Great Valley
From Land Before Time Wiki
The Great Valley is a sanctuary for the leaf-eating dinosaurs. It is where Littlefoot, his grandparents and his friends all live.
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[edit] Legend
The Great Valley is said to be the most beautiful and perfect place in all the dinosaur world. Littlefoot's reaching it was the goal of the first film and it has been his home and the home of his friends ever since. According to dinosaur legend, the Valley is said to have an unlimited supply of food and to be completely safe from predation. With how the first film closes with the narrator stating that Littlefoot's descendants would live in the Great Valley for generations "each passing on to the next the tale of their ancestors journey to the Valley, long ago," it can be assumed that the Great Valley dinosaurs would be safe and happy for centuries to come.
In the first film, the Land was said to be changing and the dinosaurs endured drought and famine, as well as increased predation. (The geologic and ecological upheavals are mentioned in later films such as the Great Earthshake. Another example is how Ali's herd's matriarch remembered that her home too suffered due to the Land changing--in her case, flooding.) The leaves upon which they fed dying, some herbivorous went westwards past the Great Rock that looks like a Longneck and past the mountains that burned in search of the Great Valley. It was a march of many dangers with sharpteeth stalking the herds; many, such as Littlefoot's Mother and perhaps Topsy's family did not survive. Even so the dinosaurs went on because it, according to legend, was "still lush and green. It was a journey towards life."
Littlefoot and his friends and their families found the Valley at the end of the first film and have lived there ever since. The Great Valley is shown to be surrounded by high walls that keep out nearly all predators and that watching over the Valley is a rock formation the looks like a longneck, Saurus Rock. It should not be confused with the Great Rock that looks like a Lonkneck that serves as a guide to the Valley. The Valley has waterfalls and wide system of freshwater. It also has a volcano and a few tarpits. For the most part it lives up to its legendary reputation with a plentiful supply of food for all the dinosaurs and lack of predators. Yet while, the Great Valley is far safer than the outside world, it has a surprising degree of incursions for a saurian Garden of Eden. Such things range from the rare Sharptooth attack (Part II), to drought and fire (Part III), diseased individuals (Part IV), Swarming Leaf Gobblers (locusts) eating all the food (Part V), outbreaks of bad luck (Part VI), scheming villains (Part VII), blizzards (VIII), and flooding (Part IX). Even so, the dinosaurs of the Great Valley do consider themselves fortunate to have a steady supply of food and almost no attacks by predators. Grandpa Longneck says in Part II, "The Valley is a wonderful place to grow up."
It is seen that many of the dinosaurs currently in the Great Valley belong to the combined herds led there by Grandpa Longneck. That raises the question of whether or not the Valley was empty when the combined herds reached it. This is suggested by how, in Part V, Grandpa Longneck spoke to the herds telling them that they'd all lived outside the Valley before. But this is seemingly contradicted in the very next film, Part VI, in which Grandpa Longneck is telling the children stories of how the first herds went to the Valley long ago. It should be noted that his wife, Grandma Longneck, promptly chides him for telling nonsense. While the dinosaurs in the Valley live there, they sometimes encounter visitors to the Valley who stay for a short while before moving on such as Ali's herd, Doc, or Tippy's herd. The fact that these visitors do not settle in the Great Valley suggests that the dying of the leaves has ended and that is shown in how films after the original The Land Before Time show plants outside of the Great Valley to be green and healthy.
With how it is said to be farthest west, it is not known what exists beyond the Great Valley. It is only known as the Mysterious Beyond and brief glimpses of it show it to be desolate and inhabited by Sharpteeth and Fast Biters, like Red Claw and his two minions Screech & Thud. It is unknown what factors prevent overpopulation in the Valley with its lack of predators; it is possible that Great Valley dinosaurs only have a few children.
The "Mountains that Burn" obviously refers to a volcanic mountain range. They appear in the first film, Part VII, Part IX, and Part X. Little is known about it's location, other than the fact that it is east of the Great Valley and you can see it from the Great Valley and somewhere at the "Big Water" (ocean). They are depicted as a dangerous and forbidden place, similar to the swamp filled with carcasses and skeletons, shown in Part II and Part III. When first shown in the original film, it was presented in the first film as being synonymous with Hell, complete with fire and brimstone, and bleached bones. There were tar pits and murdering dinosaurs scattered through it.
Although Sharpteeth are not allowed in the Great Valley, the herds have allowed Chomper and Ruby to live in the Secret Caverns, as they wish to learn how different dinosaurs can work together. This makes Chomper the only Sharptooth living in the Great Valley.
[edit] Combined Herds
The combined herds consist of the following:
- Sharpteeth:
- Tyrannosaurus: Chomper (The only sharptooth in the Great Valley)
- Tinysauruses:
- Mussaurus: Big Daddy, Lizzie, Skitter, Rocky & Dusty and Chatter
- Dinosaurs with unknown LBT names:
- Unknown species:
- Mammals
- Multituberculates: Skip
[edit] Visitors
- Longnecks:
- Spiketails:
- Stegosaurus: Spiketail Leader, Tippy, Tippy's Mother
- Flyers:
- Egg Stealers:
- Struthiomimus: Ozzy & Strut
[edit] Gallery
