Shortly after a herd of migrating Longnecks enter the Great Valley, Littlefoot befriends one his age named Ali (who is afraid of Littlefoot's other friends Ducky,Petrie, Cera and Spike). Littlefoot's Grandpa falls ill shortly after the arrival of the migrating herd. The Herd's leader, The Old One, says there's a special flower that grows in their previous land that can cure those afflicted with illness (which is given no name) but because the land from whence they came has changed into a marshland of vermin and predators the her refuses to help. Littlefoot must now travel to the Land of Mists to find the "Night Flower" and save his grandpa.
The final Land Before Time sequel to be directed by Roy Allen Smith and written by Dev Ross, The Land Before Time IV keeps itself mostly in line with its predecessors II and III. It's really no better nor worse than the previous two, though maybe it gets a few points for having slightly more stakes than the first entries. With the crux of the movie being a ticking clock to save Littlefoot's Grandpa it definitely feels like it has more weight than the previous two entries with II teaching the moral of obeying your parents, and III being a vehicle for Bullying, resource conservation, and fire safety advice. I can say that IV feels more like an actual movie rather than an extended TV episode.
The movie's villains this time around, crocodile like creature Dil and bird like Ichi, are basically like Ozzy and Strut from the first film except rather than eggs they're trying to eat our heroes (also in a break from the norm, unlike other "Sharpteeth" in the series they can talk). The defining shtick is basically them complaining to each other that one does more work in their food gathering relationship than the other. It's not particularly endearing or amusing but I suppose it does try to shake itself up.
The songs are mostly forgettable. Grandma's Lullaby was probably the best by virtue of tying itself to Grandpa's illness and having a decent enough melody. Other songs were either annoying like the villain song "Who Needs You?" or a filler song "It takes all sorts" which basically retreads the message of the original Don Bluth movie without subtlety. Otherwise pretty much anything said of the other two sequels can apply here.
Land Before Time IV is basically more of the same. It's slightly better than the other two sequels by virtue of having a plot with heftier stakes and slightly more drive and focus, but it doesn't have much in the way of emotional or tonal weight.
