Discuss: The brave longneck sheme

[Sleeping-force's-inside]

I'm reviving all these dead topics here xD

Anyway, the way I figured that chase was developing was that the Longneck-herd was trying to have Chomper run to his parents, so that they'd be able to take both the child out and the adults they assumed would be in the Valley with him. Bam, problem solved! You can go home and tell the other dinosaurs you solved their Sharptooth-problem without having to worry them.

Or I am overthinking everything and giving them way too much credit, of course  

[Petrie85]

I know Ali was horrible in the episode yes. And the whole build up to me was kinda pointless since they never did tell us where they did go or went. I thought the episode was poorly made and boring. They could have at least  told us where they where going instead not tell us.

[Ducky123]

This is a very interesting episode to say the least. Let's begin with the things that I did NOT like: Well, first of all, who is that purple girl? Whoever she is, she is NOT the Ali we got to know in Journey to the Mists. This is actually the only thing that really bugs me... Ali behaves very different... and looks like a completely different dinosaur...
Now I'm talking about the things I DID like: Well, I have to admit that this episode, plotwise, might be the best or at least among the top five. There are various things that I do like in regard of the plot. First and foremost, the long-awaited return of Ali sounds very promising and it doesn't fail my expectations, regardless of the points I mentioned above. The idea behind Ali's unfamiliar behavior is actually good, albeit done poorly. A new friend shows up, causing jealousy among her old friends. Sounds good to me. Having Rhett (wonder where they picked up that name) as the braggart and the one who shows off, adds some tension and enables the whole "Chomper attacking scene". So, in a nutshell, I really dislike Ali's behavior but I do like the idea behind it. Now the actual idea of plotting against Rhett and using Chomper to show Ali how brave her little friend actually is, is probably what I enjoy most whenever I watch this one (it is, by far, the episode I watched most). The stampede of Ali's herd at the end adds a nice moral to the story in my opinion. One that many children nowadays aren't aware of *sigh* Last but not least, I also have to point out that this episode may have the best songs... the song where Cera and Littlefoot are introducing their plotting has a nice melody and fairly good lyrics and the Tv-series version of "Friends for Dinner" might be better than the one from LBT 5 because I somewhat dislike some voices in that one (Littlefoot's in particular, Dekker sung really in that one while he improved highly in later sequels)

So yeah, might be my favourite episode. Still got to watch about 10 of them.

[LittlefootAndAliTogether]

One thing which I think we woefully lack in this discussion is the knowledge on how and why Chomper was accepted in the Great Valley in the first place. The dinosaurs of the Great Valley may (perhaps) be more tolerant than moving herds, but I don't see Cera's father happily accepting the idea of his daughter befriending a sharptooth, nor do I think that all the parents with young hatchlings would be glad about the perspective of having a young sharptooth around.
As for the others being not there right away to speak up for Chomper (they did turn up before long though) I think that it took them a moment to catch up with the chase. Seeing that there was only one small sharptooth at the moment the Old One may have planned to interrogate that one about the possible presence of other sharpteeth before alerting the rest of the Great Valley (which would also explain why they didn't trample Chomper down right away)... but no, there is a logic failure in that thought because the Old one did not expect Chomper to be able to speak leafeater language.

Who knows about Topps?  Perhaps Cera got hurt from that bite in film II and he found out about it.  If so, we can't exactly fault him for being wary.  I mean, it could happen again, or worse, even if it wasn't intended.

[Littlefoot fan 1990]

This episode was fairly good in my opinion; here is a list of pros and cons I have about this episode.

Pros: Ali's return since Journey Through The Mists; that's about it.

Cons: Ali's personality has changed; my first impression of her in this episode is 'who is this girl?', Rhett's show-off attitude and being a liar, The fact that Ali believed Rhett's lies and it took almost the whole episode for her to realize that Rhett is a liar.

That is all I have to offer for this episode; Ali's reappearance was disappointing; in my opinion.

[Kor]

While it was great to see Ali at the start, overall I do classify it as one of the lesser episodes of the tv series.

[LittlefootAndAliTogether]

What makes me think Chomper is going to turn out all right or that he must be so is that he never seemed to have gotten it into his head to attack the Longnecks, even when they were about to stomp him.  

I mean, I don't think the Great Valley residents could fault him too much if he started trying to snap at the Longnecks who were trying to kill him.  

Yes, he pleaded, but that in itself is telling in that he tried reason rather than fight back with tooth and claw.  

(The fact that he didn't try to attack back seems to show that he might rather die, at least at this point in his life, than attack a Leaf Eater.)  

[DarkHououmon]

Chomper wouldn't have been able to attack the leaf-eateres even if he tried. He's too small to do much damage. Also, this doesn't mean that he won't end up eating leaf-eaters in the future. Any smart predator would not attack something much bigger than it (unless it was in a pack or had some kind of secret weapon, both of which Chomper did not have). If Chomper were, say, an adolescent, he may be more inclined to attack, especially if it means defending himself.

[StardustSoldier]

Here I am with yet another review of "The Brave Longneck Scheme". But I never actually posted in this episode discussion thread before (previously it was in the Ali and Rhett Showcase threads), so here we are now.

I am intrigued by the opening scene. We see Littlefoot and Cera by themselves, with Cera leading them to a "shortcut." But beyond that, we never find out where exactly they're going, or why. The writers probably didn't intend for it to be anything significant, but it did make me wonder what they were up to all the same.

I also love this shot of Cera riding atop Littlefoot as they're sliding down the hill. It's probably the shipper in me, but they just look cute together like that.



And this shot is just funny.



After the first encounter with Ali and Rhett, and then Littlefoot and Cera storm off, it's refreshing to see the normally gentle and soft-spoken Littlefoot get angry for once. Also, Ruby's line, "Well the longer you're mad, the less you're happy," is both a captain obvious statement and yet insightful at the same time.

When Ali meets Chomper and questions the Gang on why they're friends with a Sharptooth, Ducky mentions that he and Ruby live in the Secret Caverns. And then Chomper says, "It's kind of a long story," but leaves it at that. Ugh! What a tease. I really wanted to know more about this long story.

The first song, "We Need a Plan", was kinda lame (I had to look up the title on the LBT wiki because I didn't even know what it was called, lol). But I did enjoy the "Friends for Dinner" reprise. Ironic as I've complained in the past about that being my least favourite of the songs in LBT 5. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The chase near the end is also a lot of fun. Good action scene.

and the first meeting of Ali and Chomper, which Imo deserved its own episode or pair oof episodes, was brushed off in a few seconds.

Interesting viewpoint, and in fact I agree. It ties into my earlier sentiment that this episode should've been a 2-parter or more.

Though the one from the 5th movie had funny moments, especially when one of Chomper's parents sees him gathering plants and says "Sometimes I worry about that boy."

At first I read that as "gathering implants."

I wish they made another LBT movie with romance with Ali and Littlefoot.

I would enjoy seeing that as well.

Having Rhett (wonder where they picked up that name)

That is a weird name when you think about it.

I still feel that Rhett got off a bit too lightly at the end. Also, why was Ali so nonchalant when she found out that he'd been making everything up? It annoyed me that she wasn't annoyed.

That said, despite my complaints with this episode, it has a strong plot, it manages to be consistently entertaining, and it shows the Gang as a cohesive group. Like many others, I do feel that they could've handled Ali's character better here. But on the other hand, it was still nice just to see her again at all.

[Hammy]

Funny thing, I've never really liked Ali all that much. I mean, I don't hate her, but I've never had any strong opinions on her at all. She's there for a movie (a movie I'm also lukewarm on), then she's gone, now she's back. Aight. I'm not terribly annoyed by her believing Rhett's bullcrap. Having personally been a rather gullible child, I find it understandable enough. Rhett is annoying, but eh, again, not much for strong feelings.

Chomper in this episode, however, is precious and I really enjoy him. I mean look at him. Again, I keep being surprised by the amount of expression that the animators put in when they don't have to. In this gif in particular, you can see Chomper taking in his friends' reactions to Cera's nonsense and deciding that it's socially acceptable to laugh as well. I find the movement especially interesting because of how much it stretches the model, maybe a little too much.

https://imgur.com/uJMKLkq

Also, this is a show aimed at a preschool age demographic, and, effectively, the youngest, most vulnerable kid in the group is very nearly straight up killed by a group of what you would think would be trustworthy adults. Now, I know, in context, it's a predator-prey dynamic, but man, that could end up being taken as pretty dark. As a five year old, imagining that a group of adults who don't understand the full situation could turn on you. To think that they were going to kill Chomper despite his pleas until the other kids showed up to explain. Poor Chomper is just a kid, the youngest of his friends, and is pretty much a victim of circumstance here. I dunno, I'm probably reading too much into this, but most of the peril so far has been environmental, lava, predatory animals, falling rocks and earthquakes, rather than what is effectively a group of people who we would intrinsically trust in the context of this world.

In nature, prey species will kill the young of their predators if given the chance, so the whole situation isn't unexpected, but man, what does it say about leaf-eater herds if we assume that they're given to killing sharptooth offspring? I mean, at once, I don't blame them, and I could totally see it in the harsh world of the original film. The sequels however? Where there's a lot more of a society with at least some consideration of ethics and learning to treat others with compassion? Might make the whole idea even more messed up.

[chomper94]

That episode in which I went in thinking it was going to be bad after the previous amount of episodes I watched, but somehow was actually good…

This is my favorite episode of all-time in terms of the TV series, it may have bad songs (with the exception of a reprise to Friends for Dinner), but having a good one-off character (Rhett ), having actually funny parts (funniest part had to be when they rehearsed the plan), and especially, the scene that made me like this episode, the chase scene with Chomper, that single scene made me love this episode.

TLBT franchise may have content that you probably won’t like, but it’s always nice to discover hidden gems in which are actually good!