Post by lostmedia1975 on Aug 15, 2023 17:34:03 GMT
(I’m gonna write all the important details rather than write it all in paragraph, as I am not very good as writing the latter).
*Title of Subject: The Land Before Time: Lost Deleted Scenes.
*Genre: Adventure; Children.
*Format: Animated Feature Film.
*Time Period: Late 80’s (1987-1988 specifically).
*Story: After an executive test screening of the movie in London (in Late April-Early May 1988), Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, executive producers on the film, deemed certain scenes as either being too scary, to complicated for kids to understand, or simply being unnecessary. That day, Don Bluth, against his will, was forced to remove and shorten multiple fully animated sequences involving the sharptooth (t-rex). These scenes cut at this stage were fully, or at least partially animated, had audio, but were removed before the score was composed, as they do not fit in with the soundtrack.
In the months following those edits, the film was finally completed, with the runtime sitting at 75-82 minutes. Steven Spielberg received the would-be theatrical cut, and he still wasn’t satisfied with it, so he continued to trim it down until he was satisfied to ensure it would not disturb parents or their children. The scenes removed at this stage were 100% completed, including finished animation, audio, and even had a score. In addition, certain clips were used in the trailers, press kits, articles, promotional material, etc.
The cuts in the final film are very noticeable, from the very short runtime (69 minutes, I’m not joking), to multiple continuity errors, as well as noticeable jump cuts.
To this day, it is unknown of the original prints and negatives for this supposedly “darker” version still exist, but the most common belief is that the extra footage was lost or destroyed. Don Bluth even stated in his recent biography Somewhere Out There that the scenes cut from the movie were destroyed.
“For those of you who believe I have an uncut version of the movie somewhere in my archives, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m afraid those scenes will never see the light of day. They were swept up from the cutting room floor and dumped right into the trash. They’ve long been destroyed.” -Don Bluth.
On September 29, 2022, a youtuber by the name of “Mr. Coat” made a video called “Will the original cut of The Land Before Time ever be released?” In which he stated the possibility of the footage still existing. Sadly, I don’t know how to post links.
One of the people commenting on his video also gave his 2 cents on the matter (Credit to @killerofallgames, he originally wrote this comment. Also, be prepared for a very long read.):
”This video really got the gears in my mind turning. For years, I’ve always just accepted the idea that any missing scenes were definitely lost to time, but now that I’m actually thinking it over, I realize how illogical that is. All evidence seems to suggest that the film was trimmed very late into production, with the original cut being seen in every trailer, advertisement, promotion, press package and companion book. Are we really to believe that there was exactly one negative, and every single trailer was sourced from that sole print right before it was trimmed? That seems ridiculous, but then again I’ve never made an animated movie. My gut says that all of this footage would be sourced from various second-generation copies, which raises the question of what the heck happened to all of them?
Moreover, pristine cells from virtually every missing scene are still emerging nonstop in the current day, implying they’re no more scarce than any other part of the film. Another interesting point is the complete soundtrack by James Horner was remastered and released for the first time very recently, including at least 8 mins of totally unheard music from the missing scenes. This was technically “lost” for nearly 40 years, when in reality it was just sitting around for decades until a random record-label happened to get their hands on it. It’s a frustrating thought, but odds are that mountains of “lost” material is actually just sitting in a vault somewhere gathering dust. As far as I know, not a single effort to plumb the Universal archives has ever taken place.
If this were a Disney film, it’d be a very different story. In fact, Disney just recently found the original unedited print of Muppets Christmas Carol after about 15 years of searching. Also, two betty boops considered totally lost for nearly 80 years showed up one after another in the last few years in great condition. Even older animated films that no-one really cares much about, like “Raggedy Ann and Andy”, have pencil tests and workprints that emerge over time. It’s impossible to make any claims about what is or isn’t “lost” before someone makes an active attempt to actually find something.
Spielberg and Lucas clearly don’t care much about The Land Before Time, and Bluth probably hasn’t dealt much with it since the 80’s, so the ball is really in Universal’s court. I’m guessing they haven’t made an effort to explore the archives since there’s no monetary incentive to do so. It was also a huge children’s franchise in the early 2000’s, so releasing a more intense, PG-rated directors cut would probably have been an actively stupid decision back then. But the franchise is effectively retired now, and a lot of the Don Bluth movies are long overdue for high quality 4K remasters. My question to you is how could one possibly go about influencing universal to dig into their archives and share whatever they find?”
Anyways, before I try to revive the search, I’m just going to debunk some rumors.
1: People always claim that they remember seeing a certain scene on their copy of the movie, and they usually claim to either not have it, the tape is damaged, or they haven’t seen it in a while. These are clearly rumors, as the deleted scenes have never been released publicly.
2: Adding onto the previous one, people also believed that the pre-release McDonalds VHS tape might have some cut scenes, but this was never confirmed, and according to the people who watched it, the tape has no additional footage.
3: The film was never meant to be rated PG, despite the comment I quoted above would imply. From the start, they always intended for the film to have a G rating.
4: Early on in the search, some fans speculated towards an alternate ending in which all the dinosaurs died, and the great valley was their version of heaven. This has been proven false multiple times, as no such ending was ever supposed to exist. However, there is an actual alternate ending, which you can read about on the wiki article.
Just so you all know, these are all the crew members we’ve already contacted so far: Gary Goldman, Mark Pudleiner (last contacted 7 years ago), and Stu Krieger. Don Bluth and both the films editors were confirmed to not have any of the scenes, so any surviving footage would likely either be in Spielberg’s private collection, or in the universal/amblin studios archives.
I may not be able to do much myself, since I will be busy with school and crap, but I really hope this gets found, as this search was what introduced me to lost media back in July 2020, and the scenes just sound interesting. Feel free to share any search that introduced you to lost media. Happy finding!
Edit: So far, still not many people are talking about this subject. While this thread does have 81 comments as of editing this, we still need to find more ways to drum up attention, like reaching out to other, smaller lost media youtubers and making our way to the big ones.
If you are reading this, have already signed up on this forum, and show interest in this subject, I encourage you to comment anything relating to this subject.
*Title of Subject: The Land Before Time: Lost Deleted Scenes.
*Genre: Adventure; Children.
*Format: Animated Feature Film.
*Time Period: Late 80’s (1987-1988 specifically).
*Story: After an executive test screening of the movie in London (in Late April-Early May 1988), Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, executive producers on the film, deemed certain scenes as either being too scary, to complicated for kids to understand, or simply being unnecessary. That day, Don Bluth, against his will, was forced to remove and shorten multiple fully animated sequences involving the sharptooth (t-rex). These scenes cut at this stage were fully, or at least partially animated, had audio, but were removed before the score was composed, as they do not fit in with the soundtrack.
In the months following those edits, the film was finally completed, with the runtime sitting at 75-82 minutes. Steven Spielberg received the would-be theatrical cut, and he still wasn’t satisfied with it, so he continued to trim it down until he was satisfied to ensure it would not disturb parents or their children. The scenes removed at this stage were 100% completed, including finished animation, audio, and even had a score. In addition, certain clips were used in the trailers, press kits, articles, promotional material, etc.
The cuts in the final film are very noticeable, from the very short runtime (69 minutes, I’m not joking), to multiple continuity errors, as well as noticeable jump cuts.
To this day, it is unknown of the original prints and negatives for this supposedly “darker” version still exist, but the most common belief is that the extra footage was lost or destroyed. Don Bluth even stated in his recent biography Somewhere Out There that the scenes cut from the movie were destroyed.
“For those of you who believe I have an uncut version of the movie somewhere in my archives, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m afraid those scenes will never see the light of day. They were swept up from the cutting room floor and dumped right into the trash. They’ve long been destroyed.” -Don Bluth.
On September 29, 2022, a youtuber by the name of “Mr. Coat” made a video called “Will the original cut of The Land Before Time ever be released?” In which he stated the possibility of the footage still existing. Sadly, I don’t know how to post links.
One of the people commenting on his video also gave his 2 cents on the matter (Credit to @killerofallgames, he originally wrote this comment. Also, be prepared for a very long read.):
”This video really got the gears in my mind turning. For years, I’ve always just accepted the idea that any missing scenes were definitely lost to time, but now that I’m actually thinking it over, I realize how illogical that is. All evidence seems to suggest that the film was trimmed very late into production, with the original cut being seen in every trailer, advertisement, promotion, press package and companion book. Are we really to believe that there was exactly one negative, and every single trailer was sourced from that sole print right before it was trimmed? That seems ridiculous, but then again I’ve never made an animated movie. My gut says that all of this footage would be sourced from various second-generation copies, which raises the question of what the heck happened to all of them?
Moreover, pristine cells from virtually every missing scene are still emerging nonstop in the current day, implying they’re no more scarce than any other part of the film. Another interesting point is the complete soundtrack by James Horner was remastered and released for the first time very recently, including at least 8 mins of totally unheard music from the missing scenes. This was technically “lost” for nearly 40 years, when in reality it was just sitting around for decades until a random record-label happened to get their hands on it. It’s a frustrating thought, but odds are that mountains of “lost” material is actually just sitting in a vault somewhere gathering dust. As far as I know, not a single effort to plumb the Universal archives has ever taken place.
If this were a Disney film, it’d be a very different story. In fact, Disney just recently found the original unedited print of Muppets Christmas Carol after about 15 years of searching. Also, two betty boops considered totally lost for nearly 80 years showed up one after another in the last few years in great condition. Even older animated films that no-one really cares much about, like “Raggedy Ann and Andy”, have pencil tests and workprints that emerge over time. It’s impossible to make any claims about what is or isn’t “lost” before someone makes an active attempt to actually find something.
Spielberg and Lucas clearly don’t care much about The Land Before Time, and Bluth probably hasn’t dealt much with it since the 80’s, so the ball is really in Universal’s court. I’m guessing they haven’t made an effort to explore the archives since there’s no monetary incentive to do so. It was also a huge children’s franchise in the early 2000’s, so releasing a more intense, PG-rated directors cut would probably have been an actively stupid decision back then. But the franchise is effectively retired now, and a lot of the Don Bluth movies are long overdue for high quality 4K remasters. My question to you is how could one possibly go about influencing universal to dig into their archives and share whatever they find?”
Anyways, before I try to revive the search, I’m just going to debunk some rumors.
1: People always claim that they remember seeing a certain scene on their copy of the movie, and they usually claim to either not have it, the tape is damaged, or they haven’t seen it in a while. These are clearly rumors, as the deleted scenes have never been released publicly.
2: Adding onto the previous one, people also believed that the pre-release McDonalds VHS tape might have some cut scenes, but this was never confirmed, and according to the people who watched it, the tape has no additional footage.
3: The film was never meant to be rated PG, despite the comment I quoted above would imply. From the start, they always intended for the film to have a G rating.
4: Early on in the search, some fans speculated towards an alternate ending in which all the dinosaurs died, and the great valley was their version of heaven. This has been proven false multiple times, as no such ending was ever supposed to exist. However, there is an actual alternate ending, which you can read about on the wiki article.
Just so you all know, these are all the crew members we’ve already contacted so far: Gary Goldman, Mark Pudleiner (last contacted 7 years ago), and Stu Krieger. Don Bluth and both the films editors were confirmed to not have any of the scenes, so any surviving footage would likely either be in Spielberg’s private collection, or in the universal/amblin studios archives.
I may not be able to do much myself, since I will be busy with school and crap, but I really hope this gets found, as this search was what introduced me to lost media back in July 2020, and the scenes just sound interesting. Feel free to share any search that introduced you to lost media. Happy finding!
Edit: So far, still not many people are talking about this subject. While this thread does have 81 comments as of editing this, we still need to find more ways to drum up attention, like reaching out to other, smaller lost media youtubers and making our way to the big ones.
If you are reading this, have already signed up on this forum, and show interest in this subject, I encourage you to comment anything relating to this subject.
