Review of The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire (2000) by Chatvarin L — 28 May 2009

â??The Stone of Cold Fireâ?? is the first film in the series to use fully CG background and colouring, a high price to pay for palpably better animation. I think the young dinosaurs have grown a bit, especially the two tiny ones, but in so low budget a home-video production this is probably due to careless scaling by the animators.

Beside that this instalment really surprises me. There are still some moments of bizarre absurdity that still feel incongruous even as the series progresses with the world of â??The Land Before Timeâ?? moving further and further away from the imminently armageddonic scenario of the original â?? so much so that a plothole in the original is introduced now for the first time, but these have really become negligible and minor. For the first time the songs, simpler even than in â??Saurus Rockâ??, really become integrated into the storytelling, helping it even. Original score is paltrey and relies heavily on one motif: the main melody of the first song â??Beyond the Mysterious Beyondâ??. This is actually very appropriate because that song encapsulates what this little film is about. In a low key production it was a wise choice to keep to a simplistic unambitious soundtrack like this â?? at worst it wonâ??t jar, as it is it is pleasant.

Action-wise this film is actually very full, no less full than the marvellous original â??The Land Before Timeâ?? in my opinion. There arenâ??t exactly multifold plotlines but there are quite a few levels of actions working in the same direction. Over-anxious parents will be please to know that, in consequence of this, the obligatory affronting moralizing packs quite a substantial punch in this one, each strand of action teaching some lessons. Friendship (again!!!), instructive curiosity, creative imagination, humility, responsibility, charitability, are all encompassed.

The whole stone of cold fire pilgrimage is the centre of the filmâ??s most sophisticated theme, around which it is structured. The film opens with the customary â??Long, long agoâ?¦â?? introduction (still complete with cheap universe-and-natural-history sequence) but this time narrated by Petrie and twisted towards the end into a flyerâ??s myth of flyersâ?? supremacy over the earth. This is tied into Pteranoâ??s self-deluded conviction in his fated leadership that initiates the quest for the stone of cold fire, by which Littlefoot is able to bravely put what he believes he witnessed (an asteroid) to examination. In the end noone believes that such a thing really exists, and Littlefoot would have been left swayed to his grandfatherâ??s deduction that Littlefoot saw his fancyâ??s invention had it not been for a bizarre but not unwelcome twist at the end. The whole nicely marries imagination to rationality whilst distinguishing it from sheer superstition, herein centred around the tentative magical quality of the stone of cold fire. One could say the producers are recycling the myth frame from their last sequel â??Saurus Rockâ??, but I think it is reworked here into something of its own. Our hero Littlefoot turns out to be an even truer hero than we all have taken him to be anyway, for the first time properly placed above Grandpa Longneck, who is here shown not to, just like Pterano, be as knowing as he normally appears to be, the real difference between them being Grandpa Longneck never thinks or pretends to have all the answers. Were the artistry more immaculate, I would have given it another star!