MovieChat Forums > The Thief and the Cobbler (1995) Discussion > Aladdin borrowed a lot more from this th...

Aladdin borrowed a lot more from this than people seem to realise

posted 12 years ago by the_junkhead
8 replies | jump to latest

First of all, Aladdin is a classic and has great nostalgic value for me, being one of my all time favorite animations, which means i'm not a hater. To be honest, i had never heard of "The Princess and the Cobbler" right up until recently, when I read an article about all the controversy surrounding the production and different releases of it as well as the similatiries it bears with Aladdin.

With that all being said, man i've got to say, Disney sure made it's way into creating basically a carbon copy without getting too much heat for doing so. Just watched the Recobbled Cut and it was like seeing a lost Alladin twin. Seriously. By reading about it beforehand I assumed that the biggest similarity would be Genies/Jaffar appearance being influenced by ZigZags, but oh boy,, that was only the cherry on the top.

I mean, sure the plot is different, but the whole essence is there. Just to name a few things I noticed that nobody ever points out but made me want to scream with rage anyway:

* The thief IS Abu. Not only beacuse they both steal, but the pleasure they take by doing so. He goes to extremes to get what he wants and focus all his mind on the object he lusts after, careless of the world around him. I mean, c'mon, Abu's eyes even reflect the ruby EXACTLY like thief's does with the spheres.

* Zigzag is in love with the princess, just like Jaffar, which already creates a similar situation on it's own, but the scene that made me cringe was when he makes a move on her and she express disgust in the same exact fashion as Jasmine did. Watching it was like a flashback. Also when he gets rid of the cobbler and lies to the Sultan and the princess just like Jaffar did to Aladdin

* Zigzag's aspirations for the Throne as well as his manipulation over the Sultan and desire over the princess are played out exactly like Jaffars.

* The abuse Zigzag imposes over Phido the Vulture while delivering crazy monologue is horribly alike Jaffar/Iagos relationship/scenes together

I could go on, but this text is already too long for the internet, I guess with all this i'm able to get my point across, expressing what I think are the worst instances of shameless copy.

Again, I like both movies, but i think it's unfair to Richard's work and carrer to receive such treatment. It's bad enough he couldn't finish his movie, but he has to watch other people making profit and being part of a lot of other peoples lives and memories by stealing his vision. People kill themselves for much less. Sad.

You wouldn't arrest a guy who was just passing drugs from one guy to another.

[–] COBRARocky 12 years ago

Yes, tragic really that nobody knows about this while Aladdin was given an Academy Award

[–] COBRARocky 12 years ago

Yes, tragic really that nobody knows about this while Aladdin was given an Academy Award

[–] EdenParadise 11 years ago

Except Aladdin was released in 1992, this was released in 1993, and nobody wanted to take responsibility for this movie because of its similarities to Aladdin, not the other way around. And they were in production at the same time, so Aladdin couldn't have stolen from this movie, once again because Aladdin came out first. Do some freaking research before you run your mouth.

[–] Win-14 11 years ago

I love Aladdin and definitely think it's wonderful in every way- but the Cobbler and the Thief was in production 20 yrs before Aladdin. Much of this was stolen- and then improved vastly, by Aladdin.

Read this wiki about its production: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thief_and_the_Cobbler

Aladdin is a better more cohesive film- but it directly stole a lot from this film.

[–] auteur_theory 10 years ago

Iago didnt kill Jafar in the end of "Aladdin", unlike how Phido kills Zig-Zag at the end of this movie (well, he 'contributed' to Zig-Zag's demise by joining in on the feast).

tRuE sTAR LeGEnd

[–] EdenParadise 11 years ago

Except for the fact that Aladdin was released in 1992 and TPatC/TTatC was released in 1993 (Arabian Knight being re-released in 1995). And according to the trivia, nobody really wanted to have this under their name because THIS movie was too similar to Aladdin, not the other way around. Yes, this movie was in production longer, but the only thing that is really the same about them is the vizier looks like genie and some of the animators were Disney animators as well. That's really all. Everything else you mentioned is similar but not the same. And it's one of the most popular story arcs for this particular kind of story.

[–] TheWanderingFish 11 years ago

"They were in production at the same time" is only partially accurate - they did have a briefly overlapping production schedule, but this film had been in development for decades before Aladdin. And Williams' struggles making the film - along with the basic outline of the plot - were quite well known in animation circles for years before Aladdin was even a concept for Disney. In fact, several of the principal animators for Aladdin had worked on Cobbler in the past.

In other words, it is actually quite possible that the creators of Aladdin were influenced in part by Cobbler, even though the latter didn’t see a release until after the Disney film.

It's true that when it came out in 1993 it was compared unfavorably to Aladdin by mainstream critics - and it's probably true that those musical numbers and the thief's (cringeworthy) pop culture references were probably added in response to Aladdin in hopes that they would make the film more marketable (they were not part of Williams' original vision for the film.)

With all that said, I do agree that the similarities are largely superficial. The art styles of the two films, in particular, are radically different (I really like both films, but the animation in Cobbler is quite a bit more interesting and creative than the animation in Aladdin, in my opinion.) And if you ever watch one of the “recobbled” cuts you’ll see that the differences in the two films are far more significant than the similarities. It’s just a bad stroke of luck that they both ended up being released around the same time and were inevitably compared to each other.

I suppose on a clear day you can see the class struggle from here

[–] IndianaMcClane 9 years ago

I have just watched The Thief and the Cobbler (The Recobbled Cut Mark 4 to be precise) for the first time, and here are my thoughts on the subject of comparing it to Aladdin...

I'll say that whilst I didn't find it a waste of time by any means, but after all the praise I've heard it get I truly wanted to love it but came out underwhelmed. Here's what I mean. The Thief and the Cobbler is in terms of the art itself is a masterpiece. Innovative, ambitious, elaborate, unique, and stunning are all terms that come to mind when I think of that part of the film. In that regard, I can see why there are those who appreciate it more than Aladdin. And there were certain risky choices like the idea of keeping the Cobbler and the Thief largely silent characters. Stuff like that I appreciate. In terms of story however, I have to give it to Aladdin. And frankly, I do so quite easily. IMO it is far better paced (seriously, it takes about half the runtime before the main conflict in Thief actually gets going) not stopping dead in its tracks for elongated sequences that whilst impressive don't seem to truly further the story and are there just for the sake of being impressive and thus feel like padding, the lead feels much more well defined/developed (with things like, you know...an actual character arc and a character flaw that effects the plot), didn't feel like it had as many extraneous characters (like the Brigands and quite honestly the Thief himself feels like he could have easily been written out with really the only change to the narrative that would need to be necessitated is Zigzag somehow getting the balls down himself), and so forth.

Naturally it's fine if anyone disagrees with me, which I'm sure there are several who do, but I'm just trying to speak for my own opinion.