I recently re-watched “The Land Before Time” (the first one, not the horrendous thousands that followed after–okay not thousands, but according to wikipedia they’ve released “The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdeom of Friends” and an additional 2 sing-alongs). I remember it was one of my favorite movies as a kid but recently I’ve been hearing a lot about how unhappy Don Bluth was with the version released on VHS in 1988. Apparently the movie underwent mass cuts as noted in this encyclopedic article about the movie, “‘One of the principal sections that was cut was the Tyrannosaurus Rex attack sequence. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas apparently felt that it was too frightening and could even cause some psychological damage in very young children.’ The article went on to state that in all, ‘Nineteen scenes were cut, including front-on scenes portraying the children in severe jeopardy and distress. In addition, the children’s screams were replaced with milder exclamations.’” Bluth fought for the footage but eventually lost that battle and had to accept a run time of 69 minutes–an incredibly short run time for an animated feature.

Further problems ensued. Over $1 million of footage was cut because the scenes were considered “too intense” for children and Bluth was really unhappy with the direction the film was taking. In the end Bluth and Spielberg wanted to make two different movies: Bluth wanted a coming of age story where young dinosaurs must get over their prejudices and racism of each other that had been ingrained since birth–he wanted a harrowing tale; Spielberg wanted a “get-along-gang”. Bluth felt in the end Spielberg won out and I happen to agree. As a child I never noticed how cookie-cutter the characters are. And, granted, that does not matter to children. But children are also just as happy with complex characters such as the ones we see emerging in more recent animations like “The Incredibles” or “Finding Nemo”. Those characters aren’t one trick pony’s who’s every word can be predicted but children still enjoy those films.

Money wise and criticism wise, Bluth was right. People felt “There’s no memorable villain, nor any first-rate comic relief (Petrie just isn’t very funny) to distract us from the script’s lack of freshness.” The flat characters and the removed footage of the T-rex doomed this film in the eyes of critics. They felt it became An American Tale: Dinosaurs! Instead of Fievel we have Little Foot and, OH NO!, he got separated from his family and must go through a dangerous adventure to find them! The idea of overcoming differences and the value of friendship are lost with the cut footage. Instead of camaraderie developed through surviving carnivorous attacks we are left with kids who don’t particularly like each other who are only putting up with each other until they find their equally segregationist families. While some of the footage did need to be removed (the production team brought psychologists in on the job) I’m sure one scene or two could have been left in to at least create a villain for the supposed protagonists.

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