The Thief and the Cobbler (1995)

Fantastic!

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The re-cobbled cut holds a lot more magic to it, and my rating is more for that edit than this one.

Any fan of The Thief and the Cobbler knows the long history and story behind this movie. Originally planned to be Richard William's crowning achievement and grand masterpiece turned out to be a failure due to development hell and other people who really didn't care for the movie. So the movie that was released is absolutely nothing like the original version (which had been in development since 1966... so it predated Aladdin by a long shot). Fans over the years have been trying to find as much content as possible to add to the film even if it isn't finished.So I watched the final cut version with extra animations and such... and I can say.It's good. I actually found myself interested in the movie and I thought the animation was superb and extremely advanced. The movie is simply and shout out to all of the classic animations from the 1930s and 1940s and do mind that Richard Williams also made Who Framed Roger Rabbit which was another shout out to the classics.Now there are some problems with it and that can be expected. The biggest problem is that people have found the cut content and the unfinished content and even some of the storyboards to finish the movie BUT it is still unfinished. That means that it isn't possible to know what it was originally going to be. Stuff like original sound effects, original soundtrack and even other missing content won't be known. Even the ending of the Original Cut still seems disjointed and awkward which means that there is still a bunch of content missing.The film itself is good because it distinguishes itself from other animated movies. The animation is specifically made to look like Persian wall paintings which makes it really stand out. The character interaction between Princess Yum-Yum and Tack is actually a bit more refreshing than what Disney does. Tack's character is interesting in the fact that he doesn't speak and doesn't have a mouth except for one scene. As I mentioned before, I don't think the original scenes have yet to surface yet because Tack and Yum Yum are supposed to be the main characters while the Thief is a background character yet for some reason the last 15 minutes of the movie are all of the Thief. It really doesn't make sense because the best parts of the movie are with Tack and his conflict but it focuses on a comedy relief. This makes me even more curious on how the movie should've been.A great film if you are willing to take in the fact that it is unfinished and probably only around 70% complete even with the extended versions.

This film is an example why looking to perfect something can make you never truly complete it. Richard Williams back in the 60's started this example. He loved what he was creating with this film so he waited so he could perfect the movie. Years passed when he created his finest achievement in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"'s animation. This got him a deal with WB. He now had more money to help finally create the film to perfection, but now he had a deadline. This deadline was not met, and Willams creation that he worked on for most of his life was taken away from him. The lesson of this story is don't focus on total perfection. If you do you end up with the piece of donkey crap I am reviewing today. Annoying characters, bland as hell songs, and constant added in humor. Let's start with annoying characters shall we. While many of the characters are bland and annoying the one who really got on my nerves was The Thief. He just won't shut the hell up. He doesn't speak so he monologues. Every second I have to listen to him crack an unfunny joke. Next is the songs which are by far the worst things about this movie. They have some of the flat out laziest lyrics I have ever heard. It's like if took Lady Gaga's lazy lyric writing and put it in a kids movie minus the sex and drugs. I could write better lyrics. Then we have the annoying as hell humor. After Aladdin came out they got the idea of forcing pop culture references into a film that's humor is silent is completely ridiculous. It's like if you took City Lights, made it sound, and had Charlie talk about going to Six Flags or something like that. Overall the film is simply a mess. It was raped and thrown in the ocean with cinder blocks to its feet. Now that I have said I hate the changed version now let me talk about the Recobbed Cut. This was a fan made cut that changed everything so it would be like it was intended to be like. It breaks my heart to watch it. It shows how this could have been a classic, but it was taken from a genius' hands and was destroyed. The Thief and The Cobbler are silent like they are supposed to be, the sound effects are made so they would sound older, the songs are gone, missing scenes are added, and the pop culture references are gone. In this new version we get more likable characters, more focus on animation, and a much better sense of humor. It would have been a classic, but perfection was wanted to the point where it was destroyed.1 star out of 4 (changed version)4 stars out of 4 (Recobbled Cut)

Richard Williams started work on his magnum opus, "The Thief and the Cobbler" in 1964 as an adaptation of "Nasruddin". In the 1970s, it was switched to an original story based on the "1001 Arabian Nights" tales. This film was self-funded, and thus he had worked on for over 20 years by the time he got the funding to finish the film in 1988. Missing a deadline in 1991, Warner Bros. (who were going to distribute the film) backed out and the film was taken away from Williams and finished (and re-cut) by Fred Calvert.The film itself displays very elaborate, even stunning animation that wasn't even done on computers. That's what make the film all the more amazing. Several scenes are mindblowing. The artwork of the film (based on Persian miniatures) is beautiful, and works well with the theme of the film. The climax, the War Machine sequence, is probably the most stunning scene I've ever seen in classic animation. Unfortunately, the film's story quality is a bit weak. The story was a bit of a muddle, and the action didn't really take off until The Thief unintentionally causes trouble for the Golden City, removing the Golden Balls that protect the city from its minaret. A love story between Tack the Cobbler and Princess Yum-Yum is established early on in the story, and it's also established that the Grand Vizier Zig Zag (Voiced masterfully by Vincent Price) wants to marry Yum-Yum to rule the Golden City.So about the released versions? They're definitely inferior to Williams' unfinished film (That's not what the money people thought). Fred Calvert was given the task to finish the film, and he believed that he was making the unfinished film into a "watchable" or "passable" film. What he did was mess it up.It is obvious that Calvert was trying to make it more commercial, but I'm not sure if this was Williams' intention. It was more of a "Fantasia"-like project, as that film wasn't very commercial when released. Instead of finishing the unfinished 15 minutes, Calvert put new animation in (That looks very sub-par), redubbed a lot of the voices, and... songs! Why? I guess Calvert thought they advanced the plot. Instead, they don't work. Even worse, Tack, a mute character, was given a voice. Horrible. That would be like giving Tom and Jerry voices (Well, it did happen with 1992's "Tom and Jerry: The Movie"). Also, adult content and violence was toned down. Calvert's edit was released as "The Princess and the Cobbler" in South Africa in 1993 and in Australia in 1994, although it was going to be titled "The Thief and the Cobbler" (as evidenced by an earlier trailer for Calvert's edit). In total, Calvert's version is inferior to Williams' film. Calvert's version is a mess, with unnecessary songs. Tack talking just doesn't work, it eliminates the whole idea that Tack is a character whose tacks make a mouth for him, and it ruins that deep voice gag at the end of the film.Calvert's edit was not a success where it was released. Miramax then bought the rights to it in December 1994, planning to release the Calvert version in theaters in the U.S. Instead, they recut the film even more. The Thief is given a voice, along with the character Phido (Zig Zag's vulture). It made the damaged film even worse. It was released in 1995 as "Arabian Knight", obviously trying to cash in on Disney's very similar "Aladdin". This leads some to believe that "Aladdin" took ideas from "Thief". However, that doesn't mean we have to go anti-Disney. "Aladdin" is still a good film, despite the fact that it does borrow "a lot" from "Thief". Was it intended to rip-off "Thief"? Who knows. After all, it was Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg who were head of the company at the time. They steered Disney into big money in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Maybe it was because Richard Williams himself supposedly said he wasn't happy with "Roger Rabbit" (he directed the animation, which was what got "The Thief" funded). But remember, Williams missed the deadline, so we can't say the disaster is all the money people's fault (Though a lot of it is). Williams fired 100 animators during production because they didn't meet his standards, many of these animators went onto Disney and worked on "Aladdin". Williams has missed deadlines before, once with "A Christmas Carol" and again with "Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure". The latter of the two was a box office failure (though it featured elaborate animation) that's sadly not on DVD.It's a horrible story. What if Williams didn't miss the 1991 deadline and "The Thief and the Cobbler" hit theaters on time? It might've done well, or it might've failed (The concept was deemed unreleasable years ago). But Calvert shouldn't have tinkered with the film, he should've finished it the way Williams wanted it. Instead, he went for the money and wanted to a more commercial, more audience-friendly picture. Miramax, I can only imagine why they did what they did. The Thief's inner thoughts don't work, and it comes off as a professionally edited parody / comedic re-dub."The Thief and the Cobbler" is a stunning animated film, but it does lack a strong story. A 9.0 out of 10. The re-cuts. Well... they're inferior. Calvert's film is a mess. The Miramax version is poor.