In einem Land vor unserer Zeit II - Das Abenteuer im großen Tal

Along with "The Time of the Great Giving", "The Great Valley Adventure" is one of the better sequels. As a sequel it is decent, but the original which is a timeless, haunting and poignant masterpiece will always be the best. The film does have its problems; it is too short, I did find the songs forgettable (with the exception of "Eggs"-that was catchy), the dialogue uninspired and the plot meandering in places. Consequently it lacks the heart of its predecessor. However, there is some nice colourful animation and above average editing, and it was a delight hearing the heart-rending main theme from the original again. This is definitely the Land Before Time sequel with the best peril, with the sharp teeth quite sinister sometimes. The main villains, called Ozzy and Strut are quite likable and very funny. When I first saw this when I was little I actually thought Tim Curry voiced Ozzy, there are parts when he sounds like him. Actually it was Jeff Benett and he did a great job with the voice, I barely recognised him. The voice acting was very good, with Heather Hogan delightful as Ducky(if somewhat lacking the innocence and vulnerability of Judith Barsi) and Kenneth Mars dignified as Grandpa. The best asset of this sequel though was Chomper, he is absolutely adorable and by far the best character of the movie and possibly the cutest supporting character in any of the sequels put together. The part when he and Littlefoot say goodbye at the end was the closest I came to crying, and I did genuinely have tears welling up at that bit. Overall, while lacking the heart and charm of its predecessor, it is a decent sequel and easily one of the better sequels of the Land Before Time franchise. 6/10 Bethany Cox

My Take: Decent straight-to-video effort.

Granted, sparks won't fly freely in the direct-to-video sequel THE LAND BEFORE TIME II: THE GREAT VALLEY ADVENTURE, but it's good enough to satisfy your kids hunger for fun. It's a film where you could just leave the kids and allow yourself to do something else. It's harmless, family movie, which, surprisingly, I found decent.

Like all direct-to-video efforts, expect it to have a low-quality plot, weak characterizations and childish situations. But with all it's low shots, you can just look in your child's eyes and see how you rate the film. I remember watching this non-stop sequels over and over again when I was a kid, in other words, I was a big fan of all this stuff. But know, THE LAND BEFORE TIME II has dated badly. Now, I remember how inferior the new plot is to the original's plot. But, rating as a kid flick, it's something to keep the kids busy. It's a bit better than the other sequels that followed.

By the end, upon seeing the eyes of the kids, you decide what rating you'll give to the film, but I give it, at least ***, a high rating for a film that isn't that good on quality. Nevertheless, it provides as much fine fun to kids and as decent enough as I remember.

Video movie rating: *** out of 5.

1994 was a huge year for children's entertainment. Disney's Return of Jafar may have got the ball rolling with it's "VHS premier" even though it was a thinly disguised pilot movie for the syndicated Aladdin tv series that would premier a few months later, but it was Land Before Time II that showed you could make something DTV and have it be as much or more of a cash cow than theatrical releases. And with Universal's Amblimation movies An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, We're Back: A Dinosaur Story, and Balto all posting disappointing box office numbers while the 6 Land Before Time movies raked in nearly $1,000,000,000 in VHS sales, Universal left the theatrical animated space and relegated themselves to churning out Land Before Time sequels every one to two years. These DTV titles have done massive damage to the reputation of the animation industry which is only now being able to escape this stigma, but even when taking all that into account the movie still isn't very good. At best it feels like the type of cartoon one would expect to see in syndication at 7:30 am on weekdays back when there WAS a syndication market for cartoons and it has low stakes, forgettable songs, and is a complete tonal 180 from the first movie. It'll entertain children while it's one, but it doesn't leave much of a lasting impact. It's on of those movies that has more of a reputation for what it caused than what it is.

After the original classic animated film "The Last Before Time", there came many direct-to-video release sequels with which the original director and animation crew had no relation with. A lot of the sequels, and there are many of them, are not all that good, especially not when compared to the original. The original "Land Before Time" showed the dinosaur world as being tough and frightening even to viewers. The sequels are not so frightening or tough, less violent, and are notorious for their reaching out to really young children audiences with their singalong songs. And the first of the sequels, being this film, is a bit like that.

I have only recently seen this film for the first time in years. I had seen a few of the later sequels before this and was very unimpressed. But the first sequels is by far, much better than those that followed. It sticks the closest to the original film's style and although nowhere near as good, is still a fine family film. This is the one sequel in the series I think the whole family will enjoy.

This one also has the best peril in it, making the tyrannosauruses (called sharp teeth) a lot more frightening and compelling villains than those that followed. And unlike the later sharp teeth, who mostly just growled, these ones roar like the original Sharptooth, the antagonist from the first film. And they are more violent and frightening and thus, more convincing. The other villains are a pair of egg-stealing struthiomimuses named Ozzy and Strut who are bumbling villains just trying to find lunch, but keep missing their meals. Ozzy and Strut are actually very comical and somewhat likable villains, even though they aren't nice guys. And in fact, their song "Eggs" is the only song in the entire series that I find catchy.

The film also retains the qualities and characteristics of the character the best. They are more serious in the first sequel than the later ones. True, they do sing annoying songs, but are still shown struggling to grow up and mature in life and prove that they believe they can take care of themselves, very much like the audience members who primarily watch movies like this. But Littlefoot is still the most cautious, Cera the strongest, and so on and so forth. The character of Chomper was a fine addition to the cast and thankfully, he doesn't talk like he would in later sequels.

Bottom line, out of all the notoriously bad sequels that followed the original "Land Before Time", the second one "The Great Valley Adventure" is by far, the best out of them all. And it's not all that bad really. I actually found it to be quite entertaining in its own way. So this one I can recommend. But those that followed after this one, I can't really speak as highly of.

The first film of 1988 holds up gratifyingly well, no matter how much we may scrutinize some facets. One doesn't wish to wholly dismiss sequels sights unseen - there's always the possibility that they'll be worthwhile on their own merits - but especially with filmmaker Don Bluth not being involved any further, it's only reasonable to approach successors with skepticism. Could 'The Great Valley adventure, coming six years after its predecessor, carry any weight of its own?

To whatever extent one could argue that the writing in 'The land before time' was a tad simplicity, straightforward, and even heavy-handed, it was only in keeping with how kids' movies were widely made for many years, and these traits were outshone by the earnestness of the proceedings. This makes it all the more jarring that the first minutes of 'The land before time II' greet us with narration, dialogue, and scene writing that seem to condescend even more and assume very little of children's intelligence; voice work that, while respectable in and of itself (I mean, who could ever fault Rob Paulsen for a single thing?), leans extra hard into being childish, cutesy, and simplistic (my goodness, our lead characters spend as much time screaming here as they do speaking); and songs sung in-character that bear scarcely more complexity than stick figures do. Frankly even the characters readily come across as reduced and diminished - written not for kids aged six to nine years, but those aged two to three years.

Make no mistake, this picture is an emphatically lesser creation when stood next to the progenitor, or for that matter too much of family-friendly fare generally. That still doesn't mean that it's altogether bereft of value, for there are fair ideas in the story and scene writing as our established characters Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike find themselves having a new little adventure in the Great Valley that they discovered the last time. (Yes, the name is very on the nose.) There's some mild humor that lands, too (and maybe some that's unintentional). "Eggnapper" antagonists Ozzy and Strut, voiced by veteran voice actors Paulsen and Jeff Bennett, are unexpected joys, possibly benefiting from the best writing and the best songwriting ("Eggs"). Composer Michael Tavera, picking up where James Horner left off, provides a lovely score. And while Universal Cartoon Studios takes over the visual reins from Sullivan Bluth Studios, broadly speaking the animation is just as dependable. The colors are more vivid, in fact, as we get beautiful painted backgrounds, and splendid detail in everything from environments and effects to character designs and other active elements.

Still, I can't help but feel that 'The Great Valley adventure' tries entirely too hard to appeal directly to the very youngest of viewers, reaching for unsophisticated entertainment that's more Elmo than it is Oscar The Grouch, or more 'Teletubbies' than 'Chowder.' This is seen in the timbres newly provided for our foremost characters as determined by the voice director, arguably in the more vibrant colors, and in the more brusque pacing. Even as our diminutive dinos' constitutional puts them in some danger and takes them to surprising places, the stakes feel notably lower and more contrived. There's little sense of drama, and in all honesty this flick feels less sincere and meaningful. It still claims value, and it's not as if the participants were phoning in their contributions. Yet fair ideas and potential seem to have been rendered with a mind the cheap and easy, the tried and true, and the conventional and artless, and what worth the feature boasts faces an uphill battle to be concretely enjoyable by anyone except the presumed intended audience of toddlers and preschool youths.

It's a good time, yes. But one has to be definitively aware of the enormous disparity between the 1994 antecedent and this 1994 follow-up: a gulf of less substance and more flavor, and of less heartfelt storytelling and more uncomplicated fun. Provided that's something one can get on board with the title remains a minor pleasure, though at the same time, I certainly can't begrudge anyone who takes a harsher view towards it. For my part I do like 'The land before time II,' and I'm glad I took the opportunity to watch; it's just that any recommendation 'The Great Valley adventure' deserves is a rather soft one, and it's not something that commands our attention, or which one is likely to think on at any point after watching.