Film Discussion of the Week: The Thief and the Cobbler

Never saw it.  Hard to ignore the similarity between it and Disney's Aladdin which came out a year prior to this.

If there was one animated movie more than any other that deserves a feature-length documentary about its development, it's Richard Williams The Thief and the Cobbler.

I am by no means a fan of any version of this film, but there is so much to take away from the utter tragedy that occurred during its production. Long story short, this film was Williams' passion project which he had funded largely with his own money and worked on in his spare time steadily throughout much of his career. It was to be a largely silent visual epic, much in the same vain as other european animated arthouse classics like The King and the Mockingbird and The Triplets of Belleville. After some minor financial backing from private investors, Warner Bros. approached Williams to produce the film after his success with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Williams agreed, unknowingly sealing the fate of the project. Months later, unimpressed after seeing a rough cut of the film, the producers fired Williams and handed the film over to a completion bond company so it could be reworked to appeal to a wider demographic and finished on a smaller budget. Predictably this resulted in a Disney copy-cat POS kid's film filled with musical numbers, less ambitious animation and nothing resembling what Williams originally intended the film to be.

As I said, I'm not the biggest fan of even the original version (or what's left of it), but I don't hate it unlike the versions that followed once he lost control of the film. His version is at the very least subtle, watchable and interesting, like any good European animated film. I think the reason I prefer The Triplets of Belleville over Thief is because I'm really not fond of the lack of detail and dimension of the character designs in this film. It's heavily stylized in a way that doesn't appeal to my personal tastes. The animation looks and feels too similar to american cartoons for me to enjoy, even if it does draw inspiration from middle-eastern art.

Despite my disinterest in many aspects of the visual design, I genuinely sympathize with Williams, and Thief and the Cobbler is without a doubt the absolute worst example of american animation studio executives meddling with/sabotaging animated films, and I honestly think the story behind Thief is the saddest of any film ever, especially since I'm such a huge fan of Richard Williams. Seeing your greatest piece of art destroyed beyond recognition is something very few people have ever experienced, especially an artist as talented and acclaimed as Williams.

The Thief and the Cobbler is one of the many reasons why I despise the american animation industry with a vehement, burning hot passion. I'm not rating the film (Williams version) simply because it isn't for me, even though I do think it's a good movie. If you're interested in watching Williams' version, check out that video that Balder linked. The uploader did his best in restoring the film and his cut matches what Williams intended the film to be.

There's an old saying that goes "good dreams go to die in Hollywood". After seeing what happened to this film, I couldn't agree more.

I remember I liked it when I watched it a few years back.

"What a curiosity! Being in development hell for 28 years one would think this movie died a long time ago, but here it is in some glory. It is a shame that this movie is not 100% complete, because it is 100% awesome. I went into this movie expecting it to be an Aladdin rip-off due to it coming out after Aladdin and having a lot of similar character and themes. I wanted to laugh at it, but I quickly realized that this was something special. The animation is unique, creative and so cool looking. It kind of looks like an arthaus movie in animation. Great score and alright story, but the characters make it terrific, especially the Thief and Cobbler. I would really like it if this movie was somehow restored with all the missing scenes fully animated. This is kind of hard to rate, but since it is still very watchable and enjoyable in this state, it is an obvious 4.5/5, and a 5/5 if it was complete."

Seriously great find MeleeMonk. One of the best CGR recommendation I've ever got.

Yeah, I read that on the Wiki. I just added the Aladdin rating because of the close release dates and similar setting. And for the joke, naturally.

The trailer looks interesting. The animation definitely looks more like the older production that it actually was, rather than up to how movies in the 90s looked. Vincent Price is awesome, though. And this would be a Price in his prime, not an old man in the 90s Price.

It's only 1h 40min, go watch it already.