http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/TheLandBeforeTime

The Land Before Time is in an alternate dimension

Except for Jurassic Park's Site B on Isla Sorna...

Or a zoo set up by Time Travellers...

Think about it: A pteranadon, and Apatosaurus, a triceratops, a stegosaurus, and a swimmer (I forgot what Ducky is) all in one place? There's no other explanation running through my head.

Great Valley will eventually become Dinotopia

That would explain why the movies are musicals; the 8th rule of the Dinotopian code is "Sing every day".

With time Great Valley will become bigger and bigger until it will turn into a continent/big island/whatever Dinotopia is. All surviving dinosaurs will migrate there as the rest of the world will become less and less hospitable for them and with time they will develop a complex culture.

Alternately, the Great Valley becomes the Valley of Gwangi.

It's clearly part of a larger continent, and has to be in the southwestern US (the only place Tyrannosaurus coexisted with sauropods). The Valley of Gwangi (in northern Mexico) fits very well.

The main characters die at the end of the first movie.

(This is not a new theory; it's been rumored since the movie came out and the existence of cut footage was revealed.) Littlefoot collapses in despair... and sees a ghost (his mother, in the clouds). Shortly after, he discovers Heaven The Great Valley, and all is happy again. Clearly, everyone dies at the end of the first movie; in all subsequent movies, everyone is in Purgatory. Or Heaven. After all, the dinosaurs had to die sometime. Every school child knows this story. That they don't almost seems like Executive Meddling.

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The characters are in Hell

Though by the third sequel alone you can tell this is obvious.

The die-off that's happening is not the final extinction of the dinosaurs, but a more localized ecological disturbance.

It took the dinosaurs hundreds of thousands of years to die off - an eyeblink of geological time, but long enough, certainly, for this generation to prosper.

Before the meteor hit and sealed the dinosaurs' fate for good (apart from the birds) 65 million years ago, there was a gradual drop in diversity around the Campanian-Maastrichtian boundary 72 million years ago, probably caused by the start of the Laramide Orogeny, a period of geological uplift that eventually produced the Rocky Mountains. This would explain the die-offs throughout the film, as well as the big earthquake that separated the herds and the volcanoes later on.

Advertisement: The Disney film Dinosaur had this same problem (among many, many others), with the added difficulty that the use of meteor showers as a plot element makes it pretty clear that this is in fact the lead-up to The Big Finish as far as the dinos are concerned. Seriously, people, if you're going to make a movie about cuddly dinosaur protagonists, don't set it at the end of the Cretaceous period. There's no way to avoid the depressing undercurrent of futility.

Another theory is that the sequels are an Elseworld showing what would have happened if they hadn't died. This has the advantage of making them non-canon.

I always took the entire plot of the original films, and its sequels, to mean that they were in something like the Lost World...an isolated enclave of dino-kind that survived the mass extinction and lives on, with mankind utterly ignorant of their continued survival. I kind of always felt it was quite ham-fisted in that implication, so much so I immediately groaned "Oh God, not another Lost World thing! So what, human explorers find them in the sequel?" when I heard about the movie as a kid. The sequel "The Stone of Cold Fire" does have "rainbow faces," alien dinosaurs with UFOs and apparently magical powers.

Thing is, it looks nothing like the extinction of dinosaurs should had been, so I think it must have taken place somewhere in the middle of the Mesozoic, before the dinosaurs got prosperous again only to die from the asteroid.

They're Immortals, like in Highlander

This explains why the dinosaurs aren't extinct yet. Also, Koopa is Chomper's direct descendant.

The main characters not only die at the end of the first movie, but they also die from an innocent looking plant turning out halluconogenic.

The rest of the movies are acid trips. This explains the singing.

Spike is a Shinigami

Dinosaur Heaven

Spike was some variety of ankylosaur , varieties of which existed through almost all of the dinosaurs' reign. That Other Wiki disagrees, but he just doesn't look like a "stegosaur." He has a midline row of alternating back plates and four tail spikes, with no other armor present. That's definitely a stegosaur. But there are adult stegosaurs in the first movie. On the other hand, the sauropods shouldn't have been around anymore, either. Actually, sauropods did live at the end of the Cretaceous. They just were not very common. I want to know what cut of the original "L.B.T." you saw, where there are any visible adult stegosaurs. The species we see in the Great Valley are the exact same ones we saw in the opening sequence. Interestingly, there is an adult ankylosaur (Rooter) so... Or maybe Spike's a dravidosaur ... Oh, wait.

, varieties of which existed through almost all of the dinosaurs' reign. That Other Wiki disagrees, but he just doesn't look like a "stegosaur."

Spike was Dead All Along ; it's the late Cretaceous, and he's a stegosaur! We all know that the other characters end up dying. Spike was just a gentle psychopomp whose job was to help lead them tothe Great Valley.

Chomper grows up to be Barney.

Oh, Yes. Yeeeessss. Chomper probably is Megatron's beast template. He's even got red eyes. Wait, if Chomper grows up to be Barney, but Chomper is also Megatron II's beast template, that means, by principle of "if A=B and B=C, then A=C", Megatron II's beast form is Barney. Great going, you just ruined Beast Wars for everybody. Ruined, or made a thousand times better?



Seriously, do you of any other purple T-Rexes?

Most of the dinosaurs died during the Earthquake from the first movie.

An earthquake that spanned the entire world?

A major, rapid pole shift or some other global geological cataclysm, while not triggering a single Earthquake across the entire world, would probably cause all kinds of immensely powerful individual tremors, many in fact. To say nothing of, quoting a book on the subject, "terrifically powerful tsunamis and volcanism". Or basically, think about the disaster movies 10.5, Category 6, Japan Sinks and Supervolcano happening all at the same time. So basically a prehistoric version of 2012, then? Magnetic reversals don't cause earthquakes, and the dramatic, earthquake-causing pole shift idea was based on extremely faulty research from the early 20th century long before we really understood plate tectonics.



It was not a meteor that hit the earth, but an earthquake. It separated most of the dinosaurs; some died off, while others died searching for the Great Valley. This makes a bit of sense, since the meteor did not hit during the course of the movies.

The first movie is an allegory to religion

Littlefoot represents Christian faith. He believes that if you follow the path, no matter how difficult it may be, you will find heaven. Cera represents temptation. She too wants to get into heaven but doesn't want to have to work at it, and so is always looking for an "easy" way. These two spend much of the movie trying to convince Petrie, Duckie, and Spike to follow them. Cera's HeelFace Turn at the end represents the heroes overcoming temptation.

Petrie, Duckie, and Spike each represent a different type of follower. Petrie follows out of fear. Duckie follows out of innocence. Spike follows out of stupidity. All three are easily swayed and have to constantly be kept in line.

The Sharptooth, a mindless force of destruction, represents the sin that threatens to consume our heroes' souls should they ever stray from the path. Notice how when Sharptooth is presumed dead at the beginning of the movie, it is Cera (temptation) who finds and revives him. Notice also that Sharptooth normally only shows up if the heroes stray from the path. Symbolically, just before entering heaven they kill Sharptooth—killing Sin (in a pool of water, similar to a baptism ceremony, as it happens).

The tree-star represents a material possession, which keeps Littlefoot and his followers bound to their mortal coil. They are incapable of transcending the earthly realm while they are dependent on material possessions for comfort. Symbolically, it is destroyed at the halfway point of their journey.

Littlefoot's mother tells him that he can reach the Great Valley by following the sun. In many ancient religions, the Sun = God, so she's essentially saying to follow God. Littlefoot's mother herself could represent the Holy Mother (though combined with the fact that Littlefoot has no father, this interpretation turns Littlefoot into Jesus). Technically, the 10th movie reveals he had a father, or are we just focusing on the first movie? It is true that nobody involved with the first film was still around by episode 10. Oddly, I read an essay about Land Before Time ages ago in some weird book in college that argued essentially the same things, even going so far as to call it The Pilgrim's Progress. With dinosaurs. Except Spike isn't stupid. He's smarter than he looks and simply chooses not to talk.



Let's start off with the obvious: as someone else mentioned, the Great Valley is Heaven. The entire movie is about a quest to get in to heaven.

Disney's Dinosaur and The Land Before Time take place on the same prehistoric Earth

Furthermore, both herds arrived at the same Great Valley, however, at different points in time.

The real reason why Littlefoot doesn't talk about his mother

Okay, so in The Land Before, Littlefoot's mother dies and he's very sad, while in the sequels, he barely mentions her at all, right? Surely a case of Lighter and Softer, right? Wrong! In LBT 1, Littlefoot meets a dinosaur who tells him his mother will always be with him if he remembers the things she taught him. What did she teach him? That dinosaurs stick to their own kind. However, he chooses not to follow this rule and befriends dinosaurs of other species. By not remembering his mother's teachings, the memory of her has faded from his mind. Clearly this is all a complex, subtle metaphor for rebellion and rejection of parental ideals! Mama Longneck never taught Littlefoot about segregation, she just told him it existed. She never followed it like Topsy did, it was just the nature of things at that time. She did save Cera from Sharptooth as well as Littlefoot. I always felt that it's just easier for him to not talk about it. Most kids who've lost a mother, particularally in the violent manner Littlefoot did, don't like talking about it. In The Mysterious Island Song "Always There", he does allude to missing his mother.



Tree-star leaves are like drugs to Pteranodons

It explains why pterosaurs eat the leaves despite clearly being carnivorous while the Microraptor in one of the sequels prefers to stick to insects

Petrie is Rodan

He grew up, then was preserved in volcanic ash until radiation mutated him. Then perhaps, Chomper also grew up and in the same way, became the Godzillasaurus? Or Gorosaurus?



The story takes place in modern times, under the premise of being an experiment.

The dinosaurs may have been given a stronger intellect from a previous experiment from the scientists. Maybe they had the brain-boosting drugs on loan from NIMH. Further, they are being monitored secretly via hidden cameras and the results of the experiments are collected into records/documenteries on the project, hence the obvious yet unexplained prologues from our time. The Land Before Time XVI: Jurassic Park



Here's how it would work: scientists from our modern era find preserved dinosaur remains, but the method of death is unclear. Being heavily funded by the government to do research on survivalism and natural history, they re-clone these dinosaurs and keep them contained in a giant reserve of sorts. They build several oasises for the dinosaurs and several natural barriers, such as the big water and the vally of the mist, to encourage them to stay away from our part of the world. Most of the dillemas caused during the movies were based off theories scientists wanted to test eg. Starvation, an ice age, ect. The scientists change the Great Valley and the surrounding "Mysterious Beyond" to suit their current experiments.

The Meteor already hit the earth but did not kill the dinosaurs.

Instead, it became the Great Valley.

The Meteor already hit the Earth and it did kill the dinosaurs.

They just aren't dead yet. Think about it, the extinction of the dinosaurs is described as being geologically instantaneous - which still means a quite lengthy time period from the viewpoint of individual animals. The whole movie is based on the premise that the region where those dinosaurs used to live has gotten barren, so they have to migrate somewhere else to get food. This is propably quite a likely scenario which happened during the times of the extinction of the dinousaurs. Still there might be some resorts where they can go and survive - like the Great Valley - but of course not forever. Also in the beginning there is a huge earthquake and volcanic eruptions, which also fits into the picture, as does - like the main page already mentions - the Super-Persistent Predator behaviour of Sharptooth. And didn't at least one of the sequels involve the food running out even in the "Great Valley" so they have to migrate again?Okay, now I don't know if this is maybe too obvious to be WMG, as I've always interpreted the movie that way, even as a child, but I don't see it in the first sentence of the main article, so I've put it here ;)

Rooter is either clairvoyant or something more.

He's the Narrator. Of course he knows everything!

The fight between Sharptooth and Littlefoot's Mother would have been audible for miles around. If Rooter already knew a Longneck died, either from hearing the fight or being told about it by another dinosaur, it wouldn't be that hard to connect the dots.

Take a look at that scene where he talks to Littlefoot about his mother again. He knowsof the horrible depressing things that poor Littlefoot has gone through so far and is able to give his little "Circle of Life" speech after hearing the following: "It's not fair! She shoulda known better! That ol' Sharptooth. It's allfault! ...Mother's!" Seriously, what? Either Rooter is psychic or he is... God. Watching Littlefoot's story from an omniscient pose and narrating his life. (Come to think of it, the avatar of God from South Park bears more than a passing resemblance to Rooter...)

You can indirectly blame Petrie for Jar Jar Binks

Ummm...no. Petrie was actually The Scrappy in the release of the first film , to the point that one critic even said that Petrie was a comic relief character who "deserved to die". It wasn't until the sequels that Petrie started to be liked.

, to the point that one critic even said that Petrie was a comic relief character who "deserved to die". It wasn't until the sequels that Petrie started to be liked. Besides, George Lucas himself said that Goofy is the inspiration for Jar-Jar.

In 1988, Petrie was the Ensemble Dark Horse of the movie. Somehow George Lucas caught wind of this, and decided to give us the same character — but— in the Prequels, and the rest is history.

The Next Land Before Time Sequel/Spin-off...

Hasn't happened yet. Fun fact: it's never going to happen.

Won't even have a plot. It will just be hidden camera footage of Don Bluth sitting alone and nursing a strong drink, reflecting on what Universal is doing to his characters.

Rooter (the first dinosaur Littlefoot meets after his mother dies) is God.

The reason that Red Claw is beaten so easily...

He's secretly scared of them. Think about it, how many Sharpteeth have been killed/beaten by Littlefoot and company throughout the series? Surely, at this point, they've probably got a reputation for beating them by now. Odds are Red Claw is just smart enough to realize that they'll be able to kick his butt for real if he's not careful. So he's not a coward, just being cautious, which does make him dangerous. Thus he goes by a ' live to fight another day ' philosphy. Also, it could just be experience at taking them down on Littlefoot and company's part.

Littlefoot's dad is a prehistoric incarnation of Jack Bauer , and he himself is a prehistoric incarnation of John Connor

This is just a silly theory based on the fact that the voice of Littlefoot for several of the sequels was Thomas Dekker, who played John Connor in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Brom, his dad, was voice by Kiefer Sutherland. Though when you think about it, Littlefoot is able to put him and his friends in perilous situations and escape from them without a scratch, and he does have a strained relationship with his father. So to this troper, having Littlefoot's dad being the most badass CTU agent ever, and he himself the future leader of the resistance against Skynet would explain alot.

The stone of cold fire was a Lavos seed.

The Rainbow Faces were not aliens, they were time travelers. They were there to destroy the seed, but the two fliers did it for them.

The narrator is Xenu.

Hattip to Diamanda Hagan

Wait, what were we talking about again?

Petrie suffered some sort of brain damage from nearly being drowned by the Sharptooth in the original movie.

He had bad grammar from the start.

And he's like, five or six in pterosaur years, at least. Bad grammar's kind of to be expected from a little kid.

While it didn't immediately come up, it explains his poor grammar in the sequels (assuming, of course, you consider them canon ).

Spike has brain damage from not being incubated properly as an egg.

"Spike was added to appeal to a growing number of mentally handicapped viewers who had in recent years become a significant portion of cartoon video consumers."

Except Spike merely chooses to not talk. Plus, he's smarter than he appears to be.

Sort of a dumb analogue to how babies can suffer brain damage during the birthing process if their flow of oxygen is somehow cut off. He's supposed to have an Ambiguous Disorder , which is further supported by a claim on The Other Wiki

The Red Claw we have seen is not the real Red Claw

Red Claw is hyped to be the most dangerous of all sharpteeth, who is fully willing to risk the wrath of Chomper's parents just to kill Chomper, yet when we get to see him he was scared off by fruit that was flunged at him. This is inconsistency of behaviour is likely explained by the Red Claw we have seen so is actaully another weaker and cowardly sharptooth who has an injury (or possibly birthmark) that is similar to the real Red Claw's and is using the real Red Claw's reputation to scare off would be competitors from kills as an opportunitst with little risk of fighting

Littlefoot is a prehistoric Shinji Ikari

Do I honestly need to explain this one?

The main characters represent the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief

Specifically the stages Littlefoot has to go through to come to terms with his mother's death. Ducky = Denial. Ducky represents what Littlefoot wants to be. Happy and carefree. However this doesn't involve actually processing his mother's death which is of course, unhealthy. Cera = Anger. A very obvious one. Petrie = Bargaining. Petrie is often depicted as superstitious in the tv series. If anyone would believe in a higher power, it'd be him. Spike = Depression. Depression often manifests as lethargy and lack of energy. There was a bit of a Running Gag in the sequels in that Spike was a particularly heavy sleeper. Littlefoot himself = Acceptance. Once he's finally overcome his grief properly, Littlefoot can finally be himself, the way he's meant to be.



After the extinction of the dinosaurs, the main group was reincarnated as the Mane Six

As a reward for their heroism, they were all allowed to live life anew. Littlefoot became Twilight Sparkle (the rational leader of the group), Ducky became Pinkie Pie (the cheerful Genki Girl ), Cera became Rainbow Dash (rough and tumble tomboy who acts before thinking), Petrie became Fluttershy (small, acrophobic Cowardly Lion ), Spike became Applejack (a long shot, I know but still; strong member of the group who loves food), Ruby became Rarity (intelligent and pretty, as well as skilled) and Chomper became Spike the Dragon (small purple reptile, Adorably Precocious Tag Along Kid ).

Cera is a Styracosaurus

Her brow horns will grow out eventually. Her sisters from the original movie, plus her half sister Tricia, also only have nose horns.

Petrie and his pterosaur ilk are omnivores.

Why does she have just a nose horn while a pair of newborns have all three?They eat fish offscreen. And all their herbivore friends are okay with this because, hey, they're not eating SENTIENT life! To support this theory, Ruby is an omnivore ( like a real-life oviraptor would be ) who is seen eating a shellfish at one point and everyone seems cool with this too.

Up until "The Big Freeze", Spike thought he was a duckbill dinosaur.

Ducky was the first thing he saw when he hatched, and so he imprinted on her and came to believe that he was a duckbill.:Ducky immediately calls him a spiketail the moment he hatches, and thus names him Spike. So I say Jossed.

The Yellow Bellies Have Memory Loss Disorder.

Loofah, Doofah, and Foobie seems like they have memory loss, if you noticed how Loofah forgets the name of Berry Valley that he needed to be reminded by berries to remember.

The Great Valley is actually a caldera.

This also results in some serious Fridge Horror. If the "sinking sands" are emitting carbon dioxide, it's possible that the whole place is a time bomb. A serious earthquake could result in a massive eruption from the valley's many lakes, filling the valley with an invisible, odorless, heavier-than-air poison. There would be no warning, and nothing any of the characters could do. This could explain why the valley had no carnivores, and room for several herds of large herbivorous dinosaurs to migrate in: the original inhabitants all died decades or centuries ago, and only with the recent climate change was anyone desperate enough to return.



The entire area is clearly volcanically active, and even within the valley itself there are areas of bubbling water or mud - probably from escaping carbon dioxide, as well as an active volcano (as seen in Movie 2) similar to Wizard Island in Crater Lake. This would explain why it's so hard to get in or out of - unlike most valleys there isn't actually a river flowing out of it, so the only entry and exit points are dangerous mountain passes with frequent landslides.

Littlefoot's real name is Bron. "Littlefoot" is just a nickname that stuck.

Alternately his real name is Thunderfoot, as it was supposedly going to be originally. But, his mother still went with the "Little" nickname as a tribute to Bron, and Littlefoot kept it as a way to honour her memory.

His father talked about the nickname being given to him as a kid, and such a name doesn't sound like it would work for a sauropod, which would grow up to be massive. It's possible that his mother decided to name him after his father and then started to call him by his father's old nickname. Given the possibility that his mother thought that Bron was dead, it could have also been a case of Dead Guy Junior

The film is set in the Late Cretaceous Southwestern United States.

That doesn't explain how Stegosaurus (extinct in the Jurassic), Parasaurolophus (extinct 73 million years ago, before T. rex's time) and Pteranodon (extinct 84.5 million years ago, before T. rex's time and lived out at sea) are in there too. According the the script, Ducky's and the members of her species are meant to be Anatosaurus, who DID live in the late Cretacous. Then again, that doesn't explain why they have what appears to be hollow crests; and that same script refers to Littlefoot's species as being Apatosaurus, so who really knows?



Littlefoot and his family are not Apatosaurus. They're actually an Alamosaurus family. This was the only Sauropod that was co-existant with T. rex.

The Rainbow-faces aren't aliens.

They're time travelers. Littlefoot and the gang's actions helped unite the separate dinosaur species, and thousands of years later led to the rise of a dinosaur civilization centered on the Great Valley. Thousands of years after that, they discovered time travel, and the Rainbow-faces were sent back in time to help Littlefoot on his quest and ensure that their own world would come to exist.

The Rainbow-faces are Time Lords who regenerated into dinosaurs.

Their dialogue would make more sense if they were Doctor-Esque Time Lords...

Petrie just recently hatched when we first meet him.

We see Littlefoot, Cera, and Ducky hatching at the beginning, but not him. Also, it was discovered that pterosaurs can fly shortly after hatching, so if Petrie was the same age as the aforementioned three, he should be able to fly just fine. This theory doesn't explain why Petrie is able to talk (albeit in a You No Take Candle fashion) while the others weren't, though.

" I see mainly reptiles, a lower form of intelligence Mere brainless creatures with no demonstrable sentience!" think of it when you only see a bunch of basically retarded lizards surrounded by Apex predators aka sharp teeth for miles you'd fined it justifiable to commicute dinosaur genocide.

that could also explain the lack of sequels. later that day they literally all got wiped off the face of the earth by cybernetic space aliens trying to rekindle their emotions.

The first film is a retelling of the Divine Comedy.

Littlefoot is a stand-in for Dante himself. His mother is Beatrice. The Tree Star is Virgil. Throughout the film, he and his friends encounter various situations and individuals reminiscent of those that Dante encountered in Inferno and Purgatorio. The Great Valley, the endpoint of their journey, is Paradiso. In particular, the scene where Littlefoot and the others come across a thicket of trees, which Cera mistakes for the Great Valley, could be a reference to Limbo, which is described as a false paradise. the passing heard of Apatasaurus that subsequently converge and devour their leaves encompass Lust (EG Desire) and Gluttony. Cera remarks that they are Greedy and expresses Anger at the situation. The fight between Littlefoot and the others in a subsequent scene when Cera disagrees with Littlefoot's plan to follow his mother's path could represent Heresy, and the subsequent scenes involve the kids attempting to escape boiling lava, a tar pit, and angry Pachycephalosaurs (Violence). The Sharp Tooth drowning in the lake at the end could be reminiscent of the Malabranche drowning in the boiling pitch (Fraud) or perhaps Satan himself in Lake Cocytus (Treachery). After Sharp Tooth's death and the subsequent reunion of Cera with the rest of the group, Littlefoot follow's his mother in spirit up a mountain (Purgatorio) and finally finds the coveted Great Valley (Paradiso).

The green sharptooth from The Secret of Saurus Rock was Chomper's father

Wrong. Chomper's father was with his mate when both of Littlefoot's grandparents, Topsy and the other adults drove them off in movie 2. Also, he had to have lived long enough to have sent Chomper back to the Great Valley in time for the TV series.

He was roaming about looking for a new territory for his family, when he spotted Littlefoot being attacked by the Allosaurus and tried to help him, only appearing aggressive because he's a sharptooth. The reason he attacked Grandpa Longneck is because Chomper's parents never met him or anyone other than Littlefoot's friends. Plus, we never see either of Chomper's parents after the 5th movie, so...

The Stegosaurus who got killed in Fantasia was one of Spike's parents

Self-explanatory, really.

Ali is Littlefoot's half-sister. Bron is her father.

Jossed, they are cousins.

Makes sense from a genetic standpoint. Unlike most other Long Necks, Bron is not an Apatosaurus; he's a Brontosaurus, which has recently been reclassified as a distinct species from Apatosaurus. So if Littlefoot's a crossbreed of two different kinds of Sauropod, then why does Ali look exactly like him? Unless...

Littlefoot and friends are a Ka-Tet

The definition of Ka-Tet: a group of people drawn together by ka (fate/destiny) for a purpose or common goal. These groups are usually able to perform great tasks and survive great dangers. This perfectly sums up Littlefoot and his four friends (six if you count Ruby and Chomper). After they lost their families in the first movie, they encountered each other and overcame great odds, like defeating Sharptooth, to reach the Great-Valley. In the sequels, they frequently set out together to achieve something.

Since it was brought up that the story takes place in modern times...

The first movie is in fact part of the Jurassic Park universe, with the Great Valley perhaps being the Sanctuary from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in an Alternate Continuity where Mills' double-crossing never occurred and the dinosaurs actually got successfully transported there. The "earthquake" was the eruption of Mt. Sibo on Isla Nublar and most of the movie after that never actually happened as the protagonists perceived it, they were simply high off of the tranquilizers they'd been darted with and hallucinated the whole adventure, only coming down off of it at the moment the Dinosaur Protection Group dropped them off in the valley. As for the sequels, this is yet another theory that works better if you assume they're non-canon.