Following the release of An American Tail in 1986, Don Bluth’s follow-up feature film would be The Land Before Time in 1988 in a continued partnership with Stephen Spielberg. This time, however, the film was further co-produced by George Lucas, in notably his only collaboration with Spielberg outside of the Indiana Jones series. The Land Before Time has since notoriously spawned a long-running franchise of direct-to-video sequels (13 as of this writing) and a short-lived TV series, all of which are inexplicably musicals in stark contrast to the original film. While I was aware of this franchise as a kid, the only one I wanted to see above all the others was the original The Land Before Time, which I finally got the chance to see for myself after receiving a Blu-ray copy as a Christmas gift. While the film is really good on its own merits, I found it to be an improvement over An American Tail in many areas.
