The Best Dinosaur Movie Ever

Charles Robert Knight [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Land Before Time Fact #1: Judith Barsi, the girl who did the voice for the character Ducky, was murdered by her father in July 1988, a few months before the movie was released. She was ten years old when her father shot her and her mother, and then he killed himself. Judith and her mother Maria are buried in unmarked graves at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California. Both of Judith’s parents were Hungarian immigrants. They lived on welfare before Judith’s career took off-her father was a drunk who did not allow her mother to work-and as Judith became more and more successful, her father became more and more abusive.

The Land Before Time Fact #2:The Land Before Time was supposed to be released in 1987, but Don Bluth, the director, had to delay production one year because Sullivan Bluth Studios was relocated to Dublin, Ireland. The movie was released on November 18, 1988.

The Land Before Time Fact #3: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, who produced The Land Before Time, originally wanted to model the movie after Fantasia, and not have any dialog in the movie. However, since The Land Before Time was meant to be a children’s film, they eventually decided to have voice actors and actresses.

The Land Before Time Fact #4: About 19 scenes were cut from The Land Before Time. Most of the scenes involved the Tyrannosaurus rex and the main characters feeling distressed, and these scenes were considered to be too scary and possibly able to cause psychological damage to children. Director Don Bluth did not look these cuts, and he fought to keep the scenes, but eventually he gave in, and the movie became 69 minutes long.

The Land Before Time Fact #5: Each of the main characters in The Land Before Timerepresented an actual dinosaur species. Little Foot is an Apatosaurus, Cera is a Triceratops, Spike is aStegosaurus, Petrie is a Pteranodon, and Ducky is a Parasaurolophus.

The Land Before Time Fact #6: The Land Before Time has 12 sequels, eight games, two sing-a-long videos, and a TV show. However, the original The Land Before Time is the only movie in the series that is not a musical, and in my opinion, it is the only one worth watching.

References:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095489/trivia

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0058279/bio