The Land Before Time series began in 1988 with a movie by Don Bluth that was supported by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Designed with a lot of heart and beautiful, state-of-the-art animation, the movie created a fan base almost overnight. Littlefoot, Cera, Spike, Petrie, and Ducky became household names in any household that had children.

With the success of the first movie, it didn’t take the studio execs long to realize they’d struck gold. They quickly parlayed the movie into a series of direct-to-video releases and have been releasing almost one a year ever since.

The first movie related the adventures of the intrepid young dinosaurs as they tried to navigate through the coming Ice Age to safety. In addition to serious danger and action, the movie had a lot of humor and started building on a mythology and word usage that gets added to with nearly every new film.

Exploration generally plays a key point in every film, and in the thirteenth in the series, The Land Before Time: The Wisdom of Friends, our group of lovable dinosaurs is once more taking a road trip. The beginning of the movie starts out with Littlefoot, the most conscientious of the group, getting into danger by walking onto a tree over a yawning chasm to get “tree-stars” (leaves) to eat. He becomes trapped on the fallen tree and his grandmother has to rescue him, but she almost falls doing that. She talks to him about the “wisdoms” that he’s supposed to learn.

Later, when he joins his friends, Littlefoot finds them playing in a stream and apparently risking their lives. He tells them they shouldn’t be doing this. Then Cera stands up to show they’ve only been playing in shallow water. Littlefoot discusses the Wisdoms, and Cera responds that they’re called the “Say-sos” (You have to do what your parents tell you to do because they “say-so”). They break into song at that point.

Shortly after that, they encounter the Yellow Bellies, dinosaurs that reminded me of ostriches and dodos both. As the young dinosaurs watch the hilarious antics of the Yellow Bellies, they begin to realize that the Yellow Bellies really don’t know enough to take care of themselves. Littlefoot feels as though he has to look out for them and teach them the Wisdoms, as well as reunite them with their herd.

The Land Before Time: The Wisdom of Friends gets a little heavy-handed with the message it presents to its young viewers, but it’s not a bad message. The voice work of Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Sandra Oh add a lot to the film, and I could tell they were having a good time.

However, the danger aspect is a little raw in places. The repetition of the long fall over the chasm plays out again and again, though with different participants. And the action is sometimes a little too forced, even for a cartoon of this nature. Most young fans will be glad to get a new movie to add to their collections.

The DVD comes with a lot of extras. There’s a bonus episode of the television show based on the characters and concept, a Yellow Belly Challenge and feature, and several sing-along songs. This one’s out just in time for Christmas, folks, and it’s a great gift to give to kids who may be stuck in the car for those long trips to Grandma’s house!