Man am I angry...

Hey, you can never be too cynical about something like this!

The sad - and dare I say it - ironic thing is, this movie was literally designed to be THE greatest animated film ever, but as you'll probably agree, after Disney or whatever company is to be held responsible decided to "lend a hand," it was stolen away and it was murdered. That's the only word I can apply that does justice to the predicament: murdered. Bastardization is a good description but I think murder better describes this movie. Where was I? Oh yeah, this movie would've/could've/SHOULD'VE been a brilliant masterpiece. Now I didn't hate the outcome, you should know. I still like the movie alot, even if it was crippled.

The Triplets of Bellville imploys dazzling visuals, classic animation and silence to make it one of the best animated films in the last ten years or so. Now, had Arabian Knight/The Thief and the Cobbler been completed, it would've been right up there with The Triplets of Belleville, been hailed as a brilliant cinematic work of genius and remembered by moviegoers for years to come. Alas... nobody I know has heard of it, it was a failure at the box-office (and I can guarantee you this can be attributed to the fact that it was butchered), and didn't even warrant a DVD release! Sick. Rather than being the glorious result of over 20 years of labor, it was crippled and thrown into the public's eye as a joke. And that's all it is, a joke! Poor Richard Williams, I wonder what he must think about his pet project. It'd be like watching your infant get skinned alive while still in the womb.

But there's more, there's more! What, he has more to say? you think to yourself. I have further beef with the U.S. release because of a variety of things:

4. The terrible bridging sequences comprized of tacky animation and jumpy-editing/music.
3. The stupid narration, and the thief's motor-mouth antics (even if it IS supplied by Jonathon Winters), making it seem like an episode of MST3K.
2. The stereotypical romantic sub-plot squeezed in.
1. Those terrible songs, again tacked (no pun intended) on for the sake of conformity. The only one I liked was the number sung by the barbarians ("When You Don't Finish School").

If you can think of any other problems with it please feel free to bring them up and I'll add them to my list. Oh and I agree with you, I will forever boycott Aladdin. Even if I did watch it, my id would force me to draw parallels between it and The Thief and the Cobbler: Jafar = Zig Zag, Iago = Phido, Aladdin = Tack, the two princesses, King Nod = the Sultan! Set in Arabia! It's a nightmare I tell ya...

"I've been living off toxic waste for years, and I'm fine! Just ask my other heads!"

BTW, I recently got the REAL story behind the movie from a site found with Google. Be warned, it's a pretty long chunk of text, plus it's just downright SICK!

The Thief and the Cobbler is a truly unique film. It is unique as much for the finished results as for its deeply troubled production history. The film is the life work of animator Richard Williams. The Canadian-born Williams began making films in the 1950s and through the years has worked as an animator for hire on commercials and the credit sequences of several live-action feature films. Various of his short films had won awards, although he was probably most well known for the animated credits sequences for the Peter Sellers Pink Panther films. Williams started the Thief and the Cobbler project in 1968, initially financing it himself. He made one other animated feature film, Raggedy Ann and Andy (1977) for 20th Century Fox, but this was not a success and, in a presage of things to come, completion of the film had been taken away from him by the studio after delays. However test reels from The Thief and the Cobbler circulated for several years and began to gain a real word of mouth. Williams’s good fortune came when one of these reels was seen by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis who liked it enough to offer Williams the job as director of animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit ? (1988). Williams subsequently won an Academy Award for Roger Rabbit and this was a credit that proved influential enough for Williams to obtain funding from Warner Brothers in 1990 to complete The Thief and the Cobbler.

Unfortunately, Williams took such a long time to make the film that Warner’s began to panic. (In fact the project had such a lengthy history, over its twenty-seven years from its inception to its release (a world record), that several of the people doing voice-work – Vincent Price, as well as both Anthony Quayle and Donald Pleasence who did voices at one point but whose work didn’t end up on the finished print – ended up dying several years before the film ever saw the lights of theatres). Fearing that Thief’s thunder would be stolen by Disney’s Aladdin (1992), Warner Brothers panicked and called in the completion guarantors. With only 15 minutes of footage left to complete, Williams was fired and director Fred Calvert and a Korean animation-for-hire studio were assigned to turn the existing footage into something salvageable.

Disney-subsidiary Miramax then purchased Calvert’s print and substantially re-edited the film, adding voiceovers for the cobbler (whom Williams had originally intended to remain unspeaking) and the thief (who gets a particularly annoying babble of one-liners from Jonathan Winters), as well as substantially reworking the plot, including removing the character of the witch. This version went into US release in 1995 under the title Arabian Knight and met a dismal box-office reception. For a film that has occupied nearly the entire life of one artist, it was an extraordinarily vulgar treatment to be afforded such a work. Sadly to say, neither version of the film ended up being noticed and it vanished without a trace, although there is an internet campaign underway to see a restored version, which would be an awesome thing to see on DVD.

AAAAAGH! A DVD! THAT WOULD KICK MY ASS! Just imagine it: the restored workprint version AND The Princess and the Cobbler, for a laugh, with director's commentary on the restored version (if Richard Williams doesn't pass away - God forbid - before then), a 60-minute documentary about this film's story, stills, conceptual drawings, uh... what else could be added?

"I've been living off toxic waste for years, and I'm fine! Just ask my other heads!"

Thanks! By the way, where the heck can I get a hold of this infamous workprint cut? Everyone says that they've been able to view it, but I have no idea how or where.

"I've been living off toxic waste for years, and I'm fine! Just ask my other heads!"

Woah, I was much younger when I started this thread, but you're quite correct.


"I've been living on toxic waste for years, and I'm fine. Just ask my other heads!"