After the original classic animated film "The Last Before Time", there came many direct-to-video release sequels with which the original director and animation crew had no relation with. A lot of the sequels, and there are many of them, are not all that good, especially not when compared to the original. The original "Land Before Time" showed the dinosaur world as being tough and frightening even to viewers. The sequels are not so frightening or tough, less violent, and are notorious for their reaching out to really young children audiences with their singalong songs. And the first of the sequels, being this film, is a bit like that.
I have only recently seen this film for the first time in years. I had seen a few of the later sequels before this and was very unimpressed. But the first sequels is by far, much better than those that followed. It sticks the closest to the original film's style and although nowhere near as good, is still a fine family film. This is the one sequel in the series I think the whole family will enjoy.
This one also has the best peril in it, making the tyrannosauruses (called sharp teeth) a lot more frightening and compelling villains than those that followed. And unlike the later sharp teeth, who mostly just growled, these ones roar like the original Sharptooth, the antagonist from the first film. And they are more violent and frightening and thus, more convincing. The other villains are a pair of egg-stealing struthiomimuses named Ozzy and Strut who are bumbling villains just trying to find lunch, but keep missing their meals. Ozzy and Strut are actually very comical and somewhat likable villains, even though they aren't nice guys. And in fact, their song "Eggs" is the only song in the entire series that I find catchy.
The film also retains the qualities and characteristics of the character the best. They are more serious in the first sequel than the later ones. True, they do sing annoying songs, but are still shown struggling to grow up and mature in life and prove that they believe they can take care of themselves, very much like the audience members who primarily watch movies like this. But Littlefoot is still the most cautious, Cera the strongest, and so on and so forth. The character of Chomper was a fine addition to the cast and thankfully, he doesn't talk like he would in later sequels.
Bottom line, out of all the notoriously bad sequels that followed the original "Land Before Time", the second one "The Great Valley Adventure" is by far, the best out of them all. And it's not all that bad really. I actually found it to be quite entertaining in its own way. So this one I can recommend. But those that followed after this one, I can't really speak as highly of.
