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Oh boy.
Where do I start I don’t even?
Movies, as a general rule, do not happen overnight. Making a film is a long, laborious, expensive process and can take years. Even so, some movies just take this to ridiculous extremes. The longest production time on record for a live action film is the twenty years it took Leni Riefenstahl to finish Tiefland. That record is surpassed by only one other film, our subject for today, Richard Williams’ legendary, famous, infamous, infamfamous unfinished crapasterpiece The Thief and the Cobbler. Thirty one years. In the same length of time it took this movie to see theatres, I went from a sperm to a person writing these words. Thirty one years. And, keep in mind, at least Riefenstahl had the excuse of the SECOND WORLD WAR happening in mid-production.
“I honestly could not give two fucks yada yada etc and so forth.”
So what’s Williams’ excuse?
Alright, so time for backstory.
While he doesn’t have anything like the name recognition of animators like Don Bluth or Ralph Bakshi, Richard Williams is serious business in the world of animation. He emigrated from his native Canada to Britain in the fifties and helped himself to a Bafta for his animated short The Little Island. He was twenty five. That launched a long and often highly acclaimed career in animation with Williams’ picking up an Emmy and a couple of Oscars.
The Bafta was lonely.
In 1964, Williams began work on Nasruddin! the movie that would eventually become The Thief and the Cobbler. Williams was not humble in his goals. This film was going to be his masterpiece, and raise the bar for animation as an artform. Instead it turned into a logistical nightmare that dragged on for decades, with story and characters being dropped and re-written and backers pulling out. Williams had a vision for the film; animation for adults with very little dialogue. But the various investors he found over the decades also had a vision; they wanted to make money. Williams refused to commercialize the work and for long periods of the production had to fund it himself with the proceeds from various animation gigs. A breakthrough finally came when Williams showed some footage to his friend and mentor, Disney animator Milt Kahl. Kahl, realising that his apprentice had indeed become strong in the ways of the force, showed the footage to Stephen Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis and before long they were sidling up to Williams and asking questions like “Sooooooo…how do you feel about rabbits?”
Williams’ agreed to do the animation chores for Roger Rabbit in exchange for help distributing Thief. After Roger made enough money to buy one of the nicer continents and got so much critical adoration that everyone just started feeling a little embarrassed, Warner Bros agreed to bankroll the project and Williams got to work. He recruited some of the hottest young talent from the animation schools of Europe to replace the original animators, most of whom were now gone. And I don’t mean gone as in “moved on to other projects” I mean “they were taken by the icy hand of death which comes for us all in the end.” Which is what happens when your movie takes longer to complete than, I dunno, a pyramid. But at last Williams was ready to finally finish the film. He had the money. He had the talent. What could possibly go wrong?
“He went craaaaaaazy…”
Yeah, so as well as being a phenomenal animator Williams was kind of an insane crazy person. He was a fanatical perfectionist and any animator who wasn’t able to meet his insanely high standards was kicked to the curb. According to one source, literally hundreds of animators were pink-slipped. Making matters worse, Williams…
I’m sorry, this is hard for me to even say.
Williams…Williams didn’t believe in using storyboards. Because he felt they were “too limiting”.
Alright, so imagine you have two architects, okay? One sits down, draws a blueprint for a building, decides it’s crap and then throws it away. The other just starts building. And by the time he’s built twenty stories he realises that the building is crap and has to be torn down. Both architects failed to create a building. But one of them has a rolled up ball of paper, and the other has several million quids worth of wasted time and building material. Williams is the second guy.
Because he didn’t use storyboards and basically allowed his animators to improvise scenes on the fly, the only way to figure out that a particular scene wasn’t working was when it was already at least partially animated. Fail to plan, plan to fail etc.
So by 1991 the movie’s still not finished and is massively overbudget (please, no shrieks of astonishment) and Disney are prepping Aladdin for release, a movie that some might say is rather suspiciously like Thief and the Cobbler. Some might say that. I wouldn’t. I say, yeah, you take thirty one years to make a movie someone somewhere will make a movie like it. Law of averages, baby. Warner Brothers finally threw up their hands and said “Screw this, we got superheroes to ruin” and pulled out. And then The Completion Bond Company stepped in which is never a good day.
“We are the ones people call when things go wrong.”
Animation producer Fred Calvert was appointed by the bond company to hack the movie into something marketable. Calvert renamed the movie The Princess and the Cobbler and tried to make it as close to Aladdin as possible. Miramax bought the rights on behalf of Disney and then did their own hatchet job on it, casting celebrity voices and releasing it under the title Arabian Knight before finally letting it limp to video under its original title of The Thief and the Cobbler. Part of the problem with reviewing this movie is that there are so many different versions of it, the first Calvert cut, the Miramax edit and the (at time of writing) four Recobbled cuts, which are filmmaker Garret Gilchrist’s attempts to restore the film to William’s original vision or as close as possible. For clarity, I’ll be reviewing the Miramax version because that’s the one I have on DVD and it features Matthew Broderick who I haven’t made fun of recently. Come my friends, let us gaze upon the beauty and the carnage.
So the movie begins with narration by our hero, Tack the cobbler, voiced in this version by A-list actor Matthew Broderick.
Tack explains that legends say (oh do they really) that at the centre of every star is an Arabian Night and that this story takes place in Baghdad, which is in an Arabian night, which is in a star. Got that? Honestly, I haven’t seen bullshit opening narration this pseudo-profound since Dinosaur’s “some things start out big and some things start out small.” Anyway, Tack gets around to the actual exposition. Baghdad is a beautiful oasis of peace, culture and beauty much like today, protected by three magical golden balls on top of a minaret. These balls protect the city from the evil king One Eye and Texans with Daddy issues and basically just keep everything copacetic. The movie suddenly pulls an absolutely jaw-dropping tracking shot over the desert until we see One Eye’s army laying waste to everything before them and a single soldier with enough arrows in him to drop Boromir escaping on horseback to warn Baghdad.
In Baghdad we meet Tack, who’s working as a cobbler’s apprentice, and the Thief (Jonathan Winters) who’s working as a freelance IT consultant, web-design mostly but really anything in the general field of computer…
He’s a THIEF you jackasses!
So a big problem with the movie (or at least, with this version of it) is that Tack and the Thief were originally supposed to be silent characters who then had voiceovers dubbed over their every scene in a classic case of not trusting the audience’s attention span and intelligence. Broderick’s is mostly just bland and coma-inducing (“Broderickising” is the technical term that I just made up) but the stuff they’ve given the Thief just makes you want to punch a wall. It’s full of innuendo and pop-culture references and empty of charm, wit or relevance of any kind. So the Thief sets about stealing everything in sight and tries to mug a little old lady who turns out to have the arms of a longshoreman and breaks him like glass.
“I wondered which would break first. Your mind, or your body.”
The Thief then sneaks into Tack’s shop while the Cobbler is asleep while outside, a procession marches through the city in honour of the Grand Vizier, Zig Zag.
Sigh. Not ALL my pop culture references are for you, American readers. Learn to share.
Tack wakes up while the Thief is trying to rob him and they scuffle, tumbling out of the shop and right into the path of the Vizier’s parade.
“Hey! Clear the Way! Through the old bazaar! Here’s this blue creepy guy, who’s quite like Jafar! Oh he gave us dildos to carry in our haaaands!”
Zig Zag (voiced marvelously by the malevolent malodious malefactory of the dread Vincent Price) steps on a tack and has Tack arrested and brought to the palace to face execution (the boy was a criminal).
Meanwhile, we meet Tack’s future love interest, the Princess Yum Yum (Yum Yum. Yum Yum. He’s gonna marry Yum Yum). Yum Yum in the Miramax and Calvert edits of the movie gets quite a big upgrade in status from Williams’ original vision, with most of the added scenes and songs centered around her. The intention is clearly to create a Princess Jasmine type character, a tough, courageous female lead. That’s all good in theory but it falls apart for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the animation done under Calvert is so woefully inferior to Williams’. Secondly, the songs they wrote for her are so woefully inferior to anything ever set to music. Seriously, the sound of me brushing my teeth is better than these songs. And lastly, my rule for creating strong, independent female characters is the same as my rule for paying the rent.
Don’t talk about paying the rent.
Don’t tell me that you’re about to pay the rent.
Just pay. The Fucking. Rent.
“Wow. You’ve taken passive-aggressive note-leaving to a whole new level..”
Yum Yum talks a good game about being smarter than any man, and wanting to be free of the strictures of palace life and finding adventure in the great wide somewhere but for the most part that’s all she does. In the same amount of time she spends whining Jasmine has kissed her tiger goodbye, scaled a wall like frickin’ Spider-man, conned some apple sellers, hooked up with a cute guy and his monkey, gotten in a little pole-vaulting and returned home to engage in a little high-stakes court intrigue with the Grand Vizier. She didn’t talk about all the shit she was going to do, shit got done.
Alright, so Zig Zag brings Tack before Kind Nod and is all “hey, look what I found, can I execute it?” but Yum Yum takes one look at Tack they instantly fall in lurve.
“Stop it, they’re not looking at you.” “But I…” “Dude. Just stop.”
Yum Yum tells her father that she needs a cobbler and has in fact been holding out for a cobbler ’til the end of the night. The king is too sleepy for all this and goes along with it for some peace and quiet while Zig Zag fumes silently.
Later that night in his cobra-headed obsidian tower Zig Zag plots and schemes.
Sigh. You know what? One of these days I’m going to write something about a good Grand Vizier who’s just genuinely trying to do what’s best for the kingdom. I mean, they’re just hard working Joes like the rest of us and they get worse press than frickin’ clowns.
Anyway, Zig Zag has a pet vulture called Phido who was originally voiced by Donald Pleasance of all fucking people but in the Miramax cut is voiced by Eric Bogosian. Phido, like the Thief, don’t work. He’s basically Iago only without the good script to make the raucous obnoxiousness entertaining. Iago was annoying with us. Phido is annoying at us. Anyway, Zig Zag intends to marry Yum Yum so that he can rule over Baghdad and, and, and I don’t even know who’s stealing from who anymore. This is like trying to keep order in a prison.
Meanwhile, the movie tries to get us to care about the relationship between Tack and Yum Yum the poor deluded, thing. Yum Yum asks him if cobblers have names. No. No. They don’t. Cobblers don’t have names. Cobblers don’t even exist, Yum Yum. They’re just figments of your imagination. Shoes just appear and no one knows why.
“Really? That’s weeeeeird.”
Meanwhile, the Thief tries to get into the palace through the pipes and this scene, I think, is as good a place as any to talk about the central conflict of the film. Tack and Zig Zag? No. The king and One Eye? Nuh-uh. There are two competing artistic visions at work in this version of the film, Richard William’s and Fred Calvert’s. I bring it up here because this scene of the Thief is one that Calvert spoke of himself and the quote just perfectly sums up the differences between the two men. Calvert described the process of salvaging/butchering William’s cut like this:
“We hated to see of all this beautiful animation hit the cutting room floor, but that was the only way we could make a story out of it. One of the problems, there were a number of these situations…in the script, there might be two or three sentences describing the Thief going up a drain pipe. But what he animated on the screen was five minutes up and down that pipe which would ordinarily be five pages of script…These were the kind of imbalances that were happening. He [Richard Williams] was kind of Rube-Goldberging his way through. I don’t think he was able to step back and look at the whole thing as a story.”
Okay, I’m not really a fan of what Calvert did to this movie, and his vision for it. Calvert was…okay, “hack” is an awful, awful word that I really don’t like throwing around but…he was a journeyman. Put it that way. But while I don’t agree with his solutions, I have to admit that he pretty much diagnosed the problem with this movie dead on. The scene where the Thief squeezes his way up the pipe is just a glorious, glorious piece of animation. But it’s a single, trivial moment in the story that you just can’t justify the amount of time and effort that was spent on it. This represents the difference between Calvert and Williams’ in a nutshell. Williams has five minutes of a character climbing up a pipe for no other reason than he wants to. Calvert chops it down and adds an infuriating voiceover with dumb Jewish mother jokes but at least gets us from one scene to the next without much further ado. Williams’ is all talent and no discipline, with a fantastic sense of visuals but precious little understanding of story. Calvert’s not fit to wash Williams’ brushes as an animator, but he has a grasp of basic film-making that seems to elude Williams’ utterly.
Anyway, the Thief steals Yum Yum’s back scratcher and Tack gives chase, pursuing him through a black and white chequered hallway and ohhhh my sweet creator this animation. Take a look.
No words…should have sent a poet…
Now, I’ve already said repeatedly that this animation is amazing, but why is it amazing? Okay, so animation 101. The human eye can differentiate between 12 frames in any given second. If I’m showing you a slide show of a man juggling, you will see the slides as distinct, still images as long as I show you twelve a second or less. However, if I go faster than that then your brain won’t be able to keep up and it will seem like the picture of the man is actually moving and juggling those balls and also you will realise why more people don’t hang out at my place. This One Weird Trick is basically what film (if we’re talking about photographic images) and animation (if we’re talking about drawn or rendered image) is all about. Breaking the 12-frames a second barrier to create the illusion of motion. Now, most live action films are 24 frames per second (Peter Jackson recently tried 48 frames per second with the Hobbit but that just makes people sick). 24fps is all fine and dandy when you just have to point a camera at some mammals doing their thing, but it’s an entirely different proposition when you have to draw every one of those frames. Which is why almost no one does. Not even the really big studios. Not even Disney. Most hand-drawn animation is done on “2’s” which means that you double every cel. So, in one second you will still have 24 frames, but half of those will just be the previous cel repeated. The reason so many of the scenes in Thief and the Cobbler move like nothing else you’ve ever seen is because Williams actually had 24 frames drawn for every second of footage. That’s…like…real life. Williams basically looked at the world and said to God “Yeah, I can do that. In animation”.
“….craaaaaaazy…”
Anyway, the Thief gets away and Tack is caught by Zig Zag who locks him up in the dungeon. Wistfully, he looks through his cell window at the night sky. In her bedroom, Yum Yum thinks of her cobbler, and then, they share a duet.
The single greatest love song of all time.
The one, the only:
Am I feeling love?
Alright, regular readers will know just how much mileage I’ve gotten out of mocking this song, but now that I actually have to review the thing it doesn’t even succeed at being laughably bad. That’s right. Even Am I Feeling Love, is no Am I Feeling Love? Broderick and Jessica Beals (Yum Yum) are both competent singers and the lyrics aren’t even laughably bad, they’re just insultingly trite. For something to be truly “So Bad It’s Good” you need passion and vision married to a complete lack of talent. Think about it, would The Room be the magnificent monstrosity it is if Tommy Wiseau hadn’t given a shit about it? Am I Feeling Love can’t even be enjoyed ironically because it’s just zero effort from end to end. Also, even the premise of the song is compete bullshit. Am I feeling love? Please. Tell ’em Oracle.
“No one can tell you you’re in love, you just know it. Through and through. Balls to bones.”
The next morning Zig Zag tries to win Yum Yum’s affections with a polo match (chicks love polo, everyone knows chicks love polo). Meanwhile, the Thief sees the golden balls on top of the minaret and decides to steal them.
In the palace, the perforated scout arrives and tells a horrified King Nod that One Eye and his army are on the march. Zig Zag tries to calm the king down by saying “What are you worried about? We’ve got the most advanced Golden Ball based defence system in the world” but when they go to check on the balls uh-oh spaghetti-oh!
Nod, showing the grace under pressure that you’d expect from the ruler of a city of 7 million people, runs out on to the balcony and starts screaming that they’re all doomed.
“FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!”
THUNK!
“Stay at your posts.”
Meanwhile, the Thief tries to am-scray with the loot but drops the balls which go bouncing around Baghdad like it’s a pinball machine. Zig Zag manages to recover the balls and makes his move. He tells King Nod that he can use his magic to return the balls before One Eye’s army arrives, and all he asks is that Nod gives him Yum Yum’s hand in marriage. Nod quite rightly says “No” but fails to follow it up with “Guards!” and “Seize him!” and “Okay smart guy, how about you give me my balls back and I don’t take yours?”
Instead, he allows Zig Zag to just swan out of the palace. Zig Zag then decides to throw his lot in with One Eye and he and Phido ride off into the desert to meet his army. Nod says that the only one who can save them now is the “Mad Holy Old Witch” (not to be confused with the Wholly Mad Old Witch). Yum Yum volunteers to go on a quest to meet the witch and says that she’ll bring along Tack as her guide because apparently he’s the world’s first albino desert nomad. So they head out of the city and oh fuck me are you serious…
And so our heroine began her perilous quest, bravely allowing herself to be carried for many miles over treacherous terrain.
In the desert they meet a gang of bandits who attack them because the school system has failed them. No, seriously. That’s why. They even have a song about it. Would you like to hear it? Sure you would!
There. Now you’ve heard it too. Now we are bound, you and I. For all eternity. From this day on, we are the ones who heard it.
The bandits are actually some of Nod’s troops that he sent out into the desert and just kinda forgot about (ASS) and Yum Yum immediately conscripts them into her bodyguard. Instead of sending a persuasively worded letter to King Nod demanding backpay and compensation written on his daughter’s severed ear the bandits are actually really pleased about this and show the travellers the way to the lair of the Mad Holy Old Witch which is at the top of the Hands of Glory.
Don’t leave him hangin’, sky.
Tack and Yum Yum climb the tower and meet the Witch who tells them “Belief in yourself is what you lack! Attack! Attack! Attack!” which is what the voices tell me all the time.
In One Eye’s camp, Zig Zag offers his services to the big cyclops and helps him plan his attack on the city. One Eye has got no time for grasses though, so he sticks Zig Zag in the vanguard. Tack, Yum Yum, the Brigands and the Thief (oh yeah, he just tagged along for absolutely no reason) race back to Baghdad just in time for One Eye’s assault. And I have to admit, this is all kinds of epic.
As the army approaches the city, Zig Zag sees Tack.
“Ohhhhh…I do not care for you.”
He rides out to face him and Tack realises that the witch wasn’t saying “Attack!” she was saying “A tack!” and fires a tack at Zig Zag which misses but sets in motion a train of accidents that causes One Eye’s massive war machine to fall apart while the Thief is inside it, trying desperately to reclaim the Golden Balls. And this whole sequence is…
Okay guys? See this movie. I know I keep going on about its problems and how it’s not a great movie but still, see it. You have to see it. Just for the animation alone.
Okay, so One Eye’s army is defeated by Tack and the fact that Calvert ran out of footage and all is well. The Thief is caught with the Golden Balls by the palace guards but Nod just assumes that he rescued them and so he’s celebrated as a hero. Tack and Yum Yum marry, and the movie ends with Tack a changed man.
No. Seriously. How is that even supposed to be the same guy?
***
Alright, so here are my final thoughts on Thief and the Cobbler (and I already touched on this in the Aladdin review so sorry if I repeat myself). There are sequences here with quite simply the best cel-animation I have ever seen in my life (and I, believe it or not, have seen quite a bit). Seriously. Better than Walt in his heyday. Better than Otomo. Better than Miyazaki. It’s that good. But animation is just one element of an animated film, a major one to be sure, but just one among many. And this is why I can’t really get on board with the narrative that this would have been the Greatest Animated Film ever if those Hollywood sleazeballs hadn’truined everything and had just given Williams however much time and money he needed to finish the movie.
“YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT…oooh it’s finally out!”
Guys. He had enough time. And he had enough money.
This movie gets compared a lot to Aladdin by its boosters, and I think it’s a very instructive comparison (although not for the reasons its fans think). Aladdin also faced massive production problems and had to be practically re-done from scratch with only a year before it hit theatres. That movie also has fantastic animation (though nothing close to Thief at its best) but that is not all that it has. And frankly, this is why I think the plagiarism allegations are kind of pointless. Does Zig-Zag look a lot like the Genie? Yup. Was that intentional? Well, sure, it’s possible but does that really change the fact that Aladdinhas wonderfully engaging characters, a brilliant voice cast, a killer script, a genuinely sweet love story, fantastic songs and one of cinema’s best villains and that Thief has none of those things? Is some suspiciously similar character design really going to tip the scales in this movie’s favour?
Richard Williams is a fantastic animator. But on this evidence, not a great writer or even a great director in the sense that that requires working with a team, overcoming their weaknesses and bringing out the best in them. So for me, Thief and the Cobbler is not the great masterpiece that never was, it’s the great masterpiece that was never going to be.
Scoring
Animation: 17/20
Yeah, I know, I know. It sometimes seems like I give 20/20 animation scores out like business cards on this blog and here I am giving a seventeen to a movie I’ve just finished saying has the best animation I’ve ever seen. And it does. In parts. But there’s also some very slapdash work done by Calvert and company to finish the movie in time for release. Do I blame Calvert for that? No. If Williams wanted those scenes animated he should have done it himself. Maybe with a few hundred animators that he didn’t need to fire.
Leads: 06/20
Some nice character design, but The Cobbler, Princess and Thief are Bland, Blander and Annoying.
Villain: 14/20
The Price is right.
Supporting Characters:06/20
Oh! Yeah! Those guys…
Music: 02/20
In answer to your question, I am not feeling love.
FINAL SCORE: 45%
NEXT UPDATE: 08 January 2015. Longer than usual break as I put the final touches on the play and try to digest a solid tonne of my mother in law’s turkey and stuffing. Have a Happy Christmas every body and I shall see you all in the New Year.
NEXT TIME: The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in my fur.
Neil Sharpson aka the Unshaved Mouse is a playwright, blogger and comic book writer based in Dublin. The new movie review goes up every second Thursday, and he is also serialising his novel, The Hangman’s Daughter, with a new chapter every Saturday. Today’s review was made possible by the very kind donation of Callie Arendt. Thanks Callie.
I got Wath out for Blucatt. Think the subliminal messaging is coming through on a poor signal.
But, I think it might mean that mouse might be going to review a film with a character who says “I’m SO Evil!” and gave me something to say whenever a flamboyant villain stages an entrance…
We shall see!
Can’t wait for Lord of the Rings. I had such a good laugth making fun of it by myself. As for this movie I think the backstory is way more entertaining than the story. I just heard the world’s Grand Viziers are unitig to improve theri image.
Oh come on it has some genuinely good character design and fantastic atmosphere. It’s just iffy on hobbits especially Sam but, at least this Frodo has some backbone!
I like experimental animation we wouldn’t have some good stuff without some risks.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I will most likely defend Sleeping Beauty as the best of Disney’s movies to the end of my days, despite knowing fully well that the pacing of the movie is slightly off, and mostly on the merit of it’s unique animation. But unique animation is not the only thing the movie has to offer. It also has some really fun characters, an outstanding soundtrack, one if not the best Disney villain and one of Disney best climaxes. The Thief and the cobbler has some impressive animation…and that its. No matter which version, I was never able to see a story which would enthral me, or characters which interested me. If there had been at least some nice music to go with the visuals (hey, it worked for Fantasia) I would most likely be less hard to it, but as it is, I think it is proof that being a good animator doesn’t necessarily mean that you are also the right guy to direct a movie. Or write one.
I don’t think that Sleeping Beauty’s pacing was off. I thought it was perfect… for the story it was trying to tell, which was a very simple one about 3 good witches facing off against the mistress of all evil. By today’s standards, the pacing doesn’t make as much sense, but it’s not trying to be like that. Just my two cents. 🙂
(On a separate but related note: that chase scene through the hallway apparently “inspired” a certain episode of the Teen Titans animated series. That is all I have to say on the subject.)
I affectionately refer to this movie as the Titanic of animation. (No no no, not the animated Titanic movies. NO) It was something that was supposed to be wonderful and grand, but it ended up a complete disaster.
As for next week… I’m not fond of the animated Lord of the Rings movies. I grew up with the Peter Jackson movies, so any other adaptation kinda pales in comparison.
Great review, Mouse. Just a question- are you ever going to do a Disney or non-Disney villains list? I’d like to know how you’d compare Scar to Maleficent to Frollo and such.
I never really saw the Mirimax version nor the Calvert version, thanks to the NC though, I did manage to watch the recobbeled cut, which is supposedly the superior version, and I have to say, it’s decent.
Fantastic animation aside, and the fact that it has the right idea and concept of making the lead characters silent, there’s really nothing much to the story, and the characters aren’t terrible, but not exactly memorable either, the cobbler is adorable and somewhat likeable, but he doesn’t have much of an interesting motivation and he’s not in the film much, the thief gets the most screen time, and the hi-jinks he finds himself in are somewhat charming to watch. Zig-Zag is alot fun though, (it’s Vincent Price, come on.) the rest of the cast though…eh.
The princess is kind of just there, she has no arc, no motivation, and doesn’t really do anything interesting, I mean, say what you will about the other versions being blander than the most blandiest pants, but at least they had something to do in the story.
The film itself drags and it’s filled with filler scenes and the plot doesn’t really get going until the halfway mark and I can see some people getting a little bored with the whole thing.
With a little bit good planning and storyboarding and maybe a few more re-writes and maybe have someone who would tell Richard to cut his shit out, this might have been something special.
If you want to animate a movie in 24 frames a second, it makes sense that a part of you is a little loco.
Well, most geniuses were. Look at Nikola Tesla.
I didn’t realize you were doing more reviews. Wasn’t there a post about you taking a break? Either way, this was great. I didn’t know that companies would use the 2’s method. As much as I love animation, I guess I don’t know that much about the industry. Do they do the same method with the CGI movies? I notice that the movement is different between the styles, but I don’t know.
Aw man, I saw this movie just ONCE and even at age 8 I thought it was loopy! My family has seen many, many cartoons in our times, and this one just takes the top prize for bizarre and trippy. In fact, if you hadn’t explained the story behind it with the nutty creator animating all 24 frames or taking 30 years to finish it, I would have thought the people who made this movie had been on drugs when they put it together.
I had several pet peeves with this movie, not the least of which was the weird animation.
1.) Tack. Lame name, why the hell is he an albino living in ancient Baghdad, and what’s with the Harlequinn outfit? Plus it was weird with him weaving stuff all the time for shoes or flailing his super-long legs anywhere. Only thing I liked about him was Matthew Broderick doing his voice.
2.) Princess Yum-Yum. Who the HELL names their daughter Yum-Yum? Were her parents on an eating binge when she was born or something? Does this version of Baghdad have a secret cannibal society nobody told us about?
3.) The Thief added NOTHING WHATSOEVER to the story, other than getting Tack and the princess tangled up in fakey cartoony love.
4.) Zig-Zag, lose the shoes and go to Royal Viziers Anonymous. They all know your pain.
5.) Everything else—epic fail so far as the story goes. It doesn’t really seem to have a story really. It’s mostly just characters running around acting stupid.
It’s why after we saw “The Thief and the Cobbler” that dad took the tape back to the rental store and we chose to forget as quickly as possible.
Everyone is gaga over the animation but it honestly is the kind of thing that would have made younger me piss my pants. It gives me the same thing as Rocco’s Modern Life, and anything by Dr. Seuss…there’s something faintly creepy about it, like you know that it knows its own cleverness, and you know it knows it’s going to use that cleverness to make fun of/intimidate/hurt you in some manner.
If you want an interesting example of framerate differences in animation being used intentionally, go watch “The Last Unicorn” (Which you should do anyway, I’ll admit). The scenes with the Red Bull were deliberately shot at 1s instead of 2s to give them a different feel from the rest of the movie.
Dang. Europe’s semi-repeat of its sarcastic rhetoric takes me back. The ol’ landmass has been doing its thing for a while, huh? Loved the Bubbles bit. Was surprised you didn’t pull a gag about Former Mr. Medusa when he showed up in the story. Also, poor Ferris. The guy gives a voice to the star of your highest-ranking movie and you pay him back with mockery. I guess giving fuel to Taran’s whore-calling accusations balances that out, but still.
Red pandas can be such freeloaders, can’t they? And on top of that, they aren’t even useful for mortifying humans, those deadweights. Hang on, Phido had lines? I guess I was lucky enough to get to see the version he didn’t, I don’t remember that. I do remember being a bit curious as to why Tack and the Thief didn’t move their mouths when they talked except when Tack sometimes did when I watched this as a kid way back when. As for how shoes come into being, you’re dead wrong. Everyone knows it’s the elves. What do you think elves are there for, one-upping dwarves in killing contests?
I love your proposition of the proper response Nod should have given Zig Zag after he tried to extort him. I had a feeling a testicle joke was coming up some time here, it was just a matter of time and it was hilarious. Also, I’ve got to wonder, did that hand get ticked off at the sky refusing to give it five and give it the finger Arabian style for a Texan man to much later plant a flourishing crop of onions on? Now how’s that for a backstory for an appendage-shaped mountain?
…Who or what is Blu Catt and why should I be watching out for him/her/it? *gets pounced on by a cobalt blur*
Am I all alone in this, or did anyone else find “We’re What Happens When You Don’t Finish School” pretty catchy? Sure, the lyrics are dumb, but no dumber than “Bibbity Bobbity Boo” or “Higitus Figitus”.
I stopped reading when the review of the Matthew Broderick version started, but all of your facts before that point were wrong. Snark is not a substitute for having any idea what you’re talking about. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
It absolutely does. I would love to do a review of your version and correct any errors I might have made?
I’ve skimmed over the rest of your review, and the whole thing is wrong. I don’t think there’s anything here that can be salvaged. You’re constantly stating things about Richard Williams, the film, and everything else which are completely incorrect, in a really snarky and self-assured way. There’s nothing to save here and I’d rather not have you look at my version of the film in the same way.
Fair enough. Sorry you feel that way.
I’m guessing you meant well but very little of what you’ve said here is factually correct in any way. Sorry.
It’s not about how I “feel,” it’s about whether the things you’re saying here are true or false. This article is nonsense.
You can contact me directly if you feel raw about this. I’m easy to find. I’m having a bad week so don’t really have time to rewrite your entire article for you.
I assure I don’t feel “raw” about it, I’m actually kind of thrilled you took the time to get in touch. I should probably explain that these reviews are written “in character” and yes, they are intended to be snarky and comedic. But I do have a great deal of respect for this movie and your cut in particular. I’m not asking you to re-write the review it’s all based on online research I did for the review. If you’re aware of factual inaccuracies in what I’ve written and want to expand on that, please do. Otherwise I’m not entirely sure what you want me to do.
Also, sorry you’re having a bad week. Having one myself (family stuff). It sucks. Sorry.
That’s a classy response, even if your conclusions here aren’t right. Cheers.
Wow… This seems to be a really weird but interesting movie. I did start watching one of the versions on YouTube once (probably after this review first came out), but I somehow stopped somewhere in the middle and never returned to it. But I have to finish it one of these days… Seriously though, this seems to only be a poor man’s version of “Aladdin”, no matter how great an animator Williams was, and no matter how grand his visions were. Williams would have needed a co-director, who could have told him to be nicer to all those animators, use a few storyboards and learn some basic story-telling. But alas, there was no such person around…
The drums were pressed to bitter action. The march had been begun, there was no turning back, though none but the knight errant heard the drums’ braying. Phantoms slammed their batons to the deerskins in one world, whilst only footfalls pierced the quiet of the other.
A chill wind blew, then cut short and fled for safety. He knew he had arrived. There, the knight stopped, gazing up at the raised earth grown over with native grasses, and the bulwark that stood upon it. He made ready.
Blades were drawn, shields were raised. A battlecry was sounded, and blood-seeking armament was joined to armament. First, there was confusion, then incredulity hidden beneath the eloquent mouse masque. Blazing steel was swung, met with diplomacy. In the field below, clad as winter, both knight and his illusions concluded. An uneasy tranquility claimed its command.
There he stood, wrapped in the warmth of war fever, and sixteen days passed in silence. Breaking the cool quiet but once, the knight retired from the battleground. He had been bested, by his own emotive memories and by the elucidation of the masque-bearer.
Have cracks formed in the masque from this attack, this first coming of a knight to the bailey? Will further knights come, to strike blows and stand in the field? Only time will show the tale.
Examine, ye! The knight did make his retreat from the motte and the bailey, casting himself back into the mists from whence he came. A mad, false-wry song the knight had sung while, from beneath the mouse masque, there came praise and conciliation. His exeunt, made the talented knight, clutching ribbons that slunk from heart to earth. The field, once again, lay open, with the wearer of the masque still unshaved, and perhaps unscathed. Remember, ye, that we are all so capable of such humanity, of being as the knight, a mighty konchadunga.
“Sigh. You know what? One of these days I’m going to write something about a good Grand Vizier who’s just genuinely trying to do what’s best for the kingdom.”
Okay, it’s a good thing that I was reminded of this review. Because now I realized that I never wrote a follow-up comment, when I watched the movie in full. And yeah, I pretty much stand by what i said last time: it is nothing but a poor man’s “Aladdin”. There are some good things about it though. Tack is cute though, and I even like Matthew Broderick’s voice-over for him. Yum Yum is almost as great as Jasmine to me, even if The Mouse didn’t think so. Zig Zag would have been a great villain in a better movie. And it sure has a few moments of excellent animation.
But I don’t see anything redeeming about the thief. He is meant to one of the two protagonists of the story, but he’s totally superfluous to most of the main plot. Maybe he would have worked better as a silent character, because the voice-over probably made him more annoying than necessary. But he would still have been a pointless character. And I also think that some of the character designs are just weird. I mean, I seem to remember that one guy’s nose was shaped like a spiral! I mean, what was up with that?
So all in all, I will never regret that I saw this movie. But it was more weird that good. And yes, 45 % is about what it deserved.
unshavedmouse 
Watch out for Blucatt?
I got Wath out for Blucatt. Think the subliminal messaging is coming through on a poor signal.
But, I think it might mean that mouse might be going to review a film with a character who says “I’m SO Evil!” and gave me something to say whenever a flamboyant villain stages an entrance…
We shall see!
Ooooooohhh not againnnnnnn….
As in Dougal and the?
Guess again.
Can’t wait for Lord of the Rings. I had such a good laugth making fun of it by myself. As for this movie I think the backstory is way more entertaining than the story. I just heard the world’s Grand Viziers are unitig to improve theri image.
Oh come on it has some genuinely good character design and fantastic atmosphere. It’s just iffy on hobbits especially Sam but, at least this Frodo has some backbone!
I like experimental animation we wouldn’t have some good stuff without some risks.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I will most likely defend Sleeping Beauty as the best of Disney’s movies to the end of my days, despite knowing fully well that the pacing of the movie is slightly off, and mostly on the merit of it’s unique animation. But unique animation is not the only thing the movie has to offer. It also has some really fun characters, an outstanding soundtrack, one if not the best Disney villain and one of Disney best climaxes. The Thief and the cobbler has some impressive animation…and that its. No matter which version, I was never able to see a story which would enthral me, or characters which interested me. If there had been at least some nice music to go with the visuals (hey, it worked for Fantasia) I would most likely be less hard to it, but as it is, I think it is proof that being a good animator doesn’t necessarily mean that you are also the right guy to direct a movie. Or write one.
I don’t think that Sleeping Beauty’s pacing was off. I thought it was perfect… for the story it was trying to tell, which was a very simple one about 3 good witches facing off against the mistress of all evil. By today’s standards, the pacing doesn’t make as much sense, but it’s not trying to be like that. Just my two cents. 🙂
I think that the scene with the kings is slightly too long. I would rather had an additional scene with Aurora and the three fairies.
Jesus H. Christ, this movie. I first learned of it from the write-up of one Maxie Zeus of Toonzone:
http://www.toonzone.net/2011/09/the-thief-and-the-cobbler-an-arabian-nightmare/
But it’s only now that my curiosity is truly piqued.
(On a separate but related note: that chase scene through the hallway apparently “inspired” a certain episode of the Teen Titans animated series. That is all I have to say on the subject.)
I affectionately refer to this movie as the Titanic of animation. (No no no, not the animated Titanic movies. NO) It was something that was supposed to be wonderful and grand, but it ended up a complete disaster.
As for next week… I’m not fond of the animated Lord of the Rings movies. I grew up with the Peter Jackson movies, so any other adaptation kinda pales in comparison.
Apt analogy. Though the question is, does your cousin the kraken find it equally scrumptious?
Haha, probably not, too dry and sandy.
Wath out for blucatt?
What?
Great review, Mouse. Just a question- are you ever going to do a Disney or non-Disney villains list? I’d like to know how you’d compare Scar to Maleficent to Frollo and such.
Good idea. Probably.
I never really saw the Mirimax version nor the Calvert version, thanks to the NC though, I did manage to watch the recobbeled cut, which is supposedly the superior version, and I have to say, it’s decent.
Fantastic animation aside, and the fact that it has the right idea and concept of making the lead characters silent, there’s really nothing much to the story, and the characters aren’t terrible, but not exactly memorable either, the cobbler is adorable and somewhat likeable, but he doesn’t have much of an interesting motivation and he’s not in the film much, the thief gets the most screen time, and the hi-jinks he finds himself in are somewhat charming to watch. Zig-Zag is alot fun though, (it’s Vincent Price, come on.) the rest of the cast though…eh.
The princess is kind of just there, she has no arc, no motivation, and doesn’t really do anything interesting, I mean, say what you will about the other versions being blander than the most blandiest pants, but at least they had something to do in the story.
The film itself drags and it’s filled with filler scenes and the plot doesn’t really get going until the halfway mark and I can see some people getting a little bored with the whole thing.
With a little bit good planning and storyboarding and maybe a few more re-writes and maybe have someone who would tell Richard to cut his shit out, this might have been something special.
I saw a review of this by the Nostalgia Critic recently and now you’ve done one, I really must check this thing out
Awesome Review, Mouse! Now let’s see what you are going to talk about next… Oh, God. FLY, YOU FOOLS!
If you want to animate a movie in 24 frames a second, it makes sense that a part of you is a little loco.
Well, most geniuses were. Look at Nikola Tesla.
Where? Oh, there he is.
I was gonna watch this before the review, but I decided to watch Young Justice instead. I guess I’ll get around to it eventually.
I didn’t realize you were doing more reviews. Wasn’t there a post about you taking a break? Either way, this was great. I didn’t know that companies would use the 2’s method. As much as I love animation, I guess I don’t know that much about the industry. Do they do the same method with the CGI movies? I notice that the movement is different between the styles, but I don’t know.
That is an excellent question. I’ll tell you…
I don’t know.
There is a story about a good Grand Vizer. It’s called “Twisted: the Untold Story of a Royal Vizer”.
Aw man, I saw this movie just ONCE and even at age 8 I thought it was loopy! My family has seen many, many cartoons in our times, and this one just takes the top prize for bizarre and trippy. In fact, if you hadn’t explained the story behind it with the nutty creator animating all 24 frames or taking 30 years to finish it, I would have thought the people who made this movie had been on drugs when they put it together.
I had several pet peeves with this movie, not the least of which was the weird animation.
1.) Tack. Lame name, why the hell is he an albino living in ancient Baghdad, and what’s with the Harlequinn outfit? Plus it was weird with him weaving stuff all the time for shoes or flailing his super-long legs anywhere. Only thing I liked about him was Matthew Broderick doing his voice.
2.) Princess Yum-Yum. Who the HELL names their daughter Yum-Yum? Were her parents on an eating binge when she was born or something? Does this version of Baghdad have a secret cannibal society nobody told us about?
3.) The Thief added NOTHING WHATSOEVER to the story, other than getting Tack and the princess tangled up in fakey cartoony love.
4.) Zig-Zag, lose the shoes and go to Royal Viziers Anonymous. They all know your pain.
5.) Everything else—epic fail so far as the story goes. It doesn’t really seem to have a story really. It’s mostly just characters running around acting stupid.
It’s why after we saw “The Thief and the Cobbler” that dad took the tape back to the rental store and we chose to forget as quickly as possible.
Everyone is gaga over the animation but it honestly is the kind of thing that would have made younger me piss my pants. It gives me the same thing as Rocco’s Modern Life, and anything by Dr. Seuss…there’s something faintly creepy about it, like you know that it knows its own cleverness, and you know it knows it’s going to use that cleverness to make fun of/intimidate/hurt you in some manner.
Not a huge fan of Mind Fuck art, basically.
Doctor Seuss is creepy to you?!
If you want an interesting example of framerate differences in animation being used intentionally, go watch “The Last Unicorn” (Which you should do anyway, I’ll admit). The scenes with the Red Bull were deliberately shot at 1s instead of 2s to give them a different feel from the rest of the movie.
Dang. Europe’s semi-repeat of its sarcastic rhetoric takes me back. The ol’ landmass has been doing its thing for a while, huh? Loved the Bubbles bit. Was surprised you didn’t pull a gag about Former Mr. Medusa when he showed up in the story. Also, poor Ferris. The guy gives a voice to the star of your highest-ranking movie and you pay him back with mockery. I guess giving fuel to Taran’s whore-calling accusations balances that out, but still.
Red pandas can be such freeloaders, can’t they? And on top of that, they aren’t even useful for mortifying humans, those deadweights. Hang on, Phido had lines? I guess I was lucky enough to get to see the version he didn’t, I don’t remember that. I do remember being a bit curious as to why Tack and the Thief didn’t move their mouths when they talked except when Tack sometimes did when I watched this as a kid way back when. As for how shoes come into being, you’re dead wrong. Everyone knows it’s the elves. What do you think elves are there for, one-upping dwarves in killing contests?
I love your proposition of the proper response Nod should have given Zig Zag after he tried to extort him. I had a feeling a testicle joke was coming up some time here, it was just a matter of time and it was hilarious. Also, I’ve got to wonder, did that hand get ticked off at the sky refusing to give it five and give it the finger Arabian style for a Texan man to much later plant a flourishing crop of onions on? Now how’s that for a backstory for an appendage-shaped mountain?
…Who or what is Blu Catt and why should I be watching out for him/her/it? *gets pounced on by a cobalt blur*
*BURP*
Tasty bird.
Am I all alone in this, or did anyone else find “We’re What Happens When You Don’t Finish School” pretty catchy? Sure, the lyrics are dumb, but no dumber than “Bibbity Bobbity Boo” or “Higitus Figitus”.
I stopped reading when the review of the Matthew Broderick version started, but all of your facts before that point were wrong. Snark is not a substitute for having any idea what you’re talking about. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Oh? Do tell.
Wait a minute…THE Garret Gilchrist?
Of the Recobbled Cut, if that makes me “the.”
It absolutely does. I would love to do a review of your version and correct any errors I might have made?
I’ve skimmed over the rest of your review, and the whole thing is wrong. I don’t think there’s anything here that can be salvaged. You’re constantly stating things about Richard Williams, the film, and everything else which are completely incorrect, in a really snarky and self-assured way. There’s nothing to save here and I’d rather not have you look at my version of the film in the same way.
Fair enough. Sorry you feel that way.
I’m guessing you meant well but very little of what you’ve said here is factually correct in any way. Sorry.
It’s not about how I “feel,” it’s about whether the things you’re saying here are true or false. This article is nonsense.
You can contact me directly if you feel raw about this. I’m easy to find. I’m having a bad week so don’t really have time to rewrite your entire article for you.
I assure I don’t feel “raw” about it, I’m actually kind of thrilled you took the time to get in touch. I should probably explain that these reviews are written “in character” and yes, they are intended to be snarky and comedic. But I do have a great deal of respect for this movie and your cut in particular. I’m not asking you to re-write the review it’s all based on online research I did for the review. If you’re aware of factual inaccuracies in what I’ve written and want to expand on that, please do. Otherwise I’m not entirely sure what you want me to do.
Also, sorry you’re having a bad week. Having one myself (family stuff). It sucks. Sorry.
That’s a classy response, even if your conclusions here aren’t right. Cheers.
Man, this Gilchrist guy seems like a real ponce.
Um… was that sarcasm? Or just legitimate, self-righteous “objective opinion”?
Wow… This seems to be a really weird but interesting movie. I did start watching one of the versions on YouTube once (probably after this review first came out), but I somehow stopped somewhere in the middle and never returned to it. But I have to finish it one of these days… Seriously though, this seems to only be a poor man’s version of “Aladdin”, no matter how great an animator Williams was, and no matter how grand his visions were. Williams would have needed a co-director, who could have told him to be nicer to all those animators, use a few storyboards and learn some basic story-telling. But alas, there was no such person around…
The drums were pressed to bitter action. The march had been begun, there was no turning back, though none but the knight errant heard the drums’ braying. Phantoms slammed their batons to the deerskins in one world, whilst only footfalls pierced the quiet of the other.
A chill wind blew, then cut short and fled for safety. He knew he had arrived. There, the knight stopped, gazing up at the raised earth grown over with native grasses, and the bulwark that stood upon it. He made ready.
Blades were drawn, shields were raised. A battlecry was sounded, and blood-seeking armament was joined to armament. First, there was confusion, then incredulity hidden beneath the eloquent mouse masque. Blazing steel was swung, met with diplomacy. In the field below, clad as winter, both knight and his illusions concluded. An uneasy tranquility claimed its command.
There he stood, wrapped in the warmth of war fever, and sixteen days passed in silence. Breaking the cool quiet but once, the knight retired from the battleground. He had been bested, by his own emotive memories and by the elucidation of the masque-bearer.
Have cracks formed in the masque from this attack, this first coming of a knight to the bailey? Will further knights come, to strike blows and stand in the field? Only time will show the tale.
Examine, ye! The knight did make his retreat from the motte and the bailey, casting himself back into the mists from whence he came. A mad, false-wry song the knight had sung while, from beneath the mouse masque, there came praise and conciliation. His exeunt, made the talented knight, clutching ribbons that slunk from heart to earth. The field, once again, lay open, with the wearer of the masque still unshaved, and perhaps unscathed. Remember, ye, that we are all so capable of such humanity, of being as the knight, a mighty konchadunga.
“Sigh. You know what? One of these days I’m going to write something about a good Grand Vizier who’s just genuinely trying to do what’s best for the kingdom.”
Aquaman did that.
Okay, it’s a good thing that I was reminded of this review. Because now I realized that I never wrote a follow-up comment, when I watched the movie in full. And yeah, I pretty much stand by what i said last time: it is nothing but a poor man’s “Aladdin”. There are some good things about it though. Tack is cute though, and I even like Matthew Broderick’s voice-over for him. Yum Yum is almost as great as Jasmine to me, even if The Mouse didn’t think so. Zig Zag would have been a great villain in a better movie. And it sure has a few moments of excellent animation.
But I don’t see anything redeeming about the thief. He is meant to one of the two protagonists of the story, but he’s totally superfluous to most of the main plot. Maybe he would have worked better as a silent character, because the voice-over probably made him more annoying than necessary. But he would still have been a pointless character. And I also think that some of the character designs are just weird. I mean, I seem to remember that one guy’s nose was shaped like a spiral! I mean, what was up with that?
So all in all, I will never regret that I saw this movie. But it was more weird that good. And yes, 45 % is about what it deserved.