The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire

The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire is the seventh film in the Land Before Time series. It was released in December 5, 2000.

Plot
One night, Littlefoot sees a "flying rock" (more likely a comet) falling from the sky and colliding with a mountain in the Smoking Mountain range. The flying rock's appearance differs very much from any Littlefoot has seen so far, in that it is blue rather than yellow and flies extremely low and almost parallel to the ground.

When Littlefoot tells everyone about what he has seen the next morning, most of the full-grown dinosaurs in the Great Valley, none of whom saw the flying rock, disbelieve Littlefoot's story, suggesting it was possibly a regular flying rock that appeared different because Littlefoot was tired at the time. However, two newcomers, referred to as Rainbow Faces, begin to speak eloquently of a "Stone of Cold Fire" an artifact of mystical origin, believed to be either an artifact of magical power, an omen of great changes, or something similar, and other wonders that might become known if the dinosaurs free themselves from limits and think "beyond the Mysterious Beyond". Littlefoot embraces it all, his imagination set to blazing, while most of the older dinosaurs remain skeptical, as well as suspicious of the Rainbow Faces. Grandpa Longneck, however, admits to Littlefoot that while he may not believe in such a thing as a Stone of Cold Fire, he certainly is interested in the idea, and willing to talk about it.

Unknown to anyone at first, Petrie's uncle Pterano has also heard. Being a highly ambitious and deceitful character, he makes plans to take possession of the stone and its supposed powers. Pterano and his two cronies, Rinkus and Sierra, confront Littlefoot and offer to help searching for the stone to prove its existence. Littlefoot refuses to search for the stone, feeling reluctance to trust Pterano. Nor, in fact, does any adult trust Pterano, who once was expelled from the Herd on a charge of neglection and irresponsibility as the herd leader. However, exactly what caused Pterano's expulsion is left vague for now. Following that, Pterano asks Petrie, who idolizes him, to get the information about the place where the meteor landed from Littlefoot. Petrie, feigning curiosity, learns from Littlefoot that the place isThreehorn Peak, a volcano whose top bears a distinct resemblance to the head of a Triceratops. The gang asks why and Petrie tries to lie his way out, but seeing that he is terrible at lying, Cera immediately sees that Pterano wanted the information and that Petrie was used. Littlefoot shares his distrust towards Pterano, much to the fury of Petrie. Later that night, Ducky can't go to sleep due to the guilt of hurting Petrie's feelings that day and decides to go to comfort Petrie, but finds that Pterano, Sierra, and Rinkus are plotting something. Before she can tell anyone about the plot, Ducky is caught by Sierra, whereupon she is abducted by Pterano. Pterano then sets out for Threehorn Peak, along with Rinkus and Sierra, to find the Stone of Cold Fire.

In the aftermath of this, the full-grown dinosaurs tell the young dinosaurs the original reason for Pterano's expulsion. Having always considered himself higher in rank and abilities than all other dinosaurs in the herd, Pterano convinced a group of dinosaurs to follow his leadership on the way to the Great Valley, rather than go along with Grandpa Longneck and the others. Careless and over-confident, he led them right into an ambush of Sharpteeth (Deinonychus) who attacked his group. Being able to escape by flying away, Pterano was the only survivor of the group, while the rest put up a good fight, but soon turned into a massacre, with not a single leaf-eater surviving. He was expelled from the herd as a punishment for abandoning his followers. However, it is later implied that while Pterano insisted that the massacre was not his fault, he was still scarred by the incident. Littlefoot is told by Petrie's mother to give the location of the Stone of Cold Fire, knowing that Pterano will be traveling there. However, the grownups take so long to decide what must be done about Pterano and the rescue of Ducky that Littlefoot and the others set out by themselves to save their friend.

After crossing a huge canyon by way of walking across some massive vines (Spike sees a flower growing out of the vine and eats it, thus they fall and swing into a cave), they manage to find Ducky, who had fallen into the cave while trying to escape the flyers. Ducky comforts Petrie, who is very distraught about his uncle's actions, stating that Pterano is the least wicked of the three Flyers (Pterano is the only one of the three who appears distraught when Ducky falls, believing her to be dead), and that the potential for goodness still lives in him. Littlefoot and the others continue to pursue the Flyers, hoping to reach the Stone of Cold Fire before them. As they travel through the mountains, they reach a highly volcanic point, where they encounter the Rainbow Faces, after they catch the male Rainbow Face leaving them leaves to eat. After a brief argument, the Rainbow Faces agree (recultantly, in the female's case) to help Littlefoot and his friends.

Through their help, they find that the Rainbow Faces appear to have more than saurian knowledge of volcanism. Discovering a shaft that leads to an underground river, they help the young dinosaurs to construct a sort of steam-powered elevator, pushing a slab of rock into the shaft, which causes the steam from the underground river, heated by the volcano's geothermal energy, to build up underneath it, and eventually shoot the slab up the shaft, with the dinosaurs riding on the top. This remarkably fast travel allows them to reach the top of Threehorn Peak (which they were underneath all this time), and find the stone, shortly before Pterano's gangs does.

When they arrive, Pterano takes control of the stone from the youngsters, and attempts to unlock its secret. However, it gives no reaction, and in fact, it appears to be an ordinary meteor, except for its metallic composition and blue colour. Lamenting over this realization, Pterano states that he had meant to create a paradise with the power of the stone, not realizing that this paradise already exists in the form of the Great Valley. Rinkus and Sierra also take this as the perfect opportunity to mutiny against Pterano, and try unlocking the Stone's power themselves. There is not much time for lamenting, however, as the volcano is beginning to erupt.

Just in the nick of time, Petrie's mother arrives with an enormous Quetzalcoatlus, to evacuate the young dinosaurs from the erupting volcano. During this process, Pterano spots Ducky clinging to the edge of a cliff for dear life, and has a brief and sudden flashback to the Sharptooth attack that got him exiled from the herd year ago when he saw another Swimmer (Parasaurolophus) clinging to a cliff's edge before falling to its death. This flashback stirs him into action, not wanting to revisit the past, and he quickly rescues Ducky. As Rinkus and Sierra attempt to force the stone to reveal its power, the stone explodes, sending them flying into a rock ledge burnt and bruised. For his wrongdoings, Pterano is banished from the Great Valley into the Mysterious Beyond, though his saving of Ducky is held in his favor. Therefore, his banishment is limited to five winters.

As night falls, Littlefoot finds the Rainbow Faces and asks them when they are leaving. A meteor flies overhead, and the female comments, "Any time now". Littlefoot, somewhat unnerved, puts the question to her and to her male companion: "There was never any such thing as the Stone of Cold Fire, was there?" The male Rainbow Face confirms this, adding that Littlefoot has an intellect remarkable for one of his species— quickly correcting this, when prompted by the female, to his age. The Rainbow Faces go on to reiterate their claim that there are many unknowns to be discovered "Beyond the Mysterious Beyond". Before Littlefoot can react, the male Rainbow Face suddenly remarks on something apparently behind Littlefoot, who looks round to see. When he looks back, the Rainbow Faces have gone. In their place is a crystalline pillar of light, which shimmers briefly and vanishes. As it goes, a meteor streaking across the sky suddenly changes its course, flying upward and off into the night. Behind Littlefoot, Cera, Spike, Ducky, and Petrie all come up and asks what he is doing. Littlefoot states the very same quote given to him by the Rainbow Faces, "Well, that would be telling now, wouldn't it?" Littlefoot, inspired by the Rainbow Faces, reflects that there are many unknowns, adding that such unknowns make life wonderful. His friends do not understand, but the statement is unharmed.

Cast

 * Jeff Bennett as Petrie/Spiketail
 * Anndi McAfee as Cera
 * Michael York as Pterano
 * Thomas Dekker as Littlefoot
 * Rob Paulsen as Spike/Rinkus
 * Jim Cummings as Sierra
 * Kenneth Mars as Grandpa Longneck
 * Miriam Flynn as Grandma Longneck
 * Aria Noelle Curzon as Ducky
 * Patti Deutsch as Rainbow Face #2
 * John Ingle as Cera's Dad
 * Charles Kimbrough as Rainbow Face #1
 * Tress MacNeille as Mama Swimmer/Mama Flyer
 * Frank Welker as Deinonychuses

Songs
The songs are written by Michele Brourman and Amanda McBroom.
 * Beyond the Mysterious Beyond
 * Good Inside
 * Very Important Creature

Soundtrack

 * The music that plays while Ducky looks for Petrie and gets kidnapped by Pterano, Rinkus, and Sierra, is called Kidnappers, it is by Michael Tavera.

Trivia

 * This was the first in the series to use digital ink and paint and computer techniques for the animation rather than transferring the characters to cels (I-VI).
 * The original title for the movie could have been "The Search for the Stone of Cold Fire" as the narrator calls it in this trailer.
 * This was the first sequel in the series to be released on DVD.
 * This is the second film not to have a narrator.
 * This was the third time Spike sings; he mutters Good Inside.
 * The music that plays in the background when the gang is chasing the male Rainbow Face is instrumental music from An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster and Jay Jay The Jet Plane.
 * There is a scene when Littlefoot, Cera, Petrie, and Spike are crossing a canyon on vines, and Cera complains that every time they do this she is always at the back of the line. However, Spike is almost always the one at the back of the line, not counting Petrie, who flies across, with one exception in The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock, when they are quickly crossing a log while being chased by a Sharptooth. However, during this scene Cera is the first to cross and Littlefoot is the last.
 * Aside from the Pterano flashback, no sharpteeth appear in this film.
 * This is the first film in which Petrie cries, although he may have cried in the original, however, his face is turned away from the camera in that movie. In this film, he cries four times.
 * First film in which Spike cries; there are tears visible in his eyes during the scene where he draws in the dirt
 * Rainbow Faces also appear in The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration running along with an Ouranosaurus and a Styracosaurus.
 * This is the first, and so far, only film with leaf eater villains who are truly bad. (Hyp, Nod, and Mutt later reformed as did Pterano in this movie though Rinkus and Sierra, if they survived, are still evil. Strut is technically an Egg Stealer, even if he does eat plants for whatever odd reason.)
 * Both Jay Jay The Jet Plane and The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire were released in 1999.
 * It is heavily implied that the two Rainbow Faces are extraterrestrial beings that took on dinosaur form to educate those in the Great Valley. Their vast knowledge of the outside world, manner of speech, and the male Rainbow Face's occassional close calls of revealing too much information indicate this.

Goofs

 * When Grandma Longneck states "Littlefoot is right. I'm sorry if this will be painful for you." she has Grandpa Longneck's coloration.
 * When Rinkus and Sierra are blown away by the Stone of Cold Fire's explosion, and they land in the cave in the mountain, when we see a closeup of them, Rinkus and Sierra's positions have been switched around.
 * In the flashback sequence detailing why Pterano is met with scorn by the adults of the Great Valley, Grandpa Longneck explains that after the Great Earthshake, the adults communed and traveled together as a group, with no one's opinion outweighing the other. This contradicts with much of the "racism" expressed in the first Land Before Time film, in which many of the herds kept to their own kind.

Character Debuts

 * One-off characters:
 * The Far-walkers
 * Rainbow Faces
 * Pterano (although mentioned occasionally later on in the TV Series)
 * Rinkus
 * Sierra
 * Species debuts:
 * Gallimimus?
 * Cearadactylus
 * Styracosaurus
 * Deinonychus
 * Kentrosaurus
 * Archaeopteryx (In films)
 * Ouranosaurus
 * Rhamphorhynchus
 * Camarasaurus
 * Kritosaurus (During the song Beyond the Mysterious Beyond)