The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving

First of all, I do think it is an improvement on Land Before Time 2, which was passable, but lacked heart, which was what made the original so poignant. The Time of the Great Giving is probably the best of the countless sequels that border from good to unwatchable, but suffers from being too preachy at times. The animation is surprisingly good, but isn't quite true to the style of animation in the original. In most scenes it had some lovely colours, but had some flat backgrounds in others. The incidental music by Michael Tavera was excellent, especially the Firebird-like music in the fire scene. It was nice to hear the heart-rending main theme from the original, but whereas in the original it made me weep buckets, it didn't have an effect on me here. The songs are okay, Kids Like Us being the best one, and Littlefoot's singing voice is for once pretty decent, but the other two songs When You're Big and When You're Standing Tough came across as rather unmelodious. The story is a very nice idea, about the values of friendship, survival and sticking together. There is also some nice dialogue, but the film further suffers from being too short and being devoid of any real emotion. I will say that the voice talents were very impressive. Ducky is still funny, with similar dialogue we associate her with from the original, though it doesn't quite feel the same without the sweetness and vulnerability of the original voice actress, the late Judith Barsi. Scott McAfee is decent as Littlefoot, and I liked Linda Gary and Kenneth Mars as the grandparents. However, in correlation to the original, John Ingle's narration, as nice as it was, was somewhat unnecessary, but I was more impressed with his gruff characterisation of Cera's father. All in all, a surprisingly good sequel, though it doesn't surpass the first and the finest. 6/10 Bethany Cox.

This film's main fault is that the share and care theme is laid on rather thick. When the Valley's water supply is blocked, our young heroes search for a new source. They are hindered by a trio of bullies and a pack of hungry raptors, as well as the unreasonableness of parents. The songs are okay, if forgettable. The raptors are well worth seeing. In spite of the preachy tone of some dialogue and narration, regular fans will not be disappointed.

Meteorites hit all around the Great Valley. A big one lands just outside and the water source gets cut off. The social order deteriorates as the water level declines. While running away from bullies, Littlefoot and the gang stumble upon the river blockage.

This is a straight to video sequel. I like the environmental storyline. It's better than the previous sequel. The kids get to be the heroes. It's all very standard writing. The songs are not my favorite but most aren't anyways. I like this.

Genre: Animated film about dinosaurs and a major water catastrophe.

What happens: In the Great valley for the gang, there are TWO annoying problems (unfortunately, not one or none). There are three bully dinosaurs who are CONSTANTLY picking on the poor good dinosaurs and to top all the depression, the waterfall in the Great Valley has stopped flowing. Though the lovely gang (Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky Petrie and Spike) are sad and annoyed, they have a positive view as well over this mess and decide to work together to find water…

My thoughts: I like most of the L.B.T films. Unfortunately, this one is not at the top of my list for me. It is just too depressing! All the songs focus on some bad thing or other, unlike in all the films, where at least one focuses on just happiness! It also concentrates on the crisis of the film WAY too much for my liking. The music sticks to the depressing tune for 75% of the film, everyone is EXTRA grumpy because of the crisis and it's just too annoying! When there IS happiness, it feels deflated, like rather floppy balloon, it just isn't STRONG enough. Luckily, I prefer this film to "Land Before Time 11", which is my least favourite L.B.T, but this one is still not NEARLY as good as most of the others for me. I know lots of other people like it, but for me, it's just too depressing, too annoying, too deflated and too pessimistic. So there. I like the main characters of course. The new characters are not all that good, because they're bullies.

Recommended to: People who like the eleventh L.B.T, people who find all the other L.B.T's too happy and jolly and people who do not mind becoming a little too depressed by an animated film.

Like the original, an amazingly crafted heatwarming tale. This storyline is full of morals and lessons from bullyng, arrogance, pride, prejudice, discrimination, teamwork, friendship, sharing and much more.

The animation is traditional and simplistic with some innccuracies of depictions of species' features and some inaccuacies between Mesozoic and Cenozoic periods. However the dubbing is amazing with characters vocal patterns and use of language being correlative to the species presumed intelligence.

Unlike the original this has several musical numbers which seem dubious in the context of the series. The songs are marginally better than the second film, but still quite ropey.

However a must watch for kids.