The Land Before Time/YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: The Sharptooth from the first movie. Is he simply a starving predator who is chasing down Littlefoot and his friends due to being desperate for any prey? Or is he a bloodthirsty savage obsessed with slaughtering a group of innocent children just because one of them accidentally wounded him? It's ambiguous in the movie, but the junior novelization opted to portray him as the latter.
Complete Monster: As discussed above, it's ambiguous if the Sharptooth wants to kill Littlefoot and friends out of a desperate desire for food or out of revenge in the movie, but all ambiguity is tossed out in the book adaptation. There, he's characterized as a brutal would-be murderer with an ego who tries to kill Littlefoot and company multiple times all because Littlefoot accidentally wounded his eye. And when he makes it near the Great Valley, he's described as "Sniffing the air with an evil joy" showing that he kills other dinosaurs not just for food, but also for pleasure.
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Almost literally in a particularly horrifying interpretation of the film. ^[1]Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to hang myself.
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- Interesting, except that its been Jossed by Don Bluth and the other creators.
First Installment Wins: The original film is considered to be an excellent piece of work, even for adults... the musical sequels on the other hand..
Harsher in Hindsight: All of the scenes that Ducky is in danger becomes significantly more dark after her voice actress in the first film ended up murdered by her father.
Nightmare Fuel: Many people think the apocalyptic scenes in the movie are terrifying.
Tear Jerker: The death of Littlefoot's mother elicited tears in many a viewer.
Viewer Gender Confusion:
- "Cera was too proud to admit (s)he'd gone the wrong way."
- Additionally, ask people what gender Littlefoot is and you'll be surprised at how the answer varies. They drew girl eyelashes on Littlefoot. It doesn't help at all.
- Ducky has to be the most obvious example; she can come off as a very expressive boy rather than a Tomboyish Genki Girl.
What an Idiot!: So Cera was really crazy enough to lead the others through an area with active volcanoes, rivers of lava, tar pits, all with only a little land to move around in when minutes earlier she complained to Littlefoot that his path was easier?
- It's actually possible that Cera was going the right way seeing as Littlefoot's mother said they had to go through "mountains that burn".
  - It appears that the Littlefoot and Cera got turned around during their fight. The scene starts with Littlefoot pep-talking the group up a mountain, suggesting the Great Valley may be on the other side. Finding a barren wasteland valley at the top, Cera decides she's had enough and starts back down, prefering the easy way. Littlefoot stops her, she insults his mom, fight ensues and they roll down the mountain into the valley. After the fight Cera storms off down the valley, while Littlefoot starts climbing back up the mountain they just crossed.
    - Also, to be fair, Cera had no idea that any of those terrors were on her path.

Sequels:

Breakout Character: Chomper was originally just a guest character brought in for the second film. Then he was brought back for the fifth film, and then he became a main character for the TV series, almost to the point where he became a Spotlight Hog.
Ear Worm: "Come on lets go, and runaround run around. What a beautiful feeling, we finally found a peaceful vah-leeee! And everyone's having a good time nowwwww!
- Despite being overused a great deal, the versions of "I'm So Happy" are actually pretty catchy.
- Hell, most of the songs are pretty catchy!
Ensemble Darkhorse: Plenty, depending on who you ask. Some of the more common ones include Pterano, Mo and Guido.
- The Rainbow-Faces are a species of this, which may be due to them being magical aliens.
  - Probably the most popular two would be the first two major guest character: Chomper (see Breakout Character) and Ali, whom, judging from the narrative at the end of the fourth movie, was apparently intended to be the first guest character to be brought back for another movie (although the next movie started with a new director).
Fanon Discontinuity: Depending on who you ask, there at many different forms, you can...
- Ignore ALL the sequels. They're all results of turning a beloved movie into a Cash Cow Franchise anyway.
- Accept the movies up to IV and ignore the rest. In The Mysterious Island, the production team radically altered the environment, meaning that the Mysterious Beyond looked like just about anywhere else in the world.
- Accept the movies up to VII. Films V-VII each have their good points, and interesting guest characters, but VII would be the last film to have no non-conspicuous computer graphics.
- Accept the movies up to X. We see Ducky and Spike's relationship get some interesting attention in VIII, we get a reprise of the best song from V in IX, and in X we finally meet Littlefoot's dad. But after this, the movies are more sitcom-like in nature, with multiple gag plots, characters like Cera's dad acting wildly out of character, and even more explicit morals than people claim the first nine sequels have.
- Accept the movies up to XII. The Wisdom of Friends tends to be ignored, even by diehard fans of the sequel films, due to it's overly silly nature.
- Accept ALL the sequels. The Land Before Time is The Land Before Time, no matter what it is.
- Accept ALL the sequels and the TV series.
- Or any variation of the above.
Franchise Zombie: These were created without any input from Don Bluth, Steven Spielberg or George Lucas.
Harsher in Hindsight: Journey into the Mists has Grandpa Longneck suffering from a terminal illness, which results in Littlefoot and the others going into the Valley of the Mists beyond the Great Valley in order to find the proper cure for his ailament. Grandpa Longneck was played by Kenneth Mars, who later died from Prostate Cancer in 2011.
The Scrappy: Again, it varies from person to person. But in particular, the Yellow Bellies from the final movie, The Wisdom of Friends, are widely hated.
Sequelitis: Hoo boy, this series is infamous for this. It's quite telling that this franchise's mass of crappy sequels is the trope image.
They Just Didn't Care: If you hadn't gotten the hint from the earlier sequels, then Invasion of the Tiny-Sauruses will tell you so.

Back to The Land Before Time

↑ The earthquake near the beginning was a result of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, AKA the extinction of the dinosaurs. Meaning everyone was Dead All Along. The film is their journey through purgatory towards heaven, represented by the Great Valley. The dinosaur that comforts Littlefoot directly after his mother's death is an angel trying to get him to overcome his anger over his mother's death, for which he blames both her and (secretly) himself. The lava field is where Cera overcomes her sin of excessive pride, and where the rest of the group learns that there are no "shortcuts" to heaven, and that they must go on the path set for them, and have faith in it, or they'll never get there. The sharptooth is representative of the kids' fear of their own mortality, and by killing him, they have finally let go of all of their earthly attachments, aside from Littlefoot, who still has guilt for the death of his mother. When he finally accepts her death, he finds the Great Valley, along with everyone else, where the rest of their families are waiting for them in the afterlife.
↑ So his mother went to hell?
↑ And she still came back to lead Little Foot to Heaven!
↑ No, she's in heaven. The rest of the dinosaurs are in hell, aka the sequels;
↑ While it's perfectly possible that it was the mass extinction event, that doesn't mean that all the dinosaurs immediately up and died. In fact their breeding pools at the end are probably too low to sustain the species anyways. Usually a minimum of at least a hundred is needed without the species dying off from inbreeding, although it can go as low as a few dozen

[1] The earthquake near the beginning was a result of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, AKA the extinction of the dinosaurs. Meaning everyone was Dead All Along. The film is their journey through purgatory towards heaven, represented by the Great Valley. The dinosaur that comforts Littlefoot directly after his mother's death is an angel trying to get him to overcome his anger over his mother's death, for which he blames both her and (secretly) himself. The lava field is where Cera overcomes her sin of excessive pride, and where the rest of the group learns that there are no "shortcuts" to heaven, and that they must go on the path set for them, and have faith in it, or they'll never get there. The sharptooth is representative of the kids' fear of their own mortality, and by killing him, they have finally let go of all of their earthly attachments, aside from Littlefoot, who still has guilt for the death of his mother. When he finally accepts her death, he finds the Great Valley, along with everyone else, where the rest of their families are waiting for them in the afterlife.

[2] So his mother went to hell?

[3] And she still came back to lead Little Foot to Heaven!

[4] No, she's in heaven. The rest of the dinosaurs are in hell, aka the sequels;

[5] While it's perfectly possible that it was the mass extinction event, that doesn't mean that all the dinosaurs immediately up and died. In fact their breeding pools at the end are probably too low to sustain the species anyways. Usually a minimum of at least a hundred is needed without the species dying off from inbreeding, although it can go as low as a few dozen

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