"The Land Before Time" is a masterfully constructed story whose greatest quality is its heart. It is a children's cartoon, and not by the modern definition, which tends to denote a more ambiguous conglomeration of all-ages humor with hidden adult suggestions. Rather, "The Land Before Time" is in every way, shape, and form a kind of super-bedtime story, a fantastical adventure aimed directly at the level of imagination that only a child's mind can fathom. It will embrace your child in a magical world of prehistoric wonder, and will leave you wishing you could see it through their eyes...or for those of us lucky enough to have seen it in our own childhood, it tends to invoke a pleasant nostalgia.

The movie is actually rather short, which is another testament to the quality of its construction, because when I saw it as a child, it seemed to last three times as long (in a good way). The characters are adorable, individual, and memorable, and the themes are serious but lighthearted. The main character, Littlefoot, loses his mother before the movie is halfway done, but the movie is not so much about death as it is about life in spite of death. That is to say, it is about Littlefoot's struggle--and success--in dealing with his mother's death, and about having the courage to stay the course on the path to your dreams, even if it means walking alone (which is not the case here, thanks to Littlefoot's friends). It is also about building friendships, learning to trust your friends, working together...you get the idea.

A great film. I wouldn't bother with the sequels, though I don't know much about them.

What a classic . . . what a wonderful film . . . what a shame so many sequels were spawned from it . . . *sigh*

Anywho, this is not just an animated feature about dinosaurs; The Land Before Time is a film of survival, loss, drama, friendship, whimsy and a tale that mainly features the never-ending circle that all life follows.

The main star of the film is the adorable Littlefoot, a curious baby longneck that is hatched during a migration to the Great Valley, a perfect oasis-like land that is always has green food and fresh water. During the journey, Littlefoot has many situations that cause him to grow up at an early age - the sudden sacrifice of his mother, the separation of his grandparents from him, and the long journey that awaited him to complete what his mother could not. Throughout the way, he runs into new friends - Cera, a headstrong three-horn, Ducky, a babylike big-mouth, Petrie, a flyer that is afraid to fly, and Spike, a silent yet always eating spiketail - the menancing enemy of the violent meat-eating Sharptooth and a new hope in their hearts to reunite with their families and reach the Great Valley . . . together.

The film is truly touching and emotional in the beginning once Littlefoot is introduced, but when the other characters interact with him, their personalities seem to show them with their own strengths and weaknesses (especially Cera - in my opinion, she is the most interesting character in the series; at times she's strong and independent, but once she's alone, her pride is broken . . . sadly, she never seems to grow out of this within the sequels . . . wah.), but when they're all together and work as a team, they realize that thye can do whatever their little hearts believe they can.

The music and animation are great (although I agree, the DVD quality is horrible and very scratchy throughout the film), especially the ending song by Diana Ross: "If We Hold On Together". As many others have mentioned, LBT is very much like another film that features the collabration of Spielberg and Horner: Balto - within the film, the music helps set the mood of every scene, and the only song within the film is saved for the ending and really helps sum up the main theme of the film.

Clearly this is a great film, although flawed for its numerous spinoff sequels and now a TV series. A not to be missed film for all!

My Rating: 3.5 stars

Don Bluth had made some of the best non-Disney kids films over the years. The Land Before Time is a shining example. A huge success in theatres and on video, Universal decided to ruin this beautiful masterpiece with ten (I'm not kidding, ten!) direct-to-video sequels. Of course, the first is the only one worth watching.

The storyline is a bit like Watership Down, but with dinosaurs. It's fun and uplifting with morals of teamwork and courage. The animation is not as good as Disney, but the backgrounds excellently portray the dying world that our young protagonists struggle through. Like Balto, there are no songs - just action, suspense and light hearted humour. If there's one think I truly love about The Land Before, it's that it''s not afraid to show the truth. It doesn't water anything down - unlike the sequels. It's shows some characters dying, and how a young child copes with death. Don Bluth makes it suitable for children, but dark enough for adults.

As with most of their animated DVDs, Universal made a very poor DVD version. Universal seems to think that the only market for animation is children. They are dead wrong.

i think this movie is brillant and im 18 the music is by james horner is fantastic and the animation is really good the plot was excelliant. i would have givin this movie a higher score if it wasn,t cut. i,ll just have to wait for the 20th anniversary dvd for the full version. this is just as brillant as the secret of nimh 2 of don bluths best films.

Ah, yes, how I love this movie ( I don't care if I'm a teen, I still like it, and some of the sequels are really good; the tenth one makes me cry ). Now I'm so mad I gave away my video of it- one of those ' you don't know what'cha' got 'till it's gone' type of things.
The animation is great, the characters are some of the more memorable. The music is beautiful, and it has some really fantastic acting and a great story. A very heartfelt and enduring film that I personally don't think was shamed by most of it's sequels.
Except they scream a lot... SO FREAKIN' ANNOYING!!! >:0

^__^

This was always one of my favorite movies growing up. The story was interesting and emotional, even if it was a bit predictable. The characters were all quite likeable, and I never found them to get annoying. The animation is typical of a Don Bluth film, good, but not amazing. The score is one of the best things about this film, it's very moving. Unlike most of Bluth's films this one does not have any singing in it.
This is a very good film, one I'd recommend buying.

I have to confess this film just doesn't really do it for me. To me it is drastically inferior to Bluth's earlier 'Secret of NIMH'. In fact the production values are so poor by contrast to that earlier movie that I can only imagine Bluth was strapped for money, which seems odd with Lucas and Speilberg involved.

Bluth at this time was seemingly in the process of making each movie for successively younger audiences. At this rate his next one might have been for embryos, but perversely he turned around and made the much grittier 'All Dogs go to Heaven', before falling off the cliff into his 90's wilderness years.

I can't deny that 'Land Before Time' has a certain something, an atmosphere which can't be attributed to any particular single thing, but other than that, about all it has going for it is good character animation. It's quite ponderous, has virtually no story, is filled with annoying, high-pitched character voices, and the background art is sometimes so primitive by comparison with his earlier (and later) films that it's hard to believe it was from the same director working with largely the same production crew.

There is one thing which I guess you could call a strongly redeeming quality about 'Land Before Time'. When Bluth left Disney, circa 1980, it was with a mission to reinstate the lost art of classical animation, and to my mind he did that the first time out, with NIMH. However this is the film which LOOKS and FEELS and SOUNDS most like a Golden-age Disney movie. In fact I would be completely ready to believe that this was some lost feature film from the 1940's if I didn't know otherwise. The muted colours (compared to the opulent, almost over-saturated pallettes that Bluth used on his other films) recalls very early Disney features. Even the music sounds like early Disney with those ooh-aah choir effects. The complete absence of pop culture references and only a smattering of modern style dialogue means the film could really have been made in any decade since the 30's. Ironically, it was actually made in the late 80's, just before Disney's trademark obsession with wisecracking, incongruous sidekicks began.

This wasn't the only time Bluth seemed to be deliberately aiming at an early Disney feel. It struck me that he was shooting for the same thing with the Snow-Whitish little girl in 'All Dogs go to Heaven' as well, though that was just one character, not the whole film.

I liked the way the characters were animated, though even here you can see what to my mind is a slip in quality control from Bluth's earliest films. Characters very visibly jiggle against the backgrounds sometimes in a way which would never have happened in NIMH. I didn't however, find that the characters were very well fleshed out, or that they developed significantly over the length of the movie.

Perhaps it's just that I don't much care for dinosaurs, or maybe this one is just a little too kiddified for me, but it's not a movie I would want to own. On the other hand it's certainly a long way from being a bad film, it has a certain timeless charm, and kids will probably love it.

A bit more character development or more interesting plot and this might have made 3 stars. I feel a bit mean giving it 2.0, but that's how I see it. Like so many Bluth films, it's a case of 'close but no cigar'.

This Spielberg/Bluth dinosaur movie is a bit slow-paced, but it's full of emotion. It also has lots of charming, quirky characters, primitive landscapes, and prehistoric background action.

It's also as cuddly as all-get-out. (If you dislike sentimental movies, be warned: Land before Time has the warm fuzzies and tear-jerkers up the wazoo.) Good for wrapping up in a blanky and watching when you're feeling down.

Sadly, it's spawned a long line of very bad sequels--beware! The sequels are not really suitable for viewing by adults.

Gah, too short! As soon as they reach that darn valley, you're aching for more!

Ahem. Still, an awesome movie. Tons of little kids loved dinosaurs, and that love is nice and safely tucked away in us. This movie triggers it, in my opinion. Dinosaurs and dinosaur behavior, such as the migration to the Great Valley, is really fascinating. Maybe it's because they aren't around anymore, who knows?

Don Bluth's pretty, warm fuzzy feeling use of colors is evident, and even if these dinosaurs are stuck in horrible scenery, the colors work with the film.

Anywho, to unleash that first grader in you that liked to look for bones, go watch this movie if you have some free time and want a nice, happy feeling afterwards.

I adore The Secret of Nimh and all, but this is hands down Don Bluth's strongest film. No other movie he's done measures up. The Secret of Nimh is his best known movie. The Land Before Time is his most magical. The characters are wonderful and adorable. It's easy to fall in love with them, even the pushy Cera. But it's the yappy Ducky that won my heart. The movie possesses a simple, childlike charm, yet it is also an emotional tale. The story is simple and straight forward but it is more strongly crafted than the plot in The Secret of Nimh. The characters are driven by a simple need to find their family and survive but the movie takes the time to allow the audience to get a feel for the characters and watch them grow and interact. The characters make us laugh and charm us without having the movie resort to a dippy comic relief like The Secret of Nimh does. Here is a journey movie done right(look at Dinosaur for a journey movie done wrong). The Land Before Time unfortunately doesn't possess The Secret of Nimh's sense of magic. However you can tell where The Land Before Time tried to go for a simple sense of wonder. The Land Before Time is also more geared towards kids than The Secret of Nimh. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. But whichever movie you say is the best, it's quite clear that The Land Before Time, like The Secret of Nimh, is a wonderful children's classic. It's simple, beautiful, emotional, and very well wrought. Too bad it's been tarnished by less-than-superior DTV sequels.