The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving (1995)

I have made no secret of loving Land Before Time, excepting Wisdom of Friends and Invasion of the Tinysauruses, and Time of the Great Giving is a certainly a good one. The intro with the underwater scenes and John Ingle's narration is very immersive and reminds me a little of Blue Planet. I have to say that I enjoy The Time of the Great Giving more than The Great Valley Adventure for a few reasons, one being the lesson of coming together to share whatever you have. The one weakness would have to be the songs, which while fun aren't always as lyrical as the songs in The Stone of Cold Fire, Journey Through The Mists, or The Mysterious Island. But the story itself I cannot fault, having always found it to be quite lovely. The plot is engaging and goes at a steady pace and there's some good amusing dialogue such as "my brother is not a very good hider." Something I liked is that rather than wandering off for the sake of doing so like they do in Great Valley Adventure, the group wander off for the greater good, to find the water that has stopped flowing. The bullies, although bullies, are interesting as well and are redeemed at the end. Plus, while the movie isn't very exciting at first, the fire and the raptor attack make sure it ends with a bang.

First of all, I do think it is an improvement on Land Before Time 2, which was passable, but lacked heart, which was what made the original so poignant. The Time of the Great Giving is probably the best of the countless sequels that border from good to unwatchable, but suffers from being too preachy at times. The animation is surprisingly good, but isn't quite true to the style of animation in the original. In most scenes it had some lovely colours, but had some flat backgrounds in others. The incidental music by Michael Tavera was excellent, especially the Firebird-like music in the fire scene. It was nice to hear the heart-rending main theme from the original, but whereas in the original it made me weep buckets, it didn't have an effect on me here. The songs are okay, Kids Like Us being the best one, and Littlefoot's singing voice is for once pretty decent, but the other two songs When You're Big and When You're Standing Tough came across as rather unmelodious. The story is a very nice idea, about the values of friendship, survival and sticking together. There is also some nice dialogue, but the film further suffers from being too short and being devoid of any real emotion. I will say that the voice talents were very impressive. Ducky is still funny, with similar dialogue we associate her with from the original, though it doesn't quite feel the same without the sweetness and vulnerability of the original voice actress, the late Judith Barsi. Scott McAfee is decent as Littlefoot, and I liked Linda Gary and Kenneth Mars as the grandparents. However, in correlation to the original, John Ingle's narration, as nice as it was, was somewhat unnecessary, but I was more impressed with his gruff characterisation of Cera's father. All in all, a surprisingly good sequel, though it doesn't surpass the first and the finest. 6/10 Bethany Cox.

Genre: Animated film about dinosaurs and a major water catastrophe.What happens: In the Great valley for the gang, there are TWO annoying problems (unfortunately, not one or none). There are three bully dinosaurs who are CONSTANTLY picking on the poor good dinosaurs and to top all the depression, the waterfall in the Great Valley has stopped flowing. Though the lovely gang (Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky Petrie and Spike) are sad and annoyed, they have a positive view as well over this mess and decide to work together to find water…My thoughts: I like most of the L.B.T films. Unfortunately, this one is not at the top of my list for me. It is just too depressing! All the songs focus on some bad thing or other, unlike in all the films, where at least one focuses on just happiness! It also concentrates on the crisis of the film WAY too much for my liking. The music sticks to the depressing tune for 75% of the film, everyone is EXTRA grumpy because of the crisis and it's just too annoying! When there IS happiness, it feels deflated, like rather floppy balloon, it just isn't STRONG enough. Luckily, I prefer this film to "Land Before Time 11", which is my least favourite L.B.T, but this one is still not NEARLY as good as most of the others for me. I know lots of other people like it, but for me, it's just too depressing, too annoying, too deflated and too pessimistic. So there. I like the main characters of course. The new characters are not all that good, because they're bullies.Recommended to: People who like the eleventh L.B.T, people who find all the other L.B.T's too happy and jolly and people who do not mind becoming a little too depressed by an animated film.

I could not find any really bad spots in this movie. Roy Allen Smith does it again! This movie was a bit disappointing when I thought there wouldn't be a fight, but a species from my favorite sharp-tooth class is here! (If you don't want me to ruin the surprise for you, skip to the end of the spoilers) Velociraptor is THE predator! This is a touching tale! Hyp reminds me of an old a**hole back at school! He was really ungrateful to the ones that saved him from suffering death at the tarpit. I hate braggarts who have nothing to be arrogant about! Still, Littlefoot's kindness pushed through in the song "Kids like us". It was a runner up for most touching song in my opinion.(End of spoilers here) Overall a film worthy of its legacy.