The Land Before Time

The Land Before Time (1988) follows a young dinosaur who loses his mother and sets out for a green region called the Great Valley. Four other orphans from different species join him, and that is the whole point of the film: children who are supposed to keep apart, walking together. Don Bluth directed, with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas among the producers. Bluth had left Disney to start his own studio and had become its most serious competitor. The heaviest fact around the film happened off screen. Judith Barsi, the voice of Ducky, was killed by her father along with her mother on 27 July 1988, before the film opened. She was ten. Bluth said the news left him and his crew nearly paralysed, and he dedicated the closing song of her second film, All Dogs Go to Heaven, to her memory. Her gravestone, paid for by fan donations in 2004, carries her line from this film. It runs 69 minutes. Good for: classic hand drawn animation, children's stories about loss and friendship, and a short running time. Less good for: the mother's death is heavy for small children and has been remembered that way for generations. The characters are thinly drawn and the story does not fully close before the credits.