39,327
edits
The Thief and the Cobbler: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (revise quote template spacing) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 4:
{{quote|''The idea is to make the best animated film that has ever been made - there really is no reason why not.''|'''[[Richard Williams]]''', before losing rights to his film}}
'''''The Thief and the Cobbler''''' was directed by [[Richard Williams]] (of ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' fame). At more than 30 years, it holds the record for the longest production time for a motion picture - much of it spent in [[Development Hell]]. Also goes under the titles '''''The Princess and the Cobbler''''' and '''''Arabian Knight''''', depending on which version you're watching. Often considered one of the lost treasures of [[Western Animation|animation]] (some critics consider it the [[Missing Episode|greatest unfinished film of all time]]) the movie began as a pet project which Williams and a few colleagues worked on out of his garage. It was picked up by a studio after Williams won an Oscar for ''Roger Rabbit'', but funding was pulled with just a few months left to go in production. Williams is an ''incredibly'' meticulous animator so his work takes a really, really long time to produce, even by animation standards. This amazing attention to detail really shows in the film; but it may also be what doomed it to incomplete status.
Here's the plot: In a [[City of Gold|"golden city"]] set in a pseudo-Arabian land (although, in one of the versions, they decided to [[Small Reference Pools|put it in Baghdad]],) there are [[Plot Coupon|three golden balls]] atop "the highest minaret." Prophecy has it that if the balls are stolen, the city would fall, unless it was saved by the [[Simpleminded Wisdom|simplest of souls]]. The balls are stolen by a sneaky, nameless thief, just as a vicious race of one-eyed men (simply known as the One-Eyes) are about to attack the city. The King of the city sends his daughter, Princess YumYum, out to find a way to stop the encroaching army, and she takes along with her the hero of our story, a meek cobbler named Tack (who has begun to fall in love with the Princess and she with him) as a guide. They are followed along the way by the Thief, who's only in it for the loot.
Line 22:
** [[Noteworthy Looney Tunes Staff|Ken Harris]], number one animator in the Chuck Jones unit [[Looney Tunes|during production on the original golden-era batch of Warner Brothers cartoons]]. Ken's animation of the Thief is similar to his work on Wile E. Coyote.
** Emery Hawkins, who worked for '''every single''' cartoon studio that existed in Hollywood between the 30s and the 50s. It is not exactly known what he animated on ''Thief'' (many animation buffs guess he drew [[Deleted Scene|the ogre-prince who isn't in the Recobbled Cut]]).
** [[Grim Natwick]], responsible for [[Krazy Kat]], [[Betty Boop]], [[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White]] and [[Mr. Magoo]], and was in fact 90 years old when he tackled the drawings for the Mad Witch.
** For many of these actors and artists, ''Thief and the Cobbler'' was their final film; they poured in every ounce of blood and sweat they had left.
* [[All There in the Script]]: The names of Zigzag's minions, Goblet, Tickle, Gopher and Slap, are never mentioned. The same goes for a couple of brigands; Hook and Hoof.
Line 52:
* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]: The Thief and Zigzag.
* [[Catch Phrase]]: "Have no fear, Zigzag the Grand Vizier is here." ...Yes, it's ironic.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:
** {{spoiler|Princess Yumyum's back-scratchers.}}
** Also the {{spoiler|tacks that Tack keeps in his mouth.}}
Line 66:
* [[Cute Mute]]: Tack, in spades. {{spoiler|That is, until the last scene.}}
* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: "Seeeiizze him! Take him! Seize him! Take him!"
* [[Deranged Animation]]: Taken [[Up to Eleven]] in the original version.
* [[Design Student's Orgasm]]: Everything is extremely stylized to the point of being super weird. Lots of [[Amazing Technicolor Population]], [[Unmoving Plaid]] and [[Deranged Animation]].
* [[Determinator]]: ''Nothing'' can stop the Thief once he spots something shiny.
Line 144:
* [[No Mouth]]: Tack, whose mouth is represented by the tacks he holds in his mouth.
* [[The Noun and the Noun]]
* [[Off-Model]]: Happens pretty often, as one could expect from an animated film in production for ''decades'' and, in the case of the Calvert version, <ref> The animation itself was largely handled by members of Sulivan-Bluth Studios in Ireland, Kroyer Films in America and Premier Films in the UK. With [[Wang Film Productions]] in Taiwan handing the bulk of the ink and paint, which in turn went to their Thailand-based studio</ref>. It doesn't help that Calvert outsourced the remaining animation work to cheaper studios, creating a drastic difference in quality between the original Williams-animated scenes and his scenes.
** A very noticeable instance is YumYum as Zigzag says .”..of course, oh rose of the land, your slightest whim is my command..." This is because the footage was recycled from an older test reel Williams had created to pitch the film to potential investors.
* [[The Oner]]: Some shots are over one minute long. Some examples are the dying soldier slowly crawling towards his horse, and the thief tightrope walking. Some of them have hidden cuts to make animating them easier.
* [[Perspective Magic]]: When there is a scene with tiled patterns, perspective is often played with.
Line 153:
** It also turned her into a [[Jerkass]]. At least Jasmine could back up the fact that she had brains inside a pretty body and didn't just sing and spin.
* [[Re Cut]]: There's three versions of the film:
** The original, unfinished version of the film by Richard Williams. He put together a workprint in 1992 before he was forced to leave. The Recobbled Cut is a restoration of this, with only some cosmetic changes (adding more music and replacing storyboards with Calvert's animation where it didn't differ too much).
** ''The Princess and the Cobbler'' in 1993 by Fred Calvert, which removed a bunch of scenes, added songs, a voice for Tack and a large amount of [[Off-Model]] animation.
** ''Arabian Knight'' in 1995 by Miramax, which removed even more scenes and added voiceovers for pretty much every scene; most notably Jonathan Winters as the Thief.
Line 168:
* [[Sphere Eyes]]: Some of the characters, given their really cartoony appearances.
* [[Spike Balls of Doom]]: One-Eye's army has these in their weapon arsenal.
* [[Spikes of Villainy]]: The War Machine of the One-Eyes.
* [[Star Scraper]]: ZigZag has a tower that is ridiculously tall. The minaret with the three golden balls is supposed to be the tallest in the city, but seems fairly normal in comparison.
* [[Sticky Fingers]]: Take a wild guess.
Line 190:
* [[Wallet Moths]]: The Thief steals the Cobbler's money purse to find it woefully empty, save for a few moths.
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: In the re-cuts of the movie:
** While Princess YumYum is bathing, the Thief steals two of her back scratchers. In the re-cuts, nothing comes of it. In the original version, the Thief [[Chekhov's Gun|uses them to escape having his hands cut off.]]
** While Tack and YumYum are consulting the Witch, the Thief is trying to get a giant ruby on a tower by flying with palm frond wings. He ends up crashing into the Witch. But since the re-cuts eliminate nearly all the footage of the Witch, the Thief's fate is left literally up in the air.
** Played straight in the edits, but averted in the original cut. Tack is seen feeding a mouse while he's imprisoned, and we later see that he's sneaked the mouse out with him when he escaped (these shots are present in all versions of the film). While it's never seen again in the edits, in the original cut he removes the mouse from his pocket and gives it to YumYum before he goes to face One-Eye's army.
| |||