BB: The land before rhyme (or reason)

In the words of the late Cecil B. DeMille, "film transcends". Plots, settings and ,of course, emotions. Film can transport us, the lowly mortals so often jaded by the rough truths of the world, to a place of ethereal beauty. Here feelings flow freely as visual and auditory stimuli fuse into a cathartic river. A river straight to the heart. As a firm believer in the ability of film to express beauty so often overlooked in our individual human dramas, I feel a strong sense of vigilantism whenever the sacred medium of film is denigrated by bad movies. Thus, my friends, I am embarking on a quest to seek out and destroy deplorable dramas, condescending cliched comedies, and all other genres which defame quality cinema.

I begin today with a children's classic: The land before time. A heartwarming adventure that follows Littlefoot's path from the Great Beyong to the Great Valley, this film also serves as a coming of age story, as Littlefoot must find himself in order to find his way. Dealing with the death of his mother, the movie endeavors to shop kids the transparency of death, as well as carrying on in the face of adversity. All in all, a masterpiece. Thanks Mr. Spielberg. I have no beef with this movie.

What I do "have beef with" is "The land before time III: The Time of the Great Giving"....also read as "The Land Before Time III: The Quest for more money". Spielberg would have done well to dissociate himself with this picture. A simplistic storyline (even by children's standards) combined with a half-assed critique of bullying made the film sub-par. But what made it an affront to cinema is the flawed environmental science on which it is based. In this land (before time) herbivores live harmoniously in a green utopia. Tree-stars are a-plenty and there is zero predation. Any predators that enter the valley are perjoratively known as "sharp-teeth" and are demonized without regard for their ecological role. As apex predators, the sharp-teeth are not mindless monsters, but are merely fulfilling a niche. The convoluded food web of the Great Valley will no doubt result in an unmitigated disaster. Without sharp-teeth, the herbivores will reproduce beyond the carrying capacity of the environment, exhaust its resources, and starve. Sorry Littlefoot, no tree-stars today. Be sure to thank your elders for overgrazing. Dumbasses, no wonder dinosaurs went extinct.

Another, more minor problem was that of accurate species portrayal. This became quite apparent when the herbivores were attacked by what can only be deinonychus ( the real raptor from Jurrassic park). Deinonychus, for you non-Precalc majors/Paleontology minors out there measures between 5 and 6 feet in height and averaged 180 lbs. An Apatosaurus (long-neck) measured nearly 75 feet in length and weighed close to 25 tons. In the film, this "sharp-tooth" came up to Grandpa's shoulder. That's Bologna.
Next time I might actually write a serious critique of a truly bad movie. I'm open to suggestions.
Get Some, BB