When locusts consume all the plant life in the Great Valley, the herds leave to find more food, but Littlefoot and his friends get stuck on a strange island populated by Sharpteeth... including their old friend Chomper!
Provides examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The first film in the series to do this. The opening moments of the movie have CGI asteroids zoom past the camera before showing a CGI Earth and sun.
- Accidental Tickle Torture: While the main cast is chasing down a Treestar, Duckie tries crawling over Cera to try and reach it first. Cera starts giggling and lampshades this trope.
- Adults Are Useless: Zigzagged. The grown-ups quickly start bickering about which way to go for food, causing the kids to sneak away to force the herds to stay together. However the adults do manage to find a place to stay while the Great Valley recovers from the Swarming Leaf-Gobblers, and Grandpa Longneck gets Elsie to find and rescue the children. Also, Chomper's parents save the kids from the Plated Sharptooth.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: As a sign of affection (and probably since Sharpteeth's arms aren't long enough to pat heads with), Chomper's mother rubs her face against Chomper. She later does this to Littlefoot to show she likes him and won't eat him.
- Ambiguous Syntax: The song "Friends For Dinner" revolves around this. Chomper wants to have his friends over for dinner, but the gang thinks he's going to have them FOR dinner, as in they are the dinner.
- Award-Bait Song: The gentle and plaintive "Always There".
- Behemoth Battle: T-Rexes vs Giganotosaurus.
- Big Damn Heroes: Right when the Plated Sharptooth corners the kids, Chomper's parents arrive to fight him off. Elsie also rescues Littlefoot and Chomper from drowning.
- Big Shadow, Little Creature: When Chomper first appears, his shadow scares the group before they realize who it is.
- Bittersweet Ending: Littlefoot and his friends get safely back home, but Chomper is once again separated from them, and it's brought up that him being a Sharptooth simply makes him too different for a friendship with the others to ever really work. (The TV series drops this issue.)
- Brick Joke: Chomper hides his friends among some stinky flowers to keep his parents from finding them. When his parents meet Littlefoot and the others a good deal later, Papa Sharptooth comments they smell terrible.
- Closed Circle: The tsunami destroying the land bridge to the Mysterious Island forces the children to stay and deal with whatever dangers they find there, with no hope of rescue from the adults.
- Conflict Killer: The second half sets up a dilemma: Cera doesn't trust Chomper because he's a Sharptooth, and Chomper's parents will most likely eat the kids if they find them. Cue the Plated Sharptooth. Chomper and Cera prove themselves by saving each other from him, and when Littlefoot dives into the ocean to rescue Chomper from the Plated Sharptooth knocking him in, he wins the respect of Chomper's parents, who decide not to eat the kids.
- Continuity Nod: Contains the most of any film up to this point, referring to Littlefoot's dead mother from the first film as well as bringing back Chomper and his parents from the second. It's also one of the few sequel films to acknowledge the dinosaurs once lived outside the Great Valley.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Plated Sharptooth manages to be more than a match for Chomper's parents in their fight. He is only defeated when Papa Sharptooth uses a strong tail whip to send him falling over the cliff.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Chomper's parents are gigantic carnivores, but it's shown they are perfectly sentient, reasonable people when it comes down to it. Ironically the more brightly colored Plated Sharptooth is the nasty one.
- Darker and Edgier: Possibly the darkest film in the series since the original. A swarm of creepy insects leaves the Great Valley a desolate waste and puts the dinosaurs at very real risk of starving; a dead Hadrosaur is seen probably dead from thirst; there are frightening encounters with both tsunamis and sharks; and the main Sharptooth villain is much more dangerous and no-nonsense than those in the previous three films. Oh, and did we mention it's the first entry in the series to show blood?
- Deus ex Machina: Littlefoot and Chomper have fallen into the ocean and the cliff is too steep for them to climb up, and there's no way for the rest of the children to get home. Not to worry! Elsie appears from nowhere to save Littlefoot and Chomper and provide the children a ride home.
- Diabolus ex Machina: At the start, a massive horde of locusts suddenly appears in the Great Valley and devours all the plants, thus kicking off the plot since the Dinosaurs are now forced to abandon their home and seek refuge elsewhere. These locusts come without any foreshadowing, and once they have ravaged the valley they simply disappear, never to be seen or mentioned again.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: The Swarming Leaf-Gobblers appear from nowhere, do their thing, and leave, setting the plot in motion.
- Eat the Camera: At the beginning of the movie, a Sharptooth (that is or at least looks like Chomper's mother) swallows the camera.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: More than any other film besides the first, the children are thrown from one problem to the next with hardly any break. Justified because, just like the first film, they spend the majority of the story outside the safety of the Great Valley.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: The Plated Sharptooth claws Papa Sharpooth across the face, and then delivers an even nastier wound to Mama Sharptooth's leg.
- The Famine: Everyone is forced to leave the Great Valley after "swarming leaf-gobblers" devoured all the edible plant matter there.
- Giant Wall of Watery Doom: While the characters cross the land bridge to the Mysterious Island, an earthshake happens and creates a tsunami. Its size changes from shot to shot, seeming dozens of feet tall from some angles and not much taller than the kids in others.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Weirdly zigzagged during the fight between Chomper's parents and the Plated Sharptooth. The camera hides Chomper's father biting the Plated Sharptooth, but has no problem showing the Plated Sharptooth clawing and kicking Chomper's parents with visible blood right after.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: Cera gets stuck halfway in a log when trying to hide from swarming leaf gobblers in the beginning.
- Hollywood Healing: Both Papa and Mama Sharptooth's wounds from the Plated Sharptooth heal a shot or two after they get them.
- Hope Spot: Littlefoot and the others use a log as a makeshift boat to get off the island, which almost works, until the swimming sharptooth shows up. As they are chased by the swimming sharptooth, in panic and confusion they end up circling back to the island.
- Instantly Proven Wrong:
- Ducky mocks the Plated Sharptooth after the log bridge across the canyon falls, saying it can't get across to eat them. The Sharptooth then easily jumps the gap.
- Later in the same chase, the kids hide under a rock. Littlefoot says, "I don't think he can reach us." The Plated Sharptooth then lifts the rock up with his snout so he can get at them.
- Interspecies Romance: Downplayed and one-sided. Elsie is "right taken" with Grandpa Longneck, who she thinks is distinguished and good-looking. She says that "if only he had flippers, we'd make quite a pair, swimming about in the sea."
- Invited as Dinner: The main characters are invited to dinner by their friend Chomper, a Sharptooth. Chomper actually did mean the invitation to be a friendly get-together, but the main cast is understandably a little freaked out. A song ensues:
- Jump Scare: Chomper's mother surprises Littlefoot from behind with a roar while he's talking with Chomper. It's particularly effective since there's no telegraphing or buildup to it, either: Littlefoot and Chomper are mid-conversation and then BAM, surprise Sharptooth.
- Kissing the Ground: Cera kisses the ground after she and her friends got off the island by Elsie.
- Large Ham: Grandpa Longneck's reaction to the "cloud" heading toward the Valley."Swarming Leaf-Gobblers!"
- Mocking Sing-Song: Ducky teases a Sharptooth (read: Giganotosaurus) this way (before that, Cera shook her tail at it):Ducky: The log is gooooone! / You cannot get acroooooss!
- Followed by Petrie adding "Me think you a stinker!" And then it somehow jumps all the way across the chasm. And they have to start running again.
- Mook Chivalry: Mama and Papa Sharptooth fight the Plated Sharptooth one at a time instead of double-teaming him. This lets him get the better of both initially, though Papa takes him out on his second try.
- Music for Courage: After being stranded on an island, the main cast sings 'Always There', a song about their families, for comfort.
- Never My Fault: When the adults are looking for Littlefoot and co., Mr. Threehorn is quick to blame Grandpa Longneck and his grandson, even though it was really his decision to split them up that made the children run away in the first place.
- No-Sell: The Plated Sharptooth is unaffected by the bad-smelling flowers intended to keep Sharpteeth away.
- Pet the Dog: Done by Chomper's parents. When they realize Chomper sees Littlefoot and the others as friends and not food, they accept their son's choice.
- Random Events Plot: While many previous films had a clear overarching objective (such as finding the Great Valley, getting the water to come back, or saving Grandpa Longneck), the initial conflict of the story here (finding food) gets solved within the first half hour and kind of goes from there as threats keep popping up. By the time all's said and done the heroes encounter deserts, tsunamis, sharks, Chomper, strange Sharpteeth, and finally an Elasmosaurus. Not that this is all necessarily a bad thing.
- Red Sky, Take Warning: When the earthshake begins while the kids are on the land bridge, the skies go from blue to red. Once the kids escape the resulting tsunami and are safe on the island, the skies go back to blue again.
- Ring Out: The Plated Sharptooth gets beaten by knocking him into the ocean. He's got plenty of fight left in him, but Littlefoot and Chomper escape him by staying in the "still water" while the current drags him off to sea.
- Say My Name: Mr. Threehorn gets an epic one when he wakes up and finds Cera gone.
- Scared of What's Behind You: When Littlefoot comes back from being with Chomper, he tells his friends they better not have eaten his last Treestar. His friends quiver in fear because the Plated Sharptooth is coming up behind him, though of course Littlefoot takes a while to catch on.
- Scary Shadow Fakeout: While staying the night on the island, the kids mistake the shadow of a palm tree and the silhouette of a rock for Sharpteeth.
- Scylla and Charybdis: The Plated Sharptooth corners the kids against a cliff. Jumping into the ocean to escape him gets complicated when they spot the Swimming Sharptooth in the water. The kids silently decide they're better off taking their chances with the Plated Sharptooth on land. The "Swimming Sharptooth" is actually Elsie, so they would've been fine had they jumped.
- Sequel Escalation: This film features the largest number of nasties menacing the heroes of any entry in the series up to this point, with three adult Sharpteeth (including one that's even badder than your typical Sharptooth), a shark, a carnivorous pterosaur, and a horde of prehistoric locusts.
- Shaking the Rump: Cera shakes her tail at a sharptooth after the log connecting both sides of the chasm falls... until it jumps over the gap.
- Shark Fin of Doom: Played straight with the Swimming Sharptooth. Subverted with Elsie.
- Signature Roar: Chomper's parents now use stock roars that sound very different from their first appearance (probably to make them less monster-like), while the Plated Sharptooth uses Frank Welker vocalizations (as well as a modified Howie Scream at one point.) It's even brought up in-story, since Chomper can recognize which roars are his parents and which aren't.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The Swarming Leaf-Gobblers have less than two minutes of screentime but kick off perhaps the single most desperate situation of the series outside the original film.
- So Last Season: Chomper's parents, the main threat of the second film, are initially outmatched by the Plated Sharptooth.
- Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Chomper goes from a baby who couldn't talk to someone who seems only a little younger than Littlefoot and the others.
- Spoiler Cover: The movie doesn't mention Chomper or the second movie at all during the first half. You'd have no reason to expect him to show up with zero foreshadowing about halfway through if the film's cover didn't tell you so.
- Stealthy Colossus: Chomper's mother makes a lot of noise when the kids first see her, but later sneaks up behind Littlefoot for a Jump Scare. (Unplanned Truth in Television, as paleontologists now suspect T. Rexes were ambush predators.)
- Suddenly Voiced: Both Chomper and (through subtitles) his parents. Justified with Chomper, as he's grown up somewhat since his debut film and would have learned to speak in the intervening time.
- The Swarm: The Swarming Leaf-Gobblers.
- Tactful Translation: Chomper, acting as interpreter for his parents, decides not to translate his dad's "Anything that smells like that couldn't taste very good anyway."
- Taking You with Me: Like the original Sharptooth before him, the Plated Sharptooth tries to get one last bite in before the water claims him. Thanks to Littlefoot, Chomper avoids it.
- Tempting Fate:
- Grandpa Longneck assures the children there is more than enough food to go around for all of them. Cue swarm of locusts.
- Chomper says it's a good thing there are no other Sharpteeth besides his parents on the island.
- Inverted, positive example with Mr. Threehorn at the end of the movie:
Mr. Threehorn: What do you expect [the kids] to do? Rise up out of the ocean?Grandpa Longneck: [spotting them] That's exactly what they're going to do! - Terror-dactyl: Ducky at one point is kidnapped by a large predatory pterosaur vaguely resembling a Cearadactylus. Bonus points in that it even takes her to its nest and tries to feed her to its hatchlings.
- Threatening Shark: The Swimming Sharptooth is a shark that stalks the island waters for Littlefoot, Chomper and his friends, hoping to devour them.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Chomper's parents are presented not as monsters this time around but rather as thinking, caring individuals. Chomper's mother even smiles kindly at Cera!
- Trail of Bread Crumbs: When the herd leave the Great Valley after its vegetation is devoured by the "swarming leaf-gobblers", Littlefoot and the gang leave in search for food themselves, leaving behind footprints so the herd will follow their tracks and not split up.
- Translation Convention: Played with. Although most movies, including the fifth movie, had the dinosaurs speaking English, the Sharpteeth spoke in growls and snarls, with subtitles translating the conversation.
- Two-Act Structure: The story is split between pre- and post-Chomper halves. The first act is mostly a survival story, while the second act deals with Chomper's incompatibility with the rest of the group due to being a Sharptooth.
- Uncertain Doom: The last we see of the Plated Sharptooth, he's roaring in panic as the ocean current drags him off to sea.
- Weaponized Stench: Chomper has the group hide in a bunch of nasty flowers to keep his parents from smelling them. Unfortunately it doesn't work on the Plated Sharptooth.
- When She Smiles: Played for Laughs. Chomper's mother, like her husband, spends most of the movie scowling, but smiles at Cera when Cera hugs her after Chomper is saved. It's a genuine and pleasant smile, but the fact it's coming from a Sharptooth makes it funny.
- Where Did We Go Wrong?: During the "Friends For Dinner" song, Chomper is collecting various leaves and other flora for his herbivore friends to eat. As he's doing this, his parents are watching (and apparently unclear on what he's doing) and one says to the other, "Sometimes I worry about that boy."
- The Worf Effect: The Plated Sharptooth is strong enough to fight both Chomper's parents at the same time and mostly win.
