The Land Before Time - Nostalgia Critic

Don Bluth's dino classic has been striking a chord with NC recently. What is it about the film that resonates with him so much? Find out now as Nostalgia Critic takes a look at The Land Before Time.

The Land Before Time is a 1988 animated adventure drama film directed and produced by Don Bluth from a screenplay by Stu Krieger and a story by Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss; it is executive produced by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall. The film stars the voices of Gabriel Damon, Candace Hutson, Judith Barsi, and Will Ryan with narration provided by Pat Hingle. It is the first film in The Land Before Time franchise.

The ONLY Official Youtube channel for the Nostalgia Critic and Channel Awesome.

New Nostalgia Critic episodes every Wednesday at 5PM CST.

#landbeforetime #thelandbeforetime #nostalgiacritic

[ChannelAwesome]

What are your thoughts on The Land Before Time?

[Kawaiikate]

“This movie doesn’t hand out its happy ending like candy. They make you work for it. Double shifts.” I love it! That’s exactly it!

[jd-ww]

7:00 Animated Parent Deaths:
Bambi’s Mom: Dies off screen
Mufasa: Cuts away right before death, but shows corpse later
Littlefoot’s Mom: See her as she’s slowly dying

[ShinobiPXO]

8:20 Fun fact but the scene with Rooter was added in because they decided the death of Littlefoot's mother may have been too brutal and harsh for kids, so they needed something to soften the trauma, for both Littlefoot and the audience.

[megan]

The scene with Rooter always makes me cry. He starts off so annoyed but then becomes so understanding and sympathetic, knowing Littlefoots’s anger is internal; angry at her for ‘leaving’, angry at himself for getting into that situation in the first place, but Rooter knows he’s just a little kid who’s alone and heartbroken.

Learning that he immediately tells Littlefoot it’s not his fault, it’s no one’s fault, it’s just life, but as long as he lives and remembers his mother’s words and teachings she’ll never truly leave him. This scene never really hit me as a kid, but now grown up and having felt the pain of loss, grief and heartbreak I see it in a completely new light (and a few tears.) ❤

[clintonwilcox]

Man, even watching an internet review, I still teared up when Little Foot's mom died. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I love how mature it was, taking kids seriously while not being vulgar.

[nyanpirethecat]

9:49 there's actually a sad bit of information that I remember Don Bluth recalled a few years back. The animators who worked on "All Dogs Go To Heaven" had a very difficult time working on scenes featuring Anne Marie. Some of them actually broke down crying while listening to Barsi's voice recordings for the character. Heck, Anne Marie's song "Soon You'll Come Home" was originally intended for Barsi to perform but was instead performed by Lana Beeson. To this day, he refuses to mention Barsi due to her death deeply affecting him.

[xxSandtxx]

I’ll be real, Doug doing “real intros” should become the norm. Sometimes the skits just don’t land, and sometimes we just want to see Doug be……Doug. Honest, true, and from the heart, that’s the best Doug.

Good luck with what you’re going through, Doug. We’re rooting for you

[koneheadcolahead]

A Sad Fact: Judith Barsi, who did the voice for Ducky, was murdered by her father four months before the film's release. Judith was only ten years old. Her headstone includes her famous line in this film, "Yep! Yep! Yep!"

[thoughtfuldevil]

Fun fact: Bob Bakker, the Paleontologist responsible for the discovery that dinosaurs were endothermic animals closer to birds than reptiles, advised the filmmakers in how the dinosaurs looked and acted. It shows in how sleek and active they all are, almost like one of Bakker's own sketches.

[lukestarkiller]

I love how in classic Don Bluth fashion, this is a kids film that pulls NO punches.
It's a kids film, but it doesn't shy away from the harshness & reality of life & the struggles people (especially kids) face.
It does treat kids seriously & doesn't try to dumb anything down for them. When Littlefoot's mother dies, it stays on that, it doesn't try to hide anything from you.

I also did always love the scene with Pat Rooter's character too. It's honestly the perfect heartwarming scene after dealing with such a tragedy. At first you think he's going to be some mean old grouch with his first few lines, but he immediately turns into a sweet character once he realizes what happened with Littlefoot. The best part is that it really is just a total stranger that gives jhim that encouragement. That actually means a lot more than if it was from one of his friends.

[Nikujaga]

From Don Bluth's 2022 autobiography;
"For those of you who believe I have an uncut version of the movie somewhere in my archives, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m afraid those cut sequences will never see the light of day. They were swept up from the cutting-room floor and dumped right into the trash. They’ve long been destroyed."

😢

[spinlok]

Hot Take: Littlefoot's Mother's death is sadder than Mufasa and Bambi's Mom deaths combined.

[koneheadcolahead]

Fun Fact: Throughout production, the film underwent severe cutting and editing of footage. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas thought that some scenes in the movie would appear too dark and intense for young children. Spielberg told Don Bluth while looking at the scenes from the film, "It's too scary. We'll have kids crying in the lobby and many angry parents. You don't want that." About nineteen scenes comprising ten minutes of footage, mostly pertaining to the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the five characters in mild peril or distress, were cut or trimmed. 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. He claims to have a personal copy of the film reel with the whole thing, though no word on whether or not it will ever see the light of day.

[Dirtnap]

I always liked the interpretation that the old dinosaur that comforted Littlefoot after his mothers death knew he didn't have much time left.
He was already very old during a harsh time and would just slow this kid down, so he comforted him as best he could and moved on to find a quiet place to end.

[countessD]

Where Disney's "Bambi" failed, Don Bluth and team succeeded in the scenes when the 2 protagonists' mothers die. When Bambi's mother dies, Bambi shed's a few tears but not too long afterwards, it's spring and the birds were twitterpating. In "The Land Before Time", however, we see Little Foot go through all the stages of grief after watching his mother pass away: 

1) depression (a lot of crying and loss of appetite)
2) anger ("she should've known better...it's all her fault")
3) bargaining ("I never should've wandered so far from home")
4) denial (thinking his shadow is his mother, that she's not dead after all)
5) acceptance (finally acknowledging that his mother is truly gone)

The fact that Little Foot, and we the audience, witnessed Mama Longneck die, accompanied James Horner's beautiful scoring, definitely made the tearjerker factor that strong to this day.

[MrWaspMan]

I'm glad your shingles and brain fog are getting better, and it's nice how you could connect to this film during that time. This is easily my favorite Don Bluth film. Even with all the cuts that were unfortunately made, it's still that "80's G" level of dark, the animation is gorgeous, the characters are great, and it's a very griping story. I'll always love it.

[BugsyFoga]

At this point, Im just waiting for Doug to cover Titan AE, so he can complete his collection of Don Bluth reviews.

[koneheadcolahead]

One Last Fun Fact: Having worked with her on this movie, Judith Barsi was Steven Spielbergs first choice to play Lex in Jurassic Park. He was completely unaware that Barsi had been murdered by her own father, just a few years earlier. He expressed his deep sadness after hearing the news. The role of Lex eventually went to Ariana Richards.

[MmeCShadow]

It only just occurs to me that Spike might not have been able to hatch without Ducky's help. It looks like he's just laid-back and lazy but she has to help crack and discard the egg. It's possible that Spike's parents abandoned the egg after believing it to be non-viable, which would also explain a few things about his mental acuity (even above and beyond him being a literal newborn).