land before time movie review

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The love affair between small children and prehistoric dinosaurs is a phenomenon of the toy industry. which cannot manufacture brontosauruses and tyrannosaurus rexes fast enough to meet the demand.

Kids love dinosaurs. I think. for the same reason they have always felt an emotional identification with movie creatures like Godzilla and Frankenstein's monster. Kids and monsters have lots in common: They are clumsy and are always knocking things over. they feel as if they cannot control themselves. they do not fit easily into the adult world and they are usually misunderstood.

In "The Land Before Time" the filmmakers make a strategic error. I think. by making their dinosaurs into children. This destroys the distinction between the two species. The dinosaurs in this movie are just as human as the kitten in "Oliver & Company." the mouse in " An American Tail ." and all the animated dogs and rabbits and woodpeckers since time immemorial. One of the reasons kids like dinosaurs is that they are not human. They are deliciously alien.

I do not know what kind of movie could have been made from truly reptilian dinosaurs. but I'll bet it would have been interesting.

The opening shots of "The Land Before Time." before the dinosaurs start to speak English. have an eerie fascination. We see a tribe of brontosauruses roaming the parched land. looking for green leaves. which they call "tree stars." There are none to be found. because the climate has changed. and so these peaceful vegetarians head west. seeking a fabled green valley where they hope to find food. They are pursued by their enemies. the sharp-toothed. meat-eating tyrannosaurus rex. The story is told through the eyes of Littlefoot. a baby brontosaurus who barely escapes being eaten in the first few minutes of the movie.

Littlefoot's saga is an adventure recycled directly out of other movies of this genre. and indeed I was not surprised to discover that the authors of the story also wrote "An American Tail." Both films involve a childlike creature who is separated from its parents. In this film. Littlefoot's parents die in an earthquake and the orphan has to undergo a long and perilous journey before finding happiness at the end. The perilous middle sections of both films are fairly rough.

Natural forces and predators attempt to destroy the little hero. who joins up with the infants of four other dinosaur species to make his long trek. Both films could have been written by Jack London .

As a backdrop to the series of hazards. the visual look of "The Land Before Time" is apocalyptic. All but the last scenes take place in a blasted heath of red skies. parched land. withered trees. barren wastes and thorn thickets. But the animation treats this wasteland gently. with little details such as the sparkling drops of water that fall from a leaf. or the ways in which the clumsy childlike movements of the little creatures are lovingly created.

"The Land Before Time" does have some charming scenes to counterbalance its grim determinism. Director Don Bluth surpasses himself in a witty ballet in which several prehistoric birdlike creatures fight over a trove of cherries; the animation here is brilliant. There is also a sequence in which Littlefoot and several of his pals get stuck in a tar pit. and a moment at which a clumsy pterodactyl learns to fly. Bluth works in the time-honored Disney tradition. in which body movements are particularly convincing. and the backgrounds are not simply static panoramas.

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. And perhaps the kids in the audience won't find it strange to learn that dinosaurs lived for many generations in the green valley - even though Littlefoot is earlier described as the last of his species.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Land Before Time (1988)

Helen Shaver as Littlefoot's Mother

Judith Barsi as Ducky

Candice Houston as Cera

Burke Barnes as Daddy Topps

Gabriel Damon as Littlefoot

Pat Hingle as Narrator/Rooter

Will Ryan as Petrie

Produced by

• Gary Goldman
• John Pomeroy

Directed by

Screenplay by.

• Stu Krieger
• James Horner

Based On A Story by

• Judy Freudberg

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The Land Before Time Reviews

The Land Before Time is a charming adventure that, despite having a very dark moment, continues to excite and function as great family entertainment, thanks to its endearing characters and its universal message. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 13, 2024

Before all the sequels and the dozens of episodes of the TV show, it was just a simple story of five young dinosaurs on a journey to a promised land, and that’s all you need for a heartfelt picture.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 7, 2023

Just when you think animated movies for children have become a triumph of marketing over imagination, along comes Don Bluth to make you think again.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 23, 2022

Bluth and his enormous team of artists have done an exceptional job, drawing you into a world forbidding and, in the expected happy ending, enchanting.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2022

The story does have a certain degree of charm, but the biggest flaw is that it covers several Major Life Themes without much subtlety or use of symbolism.

What it's got in endless abundance is charm, humor and some moments of genuine pathos. It's like classic Disney, in that it transcends its boundaries as a child's movie: nearly everybody will enjoy it.

The spirit of Land Before Time is right. And, thanks to Bluth and his staff, the film's style is right, too.

[Don Bluth's] new movie is much simpler thematically and less sharp visually [than his previous work], though it's still 20,000 leagues ahead of the Thundersmurf Galacticas on Saturday morning television.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 23, 2022

Land Before Time is thus about faith, tolerance and unity, as well as being an engrossing adventure for children 4-9, few of whom would sit still while you read them The Odyssey.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 23, 2022

The new insult, The Land Before Time, establishes that not even the naturalistic grandeur of prehistory is safe from Bluth's forced preciousness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Aug 23, 2022

The Land Before Time is strictly for younger viewers. Only they will be consistently intrigued by the film's simple plot, unembellished drama and overly strong sentimentality.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Aug 23, 2022

Accompanied by Horner's choral-highlighted orchestral suite, Bluth's new animated adventure reveals a land before time in all of its endless mystery.

No Fantasia dinosaurs here, no noble, earth-moving Stravinsky-fed creatures -- this batch is strictly of the rubber-ducky variety.

Most of the settings have a haunting, luminous quality to them, like scenes from a beautifully drawn child’s picture book. The dinosaurs roam though an eerie world not quite familiar to us, with parched lands and shifting mountains.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have joined forces to produce an animated treat for younger audiences, usually left out in the cold by filmmakers this time of the year.

The filmmakers have not been content to let their movie speak for itself, and the straining for profundity is obvious and tiresome.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 23, 2022

The Land Before Time is a cartoon to be seen with the heart.

If it were a film for adults, parts might be considered melodramatic or sentimental. But by kiddie-picture standards, there's actually a certain restraint to the way the emotional scenes are handled.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2022

What it lacks in originality, it makes up for in effective animation -- and in being cute... But cute is no substitute for genuine humor an element needed to balance the melodrama.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 23, 2022

The Land Before Time speaks charmingly and articulately to audiences of all ages. It's a children's film full of recognizable characters and situations, drawn in terms that in no way diminish their realism.

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The Land Before Time  struck a chord with the children of the 90s. However, the movies aren’t just for children, but for adults too. There are a lot of adult fans that reverently gaze at the movies through nostalgia goggles, and rightly so, as the original movie is often seen as the  best dinosaur movie that isn’t Jurassic Park .

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However, as the movies are all very much aimed at children, the IMDb ratings of the films are generally going to be lower, as the narratives are simplified and the musical numbers are overly sweet. But for mostly direct-to-video children’s movies, there’s a surprising amount of depth in most of the narratives.

The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through The Mists (1996) - 5.8

Though the original Don Bluth movie  gave Disney a run for its money , the same can’t be said for half of the Land Before Time movies. With there being so many movies in the series, the quality dipped off early, as the fourth movie in the series,  Journey Through the Mists , sits at just 5.8 on IMDb.

In the fourth movie, the gang of young dinosaurs has to search for a golden flower that will cure Littlefoot’s ill grandfather. It’s regarded as one of the least engaging of them all, as Journey Through the Mists is where the formula of the children going off on their own without adult supervision was starting to get old.

The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze (2001) - 5.9

The Big Freeze  is generally considered to be one of the most middle-of-the-road entries in the series, as it’s far from the worst, but it isn’t the most charming or exciting either. The movie is more music-focused than any other Land Before Time film, as the gang creates new songs to keep them occupied during a blizzard.

But while the songs are sweet, they aren’t half as memorable as the musical highlights from the earlier movies. However, the biggest problem with  The Big Freeze  is that Ducky’s personality was completely changed. Where Ducky was originally positive and hyperactive, she is completely grumpy and borderline nihilistic in  The Big Freeze .

The Land Before Time VI: The Secret Of Saurus Rock (1998) - 5.9

The Secret Of Saurus Rock  has the lowest stakes of the franchise, and there are almost none of the risks or dangers that usually come with the gang’s adventures. The film is mostly about them having to fix a chip in the titular rock. But there’s still a lot about the movie that can be enjoyed by children.

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Just as  Journey Through the Mists  was the final film to feature the entire original cast,  The Secret of Saurus Rock  was another last for the franchise. The sixth movie was the last in the series to use traditional hand-drawn animation, which had given all the previous movies a unique look. The animation was the best part of the movie, along with some of the songs too, as “Bad Luck” is one of the catchiest musical numbers in the series.

The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure (1994) - 5.9

Though the series grew into an episodic formula where each adventure is almost entirely unrelated, the first sequel started almost exactly at the point where the original ended. The Great Valley Adventure sees the dinosaurs building their new home in the valley. However, despite the continuation,  The Great Valley Adventure  was more of a sign of the direction the series would go in the future.

The franchise continued the more cutesy, adorable capers that  The Great Valley Adventure  started, instead of soldiering on with the emotional heft of the original. Though the second movie was a fun adventure, it took a while for audiences to get used to the new approach, as the original was still fresh in fans' minds.

The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island (1997) - 6.0

With the Land Before Time series being a well-oiled machine that spits out movies on an annual basis at this point,  The Mysterious Island  was seen as the best since the original un 1997. It follows the group of young dinosaurs set out on yet another adventure to find a new home.

The plot is fairly derivative of the very first movie in the series, but the twist midway through keeps it fresh and entertaining. More exciting than anything and possibly the biggest highlight in the series is the return of fan-favorite Chomper. The gang parented the baby Sharptooth in  The Great Valley Adventure , and his return is fan-service at its most perfect.

The Land Before Time VII: The Stone Of Cold Fire (2000) - 6.0

As the series had long settled into a corniness that may have seemed irritating to grown-ups,  The Stone of Cold Fire  was the most mature the franchise had been in a long time. The movie focuses on Petrie’s uncle, who seems suspicious to everyone in the valley.

It was also the first movie to use computer animation, which could have been jarring, as the Land Before Time series is loved for the aesthetic look of the hand-drawn animation of prehistoric times. However, the difference was barely a problem, as the digital look felt like a fresh coat of paint for a series that was beginning to seem fossilized

The Land Before Time XIV: Journey Of The Brave (2016) - 6.0

Journey of the Brave  came after a long hiatus in the series, as the previous movie,  The Wisdom of Friends , was released nine years earlier. It was a much-needed break, as  Wisdom of Friends  is the most disliked movie in the entire series, holding a 5.4 on IMDb.

However, the series returned as strong as ever, as the stakes were high with Littlefoot dealing with the stress of potentially losing another parent, but there was still that LBT charm. There are some fresh ideas in the movie, as Damon Wayans Jr. plays the new character Wild Arms, and the typical Wayans humor is on show, though it’s much more child-friendly.

The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day Of The Flyers (2006) - 6.0

Like  The Secret of Saurus Rock, The Great Day of the Flyers  isn’t a tentpole movie in the series, and there aren’t any major stakes for the characters, but the 12th movie does it right. For once, Littlefoot is sidelined, and Petrie takes the reigns for an installment, as the whole movie is about the character being happy in his own skin and learning to be himself.

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There are some great morals in the movie, and it’s impressive that an installment this far into the series is still coming up with new and valuable lessons to teach children. The movie is everything a Land Before Time movie should be, as it’s full of catchy songs, instantly lovable new characters, and is uplifting in a way few kids movies are.

The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration (2003) - 6.2

The Land Before Time  is one of  the best Don Bluth films , but the tenth movie in the series gives the original a run for its money. It comes as a surprise that the tenth installment of a movie series that is mostly direct-to-video is the second best. But there’s a lot to love about  The Great Longneck Migration .

The tenth movie is the most melodramatic of them all, as Littlefoot meets his father for the first time. It’s the closest the series gets to being as much of a tearjerker as the original movie. There’s even some star talent brought in for the film, as Kiefer Sutherland plays Littlefoot’s father, and his seasoned voice-acting certainly adds to the emotional weight of the relationship between him and Littlefoot.

The Land Before Time (1988) - 7.4

Nothing beats where it all started. The Land Before Time series is full of fun adventures, creative characters, and is a great example of world-building, but a lot of the magic that was in the original movie had been lost due to those very things.

The Land Before Time  is emotionally driven more than any other, and it features one of the saddest moments in a kids’ movie, as Littlefoot watches his mother die right in front of him. The fun quests and musical numbers take a back seat to the narrative, as opposed to those very things driving the plots of the sequels.

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Metacritic reviews

The land before time.

• 88 Boston Globe Jay Carr Boston Globe Jay Carr From its opening evolution sequence of squiggly things in the water through its references to the great circle of life, The Land Before Time embraces a larger perspective than merely that of the adventure story. It's an affecting work, and a work of quality. [18 Nov 1988, p.29]
• 88 Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr It is, in the best Disney tradition, a story of childhood's end, of leaving the family and accepting adult responsibilities. Bluth relates it through a smooth counterpoint of humor, sadness and horror.
• 75 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert 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.
• 75 TV Guide Magazine TV Guide Magazine Bluth, a former Disney animator, understands that the greatest Disney films take us on an emotional journey in which all our hopes and fears are played out in a vivid fantasy world where anything can happen. The Land Before Time continues that great tradition.
• 75 Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt It's a beautiful movie to watch, and the cartoony characters are as endearing as they come.
• 75 Miami Herald Miami Herald It's the kind of movie that parents and children ought to see together, then talk about afterward, though the lessons are ones that grown-ups need to master, as well. [18 Nov 1988, p.D1]
• 70 The New York Times Janet Maslin The New York Times Janet Maslin The Land Before Time isn't heavily plotted; it doesn't do much more than concentrate on the amusingly lifelike dynamics among the dinosaur children as they make their journey. Luckily, it isn't very long either. At a just-right length of 73 minutes, it ought to win audiences' hearts without wearing out their patience.
• 70 Washington Post Hal Hinson Washington Post Hal Hinson Though it's not a great film, it is an entertaining and, at times, emotionally rich one.
• 60 Empire Empire Sharp animation and powerful visualisation of scale will enthrall a young audience but the clumsy cub-scout moralising feels, well, extinct.
• 60 Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson Don Bluth (An American Tail) has gone to the trouble of differentiating between the species, of being careful of the scale of one in relation to another and of giving very little children a sort of primer of dinosaur lore.
• See all 15 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for The Land Before Time

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The Land Before Time Review

01 Jan 1988

Land Before Time, The

The tastes and preferences of small children continue to defy the best predictions of the modern entertainment baron.

For today's youngster hi-tech sits quite happily alongside prehistory and dinosaurs exert an extraordinary hold over the juvenile imagination. Which is where Don Bluth, graduate of the Disney school of classical animation and successful independent in Dublin, comes in with his follow-up to the 1987 full-length mouse saga An American Tail. It's the story of a young brontosaurus called Littlefoot who loses his mother in a scrap with a tyrannosaurus rex and sets off to find the Great Valley where there is food and water enough for all creatures and the earth doesn't keep throwing up unannounced volcanoes.

Linking up with an ill-assorted bunch of other orphans, ranging from a stroppy triceratops to Petrie, a pterodactyl whose desperate efforts to fly provide the majority of the movie's humour, he battles against fairly major odds and learns valuable moral lessons about fortitude and team work in his progress towards the promised land. Vividly animated and directed with just about as much restraint as it needs to avoid being terrifying for younger children, The Land Before Time had no trouble holding the attention of Empire's panel of two six-year olds and a comparatively sophisticated 10-year-old; adults are unlikely to find it too much of a strain either, although they may wonder why, for all his new-found independence, Don Bluth continues his former employer's outmoded tendency to superimpose the family values of a middle American never-never land on a bunch of creatures who walked the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. Anthropomorphic we expect, but does it have to be monocultural as well?

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The Land Before Time Parent Guide

In the era of the dinosaurs..

When an earthquake destroys their world, a group of young dinosaurs band together and set off to find a better place to live.

Release date November 18, 1988

Run Time: 69 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by bethany gustafson.

Remember when you were a kid and you had that favorite childhood movie? It was the one you could watch over and over again and never get tired of. You knew all the lines, you’d memorized all the jokes, and no matter how much your parents pleaded, you couldn’t seem to stop quoting it. For me, The Land Before Time was that film. It was with great nostalgia that I dusted off my old VHS copy. Watching it again was like being reacquainted with an old friend, and I even remembered the words to the song in the closing credits.

If my attachment sounds a bit obsessive, I’ll have you know I’m not alone. The Land Before Time was so successful in its 1988 debut that it spawned over a dozen sequels (I counted), and even a short-lived television series. The production was definitely a good investment for director Don Bluth and a host of producers (including Steven Spielberg and George Lucas) who worked on the franchise over the years.

The journey includes a whole range of prehistoric hazards like earthquakes, volcanoes, tar pits and fearsome reptiles. Foremost among them is the terrible tyrannosaurus who dispatched Littlefoot’s parent and seems intent on hunting down the young hero himself. Consequently, the characters are in nearly constant peril. To make matters worse, they have a hard time getting along and tension within the group results in name-calling, arguing, and even some physical confrontations.

Of course, all differences are eventually resolved and the story ends with the disparate dinos learning the value of teamwork and friendship. Unfortunately, the message is weakened by heavy-handed narration and a childish vocabulary, which replaces the names of various species with titles like Longneck and Threehorn. To be fair, Saurolophus and Pteranodon don’t really roll off the tongue, but it’s a bit of an awkward fit to have the serious sounding script (lives are at stake here!) being told in dumbed down language. It’s also a little preachy, even for a kid’s movie.

So why was it my favorite? As I watched the plot unfold yet again, I realized that much of the magic for me was in the music. Perhaps it’s just sentimental attachment, but the haunting melody as Littlefoot’s mother says her goodbyes still brings a tear to my eye and is a credit to veteran composer James Horner. His score added life and emotion to the characters. It gave the fictional world a sense of wonder that it still hasn’t lost to this day.

So despite the mediocre writing, the mystery of a long ago time populated with fantastic creatures of the past proves a sure way to capture a child’s imagination. And strangely, that side of me hasn’t really changed much. I still feel a fairytale sense of anticipation as I hear the narrator say: “Once upon this same earth, beneath this same sun, in the time of the dinosaurs…”

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Why is The Land Before Time rated G? The Land Before Time is rated G by the MPAA

Violence: A carnivore attacks young dinosaurs that are protected by a mother: The adult is shown being bitten and thrown to the ground—eventually she dies from her injuries. Young dinosaurs are constantly in peril from carnivores of various kinds. An earthquake separates families. Dinosaurs become trapped in tar and are endangered by lava. A dinosaur is pushed off a precipice and drowns. Characters become lost and are frightened by skeletons and strange creatures. Characters fight and shove one another.

Sexual Content: None noted.

Language: Mild name-calling and arguing.

Alcohol/Drug Use: None noted.

Page last updated July 17, 2017

The Land Before Time Parents' Guide

What are some of your favorite childhood films? Why did you love about them? Has your perspective changed now that you’re older?

Littlefoot and the other characters sometimes have disagreements. How did those differences of opinions keep them from progressing on their journey? How did pulling together help them move forward? Have you ever had to overcome challenges while working with others?

Littlefoot’s mother gives him directions that are hard to follow, but eventually help him and the others reach their goal. Have you ever been given difficult instructions? How did you stay focused and finish the task? How did this experience benefit you?

The most recent home video release of The Land Before Time movie is October 13, 2015. Here are some details…

The Land Before Time releases to home video on October 13, 2015.

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This movie spawned several sequels. We have reviewed the following: The Land Before Time II – The Great Valley Adventure The Land Before Time III - The Time of Great Giving Land Before Time IV: Journey Through The Mists Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze

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The land before time.

• Parents say (28)
• Kids say (34)

Based on 28 parent reviews

My whole childhood- a very honest review.

Report this review, too much trauma for young kids.

This title has:

• Too much violence

Sad and scary

37 yo and still traumatized. The scene when the mom dies is pretty intense, and very long! It is not like in Bambi, like "oh no mom died... oh it's spring time, happy again!" No, it lasts for ages! The movie is very good, but if your child cried for Nemo's mommy, maybe wait for a couple of years (or more).

• Educational value
• Great messages

The later ones are more kid friendly, but be careful if watching the original.

• Great role models

Could be too scary for some

Sad yes but a must see even for the kiddos, very watchable.

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THE LAND BEFORE TIME EXPANDED EDITION: OUR EXCLUSIVE REVIEW

“ These were all Steven’s movies, Steven Spielberg. I did a whole slew of Steven Spielberg animated movies and they were all animated in the old Disney style by Don Bluth who was a classic animator – not the current style of animation you see from Disney and Pixar, of course. Though animation, I treat it seriously. Animation is unique. It’s all continuous music. There’s very little of the movie that works without music and it all has to be very tightly timed to what the characters are doing. It has to be very exact, and in this story, even though it’s animated, it had to have emotions in it. It had to do all the cinema things that I have to do in every movie. It was designed for kids but I wanted it to appeal to a wider audience. People still come up to me and say, ‘You know one of my favorite scores is The Land Before Time?’ and I can’t believe that they even saw it, but they did. There were some really nice scenes in that. I don’t respond to animation quite like I do live action. It doesn’t hit me the same way. There’s a suspension of reality. Writing for something real and writing for something that’s not real and pretending is a little different. ”

“ Sneakers is a score that is not complete, not literally but because of the evolution of colors that originated in this very score. To be clear, when I study an image or a sequence, I don't pretend to get the best out of it the first time around. Sometimes you have to make mistakes to achieve a greater goal. If you take a color sketched in Sneakers , and you see what it became in Apollo 13 , Deep Impact and (…) Bicentennial Man , you will notice a whole evolution. You see, a color on Bicentennial Man may seem very simple and successful to you. You may then wonder why I did not use it that right from the start. Before finding the right combination, I had to do countless tests. Then, when you think you have made the right combination, another color comes along and you’re back to the drawing board. It shows you the mistakes and it forces you to go on experimenting.”

“ It is important not to confuse thematic and harmonic colors. The ear lingers on a theme, a movement and what you heard in Sneakers can indeed come from a previous score. But the theme is only one element of the structure of the music! The best example was the Al Bathra cue from Courage Under Fire , which made its way into Titanic . James Cameron loved the atmosphere of the cue. He therefore asked me to reproduce a cue of similar harmony in order to recreate the same mood. We made several drafts and finally we opted for something very close to the original. Laziness or pastiche did not dictate our decision. Simply, my experiments had led us too far from what he had heard and I had to go back to something more recognizable. This example is important because it shows that a cue from one film can be integrated into another film, whereas musically it is a longer journey. In fact, seeds from Al Bathra can be traced back to Sneakers , but you probably didn't pay any attention to it. You focused on themes being similar in Titanic and Courage Under Fire , not harmony! This means that the connections you see between Sneakers and other previous scores are probably far too much based on themes. If you do a true harmonic analysis, you will see that all the connections you thought of always revolve around the same handful of fertile scores. ”

“ When the opportunity arises to apply a choral element from Sergei Prokofiev's Cantata for the 20 th Anniversary Of The October Revolution to Red Heat , I will take it. That this choir piece was written thirty years before Prokofiev by Rimsky-Korsakov is not part of my selection criteria. The repertoire as a whole is in itself an area of fertility that I avail myself of like Prokofiev did, or any other composer. Richard Strauss thought of himself as someone who "passed the baton", that’s a telling phrase, I think. You know, who today would accuse Béla Bartók of plagiarism or of having looted Hungarian folklore, when in fact, his genius was all about incorporating that folklore into his work?! When you hear strains of Bartók in The Land Before Time or in Jerry Goldsmith's Legend , I think we are torch bearers, and the music you will hear tomorrow, in ten years or in a century, will have taken another form. Film music has a certain structure that allows the repertoire to evolve. You know, I have always seen our profession as a contemporary metaphor of the times when Bach and Haydn wrote scores for kings or for liturgical events on commission. As a composer, I offer my methodology and my contribution to the history of music. Of course, there will always be a debate about who was inspired by whom. The learned minds of Haydn's time accused him of stealing from his father, Joseph. In Mozart's time, everything that he wrote was considered to be crap, because every note was compared to the Austrian composer. With the benefit of hindsight, we can appreciate the qualities of these individuals, their contribution and their importance to music history. What would Mozart be without the education of his father, himself influenced by Bach's genius? I have never hidden my admiration for classical music because that was I was taught. ”

“ The theme itself is an intelligent combination of both prowess of strength and the clumsiness of size; the first three-quarters of its progression are particularly bold, and yet Horner tacks on four rather lazy notes after a natural conclusion that perfectly embody the lumbering movement of a large animal (along with some rolling timpani, which always helps). ”

• Christian Clemmmensen, review of The Land Before Time
• John Cawley, The Animated Films of Don Bluth, The Land Before Time
• James Horner reveals the story behind five of his classic film scores
• James Horner Et Son Arc-En-Ciel De Couleurs, Didier Leprêtre & Steve Olson, Dreams to Dreams

Huge thanks to Roger Feigelson

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A sweet anniversary: honey, i shrunk the kids is back at intrada, willow expanded edition: our exclusive review, new editions of 48 hrs. and another 48 hrs. intrada hits hard, 6 thoughts on “the land before time expanded edition: our exclusive review”.

Excellent review! A truly detailed breakdown of a great symphony by a masterful composer. Please provide sources for the quotes used in the article, thank you.

Thank you for your comment. The sources are indicated at the bottom of the article.

Never ordered an album more quickly.

If we’re pointing out classical references, the Flyers and Cherries part is likely based on a segment from Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

Absolutely awesome review from this masterpiece made by the great James Horner!!! Wonderful!!!!!

Congratulations Kjell on a peerless review of one of the peaks of James Horner’s career. As your commentary reveals, ‘Land Before Time’ and the epic ‘Willow’ produced the same year bring into focus the question of how musical ideas from the classical repertoire infiltrated and fuelled Horner’s compositional genius. Drawing inspiration from the composers who exerted the greatest influence on him was something that came naturally to James Horner. His talent certainly was not compromised by a propensity for plagiarism–the musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra who performed the scores of the two films were familiar with the works being quoted and appreciated the logic and purpose behind Horner’s thinking. They definitely would not have taken Horner’s erudite handling of such material as evidence for lack of creativity on his part. Although the classical music culture to which James Horner was affiliated seems far removed from the world of Mississippi blues, it is worth considering for a moment the recorded output of Robert Johnson, ‘king of the delta blues singers’, dating from a series of sessions in 1936-7. Johnson is righty revered as a genius of the idiom, but analysis of his recordings shows he was strongly influenced by older musicians living in the Mississippi region at that time, such as Son House, Charley Patton and Willie Brown. Johnson was a master at taking existing musical ideas and adding his own personal spark to produce a body of work undeniably greater than the sum of its parts. In 1969 the Rolling Stones famously recorded ‘Love in Vain’ on the ‘Let It Bleed’ album as a tribute to Johnson, but in fact Johnson’s inspiration for the song came from the record ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ by Leroy Carr, released in 1935. Chuck Berry was another genius who had a transformative impact on music of the twentieth century. His most famous record, ‘Johnny B. Goode’, features a two-note guitar lick that is universally recognised as his trademark. Yet Berry’s source for the idea was T-Bone Walker’s guitar solo on ‘I Got a Break, Baby’, released in 1945. The point is that music, whether found in a stack of blues 78rpm records or contained in volumes of formally composed symphonies, is not a static art form–it’s a river that constantly seeks to flow in new directions. Musicians of rare talent are adept at opening new channels by creatively reimagining established ideas, in the process bringing forth memorable work that is rooted in what went before but transformed into something bearing their own stamp. Music has been moved further along the map by legends such as Robert Johnson and Chuck Berry, and James Horner, although a man on a very different musical path, belongs in that elite company. The composers whom he admired most inspired him to reach his full creative potential, never more clearly demonstrated than on ‘Land Before Time’. The result is a high point in film music composition of the 1980s that remains a marvel more than thirty years on, and from which those who aspire to master the art of putting music to film can learn a great deal. Remembering Pamela Read. RIP.

Very good review of a legendary and bewitching soundtrack by James Horner. I bought a copy, I also own the original. This remaster is a beautiful tribute to the composer, R.I.P James Horner.

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