The Thief and The Cobbler: Workprint Edition.
I just found out about this film recently, about two weeks ago, and I've fallen in love with it. It's just so beautiful to watch, and while the characters aren't that fleshed-out in the movie, I still like them a lot. I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I get attached to things that I like easily. It's a real shame that this movie was never completed, and the story about the film never being completed is sad.
As I understand it Richard Williams spent 30 years making this film wanting it to be his masterpiece(and one of the greatest animated movies ever made), before looking for funds to complete it, then was going to complete it with Miramax
who booted him off of the project and rushed out the movie when there were about 15 minutes of the film left to animate(in order to... compete with Aladdin- you've probably never heard of this film until now and that should just tell you want a grand idea it was to rush it out). Miramax's version is known as Arabian Knight/The Princess and The Cobbler, and gives a voice to Tack who is mute in the original version of the film(besides a few words), gives the Thief inner monologue, as well as featuring bland song sequences. I haven't watched that version, though, that's just what I'm getting from Nostalgia Critic's review.
In certain aspects, the Workprint edition is lacking, as I said before characters aren't that fleshed out, although they are charming, and oftentimes the film's pace is laggy. As it is, though, it's a film with some entertaining characters and
the finest animation put to film. Even with computer animation, years after this film was left behind, I don't think I've seen any animation I thought was more beautiful. Perhaps it's just because the animation is all hand drawn and the work that must have been put into it stuns me, but there is truly beautiful animation in this movie. The chase scene is the most obvious- it's just unbelievable that it's hand-drawn and it's a stunning animation and great chase scene in general, and when Zigzag enters the camp of the One-Eyes you can see great detail reflected off of The Mighty One-Eye's eye, and the entire ending battle against the One-Eye war machines is just delightfully clever and has a lot of detailed animation. I really enjoy animation as a whole and because of that the movie was a joy for me to watch. Every bit of completed animation in this movie is wonderfully smooth, it's just stunning, and the movie's style is quite unique. There are still a couple of inconsistencies in the animation if you look closely but they aren't major and don't really detract from the experience a lot. I didn't notice them until re-watching the film, actually.
As for the characters- someone said the film is more fun when you imagine how the characters feel which I totally agree with(and the way the animation is, it lends itself to that well). There's not really a lot to say about them. They're pretty minimalistic and the movie's plot is simple too. If you want fleshed-out characters, watching this film won't give them to you, but if you like applying headcanons to stuff then do so for the characters in this movie and you'll probably enjoy it.
If you're interested in watching the movie, I'd say that watching the
Recobbled Cut would be better than the Workprint edition, but I had to watch the Workprint because half of the Recobbled Cut videos won't work on an iPad. Sadface.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 8:20 pm