Movies - Arabian Knight

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'The Thief and the Cobbler,' or Arabian Knight (known outside the United States as The Princess and the Cobbler) is a 1995 animated movie starring the voices of Vincent Price, Jennifer Beals, Matthew Broderick and Jonathan Winters. This movie was the final result of director Richard Williams' 23-year pet project, The Thief and the Cobbler, which was eventually completed without him.

Its production began in 1968, making it the holder of the longest production time ever for a motion picture. Williams independently funded the film for nearly two decades, with the original voice sessions completed in 1968, and worked on the production in-between various TV commercial, TV special, and feature film title assignments.

After serving as animation director on the successful Who Framed Roger Rabbit
, Williams got funding and a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was not finished by its 1991 deadline, and Disney's similarly-themed Aladdin beat it to theatres the following year. Warner took the project from Williams, and had producer Fred Calvert complete the film. Calvert cut a significant amount of Williams' finished footage from the film, added songs, recorded voices for previously mute characters, and added Jonathan Winters' narration. The finished film was distributed outside of the United States as The Princess and the Cobbler, and in the US by Disney subsidiary Miramax. The film did underwhelming business, and was quickly released to VHS video.

In the late 1990s, Walt Disney Feature Animation head Roy E. Disney began a project to restore The Thief and the Cobbler to as close to Williams' original intent as possible. He sought out original pencil tests and completed footage, much of which was by this time in the possession of various animators and film collectors. Roy Disney left the Walt Disney Company in November 2003, and the Thief and the Cobbler restoration project was put on hold. There are bootleg videos that have the footage that Williams himself and his animators completed.

The future of the restoration project looks bleak. Negotiations between Roy and Williams broke down when it was revealed that Williams wouldn't be paid because of budget problems, even though he would be promised a release of the result. Most of the original artwork is missing. Originally Richard Williams kept all the materials for the film in a vault, which he called a "reason for living" (in the 1989 Channel 4 documentary I Drew Roger Rabbit), and they were kept very safe, but when the film was taken away from him, much of this material was sent to Korean artists who did not save any of their work - plenty of classic animation was junked.

Despite this, it would be a simple enough matter to restore the film to an acceptable state - most of the visuals are still present in the "Princess and the Cobbler" (aka the Australian or Fred Calvert) version, and the soundtrack and remaining sequences could be reinstated from Williams' original workprint version. This workprint version contains many sequences in only storyboard or pencil test format, but these could be finished fairly easily, or left as they are, along the lines of the "work in progress" version of Beauty and the Beast
which was released on laserdisc.

Unofficial Restorations

Several fans of the film have created their own unofficial restorations of it.

Most notably, on VHS in 2000 and on DVD in 2006 Garrett Gilchrist created a restoration of the film from available sources. His DVD version of the film, playfully titled the Recobbled Cut, was widescreen cinemascope sourced from the Japanese DVD, with footage taken from the original workprint and The Princess and the Cobbler. Although no substitute for an official release of the "true version" of the film, this bootleg is the next best thing and is circulating.

The Recobbled Cut version of the movie is currently available on GBStv, but only moderators may queue it, for the time being. As a comparision, it was shown back to back with the Arabian Knight version as a reminder of the disaster that fell upon The Thief and the Cobbler.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Arabian Knight ]

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Movies - Arabian Knight

Unofficial Restorations

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