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

 

Genre: Family/ Adventure

Time: 1h 15mins

Director: Roy Allen Smith

Quick Summary: This time, while building a hideaway in their new home of the Great Valley, Littlefoot and the gang rescue a mysterious egg from two scheming egg-nappers and make a starling surprise - and new friend - when the egg hatches.

I didn't know this was a musical and got jumped by the singing. You think I'm joking but the singing comes out of nowhere, they just randomly start singing and some really out-of-tune music plays as they're running around. It's not even that good. I mean it's a bunch of small kids singing, so of course it's not going to be amazing but this genuinely hurt my ears. Mainly because none of them could sing in tune, but the other thing is the audio quality was dreadful. This is one of the many signs the budget was dropped heavily for this first of thirteen sequels. 

The other obvious sign is the massive drop in art and animation quality. It's plain to see Don Bluth wasn't involved in any of them. It's a little strange though because the backgrounds still look incredibly pretty and hand-painted in really nice earthy colours, but then the actual dinosaurs look a little odd as their colours are slightly off and really flat. The lines have lost their thickness too, so the colour looks really faded and not quite there sometimes. While the animation was still looking alright, it just wasn't as smooth in some places and they drew some shots in awkward ways (trying to cut corners I assume.)

Even though I did complain about the sound of the songs, I honestly didn't mind the songs themselves. They did fit well with the more kid-friendly storyline, a little jarring but it didn't feel mindless. In fact, of the songs titled "Eggs" I still remember after watching all thirteen of these films in a row. After meeting the two bad guys for this film, we are thrown into a song to learn that one dinosaur is trying to steal eggs to eat whilst trying to stop his brother from eating leaves. It involves a bunch of egg puns of course but also technically a load of vegetarian slurs which was pretty funny to me. The actual tune of the song wasn't brilliant as the guy singing didn't have a lot of oomph and was very monotone.

As for the kids, they also feel different in how they act. More childish ironically. In the first film, they had childish qualities of course, but they were also humanised with how they learnt and grew within that. This took all the growth away and gave us the bare bones of their personalities. Little Foot is the leader and always tries to do good; Cera is snotty and wants to do things her way; Ducky and Petrie are comedic relief between them though Ducky is outgoing while Petrie is more shy; and Spike is just hungry all the time. They bicker between themselves all the time, and the argument seems to happen almost every five minutes. Either that or they are screaming at the top of their lungs which always went right through me.

Even their reactions to things don't seem right. I mean the set-up for the film is that the group goes into a very dangerous area that their parents told them not to, almost die, and then are annoyed because they got told off. Their reaction to that? They decide to sneak off in the night to show how brave they are, which by coincidence is the same night the egg snatcher appears. After a chase and almost dying from falling rocks, they mistake a different egg to be the egg that was stolen. Their next thought process? It's not to put the egg back where they found it oh no. It's that they are going to hatch the egg and be the best parents ever because they won't say no. Obviously, they find it extremely difficult as the egg ends up being a Carnivore who can't understand them, and then they end up arguing. What is this even teaching kids?

That said, I adored Chomper (The baby Carnivore). There is something so adorable about a small creature wandering around, labelling nonsense while trying to learn about the world they have been brought into. This guy brought up the quality of the film. 

Added to all of this is a bizarre choice of slapstick comedy. The bad guys are constantly being hit by things, or hitting each other with a super loud sound effect. Same goes for the group, when they're not arguing, they're getting into something played up for laughs. It seems they didn't really know how to actually write a full storyline that wasn't designed for a forty-minute TV episode, so they padded it out with things that are designed to make kids laugh. Basically, it's the same sort of thing as when a TV show plays laughter over something they want you to think is funny, but instead, it's the kids laughing or some silly sound effect. 

While this was a massive downgrade to the first one, it's watchable. Maybe because it was the first of many that I watched in one day, but it was really easy to watch. For kids, this would be perfect for keeping their attention for a short while, it's just a shame it doesn't really teach them anything moral-wise. 

5/10

"Bush-burper"

"Ducky: Bring back my brother, um, or sister!"