The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure

The Land Before Time II:
The Great Valley Adventure
Directed by Roy Allen Smith
Produced by Roy Allen Smith
Written by John Loy
John Ludin
Dev Ross
Based on characters by
Judy Freudberg
Tony Geiss
Starring Scott McAfee
Candace Hutson
Heather Hogan
Rob Paulsen
Linda Gary
Kenneth Mars
John Ingle
Jeff Bennett
Tress MacNeille
Narrated by John Ingle
Music by Michael Tavera
James Horner
(archive music from The Land Before Time)
Edited by Jay Bixsen
Production
company
Distributed by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Release date
  • December 13, 1994 (1994-12-13)
Running time
 73 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure is a 1994 American direct-to-video animated action-adventure musical film directed by Roy Allen Smith, and a sequel to the 1988 American-Irish animated film The Land Before Time, which is produced by Amblin Entertainment and Sullivan Bluth Studios. It was released six years after the original, and was the first in the series to be a direct-to-video production.[1] The Great Valley Adventure is also the first The Land Before Time direct-to-video film to be animated overseas by AKOM in Seoul, South Korea. The tone, action and plot of the film was made much softer and slower than that of the original, and features musical numbers, in order to appeal to a more preschooler-oriented audience. Candace Hutson is the film's only returning voice actor, reprising her role as Cera. After the film's release, subsequent sequels in the series, with animation services by AKOM, were released each year up until 1998's The Secret of Saurus Rock.

Plot

Shortly after the events of the first film, Littlefoot and his four friends are living happily in their new home in the Great Valley, under their families' watchful eyes. One day, the gang attempts to get to the sheltering grass to play, but land in the sinking sand surrounding it. The adults rescue them and subsequently chastise them for crossing the sinking sand. During the next night, the children have a secret meeting and decide that they need to prove they are mature by running away for a while into the Mysterious Beyond, a location just outside the Valley. Before they leave, they notice two egg stealers (Struthiomimus) named Ozzy and Strut, who have recently moved to the Valley, stealing an egg from the nest of Ducky's mother. The children chase the egg stealers into the Mysterious Beyond. During an ensuing landslide that leaves an opening in the Great Wall surrounding the Valley, the five are sent into the Mysterious Beyond, while the egg rolls safely back to the nest. In the Mysterious Beyond, the five discover another, larger egg and mistake it for the original.

The gang transports the egg into the Valley, and despite finding the original egg back in Ducky's nest, they decide to hatch it. The egg eventually hatches, revealing a baby Sharptooth. Littlefoot's friends flee, while he quickly realizes that the baby Sharptooth is not yet dangerous. Littlefoot tries to raise the hatchling on leaves; although this fails, the hatchling, whom Littlefoot names "Chomper," becomes content with a diet of insects. Littlefoot then hears his friends calling for help, as Ozzy and Strut are attacking them out of revenge for foiling their meal plans during the previous night. Chomper's shadow frightens Ozzy and Strut away, as they mistake him for an adult Sharptooth. The rest of the gang meets Chomper and they accept him as part of the group until he bites Cera by instinct. Chomper is told that this is considered bad behavior in the Great Valley, and he runs off as a result. The others follow him to a volcano, where Ozzy and Strut attack the children again.

Chomper once more comes to the rescue, biting Strut's tail. The volcano then erupts, lava slowly oozing in the children's path. Littlefoot pushes a tree over a canyon to make a bridge for him and the others to escape the lava. Ozzy falls into the canyon while attempting to cross, and Strut jumps in after him. Once across, the young group encounters two adult Sharpteeth, who have managed to enter the Valley through the opening in the Great Wall, on the other side. They escape the Sharpteeth initially, but encounter them several more times. Eventually, the whole Great Valley population drives the Sharpteeth off, and the children make it back to their families, but Chomper feels left out and runs away again. The adults inquire as to how the Sharpteeth entered the Valley, prompting the children to explain their adventure the night before and the landslide that resulted. Realizing the landslide created an opening used by the Sharpteeth to gain access to the Valley, the adults set off to put together a plan to close the entrance for good, telling the children to stay behind.

Littlefoot runs to the forest to find Chomper. After finding him, they are chased and cornered by the two Sharpteeth again. Chomper roars at them, and they recognize him as their son and leave with him. Littlefoot is then kidnapped by Ozzy and Strut, who survived the fall into the canyon and now plan to kill Littlefoot by throwing him off the Great Wall, a plan hatched by Strut, much to Ozzy's surprise. Later, Chomper hears Littlefoot screaming as Ozzy and Strut attempt to carry out their murderous plan. Chomper leads his parents to Littlefoot's location and tries to intervene, but is unsuccessful. Strut grabs Chomper by the throat, and he and Ozzy are poised to kill him, as well. However, Chomper's parents rescue Chomper, and unknowingly do the same for Littlefoot. The Sharpteeth chase Ozzy and Strut into the Mysterious Beyond. After they say their final goodbyes, Chomper follows his parents while Littlefoot returns to the Valley, later assisting the adults in sealing up the entrance between the Valley and the Mysterious Beyond.

Afterwards, Littlefoot tells his grandparents that being young is not so bad after all, but decides he still looks forward to growing up. An epilogue appears at the end credits in which Cera, Spike, Ducky, and Petrie’s siblings hatched while their older siblings and Littlefoot sing a reprise of the opening song, “Peaceful Valley”. The film ends with the gang and their siblings running into the camera.

Voice cast

Songs and soundtrack

The songs are written by The Roches. This was the film that introduced the musical element into the series and it has consistently remained ever since. This was also the first time Spike "sings"; his lips can be seen moving during "You're One of Us Now".

Also, even though the film features an original score by Michael Tavera, it contains musical cues from James Horner's score of the original film. Tavera has been the main music composer for the sequels ever since.

Production

In July 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios announced that a direct-to-video sequel to The Land Before Time was in development. A release date was not set at that time.[2]

Home media

The film was released on VHS and laserdisc on December 13, 1994 in the US, and on December 31, 1995 in the UK. It was re-released on VHS on December 4, 2001. On December 10, 2002, the film was released onto DVD. On December 2, 2003, the film was released onto VHS and DVD as part of the "4 Movie Dino Pack (Volume 1)" and "9 Movie Dino Pack" movie collections. On January 25, 2005, the film was re-released onto DVD as part of the "2 Great Movies Featuring Chomper" collection. On May 3, 2016, the film was re-released on DVD as part of a DVD pack alongside all 14 films.

Reception

In 2011, Total Film ranked it as 7th among the "50 Worst Kids Movies".[3] In August 2014, the New York Post ranked each of the 13 Land Before Time films released up to that point and placed The Great Valley Adventure at number 5. The New York Post wrote that out of each film, The Great Valley Adventure "does the best job of maintaining some of the darker tone of the original movie while broadening its humor for younger audiences. But it's also responsible for introducing the musical format, so, boo."[4]

References

  1. ↑ John Cawley (27 March 2007). "Direct-to-Video Sequels: Franchised and Fancy Free". Animation World Network. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  2. ↑ Sandler, Adam (14 July 1993). "U Cartoon arm moves focus to kidvid titles". Variety. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  3. ↑ Winning, Josh (November 8, 2011). "50 Worst Kids Movies". Total Film. GamesRadar. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
  4. ↑ Miller, Gregory E. (13 August 2014). "A rundown of the best and worst 'The Land Before Time' movies". New York Post. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
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