MarzGurl Discusses The Land Before Time IX

(Clips from the movie are shown)

MarzGurl (vo): It's hard to believe The Land Before Time series got as far as it did. I realize we're only up to movie number nine, but now the titles are actually using the Roman numeral X in them. It just makes the number look huge, like, oh man, I can't believe they've made nearly ten of these already. Anyway, from the intro of Journey to Big Water, I actually can't quite complain yet. It looks really similar to the opening sequence of the first movie, and sure enough, we get our opening narration back.

Narrator: Millions and millions of years ago, these creatures swam in the warm oceans that covered most of our planet.

MarzGurl (vo): We learn that for some reason, it's raining really hard all over the place, including the Great Valley. It's a full three and a half minutes before we hear anybody but the narrator start speaking, which is fine by me; the less time spent on stupid statements, the better. Unfortunately, Littlefoot eventually has to speak.

Littlefoot: When is all the skywater gonna stop, Grandpa?

MarzGurl (vo): Littlefoot's current voice actor bugs me; sometimes you can't really tell, but quite often, you can hear that the voice actor isn't really a child, at least, not a young child. It's somebody with a youthful voice, but he occasionally struggles and strains to keep it at a high pitch, and it's really jarring.

Littlefoot: Well, maybe when you're done moving, we can all do something together.

MarzGurl (vo): In fact, who is this guy?

(A photo of Thomas Dekker, Littlefoot's voice actor, is shown)

MarzGurl (vo): Yeah, this is Thomas Dekker, known for his roles in A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), John Conner in The Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles and more. He did Littlefoot's voice for movies five through nine, and by this movie, he would've been fifteen or so. Isn't that too old? Anyway, it stops raining in the Great Valley and Littlefoot goes to find his friends, all of which are too busy after the heavy rains to play around. This is where we see our first instance of something else almost as jarring as Littlefoot's voice: Cera and her dad are pushing around a fallen tree and it's one of the worst CG pieces ever integrated into 2D animation I've ever seen. Call me old-fashioned, but I'd really like to see a lot less CG make it into any 2D animated feature, and especially less so in The Land Before Time. It really takes away the rustic, naturalistic feel, after all, it's a time before man, why do I want to see poorly integrated computer-generated images shoved in? The problem is, this crappy CG is everywhere in this movie, you'll see for yourself later. Littlefoot's all sad that nobody wants to play with him and everybody else hates that they have to work and be apart from their friends, so they sing about it.

Littlefoot: (singing) It's boring, boring, really truly boring, when you have to be alone...

MarzGurl (vo): Littlefoot goes back to his grandparents and complains that his mom never gave him a brother. Now initially, my thought process says,"Geez, Littlefoot, overly critical of your dead mom much?" But then I remembered,"Oh yeah, they NEVER reference his dead mother." So really, I guess I gotta give them props for that, but you know, Littlefoot, you kind of suck at being an only child. Take a look at me, I grew up an only child and I figured out how to keep myself busy just fine, I never asked for a sibling or anything, and when my mom asked me if I wanted one, I said, "Eh, it doesn't really matter to me", so I never got one. Something tells me that the person working on Littlefoot's character was never an only child. So Littlefoot wanders off on his own, and lo and behold, part of the Great Valley is underwater after the flood rains, go figure. So the adults tell the kids to stay away from it, which of course, they don't. Littlefoot wanders back when he hears an unusual noise he's never heard before coming from the flood waters, so he goes to investigate. This is where he meets Mo, a dolphin-like reptile with a hard to pronounce scientific name:

(A caption with the word Ophthalmosaurus is shown)

MarzGurl (vo): Oph-thal-mo-saurus.

(More clips are shown)

MarzGurl (vo): This guy was carried over the walls of the Great Valley with floodwaters from the Mysterious Beyond. Since these waters were flooding over the wall, a lot of fear from dinosaurs living in the Great Valley is that scary dinosaurs may have come with it. So again, you guys do have a wall and you don't want stuff to get through it, because here I was thinking finally that you were just letting anything come and go through the Great Valley as it pleases. Whatever, Littlefoot's friends come and meet Mo, well, almost. At first, he doesn't come out for them, so they start singing about imaginary friends.

Petrie: (singing) Me have a friend, a very special friend, and nobody can see or hear him.

MarzGurl (vo): Okay, so not only does this song suck, in personal opinion, as usual, but it comes fully enclosed with a Big Lipped Alligator moment, am I allowed to use that term? I say this because a big lipped alligator just jumps right out during this piece! Well, it's kind of an alligator, it's an imaginary lizard. Now I know that Don Bluth had nothing to do with The Land Before Time past the first one, but it's more than obvious to me that Don Bluth's original influence is still there living large, and is dancing and prancing about right here on the screen in front of us. On top of that, the scenes are just screaming the words "rip-off" from that log crossing scene in The Lion King during the song "Hakuna Matata", or am I the only person who sees that? Not to mention there's more crappy CG spinning, I'm telling you, it's everywhere! Anyway, eventually, Mo shows himself to everybody, but as usual with Cera's personality, she's angry and jealous of Littlefoot's new friendship with Mo. That's when a huge swimming Sharptooth shows up! Guess it got swept up over the wall of the Great Valley, too. The kids run away while Mo swims off and tries to save himself. So Littlefoot suggests that they all try to help Mo by leading him back home out to the ocean-oh, I mean (sarcastically) big water. Now wait, uh, excuse me, I just like to point out how DUMB an idea that is! See, if you're using the excuse that he wants to get back to his home, his friends, family, whatever, then I totally understand. However, none of these things are things that Mo even so much as brings up, because he's far too busy being ADHD to notice anything else. What they're basically saying is that if they can get him out to the ocean, he'll be away from that Sharptooth; yeah, like that Sharptooth didn't just come from the big water in the Mysterious Beyond. What makes you think that the ocean out there is any safer for Mo than the water in the Great Valley is, you know, other than the fact that it's sea water and the water in the Great Valley isn't. Well, when the grown ups tell them no, they go on a quest to do it, anyway as usual, only this time, the most unexpected thing happens: a horrendous CG earthquake occurs and it separates the flooded portion of the Great Valley from the rest! That sure is random, who would've seen that coming? Now the kids have no choice but to navigate Mo to his home waters, while at the same time, making it their quest to get back to the Great Valley. Actually, I have a question: Now that this earthquake happened, does this not open a big, gaping hole into the Great Valley? It seems that there's now this tremendous gap that could let anything get in or out now. Is nobody but me concerned about this? Anyway, they send Petrie off down ahead downriver to see if it will actually lead to the ocean, which it does. Now a number of things happen in this movie that looked like it might put a character into some exciting peril, but we either never get to see it resolve or it resolves so quickly that it's somewhat anticlimactic and we never really had any reason to be worried at all. For example, while Petrie is looking for the mouth of the river, he gets blown around by wind. It looks like he might lose complete control, but, oh, never mind, he's got everything under control. How pointless was that, I mean, really? Or how about how we never saw Mo actually lose the Sharptooth and we were only told later that he was trapped in a rock cave formed by the earthquake. What, we didn't even get to see that part? How lame is that?! It's like the movie is specifically attempting to negate anything that could possibly be considered exciting! Or later as everyone's going downstream together, Mo seemingly gets stuck in some rocks. Everybody panics for a bit, but oh, no, he wasn't ever really stuck to begin with, he was just playing around the whole time. Again, nothing exciting was actually happening. Or how about this, there's this moment where Mo has to Free Willy this rock blocking his path along the river? Never mind the fact that it's a tiny rock that he could totally clear, he almost doesn't clear it mostly cause he chose to jump more up rather than forward, but then he doesn't. Ohhh, intense, right? While everybody is traveling together, they start to get tired and bored. I can't blame them, nothing thrilling ever actually happens! But they suggest singing. I brace myself for a song, but what I get is something I wasn't really prepared for.

Cera: (singing) We went there once sometime ago

Petrie: (singing) And now we going back, you know

All: (singing) And this time we are taking Mo, to that big water!

MarzGurl (vo): Are you serious? They actually dipped back into a previous movie, took one of its songs, and just rewrote lyrics to it. Well, if that isn't the laziest...whatever, they only sang like a verse, so I guess that was over pretty fast. Suddenly, a bunch of grasshoppers come out like they're going to attack, but then they don't because Mo talks to them. Jeez, don't we get to see follow throughs to anything exciting around here? Also, why can Mo talk to grasshoppers? He lives under the water, the kids live on land, if anything, the kids should understand the grasshoppers better than Mo would. This makes no sense! (sighs) I give up. They spend the night at the camp of a longneck mother and her nest of poorly CG'd hatching eggs where they sing together in the middle of the night.

Littlefoot: (singing) You don't need to feel, there's no one by your side / everything you see, is a gift you're given

MarzGurl (vo): There isn't really a point to this, it's just a nice lull in the story, (sarcastically) you know, because the story has been sooo action packed thus far! As they all get closer to the mouth of the river, everybody stops to play around, which is exactly when the Sharptooth from earlier in the movie shows up. Looks like he's broken out of the cave! While it would appear that Littlefoot and the main gang are in trouble, Mo distracts the Sharptooth.

Mo: Goodbye...friends.

MarzGurl (vo): And he leads it downriver. This leads to what has to be the most overused, dramatic statement in the history of film.

Littlefoot: Mo, NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

MarzGurl (vo): And thus, our action scene is at an end. This is when some character development and realization occurs: Cera admits her jealousy of Mo, but Littlefoot convinces her that he always liked hanging around her, too. Now everybody's good with one another again. Too bad Mo isn't around to see this happy moment. Oh wait, what am I saying? Of course he is, he's just right upstream! In fact, how is he still alive?

Mo: Mooo make bad swimmer chase me...then Mo went back and hide in wood thing, like see you do!

Cera: He means that hallow tree!

Mo: Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, hallow tree! Bad swimmer see Mo, get mad! (growls) Then bad swimmer stop and smell air like this, (sniffs) and swimmer forget all about Mo, (chirps) swim thataway!

Littlefoot: Big water! The Sharptooth swimmer must have gone home!

MarzGurl (vo): So let me get this straight: the climax of the movie happened and all that happened was that the Sharptooth swam away, and we didn't even get to see any of it? What is the point of it all?! Oh, and let's not forget the Sharptooth smelled ocean water and swam home. Why are we celebrating? That's the exact same direction you guys need to go in! You're swimming directly into the jaws of danger! Why has nobody considered this?! It seems so obvious! Of course, when they get there, the jaws of danger aren't really there, but that's because it's Universal pulling the strings of the story. From what I see, there's an entire school of these dolphin things just sitting around waiting for Mo to arrive and the Sharptooth could've had a feast, but he's not there! Of course he's not there, why would he be? Now the only thing remaining is for the kids to figure out where the smokey mountains are, so that they can navigate themselves back home, so they ask the dolphin things for help. Where were the smokey mountains? Right there. Right there! They were just over there to the left this whole time! Why did we waste so much time on getting the dolphins to help them when all they really had to say was, "We found them, just turn your heads to the left and there they are!"? How do you miss smoking, active volcanoes?! How the heck do you miss that?! So the kids wander home as the narrator speaks. Now, I'm probably the only person who noticed this, but this has been bugging me forever: has anyone ever noticed that anytime the main characters get listed off for us over the course of, like, the entire Land Before Time series, they're always in this specific order?

Narrator: Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike...

MarzGurl (vo): Anyway, Mo's off doing his own thing in the ocean and the kids make it back safe and sound, and the whole movie is wrapped up with a pop song by, of all people, Donny Osmond.

Donny Osmond: (singing) No one has to be alone, in this world we live in / you don't need to feel, there's no one by your side.

MarzGurl (vo): This movie is frustrating beyond all reason. A few of the previous movies were just middle-of-the road, direct-to-video releases, but this one was awful, just really awful. It comes really close to movie number three in being the worst of the series. It doesn't quite make it, but it almost does. The writing is awful, the solutions to problems are obvious, and there's next to no peril happening over the course of the movie. If I wanted to summarize it down even shorter, I could say, "It rained a whole bunch and an outsider got stuck in the Great Valley. After an earthquake separates the kids and the outsider from the rest of the Great Valley, it's up to the kids to take the outsider back home and then find their way home themselves", because quite honestly, all the rest of the stuff that happened in the middle was completely unnecessary. If you removed all the rest of it, you might get a half hour out of it at most. You know, I'm really ready for this whole thing to be over, but (sighs) there's still a lot more work to do.

(Credits are shown)