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The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

Play trailer Poster for The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists G 1996 1h 14m Kids & Family Adventure Animation Play Trailer Watchlist
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Littlefoot and his dinosaur pals go in search of a medicinal flower that will cure his ailing grandfather.
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The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

Critics Reviews

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Alex Sandell Juicy Cerebellum Entertaining enough family film. Rated: 3/5 Sep 18, 2005 Full Review Steve Rhodes Internet Reviews Just like shows for grownups, successful kids' movies are susceptible to the excessive sequel syndrome. Rated: 1.5/4 Jul 25, 2002 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Kaito K Definitely Greater Than The Second But Littefoot Doesn’t Stand out For his friends When She Just Insults Them For Half Of the movie Which Is Annoying Rated 4 out of 5 stars 11/14/24 Full Review Audience Member The funniest of the very-long movie saga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member If this was a friends Episode, this will be titled “The One When LittleFoot Becomes LoveStruck” I kinda lost interest before the halfway point. The writing is going downhill Rated 2 out of 5 stars 11/30/21 Full Review Audience Member Kind of weird to loop back on the xenophobia allegory when we've already done that in this series, but whatever. Better than the last one entry in the series. (EDIT: Little did I know we'd be doing it again and again and again and again an-) Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member One of the best Land Before Time movies. It has a good storyline that goes perfectly with the animation. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists serves as another direct-to-video entry into the series and should be judged as such, but the quality of the film has decreased since its predecessor. The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists is problematic for two central reasons: the story and the animation quality. The animation in The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists has the same colour as the previous films, but it is significantly weaker. I mean the movements of the characters are really not organic since there are quite a few empty frames between them, and there are a lot of moments where the voice acting does not clearly fuse into the characters' movements both in terms of mouth and full body. By that I mean occasionally the characters are talking but you cannot see them talking clearly, and sometimes what they are saying does not match their physical stature at the time they speak. The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists has the necessary colour and it gives the characters the same cutsie look that made them popular in the first place and plenty of colour, but it isn't as fresh anymore and just has a very cheap feel to it, not to mention the fact that the animation does not have any new elements to it since the entire thing is rather derivative of earlier entries into the Land Before Time film series. The next issue with The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists is the fact that the story is nothing new. While the beginning of the story suggests that it could end up being a tale about how the environment is changing and affecting the people who exist within it, but while the film introduces that theme it goes literally nowhere with it. The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists instead sacrifices the potential of having a moral undertone like its predecessors and maintains a story which is too thin for a film of the series. The first three entries into the Land Before Time films were all meaningful for different reasons, but The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists is not. Its story mainly involves Grandpa Longneck suffering from an illness of which he will recover from if he eats the petals of a "nightflower" which is embalmed in the mists of the land as a result of its climate changing. There is little meaning to this and the journey that the characters take in no way equals the quality of the story from the first three Land Before Time films. There is not much of a feeling of adventure in The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists, and it isn't that genuinely fun either. But above all of that it is hard to find much joy in the story as it is melodramatic without much comedy, and many of its attempts to establish humour are vastly unsuccessful. The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists lacks the charm of any of the preceding films, and its story also forces the colour palette of the film to rely mainly on taking placein dark territory which means that it feels grim. I mean, Land Before Time films are meant to be dark in terms of subject matter, but it is better to be dark in nature against the backdrop of bright colour like the first three films instead of just dark in every area. So frankly, as a viewing experience The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists does not have the same fun or charm that it really needs to succeed. To specify, The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists feels too much like a watered down version of The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure to be an honestly The enjoyable merits of The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists is the fact that the voice acting is good enough even though the script is not as strong as it should be, and the first musical number in the film is actually pretty strong in terms of the emotional effect it has. And in actual fact, since The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists deals with Littlefoot facing the potential death of his grandfather, it is the first film in the Land Before Time series since the first film to actually bring the theme back. It is good for the development of the character Littlefoot because it shows just how far he is willing to go to prevent the death of someone when he actually has the power to do so and therefore develops the strength as a character. Admittedly, the general return of all the silly and cutsie characters from the Land Before Time series should please many of the dedicated fans of the series, although by comparison the film is a lesser entry into the series as a whole. But all in all, The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists does not exactly justify continuing the series. Although I am happy it kept going and continued after this entry, The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists presents the lowest point to the series so far. The film isn't terrible, it's just dull, and it dedicates more time to the character Littlefoot and the new character Ali than it does to the group of characters that popularised the film series as a whole. I can tell viewers would want more Ducky, Spike and Petrie than Ali, and that was my opinion too. So although The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists has all the cutsie characters fans of the series have learned to love and some good voice acting to boot, the animation quality is lesser in comparison to many other entries into the film series and the story feels too much like a rehash of previous films in the series to honestly stand strong alone. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis Littlefoot and his dinosaur pals go in search of a medicinal flower that will cure his ailing grandfather.
Director
Roy Allen Smith
Producer
Roy Allen Smith
Production Co
Universal Cartoon Studios
Rating
G
Genre
Kids & Family, Adventure, Animation
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 21, 2014
Runtime
1h 14m
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