Started watching this with my almost 4-year-old sister. She loved the first few minutes with the cute baby dinosaurs, but soon it turned scary as the T-Rex chased the babies. I asked if she was alright, and she said she was fine, but as the mother dinosaur lay dying, her lip started to tremble. I immediately shut the movie off and she burst into tears. If your kids are old enough to deal with a very sad death (which is not simply glossed over, we see Littlefoot continue crying for the next few scenes), this would probably be a good movie for them, but be careful with preschoolers.

This movie is like Bambi with dinosaurs: it is emotionally very heavy-handed. My daughter, who is almost five and has a good understanding of what death is, could not handle the mother dinosaur death scene. I think this is an unusually difficult thing to ask a four-year-old to to handle, and the movie presented it in the most tear-jerking way possible. We had to stop the movie so she could cry her little heart out for about fifteen minutes. After she started feeling okay again, she wanted to keep watching the movie (she LOVES dinosaurs), but then she found the Tyrannosaurus Rex scene too scary, and we stopped for more consoling. Honestly, this movie is too much for a preschooler to handle.

Good lessons in helping each other. Scary separation and death of a mother...

All in all a very good movie, and for those kids which love dinosaurs then they will really enjoy seeing the movie. For those kids who are easily scared then I would make sure that they have a mothers lap nearby as the scene with the T-Rex is quite scary. Little miss 3 kept telling us she wasn't scared, but there were tears in her eyes and she clung to her mother throughout the whole thing. Lots of wow moments for her, and all in all a great movie to watch. The T-Rex scene is the only thing I would be careful of with a toddler.

There are a few scary parts to this movie (as mentioned in other reviews). There is a T-Rex who chases Littlefoot's mother, and an earthquake ("earthshake"). The two combine to cause the demise of his mother, and also lead to several of the young dinosaurs becoming separated from their families. I allowed my 3 year old to watch this movie because she is a HUGE dinosaur fan. We paused the movie and discussed the scary parts as they happened. She had no problem understanding the relationship of carnivores eating "meat" and that they have few choices other than other dinosaurs. I was more concerned that the death of the mother longneck would bother her, but the fact that he still has his grandparents seemed to help glide past the issue - and frankly, just about every Disney movie begins with the death of a parent or the explanation that one has already died. I think that her disappearance would have gone unnoticed if I hadn't stopped the movie to talk about it. The main themes of the movie are positive - work together, celebrate diversity, and take risk (in the positive sense) to overcome obstacles. We enjoy this movie (and it's many sequels) as a family, and use the movies as an opportunity to discuss the positive message.