‘The Land Before Time’ was the third animated feature from director Don Bluth, one of the unsung pioneers of animation in the last decades of the twentieth century. This film about a bunch of cute dinosaurs was subtly complex, emotionally rich and deeply moving in a way almost no other animated film had managed to be before or since. I found myself heaving with sobs, my heart aching. As an adult revisiting the film after many years though, I was stunned. As a kid, I wasn’t aware of how dense the emotional content was, though it certainly affected me. The easy explanation for this is that in the years before ‘Jurassic Park’, the only dinosaur-themed films we had as kids were this and the Rite of Spring sequence from ‘Fantasia’. I was barely two years old when it came out, and along with the Disney classic ‘Alice in Wonderland’, it was one of the VHS tapes that dominated my childhood. I don’t remember a world without ‘The Land Before Time’. It might look quaint and approachable, but its emotional scope is staggering, and after three decades, the punch it delivers has only gotten stronger. For another, it may be one of the most poignant and honest expressions on grief and death in the history of cinema. For one thing, it’s a masterpiece - a flawed one, but a masterpiece nonetheless. The truth is that ‘The Land Before Time’ is not that kind of film at all. Animation has changed a lot in the past 30 years, and so you’d forgive them for seeing the animation style and assuming what kind of film it is. So when Don Bluth’s 1988 animated film ‘The Land Before Time’ arrived on Netflix earlier this year, I wondered how many parents would see this film with its cute dinosaur characters, and unsuspectingly sit their young ones down and turn it on, expecting some lighthearted and "safe" entertainment. Perhaps as we have stepped into this new century, we’ve become too protective of children and their experiences, wanting to hold back their innocence and shield them from the harshness of what awaits them through adolescence and adulthood. Of course there are examples (especially in the early days of Disney Animation), but for every ‘Pinocchio’ or ‘Inside Out’ or ‘A Monster Calls’, there are countless derivative and forgettable cinematic confectionaries, as digestible as they are forgettable, and this seems such a pity, as the truly great children’s films prove that you can impart great wisdom and insight to the very young, often on difficult subjects, through the gentleness of storytelling. Form, function and enjoyment have walked hand-in-hand, especially in the finer works, but this conceit has never seemed to take on in children's films. Fairytales are the obvious example of this, but children's literature today has continued this tradition, from the 'Harry Potter' novels to Philip Pullman’s 'His Dark Materials' series.
#DUCKY LAND BEFORE TIME YEP YEP YEP TV#
She is the original cutest member of the team, later the keenest (starting with the TV series).From their earliest origins, stories for children were intended not just as entertainment, but as a way of imparting lessons and preparing them for the complexities of adulthood. She is the tritagonist of the first film, one of the main protagonists of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth, thirteenth, and fourteenth films, the main protagonist of the eighth film, a secondary character in the tenth and twelfth films, and one of the three hidden main antagonists of the eleventh film.
She is one of many creatures called a "swimmer", and is also called a "big mouth", or a "duck-bill" by the characters in the films.
#DUCKY LAND BEFORE TIME YEP YEP YEP MOVIE#
She was originally voiced by the late Judith Barsi (who favored this role, but didn't live to see the movie anymore than to see the movie with her other animated role), later by Heather Hogan, who was voicing Kokoro from Dead or Alive and finally Aria Noelle Curzon, is one of the original five main characters in The Land Before Time films and television series, and one of only three characters to appear in every movie and episode of the TV series. She is a happy-go-lucky, optimistic Saurolophus. Devoted Ducky, as she is called in her bio on the official site, and referred to as by fans), is the tritagonist of The Land Before Time franchise.