Notes: Universal. Animated. 69 grating minutes.
Narrator: Pat Hingle
Voice of Littlefoot: Gabriel Damon
With the voice talents of Fred Gwynne and Helen Shaver.

Executive Producers: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall
Producers: Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy
Directed: Don Bluth
Screenplay: Stu Krieger
Story: Judy Freudberg, Tony Geiss
Music: James Horner.

Summary: Water life is somewhat treacherous, but the film moves onto land: "Once upon this same earth" long before you or apes existed, "in the time of the dinosaurs." There are only two kinds of dinosaurs essentially: leaf-eaters with flat teeth and sharp-toothed meat-eaters who "preyed upon the plant-eaters." "Desperate for food," all journey to a legendary lush land, the Great Valley, which involves a march of many dangers during which the leaf-eaters stop only long enough to breed ("hatch their young"). "Even hatching could be dangerous," mostly to our eardrums when infant dinosaurs giggle and shriek constantly. We see fairly mammalocentric scenes of licking and nuzzling dinosaurs. A bronto, Littlefoot, knows only his mother and one set of grandparents. He and all other dinosaurs we meet are driven in all respects by supposed hunger. These other brat dinos include Cera, a continually ear-shattering Triceratops; Petrie, a pterodon; Spike and Ducky--god knows what the hell they are. A T-Rex threatens two of the brats, and mother Bronto fights it until a "clash of continents" quakes the land cataclysmically. Mother dino dies of her T-Rex wounds with would-be deep but moronic advice like "let your heart guide you." Other dinosaurs are divided from their families. Sob.

An old dinosaur tries to bring Littlefoot through the five stages of grief by philosophizing that the "great circle of life has begun," which is BS since death has begun. Littlefoot has various hallucinations of his mother, including mistaking his own shadow for her. The brats journey to the Great Valley, searching for food, fighting, shrieking, trying to get Petrie to fly, and evading the T-Rex whom they call "Sharp-tooth." They find the BFValley and nuzzle with family members. We see fuzzy memories of what we had to put up with an hour ago and the final insistence is that their story became legend, passed down for generations (so they're all breeders). Diana Ross sings a would-be inspirational song but the credits continue through the eighteen-thousand people responsible for this pile of dino-doo.

Commentary: I think we need to read the Great Valley as Death. The earthquake separation has them referring to "the other side," and visions of Bronto-Mom keep luring Littleass to this mystical "valley." Notify Tipper Gore.

The dinosaurs here are defined by their food preferences and driven entirely by hunger. It's a fine line between epic and ipecac.

Notes: Animated. 74 minutes.
Probably all the same jackasses as the original, minus the famous names.

Summary: The loud brat dinosaurs find an egg and decide not to eat it. After all the crap about getting to the elysian Great Valley in the first place, they take off for the "Mysterious Beyond." They encounter oviraptors, tyrannosaurs, geologic cataclysms, and then go home. So why is this one called the Great Valley Adventure?

Commentary: If the Great Valley is Death, the Mysterious Beyond must be Hell, and you'll agree when you watch The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure!

Notes: Animated. 71 minutes.

Summary: Time for the great giving up: there will be no end of these shrieking brat-flicks. Here a meteorite screws the Great Valley out of water, so Littlefoot and the other brat dinos waddle off in search of another source. They sing songs, god help us.

Commentary: Someone, stop them. I beg of you.

Notes: Animated. 74 minutes.

Summary: Grandpa Brontosaurus has got what no doubt is a trumped-up disease designed to propel Littlefoot and his gang out of the Great Valley so we can all have some peace. Maybe they'll be slaughtered mercilessly by my dog, Frog, or will fall into a river of lava. The adorable morons yomp to the "Land of the Mists" to find a floral antidote for Gramps, a symbolic Jack Daniels, which they bring back. I think they learn a valuable and sanctimonious lesson about life.

Commentary: I refuse to allow these endless sequels to have their own pages. One more of these things and I start getting obscene.

Notes: Animated. 74 minutes.

Summary: Food is scarce again for the dinosaurs, this time due to a plague of locusts sent by Yahweh to eliminate these cheery illegitimate offspring of Barney off the face of the earth. Littlefoot, Ducky, Spike, and others shriek, "Let's go ravage the Mysterious Island!" They meet up with Chomper the T-Rex. Then they all decide that the cannibalism taboo applies only to human culture and that they are free to eat each other. The wacky fun begins when they all get Ebola and projectile vomit themselves to death.

Commentary: Geez-uz!

Notes: Animated. 77 minutes of your life.

Summary: Magically reconstituted from chunks of their own hurl, Littlefoot and his chums witness the seamier side of prehistory with a visit to Saurian Rock, where, after a rousing chorus of "So That's a Cockatrice," they are befriended by Vonda, a lizardine prostitute with a cloaca of gold.

Commentary: There's not even a catalog description of this one. No one is willing to watch any more of these. Who must we kill? Or are these now entirely computer-generated?