The Land Before Time (film)

During production of An American Tail, talk began of the next feature with Bluth and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Bluth and Spielberg wanted to do a film similar to Bambi, but with dinosaurs. Steven Spielberg's longtime friend George Lucas was also brought in on the project after being interested with it. The three persuaded An American Tail writers Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss (both of whom were also prominent writers for Sesame Street) to write the screenplay for the film. Their initial draft was based on their early ideas, but when it was felt the story was too juvenile, Stu Krieger was brought on to revise their draft.[9] Early into story development, the film was about a group of young dinosaurs looking for a wise, older dinosaur.[10] Later on, Bluth explained, "...we came up with another idea that none of these dinosaurs get along with each other, they all hate each other. They're taught from the time they were born not to associate with each other, that's racism".[9] An early working title for the film was The Land Before Time Began.[11] Bluth, Spielberg and Lucas originally wanted the film to have no dialogue, like The Rite of Spring sequence in Fantasia, but the idea was abandoned in favor of using voice actors in order to make it appealing to children.[9]

As work on the script continued, Bluth delegated some of the animation staff to begin creating concept art. As with his previous films, Bluth handled the storyboarding, but with final revisions by Larry Leker. Production was initially delayed by several months as the studio moved to Ireland. Production would eventually begin in spring 1987, a few months after the release of An American Tail.[10]

The production was preceded by extensive research, including visits to natural history museums in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Skeletons, fossils, and paleoart from the turn of the century were consulted to help create a credible landscape and animals. Further research was conducted using live-action footage of quadrupedal modern animals, including elephants and giraffes.[12]

Late into production, The Land Before Time underwent a severe cutting and editing of footage. Spielberg and Lucas thought that some scenes in the film would appear too dark and intense for young children. At a screening in Soho Square, London in late April 1988, six months before the film was completed, Spielberg told Bluth while looking at the scenes from the film: "It's too scary. We'll have kids crying in the lobby, and a lot of angry parents. You don't want that".[13] A total of 19 fully animated shots from the sharptooth attack were cut from the final film, to attain a G rating instead of a PG rating. Examples can be seen in the storyboards of the chase sequence in the briar patch. POV shots of sharptooth's snapping jaws were deleted, and shots were rearranged to shorten the sequence.[14] This results in continuity errors, depicting the Tyrannosaur with his right eye still open after it had been blinded.[15][16]

Perhaps just weeks before the film's release, more than 10 additional minutes of footage was cut from the film by Spielberg "to be sure it would not disturb parents or their children", according to producer Gary Goldman, reducing the runtime from 80 to 82 minutes to just 69 minutes. Much of the cut footage also consisted of sequences of the five young dinosaurs in grave danger and distress. An extended scene involving the introduction of Spike was deleted, as was some of the "Green Food" sequence. Petrie's apparent death scene originally went longer, and was followed by a group hug where Littlefoot says "Now we'll always be together" (this line survives in the form of a Pizza Hut promotional advertisement for the film). The film's final act was also heavily altered and rearranged; originally, Littlefoot was to find the Great Valley on his own before turning back to rescue his friends, kill sharptooth, and enter the valley as a group. This ending survives in multiple book adaptations, and the music accompanying it still exists in the official soundtrack release. Some screams were re-voiced using milder exclamations.[13] The scenes are believed to be destroyed, but some did make it into multiple advertisements and trailers created before the release of the film, and multiple stills can be found in storybook adaptations and press kits for the movie. Much of the unused music from the film score was meant to play over the deleted scenes. Many animation cels and drawings from the deleted scenes have surfaced on the internet.

During its opening weekend, the film opened at number one in the United States and Canada, grossing $7.5 million.[24] By the end of its theatrical run, it had grossed $48.1 million at the US box office, slightly more than Don Bluth's previous film, An American Tail, but $5 million less than Oliver & Company which was released at the same time.[25] Overall, The Land Before Time grossed $84.5 million worldwide.[3]

The Land Before Time holds 65% approval rating from review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes from 65 critics, with the consensus: "Beautifully animated and genuinely endearing, The Land Before Time is sure to please dino-obsessed tykes, even if it's a little too cutesy for older viewers".[26] Metacritic assigned a score of 66, based on reviews by 15 critics, signifying "Generally favorable reviews".[27]

Critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up" on a November 19, 1988, episode of their television program At the Movies.[28] Siskel found it to be "sweet more than it was scary" and "quite beautiful", also praising its straightforward story and remarked that he would recommend it to children over Disney's Oliver and Company, released on the same day.[28] In his own review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing: "I guess I sort of liked the film, although I wonder why it couldn't have spent more time on natural history and the sense of discovery, and less time on tragedy".[29] Peter Travers of People magazine felt the film had an unclear audience: "The animation is fine. But the Stu Krieger screenplay contains violence that might be hard on the younger ones, [...] and a never-let-up cuteness that can turn minds of all ages to mush".[30] Los Angeles Times writer Sheila Benson also stated that the film's enjoyment was limited to younger viewers, remarking "do dinosaurs really lend themselves to ootsie-cutesiness?"[31] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote "though it's not a great film, it is an entertaining and, at times, emotionally rich one".[32]

Many reviewers compared The Land Before Time to films from Disney's Golden Age. Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer said that the film "looks and sounds as if it came out of the Disney Studios of the '40s or '50s. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing", calling it "meticulously crafted" but was also "mildly disappoint[ed]" that the dialog wasn't as sophisticated.[33] In her review for the Sun-Sentinel, Candice Russel similarly remarked, "The Land Before Time works by evoking the simple virtues of this art aimed at children, as it was in the beginning when Disney animated Mickey Mouse".[34] A review from the Motion Picture Guide 1989 Annual notes that the film "has been called a sort of prehistoric Bambi".[35] David Kehr from the Chicago Tribune similarly felt that the film's title "also refers to the Disney past, but it goes for all the marbles. Its model is nothing less than the life-cycle saga of Bambi, and that Bluth gets even half the way there is proof of a major talent".[36] Kehr gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, calling it "as handsome and honest an animated feature as any produced since Walt Disney's death; it may even be the best".[37]

Don Bluth's membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints influenced the themes of the film. In an interview with Church News, he stated: "Everything I do is centered around the gospel. Even our films are, although the secular world would never realize it".[38] Randy Astle states that Littlefoot can be read as a Christ figure because of his special birth circumstances and position as a leader of his people. The journey to the Great Valley, which is to the west, mirrors that of the Mormon pioneers, who moved from fertile lands in the east to the arid and mountainous great basin. Astle concludes that "Littlefoot is both a Joseph Smith—he sees a pillar of light and receives heavenly visitors—and a Brigham Young–he leads his followers across the plains".[38]