General Mills Cereal DVDs

[tygerbug]

In the video version from Miramax, the Old Witch character is cut out entirely (probably because she seems drug-addled) ... and the battle march of the One-Eye army, which was the showpiece of the film, is cut down to almost nothing sadly. There was an amazing shot where Zig-Zag first glimpses the "palace" of One-Eye, and we just pull back from Zig-Zag's astonished face to this burst of fire and dancing one-Eye women and the camera just keeps pulling back until we are inside the eye of One-Eye and we pull out to see One-Eye's face .... hard to explain but it was wonderful. This shot is in the Aussie version, as is most of the march of the One-Eyes. Also in the Aussie version, there is thankfully no voiceover for Tack and The Thief and Phido, which ruins the Miramax version. But both versions cut out about 50% of the Thief's part (in the Aussie version though, a lot of those cut Thief scenes run during the credits. The cut Thief scenes are some of the better animation in the film.)

The soundtrack in both versions is horrible and ruins the film, and both were disowned by director Richard Williams. I've actually seen (and have a bad copy of) Williams' early work-in-progress version of the film and it's quite nice .... makes it much clearer what the film was intended to be when you can hear the original voices and sound ... including the one Tack line rumored to be spoken by Sean Connery! (But who knows ...)

A while back as an experiment I took the Miramax version and recut it with the original soundtrack from the work-in-progress, in its original order, with the Aussie scenes and some shots and storyboards from the work in progress. It came out very nice and was rather eye-opening. Would redo that digitally if I had time.

In any version, it's a very original film with lots of great animation, and I'd love to see it restored one day ... apparently Roy E. Disney wants to see it restored too, if any of the original footage can be found .... he feels bad about how the film was sort of destroyed by Disney (it's generally acknowledged that Disney animators stole from all the character designs and some of the plot to make Aladdin, and the higher-ups at Disney found out much later and were horrified, and tried to push The Thief and the Cobbler under the rug) ...

 

[radionate]

Wow, I had no idea.

I first found out about the theif and the cobbler when Richard was working on WFRR. I was blown away by the scenes I saw, and the artwork. It was incredible.

I didn't realize so much was cut from the Miramax release, no did I realize that the voice overs weren't original. (Shows how much I know). I've never really seen much written about the movie, which always disappointed me as it is so beautiful and was/is the baby of Mr. Williams, who had worked on it for oh so many years.

 

[tygerbug]

Here is a video file of the deleted tracking shot in the lair of the One-Eye. (There used to be more online, but they're gone now.)
http://us.share.geocities.com/eddie_bowers/throne.mov

Yes, it's a sad story .... Richard wasn't able to finish The Thief and the Cobbler as he wanted. The funding fell out from under him. At that point, he was fired from his own film, which he had been working on independently for two and a half decades. A fellow in L.A. named Fred Calvert (who had been doing TV animation for many many years) was hired to finish the film cheaply by any means necessary. Calvert's version is the rare one seen in Australia ... it's not a bad cut, but about 1/3rd of the film is cut out, including most of the Thief's part, and the original score and voiceovers are bad .... Princess Yum Yum, One-Eye and King Nod (originally played by Sir Anthony Quayle, here played by Clive Revill) were revoiced for this one, among others. The score is intended to sound like a Spielberg film I think .... Williams' original music, though sparse, was much better ... including some singing and a great love theme. They cut out Williams' original music and shoehorned in three very bad musical numbers, which were animated in Korea on the cheap. Tack, who was originally silent, here sings. Any scenes that Williams had not finished were also animated in Korea on the cheap (it's bad animation), and the story was changed a little. The meaning of some scenes was lost. The Thief's entire plotline was moved to the end credits.

Most of Williams' beautiful long tracking shots across long landscapes, which were done by hand but look better than the computer shots that would be done today, were cut or shortened.

As I said, this version was a lame version of the film, but it's the best that was finished .... it was only released in Australia.

Finally Miramax bought the film, but as they're a Disney subsidiary and it would have looked bad if people realized that this film inspired Aladdin, they reedited it to seem more like a cheap Aladdin ripoff.

Matthew Broderick was hired to voice Tack at this point, Jonathan Winters to voice The Thief (both silent characters mind you), and Eric Bogosian to play Phido (also originally silent).

The opening voiceover now mentions Aladdin. To make this clear.

(Originally, the voiceover said that the world we live in [and by extension this film] is just a dream. It was a lovely opening ...)

The voiceovers of Broderick and especially Winters now seem to make fun of the film. They seem specifically calculated to make the film less good.

The rest of the tracking shots were deleted from this cut, for no clear reason.

The March of the One-Eye Army, the showpiece of the film, was cut down further, until the scene barely exists.

All the Thief's adventures from the end credits were deleted.

The entire character of the Old Witch was cut. Probably because she appears to endorse drug use ... she sniffs some fumes and explodes. The sequence is now very oddly reedited, including every shot that the witch was not visibly in. (We see her as a large eye, then as mist.)

But hopefully this film will be restored someday. Even the Miramax cut is quite inspiring, if you ignore the soundtrack and the cheap Korean shots that form about 25% of this version. I love when Tack slides down through a seemingly Escher-like checkerboard series of halls.

(Williams also did the crappy Raggedy Ann and Andy movie we remember from our childhoods .... but he's working on a new film now apparently, and hopefully will finish it .... he refuses to discuss "Cobbler" as the whole 30 year experience has now made him very very very very bitter. He only had about 15 minutes more total animation to do to finish his version when it was taken away ....)

For more info:
http://www.geocities.com/eddie_bowers

And if you're really curious, I probably have my low-quality attempt at a restoration somewhere ... or can get it.

 

[radionate]

Wow,

Thanks for the great info!!!! I so agree with you that visually, even the miramax film is amazing. I am now on a mission (one that I will have no time for, but a mission none the less), to find some of these great scenes that have been cut. I can't imagine what the movie would be like with a silent tack and thief.

Was Vincit Price an original voice actor on the film? He was gone for quiet awhile after the film came out, and it's always puzzled me when they recorded his dialoge.

 

[tygerbug]

Vincent Price's voice tracks were recorded in the late 60s! The film was very different then, not having either The Thief or Tack in it .... it was intended to be a tale of the twisted wiseman Mullah Nasrudin. Williams had always loved Price and enjoyed animating his voice a lot. Although his voice sounds very high in the film. I am not sure if Price was called back to record new lines after that first 60s session. Also there were Donald Pleasance (croaking as Phido) and Sean Connery. Declan Mulholland, who played Jabba the Hutt in a cut scene from the original Star Wars, can also be heard in the final film, amusingly.

As for those cut scenes, Eddie Bowers who runs that Thief and the Cobbler site is now sending me better copies of all the various versions of the film he has. So if I have time I will release a nicer quality reedit of the film with the original silent soundtracks.

As for a silent Tack and Thief, just shut the sound off. =)

 

[radionate]

Amazing! Absolutly Amazing. I'm stunned at your knowledge. Good to know there are others out there that continue to appreciated the art and beauty of animation. I'm going to have to check out these sites now. I already dug the video out again last night, and will watch it in a few days with all I've learned in my mind.

 

[Walker Boh]

Good grief ... I'd forgotten how incredibly sweet Lucky Charms are. Ack!