don Bluth. For other great animated classics, see ALL the animated movies by Hayao Miyazaki. The only downside of The Land Before Time is that they have made SO MANY D*** SEQUELS!! THE ORIGINAL IS THE BEST, SO STOP TRYING TO MILK A CASH COW!!