Christian – Littlefoot’s Mother (The Land Before Time)
I don’t remember a lot from when I was a child, but the very first memory I have is clearly ingrained in my mind: I was watching The Land Before Time in my basement, and after it was over, I ran upstairs and projectile vomited all over my kitchen. That’s not a joke, that seriously happened. I’ve always wondered why it had to be that classic movie that conjured this reaction out of me, and I finally figured out why: because it’s the saddest movie ever made for children.
Littlefoot is a “long-neck” dinosaur that is attacked by a T-Rex when playing with a “three-horn” away from his herd. Just before the big baddie can finish them off, Littlefoot’s mother storms in to fight off the T-Rex. She suffers a ton of bites and scratches, and before she can die in front of her child, an earthquake hits out of nowhere and throws her down a hole, because kids need to learn that they’ll lose everything at a young age.
If that wasn’t enough, Littlefoot actually finds her on her deathbed, where she manages to croak out that he needs to travel to the Great Valley on his own, with the T-Rex still at large. This is about the same of telling your only child to walk from wherever you are to Wisconsin as you die (we don’t have readers in Wisconsin, do we?).
Forget the fact that Littlefoot eventually finds a ton of friends, makes the trip and even kills the T-Rex on the way. Forget all that crap, because when you’re five years old, all that matters is that his mom is dead. Done. Gone forever and never coming back. Sure, her ghost leads the way now and then, but isn’t that even more tragic that her son imagines her ghost telling him where to travel?
When you’re a kid that fits into this movie’s demographic, seeing a mother die has the same effect as having a T-Rex come out of the screen and eat your own mother while staring you in the eyes. It’s just plain tragic. As a kid, I barely watched the movie after that first time I threw up because I was so scared to watch this child see his mother get mauled right in front of him.
Not to say that this isn’t a fantastic film, I absolutely love it and still tear up every time I watch it (shut up, you’re just heartless). But to find a death on par with the death of Bambi’s mother (spoiler alert!) in another children’s movie means that Hollywood is just heartless. Let the children weep, they’ll see the twelve sequels we put out straight to DVD! By the way, that’s not an exaggeration. Look it up. Twelve sequels, and a TV show. Suck it, Saw!
I’m sure there have been sadder deaths in movies before (Gooooooooooooose!), but none have made me vomit all over my house because of how sad they are. Or, you know, maybe I had a flu. Whatever, the point is, The Land Before Time is Les Miserables with dinosaurs, and I’ve lost more childhood innocence over that movie than those kids in Mystic River did.