The Thief and the Cobbler (1995)

The Age of Commercialism

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I saw this purely because of the back story about how it was made. The plot seemed underdeveloped and boring. It could've been much better if it hadn't been for one thing. Miramax, I usually love Miramax because of movies like Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, Clerks, etc... compared to other studios they genuinely care about the artistic integrity of film by preserving and restoring old films. But they tried too hard to put their own spin on this movie. The narration from the thief honestly sounded like one of those fan parody dubs like DBZ abridged or something like that. Overall I'm giving it a seven out of ten for the animation and Vincent Price's voice acting

Any fan of The Thief and the Cobbler knows the long history and story behind this movie. Originally planned to be Richard William's crowning achievement and grand masterpiece turned out to be a failure due to development hell and other people who really didn't care for the movie. So the movie that was released is absolutely nothing like the original version (which had been in development since 1966... so it predated Aladdin by a long shot). Fans over the years have been trying to find as much content as possible to add to the film even if it isn't finished.So I watched the final cut version with extra animations and such... and I can say.It's good. I actually found myself interested in the movie and I thought the animation was superb and extremely advanced. The movie is simply and shout out to all of the classic animations from the 1930s and 1940s and do mind that Richard Williams also made Who Framed Roger Rabbit which was another shout out to the classics.Now there are some problems with it and that can be expected. The biggest problem is that people have found the cut content and the unfinished content and even some of the storyboards to finish the movie BUT it is still unfinished. That means that it isn't possible to know what it was originally going to be. Stuff like original sound effects, original soundtrack and even other missing content won't be known. Even the ending of the Original Cut still seems disjointed and awkward which means that there is still a bunch of content missing.The film itself is good because it distinguishes itself from other animated movies. The animation is specifically made to look like Persian wall paintings which makes it really stand out. The character interaction between Princess Yum-Yum and Tack is actually a bit more refreshing than what Disney does. Tack's character is interesting in the fact that he doesn't speak and doesn't have a mouth except for one scene. As I mentioned before, I don't think the original scenes have yet to surface yet because Tack and Yum Yum are supposed to be the main characters while the Thief is a background character yet for some reason the last 15 minutes of the movie are all of the Thief. It really doesn't make sense because the best parts of the movie are with Tack and his conflict but it focuses on a comedy relief. This makes me even more curious on how the movie should've been.A great film if you are willing to take in the fact that it is unfinished and probably only around 70% complete even with the extended versions.

If you've seen the ORIGINAL VERSION, this is not true. Disney DID NOT originally help the creator of this movie. I don't know the entire movie, but if you go to www.thiefandthecobblar.com it includes a short biography of the man who originally began this project. I watched the original movie when I was VERY VERY little. You can NO LONGER PURCHASE IT ((if you can...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME...)) Although some minor video stores still carry it. The original, if found, was BEAUTIFUL and I must say, absolutely hilarious. No matter who watched it with me, it was always loved. Just this evening I watched the version I'm certain that you speak of. The dubbed version, I believe bought by Disney, is total CRAP. It hurt me to watch it. I don't even want to know what happened when they renamed it Arabian Knight. All I know is if you can find the original, it's an incredible animated masterpiece.

And Disney are terrible for doing what they did to this movie. 25 years of heart and soul poured into a film only to have over half the original animation cut out of this poor excuse for a film and ALL original artwork for this film was destroyed by Disney, probably because they stole the character design of ZigZag for Aladdin's Jafar. There is a "recobbled" cut of this in production which is keeping all the original animation attempting to restore what this film really should have been. Look for it this year, and then we can say goodbye to this unjustified, washed out Disney disaster. And Richard Williams can finally see his work hit the screens the way it was supposed to be seen.