Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

wwe7961 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)

Ostrumation 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.

FreakinFilmFreak93 The Thief and the Cobbler, created by the animator responsible for Roger Rabbit and the Pink Panther, was a beautiful film. That is, if it ever were completed properly. The film is probably the big inspiration for Disney's Aladdin, which was just as great. The animation is so brilliant, not even the likes of Disney or Don Bluth could top it. It's a film you'd have to feel bad for, since it took up to 26 years to make and seemed to fail and get butchered.It's about a cute mute (at least he should've been) named Tack, a cobbler, who might compare to Jo-Jo in the Blue Sky version of Horton Hears a Who. The other main character is the swamp-coloured, cheeky, silent thief (at least he should've been silent). He is crazy for gold stuff as Scrat from Ice Age is crazy for acorns and he stinks so much that his flies follow him everywhere he goes. Tack falls in love with the pretty Princess Yum-Yum, daughter of the lazy King Nod (the inspiration for the Sultan), which gets the blue vizier Zig-zag angry. Zig-zag is the inspiration for the Genie and Jafar who can say anything in rhymes and is voiced by Vincent Price. The most important thing the characters need to take care of though the Thief is just too greedy to know about is the set of three golden balls above the tallest minaret. If the balls were taken away, the dark, half-blind army of One-Eyes will attack.I've seen the three main versions; the Recobbled cut, the Allied Filmmakers version and the Miramax version. First, I am going to talk about the Recobbled cut. This cut is made by a big fan named Garrett Gilchrist of a fan company named Orange Cow Productions. He compiled footage and original sound tracks he collected from all versions of the film and people who worked on the film, no matter if it's unfinished, low quality or animated poorly by Fred Calvert. He also included classical music to make it a little more epic. It could possibly the best fan edit ever made.10/10 for the Recobbled cut.The Allied Filmmakers/Majestic Films version, The Princess and the Cobbler, was released only in Australia and South Africa. It was taken away from Richard after Warner Bros. rejected it and completed quite badly by television animator Fred Calvert and the Completion Bond Company. Fred added extra animation that looked as if Don Bluth animated it (some of the extra animation was produced at his studio), dialogue for Tack and crappy songs that made it quite a rip-off of Aladdin. Fred also changed the plot by mixing up scenes a little. The Thief was still silent, only making a few gasping, grunting or chuckling noises, and Zig-zag kept his great Vincent voice.3/10 for The Princess and the Cobbler.Miramax picked up Fred's edit, called it "Arabian Knight" and ruined it. They turned what could've been a masterpiece into a masterpiece of crap. They cut some scenes out because they thought they were too disturbing or long, added more repetition, gave Tack the inappropriate voice of Matthew Broderick and gave everyone who couldn't talk some annoying thought talk that distracted from the great animation. The thief, voiced by Jonathan Winters, spoke about everything he could see and thought that he was in the real world of the present day by speaking present day references ("Nobody lives like this except college kids.") and pop culture references ("I'm going to Disneyland!"), and he wouldn't shut the hell up. Nor would anyone else. The edit overflowed with dialogue, with tons of grunting voices and more usage of "What?" from King Nod. And that's right; Phido and the other animals could actually thought-talk as well. What, did Jim Davis suddenly take over the production? This isn't a Garfield TV special. What were they thinking? Did they care about the original's creator? It probably inspired the butchery the Weinstein Company did to the film version of The Magic Roundabout when they added cuts, random flatulence jokes, pop culture references and moose dialogue.0/10 for Arabian Knight.So the only version of this film to watch is the Recobbled cut. Don't waste your time with the other versions. A true-to-the-story restoration of the film was put on hold when Roy E. Disney left The Walt Disney Company so that the company could be totally butchered, but Garrett Gilchrist hears that the Disney restoration has been continued, so there's hope yet!

MARIO GAUCI Famously ill-fated animated feature by the renowned Richard Williams, which remains uncompleted despite his having worked on it for almost 30 years!; the film was eventually released in two bastardized versions under the titles of THE PRINCESS AND THE COBBLER (1993) and ARABIAN KNIGHT, while bootlegs – actually a workprint – closer to Williams' original vision have also surfaced (which is the edition I acquired).It's a typical Arabian Nights fantasy and it's no secret that the Disney Studios 'borrowed' some of its ideas for their hugely successful ALADDIN (1992). Of course, we have a hero (the Cobbler), a heroine (the Princess), a comic-relief sidekick (the Thief) and a villain (the Grand Vizier); the latter is recognizably voiced by the late great Vincent Price (running the whole gamut of emotions in the process), while one of the more interesting aspects of the film is that the titular figures are given no dialogue (except for one silly line by the Cobbler at the very end). Both also have other weird characteristics: the Cobbler's mouth is shaped like two nails set side by side with their points meeting, while the Thief is constantly being followed by a swarm of buzzing flies! The plot basically revolves around three golden balls atop the King's (shouldn't that be Caliph?!) palace which, if removed, would bring disaster upon the land – and, sure enough, the Thief is after them. Needless to say, the Grand Vizier called Zig-Zag (with faithful vulture companion Phido in tow) not only craves power for himself but the Princess' hand, too, and he secretly connives with a warring people intent on conquering Arabia to this end. As expected, the visual design is extremely colorful and amazingly detailed (especially effective is Williams' clever use of perspective) – though it's hardly rendered justice by the fuzzy quality of the copy under review (to check out the film as mangled by other hands is clearly out of the question for me).At 96 minutes, THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER – with its slight plot and even thinner characters – does tend to drag a bit (especially during the climax and the Thief's protracted hair-raising stunts to survive a conflagration), but the latter's amiable antics throughout and Price's agreeably hammy rendition more than make up for any such deficiencies. For the record, many other notable actors were roped in for the project over the years – with sometimes more than one person being engaged for the same role (the King, for instance, was voiced by both Anthony Quayle and Clive Revill and the narrator was either Felix Aylmer or Ralph Richardson)!