MarzGurl Discusses The Land Before Time III

(The title screen for The Land Before Time III is shown along with clips from the movie.)

MarzGurl (vo): You know what? I take it all back; I take back everything I said about The Land Before Time II, cause you know what? Somehow, The Land Before Time III managed to take everything that was only slightly irritating about The Land Before Time II and completely magnify it! It is infinitely worse than both of its predecessors. I'm not even going to bother building this up, just look at this. So this is incredibly frustrating; let's talk about the pacing of this movie because it's awful, and it's unfortunately in the entire movie. Like, at first, I'm okay with it because it's slow, it's serious, and it follows a similar pace to the first movie. Honestly, it takes like five minutes before anything really starts to pick up. And then finally, it does, and during scenes, it takes so much time to describe anything! The shots aren't dynamic, and...well, maybe it's smarter to take a lot of the slow stuff chronology. Five minutes in and we're introduced to our five favorite dino kids, and they're running around and they're playing with rocks, which is when three bullies show up. If you thought Chomper was an unnecessary addition, there's absolutely no reason for these three characters to exist. Led by Hyp, these guys are just a bunch of bullies for the sake of being bullies; they aren't scary, they're just annoying.

Hyp: What do you think, guys? Wanna play with these...babies?!

MarzGurl (vo): They're kind of like those sixth graders who think they're so much older and bigger than fifth graders so they can get away with being jackasses to them. And I can't stand that our main characters are still on this anti-baby kick after this whole movie has passed.

(The kids gasp)

Cera: Babies?! Who's he calling babies?!

MarzGurl (vo): Suddenly, something exciting happens and flaming rocks fall from the sky! Well, that's pretty extreme! But the extreme excitement is over pretty quick and it never comes back. Of course, as the rocks hit the ground, the earth starts to shake, obviously. But for some reason, the cast decides they need to tell us, like we couldn't figure it out for ourselves.

Grandma Longneck: (sighs) We don't know, Littlefoot. Perhaps it had to do with those great rocks falling from the sky.

MarzGurl (vo): I can't stand this! It's like as the series progresses, the characters get progressively dumber and dumber; even the older, wiser dinosaurs seem to lose intelligence as time goes on, it's absolutely abysmal to have to sit through. So it looks like the next day, everybody's out and about drinking and bathing, when suddenly, their precious waterfall stops and then everybody wonders why.

Littlefoot: Grandpa, why did the Thundering Falls stop?

Grandpa Longneck: I don't know, Littlefoot.

MarzGurl (vo): Here's the thing, I can tell you exactly why and I don't even need to see the rest of the movie. You remember those falling rocks from yesterday? They're blocking your water! Go unplug the alien rocks damming up your river and you'll be fine. But no, that'd be skipping to the end of the movie, wouldn't it? Instead, we have to suffer through the Great Valley going through a completely unnecessary drought. This problem could have been solved immensely quickly, and instead it's dragged out so we have to learn other valuable life lessons from cartoon dinosaurs. I just...I feel dumber as I watch this! Remember how I brought up the pacing of this movie before? Here's another prime example: Littlefoot gets sent off to play so that the grownups can discuss the issue at hand, like grownups, and he finds his four other friends playing hide-and-seek. He keeps trying to stop them and tell them what's up, but they just won't let him speak; and this pointless scene of hide-and-seek where we see absolutely nobody go anywhere or do anything and Spike sticking his head behind a fern doesn't count, it lasts a painfully long minute and a half. Oh yeah, and get this, Petrie apparently grabs a hold of Littlefoot's nose and he even talks like his nostrils are blocked.

Littlefoot: (nasally) Petrie, you're hurting my nose.

MarzGurl (vo): But he's an Apatosaurus whose nostrils are even drawn on the top of his head! Ugh, I know it's nitpicking, but even as a kid, I don't think this would fool me because I was one of those many kids that grew up with an obsession with dinosaurs. So the drought isn't a big enough problem, no, we need an antagonist! So the bullies return and sing this awful song.

Hyp: (sings) When you're big, you can push all the little ones around...

MarzGurl (vo): Remember what I said about pacing and action or whatever? Here's a prime example: during all these songs, this one included, nothing happens! We just look at the characters involved, watch them be there, shuffle around a little bit, and that's about it. They don't even shuffle around very well, it looks awful! I can't think of a single positive thing to say about this musical sequence. Forget it, let's have a lesson about preserving water. I never thought I'd have to see a cartoon about dinosaurs where they insinuate that I need to conserve water when I bathe, but nope! This movie manages to go exactly where I didn't think it was possible. Oh, and I can't get past this scene without, again, discussing the pacing issue. For some reason, it's incredibly important that we see each lead character get told by their parents to come home one after the other individually. It takes so long and I don't understand why we can't just assume each kid goes straight to their respective parents. Anyway, sorry, moving on. Cera's dad is being a jerk, and taking it upon himself to control when each herd gets to use the water, which is quickly disappearing; and nothing in the Great Valley is growing, which is when we learn some new valuable information regarding fire safety.

Littlefoot: Fire?

Grandma Longneck: Yes, Littlefoot, which is why you must remember the escape paths we've shown you.

MarzGurl (vo): Oh...my God. Seriously? Learn to conserve water, always know where your fire escape routes are? What's next, don't talk to strangers, stay away from fallen power lines?! This is a cartoon about dinosaurs, make them do dinosaur things! Oh, look, another awful song with absolutely nothing happening, just some shuffling back and forth and us staring at the characters! And Cera's dad? Awful singer, just saying!

Topsy: (sings) You can't run around in circles, wondering what to do / Someone's gotta be the voice of reason / (spoken) Is it you, or you, or you?

(An instance where Cera's dad has no back leg is shown.)

MarzGurl (vo): Plus, the animators forgot to give Cera's dad a fourth leg. That's some professional animation. So while everybody's complaining about the water, the kids decide to go and try to find more water themselves.

Cera (Land Before Time II): What could go wrong?

MarzGurl (vo): And we're introduced to another really slow scene where the kids get together late at night, lose Spike, and then find him. Again, awful pacing. If we removed all the unnecessary slow scenes from this movie, it might be thirty minutes long. They search for water forever. Then they find it. Okay, that...wasn't difficult. Actually, I have a problem with this, too: They spend all this time specifically smelling for water because apparently, they're so good at smelling it. Well, actually, I can believe that Ducky might be able to do that, but they don't find it that way and nearly give up. But then, just before they do give up, they then hear the water, which was apparently directly next to them. Just...okay, it's obvious how dumb this is, it doesn't need elaboration. Then the bullies show up again and they want to take the water away from the kids. Do you see where this is going? Yeah, this is gonna be a" learn to share" lesson later. Again, you don't even need to watch the movie to know what's happening, which indicates poor writing if the plot and morals are that transparent. In the process of running away to tell the grownups about the water, a storm blows through and fire starts. Hope everybody knew where all their fire exits were! Cera's dad remains a constant jerk and takes his daughter the wrong way. At the same time, the Great Valley is getting too smokey, so they rely on Littlefoot, whose closest to the ground, to lead everyone to safety. So does Littlefoot know the way? He must, he's leading like a pro. It's like Littlefoot was teacher's pet, and when teacher told him to learn where the fire escape routes in all the school building were, he took it upon himself to memorize every possible way out. As endearing as Littlefoot once was in the first movie, he's now beginning to get on my nerves. Everybody eventually gets out safely, and that, unfortunately, includes Cera and her dad. That's finally when the kids tell the adults about the water that's been blocked off in the Mysterious Beyond. You know, that dangerous place where all the Sharptooths live? Actually, I have a question about that. The Great Valley, at this point, is supposed to be some amazingly impenetrable fortress where dinosaurs were able to continuously roam free without danger ever getting in or anything getting back out, right? If that's the case, why has everyone been able to so easily get in and out multiple times? I see their security is rather flawed. The bully kids hear about the water and they decide they want to go get some for themselves before everybody else gets to it.

Cera (Land Before Time II): What could go wrong?

MarzGurl (vo): While I'd totally be okay with us losing these worthless additions to the series, Littlefoot, again, plays main character, and sings a song about how they're just the same as our main characters and deserve a helping hand.

Littlefoot: (sings) They have feelings just like we do, they have problems, too...

MarzGurl (vo): Again, slow, awful song where nothing is actually happening. Well, the bullies make it out there, and look, success, they've struck water! Or is it? (sighs) Great, it's another tar pit, cause yeah, we haven't seen this scene enough in the series yet! If getting stuck in a tar pit and having to get pulled out by a string of kids who can barely pull themselves out becomes a common scene in each movie, I'm going to be furious! Insert new life lesson: don't yell at your kids and don't yell at each other, and everybody needs to get alon-HOLY CRAP, VELOCIRAPTORS! Yes, do we finally start to see some excitement around here?! Well, not really. These raptors are a heck of a lot slower than one would expect. I mean, I guess I shouldn't expect much, this isn't exactly Jurassic Park, but this just drives home the topic of horrendous pacing within this movie. In the scene that's supposed to be the climax, I'm completely unexcited and unafraid for the lead characters. I suppose it doesn't really help I've grown to severely dislike all of the characters by this point. It also doesn't help that they solve the problem the exact same way they did in the first movie, with boulders and water. By this point, I expect absolutely no surprises out of this series. Every time they try to do something that was already done in the first movie, they only succeed at not doing it nearly as well as they did the first time. So they stop the Sharptooths and they get their water back, and in the process, the kids learn how to share, and the Great Valley begins its slow recovery to regrow.

What more can I possibly say about this movie? It's awful. Sequels are never good, but this one was especially awful even in comparison to The Land Before Time II, because even I'll admit, kids will be kids, and kids are going to do stupid things, but no matter how many adult situations these kids get into, nothing about them ever really seems to grow. The animation gets worse, the dialogue gets further and further unintelligent, and the plot drags like a toddler trying to pull a potato sack across a room. And unfortunately, seeing as how they're still ten more movies to go, there's a pretty high likelihood that it only gets worse from here.

(End credits)