An old, unfinished draft for a project I decided to stop pursuing a long, long time ago. I'm sure some here will find value in some of this so I'll keep it up.
The basic idea here was an alternate take on the series that only took the first four movies seriously, with a heavily modified version of the seventh movie and a handful of elements from later elements of the series thrown in for good measure.
The Setting[]
The Land Before Time world takes place in the eastern half of the Asian continent (a trait admittedly borrowed from one of the Grosvenor films, The Stone of Cold Fire). To be precise, the Great Valley is in the Hunan province of China, the first portion of the original film takes place on the Deccan Plateau, the Mysterious Island (again, borrowed from a Grosvenor movie) is a prehistoric Hainan Island, and the Land of Mists are in the Guangdong province of China.
The time period of the series takes place roughly twelve thousand years before the extinction of the dinosaurs (not directly before the massive asteroid hits the Earth as parodies would like to believe). The world of the dinosaurs appears to be falling apart, going by what is shown during the first film, with presumably constant earthquakes possibly fueled by the newly formed Deccan Traps, which, given the time frame given above, may end up going off within a very short span of geological time. Judging by the state of the Mysterious Beyond, it is possible that the traps are already beginning to exert poisonous gases into the atmosphere, killing all of the plants and possibly making a majority of the water sources in the region acidic, rendering a good deal of the Asian continent a barren desert.
Other forces also appear to be proving threats, and possibly doom-bringers to the dinosaurs, such as severe flooding in coastal regions (Journey Through the Mists) and large meteor showers becoming a major hazard (The Time of the Great Giving). With all of these forces taken into consideration, it should be at least somewhat clear that the Mesozoic is likely in its last days.
As for animals from the earlier stages of the Mesozoic, animals from the Cenozoic, and animals from the Palaeozoic coexisting with late Maastrichtian wildlife, let alone animals from different continents all inhabiting late Cretaceous China, it is an incredibly convoluted, rather bizarre story involving the ascension of more characters borrowed from later films into a space-faring empire, and the creation of a society with no ethics and a knack for severe genetic modification and time travel-influenced invasive species introduction.
Timeline[]
- Before 5 million years prior: Normal dinosaur evolution, nothing very different from our own timeline.
- Around 5 million years prior: Gallimimus bullatus achieves sapience through creatively using their forelimbs.
- Around 3,000 years prior: The sapient Gallimimus are visited by extraterrestrials, and are taught how to change their world, themselves, and those around them. Queue mass genetic engineering.
- 500 years prior: Disney's Dinosaur occurs. The nesting grounds are given a permenant dinosaur population, a small asteroid ravages the eastern hemisphere.
- Between 500 years - 5 months prior: All other adult characters are born.
- 5 months prior: Hyp, Mutt, and Nod are born.
- 2 months prior: Ducky and Cera are born.
- Timeline basis: Littlefoot and Ali born.
- 1 month hence: Petrie is born.
- 6 months - 9 months hence: Main events of The Land Before Time occur, Spike is born.
- 9 months hence: The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure occurs. Chomper is born. Daddy Topps divorces his mate.
- 10 months hence: A different combined herd, far north of the Great Valley, is forced out of their home by a band of Carnotaurus.
- 10.5 months hence: The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving occurs. The Great Valley is struck with meteors, and nearly burns down during a nasty drought.
- 12 months hence: The Land Before Time IV: Journey through the Mists occurs. Far-walkers visit the valley, and Grandpa is nearly killed by a deadly illness. Littlefoot meets Ali, Spike learns to talk.
The Animals[]
The animals of the area are composed of many, many different genuses from across the planet's history. Below is a gallery, featuring all of the identifiable animals I can think of from the world of the Land Before Time I - IV. Some of the animals have been assigned to different genuses than what is generally accepted by the fandom, and animals marked with a ** are fictional species.
The Main Characters[]
I feel this may be where my canon will be the most divisive. I have attempted to come up with biographies for the characters to fit with the adventures they embark on after (in some cases before, or during) the first four films. Without further ado, I present:
The Rainbow Faces[]
Two Rainbow Face individuals named Gallim (r) and Mymus (l), the discoverers of the grim future of the dinosaurs
While not the main characters of the story, the Rainbow Faces (Gallimimus sapiens) are a race of heavily story-impacting and highly intelligent relatives of the egg-stealers, with their population primarily situated in a large city in what would one day become northern China. The origins of the creatures can be traced back to alien contact in a flock of Gallimimus bullatus who had learned to use their graspers for tool-making and structure building, in which said extraterrestrials begin to teach the budding ornithomimids to build cities, genetically modify other creatures (and themselves!) to their desires, and other ways to make life simple for the species. The aliens even teach the Rainbow Faces the concept of time travel, which will leave a rather unfortunate mark on what the future would bring.
They eventually learn of the very dark future of the dinosaurs and their kin, and are disturbed to find out that the higher-ups in space-faring society will not allow the Rainbow Faces to avoid their extinction in any way, even threatening to destroy the Earth if certain attempts to stop the catastrophe are made. In an altered version of The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire, they attempt to warn the residents of the southern regions of the world of the impending destruction of dino-kind, though their efforts to raise awareness are ultimately ignored by the non-believing Great Valley residents, who are ultimately much more interested in the unusual stone sent into the Mysterious Beyond, sent by the Rainbow Faces as an example of what is to come in the next twelve thousand years.
After their failed attempts to prepare the world for armageddon, their world continues to fumble, with the ethics (or rather, there complete lack thereof) of their genetic engineering capers being questioned, and their continued attempts to (fail to) bargain a way to escape their extinction starting massive debates on whether or not forcing fate to take its course is necessary. By the time doomsday has come, Rainbow Face society has been destroyed by one of its own creations, which had been made to be as strong and unstoppable as possible, and tensions among their former allies have risen to the point of a gargantuan war, destroying all remaining space-faring life in the galaxy.
Hyp[]
Hyp
While Littlefoot is the undebated main character of the films, Hyp the fast runner (Hypsilophodon foxii) is the main protagonist of the planned web comic. During the events of The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving, he serves as one of the film's antagonists, though his ferocity towards the Prehistoric Pals is eventually justified, as it is revealed his father is verbally aggressive towards him. When his father stops being aggressive, he eventually becomes a better character.
Prior to the events of the film, he is born many, many miles north of the Great Valley, in the Nesting Grounds (a location taken from Disney's Dinosaur, a film which takes place many centuries prior to The Land Before Time) on the coast of the Bohai Sea, not far from the future site of Beijing. He grows up in the area for a good deal of his childhood, befriending Mutt and Nod during his stay, until the Nesting Grounds are, due to the collapse of a rock wall caused by the Great Earthshake many thousands of miles away, invaded by a band of "Carnotaurs". He and the rest of the valley's residents, including his mother and father, are forced to evacuate in search of a new home.
Unfortunately, while some of the herd does make it (Namely Hyp, his father, Mutt, Nod, Mr. Clubtail, and Mr. Spikethumb), much of the herd is killed off by starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, and, in the case of Hyp's mother and the herd leader, a surprise attack by a pack of Velociraptor mongoliensis. With the death of his mother, Hyp becomes a wreck, and begins to take out his emotions on the younger members of the herd, and, when he reaches the Great Valley, Littlefoot and his friends. After the events of III, he and his gang become good friends with the Prehistoric Pals.
Mutt and Nod[]
Mutt and Nod, alongside Hyp
Mutt the swimmer (Muttaburrasaurus langdoni) and Nod the bonyback (Nodosaurus textilis) are Hyp's two best friends, and formerly his only friends. During the events of III, they serve as his two lackeys, backing up nearly everything he says and helping him with nearly everything he does.
The two have a relation not unlike Ducky and Spike, with a young Mutt and his father taking in Nod while he was only a hatchling, long before the films occur. The two dinosaurs eventually meet a young Hyp, and the three become inseperable. After the Great Earthshake and the Carnotaurus invasion force them out of their home, Mutt begins to develop severe memory loss, and eventually, under the stress of constant peril and the imminent threat of starvation, his intelligence begins to slowly seep away until he is little more than a mutt.
Nod, being easily out-witted, and Mutt, losing his mind and desperate for a form of leadership in what feels like a losing fight for a new home, quickly begin to rely on Hyp not long after the Velociraptor attack claims the life of the herd's leader. While Mr. Spikethumb goes on to lead the rest of the herd to the Great Valley, Mutt and Nod were led by Hyp, who in turn follows the rest of the herd. After the events of III, they, alongside Hyp, become good friends with Littlefoot and company.
Littlefoot[]
Littlefoot, during the exodus to the Valley
Littlefoot is a young longneck (Brontosaurus excelsus) who resides in the Great Valley, after embarking on a long and perilous journey through the Mysterious Beyond. He is cared for by his grandparents, and enjoys spending time with his friends. He is a very good friend to allies, and prefers to solve confrontations with enemies by fleeing rather than fighting.
After the events of The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists, he and his friends spend much more time in the Valley than in the alternate, Universal timeline. While he and his friends do occasionally solve problems and chase sharpteeth and aggressive dinosaurs out of their home, he very rarely embarks on quests as he did to help his grandfather, or to enter the Valley in the first place.
Other members of Littlefoot's group[]
Cera the three-horn (Triceratops horridus), Ducky the swimmer (Saurolophus osborni), Petrie the flyer (Pteranodon longiceps) and Spike the spiketail (Stegosaurus armatus) are the four other members of Littlefoot's group.
Cera
Cera is a brash young three-horn. She is easily the roughest member of the Prehistoric Pals, though she does have a soft side, which, given her emotions, can easily shine through her ancestral pride. She meets Littlefoot prior to the Great Earthshake, and eventually join forces with him once it is discovered that Sharptooth, a hostile Tyrannosaurus rex, survived a massive fall into a chasm created by the Earthshake.
Ducky and Petrie
Ducky is a cheerful young swimmer, and the adoptive older sister of Spike. She is very passive, and would next to never choose to fight an enemy. She does, however, have the ability to stand up to characters who threaten her friends, or, more importantly, her brother, Spike. She meets Littlefoot very shortly after the death of his mother at the claws of Sharptooth, and becomes his first inter-species friend not long after.
Petrie is a panicky young flyer. He, prior to the discovery of the Great Valley, is deathly afraid of flying, only mustering the courage to do so when his friends are in danger of being eaten by the villainous Sharptooth. He meets Littlefoot and Ducky when Littlefoot attempts to eat a tree fern, terrifying the young pterosaur and sending him smashing through the ground. He becomes good friends with the two not long after their somewhat sloppy first impressions.
Spike
Spike is a lazy, silent young spiketail. One of his most notable traits is his undying love of eating plant matter, alongside his loyalty to his friends. One of his other notable traits is that he is next to completely silent, only uttering discernible words when he is under extreme stress, such as when his sister is in mortal peril (Journey Through the Mists). He is discovered by Ducky as an egg. He hatches from the egg very soon after he is discovered, and quickly grows to the size of his contemporaries due to his gluttony. He becomes friends with Littlefoot and co. soon after he hatches.
The Minor Characters[]
Chomper[]
Chomper, newly hatched
Chomper (referred to as "Dynam" by his parents) is a young sharptooth (Tyrannosaurus rex) taken in and briefly raised by the Prehistoric Pals before his parents retrieve him. In this timeline, he does not live on the Mysterious Island at any point in his life, he never meets Ruby (who does not exist), and he is unable to speak to leaf eaters. He goes down a similar road that he would if he were not to have a craving for insects; while he has some memory of the five leaf eaters taking care of him in the Great Valley, he does ultimately grow into a usual, flat-tooth eating sharptooth.
After leaving the Great Valley in The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure, he interacts very little with his old friends. There are very rare times when he manages to wander back into the Great Valley in attempt to conjure old memories from his infancy, though the break-ins usually end in near-catastrophic failure. His fate remains a mystery to the residents of the Valley, with his attempts to rendezvous with Littlefoot and company stopping just before a growth spurt.
Ali[]
Ali meets Littlefoot
Ali is a young longneck (Apatosaurus ajax) who who appears in The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists. She, alongside the rest of her herd, migrate through the Mysterious Beyond in constant search of food and water, led by the matriarchal Old One. Not long before the events of the film, she and the rest of her herd are forced out of their ancestral homeland, the Land of Mists, due to a sudden change in climate turning the lands into a deadly swamp. They stumble upon the Great Valley on their travels, and Ali befriends Littlefoot, a fellow longneck.
After the events of the film, she leaves the Great Valley with her family. The only time she ever crosses paths with Littlefoot afterwards is during adulthood, when the two gain interests in each other.
Daddy Topps[]
Daddy Topps defends Cera from a trespassing Littlefoot
Daddy Topps is a proud, aggressive three-horn (Triceratops horridus), and the protective father of Cera. He is the former leader of a herd of three-horns in the barren wastes of their world, and the current co-leader of the Great Valley super-herd. Though brash, restrictive, and often times bigoted and domineering, he legitimately cares for his daughter, Cera, and attempts to make sure that she doesn't not get into danger or, when his mood is poor, social situations with other dinosaur kinds besides their own.
He is also the former husband of a Triceratops named Tria (a name taken from a later, non-canon film for a rather different character) and the former parent of three other children; two boys and a girl. Rather unfortunately, after the events of The Great Valley Adventure, he breaks ties with his mate (who is still alive, contrary to popular fanon) and becomes the sole parental figure for Cera, the only child he manages to keep when Tria leaves the Great Valley. After the events of the films, he mellows significantly after his realization near the end of the Great Valley drought, though his personality stays intact.
Ozzy and Strut[]
Ozzy berates Strut for eating grass
Ozzy and Strut are two egg stealer (Struthiomimus altus) siblings, and formerly major threats to the well-being of the Great Valley's egg population.
They, perhaps surprisingly, born-and-raised natives of the rainbow-face city; they are exiled when they are caught stealing a rainbow-face egg from a house, their motivation lying in bringing the egg to their leader, so their leader could genetically modify the rainbow-face baby inside to be a creature capable of destroying their city; their exile prominently features them nearly being killed by the miniguns and rocket launchers of rainbowface police. After their exile from the city, Ozzy swears to eat every egg of every dinosaur in the world, while Strut tries to distance himself from eggs, to his brother's chagrin. After some time, and after the Great Earthshake, they make their way to the Great Valley, where they miserably fail to make off with any eggs and only barely manage to escape intact after being chased out of the valley by a pair of Tyrannosaurus.