The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure

Genre: Animation, dinosaurs, sequel.

Main characters: Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie and Spike. I like these characters and I'm glad you see them so often on all these L.B.T films.

Actors: The ones who do the main characters are Scott McAfee (Littlefoot), Candace Huston (Cera), Heather Hogan (Ducky), Jeff Bennet (Petrie) and Rob Paulsen (Spike).

What happens: Some of our favourite cartoon dinosaurs are back in this really good sequel, this time happy to be in the great valley. They see two "egg-stealers" stealing an egg and go after them (which means braving the MYSTERIOUS BEYOND). Will they retrieve the stolen egg?

My thoughts: I think this L.B.T is underrated. It is a good, clean, fun family film, with characters who are easy to relate to and a good and exciting storyline - perfect for children and some older people! :-) Yes, it is more happy than the original "Land Before Time" but children don't want to see another loved character dying - do they (although I love that film anyway)?

For the wee ones, this is a good film for them to sit down to and probably for parents as well. After that you may wish to watch the others, go ahead if you wish! :-) This is a good series from beginning to end. Of course, this and the others have lots of flaws, but you are likely not to be disappointed by at least one aspect in each film!

What you may like about the film: You may like the lovely and fun songs. You may like the animation. You may like the plot and storyline. You may like the characters. You may like the feeling of the story. These features pleased me and I hope they please you.

Recommended to: Families who like cartoon films, people who thought the first L.B.T was a tad bit too sad and particularly for cartoon-loving children. Enjoy! :-)

The first film of 1988 holds up gratifyingly well, no matter how much we may scrutinize some facets. One doesn't wish to wholly dismiss sequels sights unseen - there's always the possibility that they'll be worthwhile on their own merits - but especially with filmmaker Don Bluth not being involved any further, it's only reasonable to approach successors with skepticism. Could 'The Great Valley adventure, coming six years after its predecessor, carry any weight of its own?

To whatever extent one could argue that the writing in 'The land before time' was a tad simplicity, straightforward, and even heavy-handed, it was only in keeping with how kids' movies were widely made for many years, and these traits were outshone by the earnestness of the proceedings. This makes it all the more jarring that the first minutes of 'The land before time II' greet us with narration, dialogue, and scene writing that seem to condescend even more and assume very little of children's intelligence; voice work that, while respectable in and of itself (I mean, who could ever fault Rob Paulsen for a single thing?), leans extra hard into being childish, cutesy, and simplistic (my goodness, our lead characters spend as much time screaming here as they do speaking); and songs sung in-character that bear scarcely more complexity than stick figures do. Frankly even the characters readily come across as reduced and diminished - written not for kids aged six to nine years, but those aged two to three years.

Make no mistake, this picture is an emphatically lesser creation when stood next to the progenitor, or for that matter too much of family-friendly fare generally. That still doesn't mean that it's altogether bereft of value, for there are fair ideas in the story and scene writing as our established characters Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike find themselves having a new little adventure in the Great Valley that they discovered the last time. (Yes, the name is very on the nose.) There's some mild humor that lands, too (and maybe some that's unintentional). "Eggnapper" antagonists Ozzy and Strut, voiced by veteran voice actors Paulsen and Jeff Bennett, are unexpected joys, possibly benefiting from the best writing and the best songwriting ("Eggs"). Composer Michael Tavera, picking up where James Horner left off, provides a lovely score. And while Universal Cartoon Studios takes over the visual reins from Sullivan Bluth Studios, broadly speaking the animation is just as dependable. The colors are more vivid, in fact, as we get beautiful painted backgrounds, and splendid detail in everything from environments and effects to character designs and other active elements.

Still, I can't help but feel that 'The Great Valley adventure' tries entirely too hard to appeal directly to the very youngest of viewers, reaching for unsophisticated entertainment that's more Elmo than it is Oscar The Grouch, or more 'Teletubbies' than 'Chowder.' This is seen in the timbres newly provided for our foremost characters as determined by the voice director, arguably in the more vibrant colors, and in the more brusque pacing. Even as our diminutive dinos' constitutional puts them in some danger and takes them to surprising places, the stakes feel notably lower and more contrived. There's little sense of drama, and in all honesty this flick feels less sincere and meaningful. It still claims value, and it's not as if the participants were phoning in their contributions. Yet fair ideas and potential seem to have been rendered with a mind the cheap and easy, the tried and true, and the conventional and artless, and what worth the feature boasts faces an uphill battle to be concretely enjoyable by anyone except the presumed intended audience of toddlers and preschool youths.

It's a good time, yes. But one has to be definitively aware of the enormous disparity between the 1994 antecedent and this 1994 follow-up: a gulf of less substance and more flavor, and of less heartfelt storytelling and more uncomplicated fun. Provided that's something one can get on board with the title remains a minor pleasure, though at the same time, I certainly can't begrudge anyone who takes a harsher view towards it. For my part I do like 'The land before time II,' and I'm glad I took the opportunity to watch; it's just that any recommendation 'The Great Valley adventure' deserves is a rather soft one, and it's not something that commands our attention, or which one is likely to think on at any point after watching.

My Take: Decent straight-to-video effort.

Granted, sparks won't fly freely in the direct-to-video sequel THE LAND BEFORE TIME II: THE GREAT VALLEY ADVENTURE, but it's good enough to satisfy your kids hunger for fun. It's a film where you could just leave the kids and allow yourself to do something else. It's harmless, family movie, which, surprisingly, I found decent.

Like all direct-to-video efforts, expect it to have a low-quality plot, weak characterizations and childish situations. But with all it's low shots, you can just look in your child's eyes and see how you rate the film. I remember watching this non-stop sequels over and over again when I was a kid, in other words, I was a big fan of all this stuff. But know, THE LAND BEFORE TIME II has dated badly. Now, I remember how inferior the new plot is to the original's plot. But, rating as a kid flick, it's something to keep the kids busy. It's a bit better than the other sequels that followed.

By the end, upon seeing the eyes of the kids, you decide what rating you'll give to the film, but I give it, at least ***, a high rating for a film that isn't that good on quality. Nevertheless, it provides as much fine fun to kids and as decent enough as I remember.

Video movie rating: *** out of 5.

I finally was able to watch all the Land Before Time sequels, as silly as they may be, I loved the original Land Before Time and I read a lot of these scary comments, I was still curious about them. So I was expecting nothing but trash when it came to the first sequel, granted I know that the singing doesn't really do much for the story and it's a bit stupid, but actually I thought this was a decent family movie that is very enjoyable. It's a great story for the kids, it's harmless and has great morals. The reason I think there's a lot of hate on the sequels is because of the love we all have for the first Land Before Time, but I think this is just a new way for the generation of today to enjoy the same stories we had.

Littlefoot and his friends are living happily in their new home, under their families' watchful eyes. When the gang tries to get to the sheltering grass to play, but land in the quicksand surrounding it, the grownups come and rescue them, then lecture them that night. Cera then tells the others that they need to prove they are independent by running away for a while into the Mysterious Beyond, a location just outside the valley. Before they leave, they notice two egg nappers stealing an egg from Ducky's nest. They chase them into the Beyond, during which a landslide occurs. The egg rolls safely back to the nest, but the five are under the impression that it was destroyed in the landslide. Then, Ducky notices what looks like the egg, only slightly larger. The gang "return" this egg to the Valley, only to find out that the stolen egg and this one are not the same. They decide to hatch it, nonetheless, until the egg hatches, revealing a baby sharptooth. While the others run away, Littlefoot decides he's safe, and tries to raise the hatchling on leaves. When he hears the others calling for help, as the egg nappers Ozzy and Strut are attacking them, he runs to their aid, while "Chomper" follows him. Chomper's shadow frightens the villains away, after which Littlefoot exchanges introductions between Chomper and the others and they accept him. But how is the Valley going to accept a sharp tooth? You'll have to watch to find out.

Yeah, the plot is predictable, the singing isn't necessary, and the story may be a little Barney-like, but don't go into these sequels expecting Citizen Kane. Just have fun with them. I know I'm a sap, but I just loved Chomper and Littlefoot's relationship, it was so adorable the way Chomper just wanted to hang onto Littlefoot and was like his shadow. I felt that this story had a great moral to the kids and personally as an adult I still find it very watchable. These movies are made more so for the kids, so give these films a break, The Land Before Time 2 is a good movie.

6/10

1994 was a huge year for children's entertainment. Disney's Return of Jafar may have got the ball rolling with it's "VHS premier" even though it was a thinly disguised pilot movie for the syndicated Aladdin tv series that would premier a few months later, but it was Land Before Time II that showed you could make something DTV and have it be as much or more of a cash cow than theatrical releases. And with Universal's Amblimation movies An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, We're Back: A Dinosaur Story, and Balto all posting disappointing box office numbers while the 6 Land Before Time movies raked in nearly $1,000,000,000 in VHS sales, Universal left the theatrical animated space and relegated themselves to churning out Land Before Time sequels every one to two years. These DTV titles have done massive damage to the reputation of the animation industry which is only now being able to escape this stigma, but even when taking all that into account the movie still isn't very good. At best it feels like the type of cartoon one would expect to see in syndication at 7:30 am on weekdays back when there WAS a syndication market for cartoons and it has low stakes, forgettable songs, and is a complete tonal 180 from the first movie. It'll entertain children while it's one, but it doesn't leave much of a lasting impact. It's on of those movies that has more of a reputation for what it caused than what it is.