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Today’s Prayer Focus
MOVIE REVIEW

The Land Before Time

Reviewed by: Brett Willis
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating: Average
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: 8 to Adult
Genre: Animation Adventure
Length: 1 hr. 9 min.
Year of Release: 1988
USA Release: November 18, 1988
Cover art for “The Land Before Time”
Relevant Issues
The Great Dinosaur Mystery On-line

Visit our dinosaur-size Web site where you’ll discover a mountain of knowledge and amazing discoveries. How do dinosaurs fit into the Bible? You’ll find the answer to this and many more of your questions. Play games, browse and learn. Includes many helps for teachers and parents.

Watch our film “The Great Dinosaur Mystery” online

DINOSAUR ORIGIN—Where did the dinosaurs come from? Answer

Are dinosaurs mentioned in the BIBLE? Answer

WHY did God create dinosaurs? Answer

LIVING WITH DINOSAURS—What would it have been like to live with dinosaurs? Answer

Copyrighted illustration, Films for ChristEXTINCTION—Why did dinosaurs become extinct? Answer

NOAH’S ARK—Did Noah take dinosaurs on the Ark? Answer

DINOSAURS AFTER THE FLOOD—Following the Flood, what happened to dinosaurs? Answer

Creation SuperLibrary at Christian Answers

Top choice for accurate, in-depth information on Creation/Evolution. The SuperLibrary is provided by a top team of experts from various respected creationist organizations who answer your questions on a wide variety of topics. Multilingual.

Read our account of a dinosaur fossil expedition by Creationists: The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure

Featuring 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)
Director Don Bluth
Producer Universal Pictures
Sullivan Bluth Studios
See all »
Distributor

This fantasy, about a group of orphaned dinosaur hatchlings journeying to a place where they can still find the food that’s become very scarce elsewhere, is loaded with evolutionist and long-age geological assumptions. It also has a touch of spiritism, with the baby dinosaurs’ leader being guided by the spirit of his dead mother. And it takes a stab at Political Correctness, with a newfound interspecies cooperation representing the breakdown of “racist” attitudes. For a kids’ cartoon, that’s a pretty heavy rap.

The narrator tells us that the story takes place before the time of humans and of many other mammals, both extant and extinct. The climate is changing, and the plant-eaters must move to the West in search of food. There are earthquakes and volcanoes. After a quake, Littlefoot (a brontosaur) and his mother end up on one side of a fissure and his grandparents on the other. Cera (a triceratops) is separated from her parents by the same fissure. Then Littlefoot’s mother is killed by a T-Rex. Cera (who had been taught by her parents that “three-horns don’t mix with long-necks”) tentatively follows Littlefoot’s lead in journeying to the Great Valley. Along the way, they’re joined by Ducky (a duckbill), Petrie (a pterodactyl) and Spike (a stegosaur). The fellow travelers must learn to help each other and pool their skills together in order to survive dangers such as tar pits and “sharptooth” attacks. The childlike voices and slapstick humor take some of the sting out of the harsh storyline.

Content: The violence (including several T-Rex attacks) is inappropriate for very young children. Littlefoot’s mother dies on-screen (the “Mother, where are you?” sequence is pulled straight from “Bambi”), but she promises that she’ll always be with him. Later, he hears her voice guiding him and sometimes sees her form in the clouds.

Science: There’s plenty of information on this Christian Answers Network on the truth about Creationist and young-Earth issues. See the Creation SuperLibrary for starters. One other interesting point: there’s really no such animal as brontosaurus. It was created from certain fossil finds (always headless), and someone’s imagination gave it a blunt snout. Later, it was decided that those fossils were the same as apatosaurus (which had a pointed snout), and “brontosaurus” was officially wiped off the books (but many “unofficial” books and movies still use it, since it holds such an important place in the popular imagination). Each year, several dinosaur species are quietly obsoleted. Some, like brontosaurus, are merged with other species; but there are other reasons too. Recently, one species was erased when it was determined that its “fossil bones” were really petrified wood.

“Land Before Time” has been followed by a long string of direct-to-video sequels, each titled “Land Before Time” followed by a Roman numeral and a subtitle, plus two singalong videos.

Q & A

Are dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?

DINOSAUR ORIGIN—Where did the dinosaurs come from? Answer

NOAH’S ARK—Did Noah take dinosaurs on the Ark? Answer

Is there a connection between dragon legends and dinosaurs?

The Great Dinosaur Mystery On-lineVisit our dinosaur-size Web site where you’ll discover a mountain of knowledge and amazing discoveries. How do dinosaurs fit into the Bible? You’ll find the answer to this and many more of your questions. Includes many helps for teachers and parents.


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Positive
Positive—My Father and I saw “The Land Before Time” when it was released in 1988, we both agree that it was a good movie, a bit scary, dark, gloomy and depressing at times. Yet overall a good movie and instant classic that paved the way for my interest in other cool dinosaur-themed shows and movies such as “Dink, the Little Dinosaur” on CBS Saturday morning 1989-1990, the ABC TGIF series “Dinosaurs” 1991-1994 with Earl Sinclair and Baby Sinclair, and the 2000 Walt Disney Film “Dinosaur.”

While “The Land Before Time” was good, I prefer the 1994 direct to video sequel “The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure” due to it being less dark in tone and aesthetic, more cheerful.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 4
Jeff Andrew Winters, age 44 (USA)
Comments from young people
This was one of my favorite movies when I was about eight or nine. Among its lessons are that it’s okay to be friends with people who are different, and also to stick together and not give up. However, it does promote evolution, and there are some violent and dramatic scenes that are probably not suitable for kids under six. If you’re a creationist, I think it’s okay to let your kids watch it, just explain to them that evolution isn’t real. On a lighter note, the characters are memorable and very cute, especially the duck-bill named Ducky.
My Ratings: [Average / 4]
Melissa E., age 19
Positive—“The Land Before Time” movie(s) were the ones that I grew up with. I re-watched this film and loved it all over again! I love the lessons and the journey the dinosaurs take! I couldn’t find any evolution or any objectionable content in here, but I know it is hiding somewhere in this film. But any of the hiding offensive content can be ignored, because of the great 2D animation, dinosaurs, the journey, etc. I really loved this film—a lot!
My Ratings: Moral rating: Good / Moviemaking quality: 5
Andre, age 15 (Canada)