Flying Rocks (Meteorites) near the Great Valley, cause a drought to threaten the inhabitants lives. The increasing lack of water causes conflict between the inhabitants. When the inter-species situation deteriorates, Littlefoot and the others set out to find water to keep the peace in the valley. They are pursued by a trio of teenage dinosaurs consisting of a Hypsilophodon named Hyp, a Muttaburrasaurus named Mutt, and a Nodosaurus named Nod, who inadvertently cause the adults to separate Littlefoot and his friends from each other after an incursion with the bullies makes Mr. Threehorn think Littlefoot is a bad influence. When Littlefoot and the others find a small lake, the bullies emerge and claim the waterhole for themselves, demanding Littlefoot and the others to keep silent about their discovery. Littlefoot and the others flee from the bullies. During the pursuit, the bullies are chased away by a wasp, and the children discover the reason behind the blockage of the water source.
Before they can return and tell the other inhabitants the truth, lightning hits a tree, and ignites a wildfire that spreads throughout the valley. The fire devastates the valley, destroying most of the green food. The dinosaurs barely make it to safety at the edge of Mysterious Beyond. When the children tell the adults of their discovery, disagreements about what to do erupts among the adults, preventing them from doing anything to utilize this knowledge. Hyp, Nod, and Mutt set out into Mysterious Beyond on their own to get to the water first. Anticipating the danger Hyp and his cohorts have gotten into and recognizing commonality with them, Littlefoot and the others follow to help if necessary. It becomes so when Hyp jumps into a tar pit after mistaking it for water. Littlefoot and his friends hatch a plan to haul Hyp out. Finally, Littlefoot and the others haul him out of the tar. Soon afterwards, the adults arrive. Hyp is harshly scolded by his grumpy father. Feeling sorry for Hyp, Mr. Threehorn advises Hyp's father to be nicer to his son. Afterwards, they all decide to work together to find the water.
Before they are able to take further steps, the herd is suddenly attacked by a pack of Velociraptors. The pursuit leads to a dam of boulders created by the rock slide that caused the drought. As the raptors and the adults battle, the children, including Hyp and his cronies, work together to break the dam. They all watch as the freed water washes away the raptors. The water also puts out the fires which are still burning in the valley. Finally, they manage to survive and land on the opposite bank. Now the herd is able to return to Great Valley. The herd returns to Great Valley, which now has enough water for them. However, when they return home, the fire has destroyed most of their green food. The now devastated plants in the valley are beyond repair from the fire. Despite being irreparable, the dinosaurs find the spots in Great Valley where lots of green food still grows. They proportionately move from one verdant area to another and share everything they find. This pattern results in the event being called the Time of the Great Giving.
In a brief Entertainment Weekly review, Michael Sauter criticized some modernisms in the dialogue but said that "Littlefoot and his friends still retain their youthful charm".[1] In August 2014, the New York Post ranked each of the 13 Land Before Time films released up to that point and placed The Time of the Great Giving at number 2, noting the "genuinely terrifying" velociraptors.[2] The film holds a 60% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average critic score of 5.4 out of 10.[3]
In his 2002 book Welcome to the Desert of the Real, Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek cited a song from this movie, "When You're Big", as an example of "hegemonic liberal multiculturalist ideology". Quoting the song's lyrics, Žižek wrote: "The same message is repeated again and again: we are all different — some of us are big, some are small; some know how to fight, others know how to flee — but we should learn to live with these differences, to perceive them as something which makes our lives richer". Žižek notes the inconsistency of this vision in the fact that the dinosaurs prey on each other, and have other irreconcilable differences: "The problem, of course, is: how far do we go? It takes all sorts - does that mean nice and brutal, poor and rich, victims and torturers? The reference to the dinosaur kingdom is especially ambiguous here, with its brutal character of animal species devouring each other - is this also one of the things that 'need to be done to make our life fun'? The very inner inconsistency of this vision of the prelapsarian 'land before time' thus bears witness to how the message of collaboration-in-differences is ideology at its purest".[4]
