Ali is an Apatosaurus (or "Longneck") who appears in The Land Before Time franchise, having debuted in The Land Before Time IV: Journey through the Mists.
She bears a striking resemblance to Littlefoot, (Ducky even comments when she first sees Ali, playing with Littlefoot, "Hey! Look! There are two Littlefoots!") apart from her bright pink skin color and azure eyes. In the TV series, she has a more violet color of skin. She and her mother belong to a herd of Longnecks who are related to Littlefoot's grandparents. Their old homeland was turned into a vast swamp due to flooding and excess rain. With their homeland now the Land of Mists, Ali's herd, led by the matriarch called the Old One, was forced to leave.
She will be listed in eighth place of the main characters, after Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, Spike, Chomper, and Ruby, but before Guido in a future Land Before Time film.
Character[]
Appearance[]
Ali's design is generic to the Apatosaurus in The Land Before Time. She has a vague resemblance to Littlefoot; with hardly any true difference in comparison. Like most dinosaurs in The Land Before Time; the color palette is simple. Her color is a pinkish purple layered in two different shades; under her belly the color is a light peach; this was so to give recognition that Ali was female. More so with the fact of her being female, she was drawn with larger eyes; with her puplis being azure colored; this to set her apart with Littlefoot's design.
Role in the stories[]
Ali and her herd first appear in The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through The Mists. During migration, Ali's herd found the Great Valley and were welcomed by their cousins, Grandpa Longneck's family. Grandpa Longneck fell ill during this time, whereupon Ali and Littlefoot left the Great Valley to search Ali's old home for the fabled Night Flower that would heal him. Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike soon followed them, and met up with Littlefoot and Ali. Together, the group found the Night Flowers and brought them to the Great Valley to heal Grandpa Longneck. Afterwards, Ali and her herd left the Valley to continue their migration even though the narrator said she and Littlefoot would one day meet again.
Though fans began to despair of that promise ever being fulfilled, the "other story" remarked upon by the narrator is seen to be The Land Before Time TV series, when Ali returns with the herd in the episode, "The Brave Longneck Scheme." She has met a new friend, Rhett, after her herd had merged with his. Rhett tells Ali stories about how he protected his herd from Sharpteeth multiple times.
To demonstrate that Rhett's stories are false, the gang did an act of how the gang fled from Chomper a real sharptooth, so that Rhett scared fled exposing the lies of their stories, at which point Ali is confused when the gang laugh, so then Chomper apologizes for having scared her leaving her surprised to see that Littlefoot and her friends are friends of a sharptooth and just when the gang invited Ali to play with them, by the time Rhett returns with Old One and the pack, these they begin to chase Chomper and surround him on a dead end road but Ali along with Littlefoot and his friends arrive in time to tell them what happened and that Chomper is a friendly sharptooth, so Old One scolds Rhett about the stories he was counting and going with the pack and just when Rhett was going to retire, Ali along with the Littlefoot gang invite Rhett to play with them who accepts, ending the episode.
Personality[]
Like most dinosaurs outside of the Great Valley herd, Ali was wary of trusting dinosaurs outside of her species. She later explained that she had only ever gotten to know other longnecks because her herd moved around so frequently. When Littlefoot asked her to help him get to the Land of Mists, she said the others could not come; they would only slow them down as they did not know the way. It is uncertain whether or not this is the only reason, or if she was also afraid of having them present because of their difference. Nevertheless, once she saw how nice the others were, and how well they all could work together, she became open-minded to having inter-species friendships, and was the lead singer in the song "It Takes All Sorts."
Ali is portrayed as very kind and compassionate, as she is concerned when Grandpa Longneck becomes ill. She is also very brave; she risks her own life to save Cera when the latter falls into the rushing river, and Ichy and Dil are closing in on her. She is also shown on several occasions to be smart and quick-thinking, though in "The Brave Longneck Scheme," she is revealed to be gullible when Rhett convinces her that he is feared by Sharpteeth. Ali is also very calm, though when Littlefoot was trapped in the cave and Ali went back for help, she was visibly angered when Cera accused her of lying, and in "The Brave Longneck Scheme" she angrily accuses Littlefoot of jealousy when he and Cera do not believe Rhett's stories.
Trivia[]
- Ali cannot swim, at least she cannot in the fourth movie, for she said that they had to go around the "dark water."