Malorndk:
[size=xx-large]One of the saddest circumstances in the history of cinema[/size]
Yesterday, Admiral made a post about warmachine inspirational pictures, and I wanted to share some, but figured I would have to put it into context, which is easier said than done, and should probably have its own thread. So in this thread I will spend quite a lot of words on sharing my passion of one of the most influential movies, which has never seen the light of day in the version its creator intended. It�?Ts somewhat relatable to Chaos Dwarfs due to the climax �?oWarmachine scene�?� that features some very inspirational and unique warmachines. This is a very brief introduction to the greatest animated feature film never completed. I will start with quoting perhaps the biggest expert on the subject, Garreth Gilchrist, who has spent 7 years on restoring and researching the lost masterpiece.
Richard Williams: The Thief and the Cobbler
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJry5ReXZVM
Once upon a time, in Soho, in the heart of London, an animator decided to make a film. Two and a half decades later, he had spent millions out of his own pocket, won every award in the animation industry and worked with a dream team of animation greats. But his feature film, his labor of love, still wasn’t quite finished. The animator was Richard Williams, three-time Academy Award winner for A Christmas Carol and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The film was The Thief and the Cobbler.You can listen to Garreth talk about the movie on this Podcast
In the 60s and 70s, the art of animation was in decline. Simple, stylized animation, suitable for television and very low budgets, was the fashion of the day, and the great Disney and Warner Bros. animators of the 30s, 40s and 50s were getting old. Their knowledge hadn’t really been passed on to the next generation and was in danger of being forgotten.
Richard Williams was always a fine artist and draftsman, but his ambition was to become a truly great animator. He hired great Disney and Warner animators like Art Babbitt, Ken Harris, Emery Hawkins, Abe Levitow, Grim Natwick, and so on, not just as animators but as teachers. Babbitt’s lectures became legendary, and the brilliant work being produced at Richard Williams Animation set off a golden age of commercial animation in London during the 70s and 80s. Williams had a reputation for being a temperamental perfectionist, but also a brilliant teacher, and many people who worked for him went on to start their own animation studios or do classic work for Disney and other studios, such as Eric Goldberg, Andreas Deja, and so on.
Richard Williams won two Oscars for directing the animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), including a special achievement award. Animating on “ones” with realistic shadows and a moving camera, the film was more technically complex than any previous animated feature. It was also Disney’s first big hit in years, and kicked off the Disney Renaissance (which began properly with The Little Mermaid in 1989). As both teacher and master animator, Richard Williams was a key figure in kicking off the animation renaissance of the 90s.
However, Dick was never all that interested in working for Disney (it’s said he turned down Beauty and the Beast). He wanted to finish The Thief and the Cobbler, which he’d been animating inbetween working on his other projects for well over two decades now. Most of the money he made went back into The Thief, but not a lot of footage had actually been completed by 1989, when high off the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Warner Bros. agreed to finance the film.
Although Dick had become legendary for his perfectionism, and for missing deadlines and going over budget, production moved along at a fast pace, and the footage produced stands as some of the greatest and most complex animation ever attempted anywhere. The film was mostly finished when Warner Bros. executives got cold feet. Disney was making a very similar film called Aladdin (and some of the lead animators had also worked on The Thief). They felt the film was too artsy, too uncommercial. It wasn’t The Little Mermaid. And Dick was about to miss another deadline.
After over 23 years of work, Richard Williams was fired from his own film and the movie was dropped by Warner Bros. It’s said that as animators grabbed what they could and left, Dick was still at his desk animating a scene. The film had become a “reason for living.”
To fulfill a contractual obligation, the film was completed as cheaply as possible, and the resulting versions (The Princess and the Cobbler and Arabian Knight) bear almost no resemblance to what Richard Williams intended. Deleting half the footage and including obnoxious songs and voiceovers, the film was bought by Disney (through Miramax) and marketed as a cheap Aladdin ripoff - quite ironically.
Richard Williams no longer discusses the film.
My name is Garrett Gilchrist. I was eight years old when I first read about how the animator behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit wanted to create “the best animated film that’s ever been made.” I was about fourteen when I saw how it had gone horribly wrong. I was about seventeen when I watched the released versions of the movie, and Richard Williams’ original workprint, on an extremely low quality VHS tape. Despite the poor quality I was fascinated by the film, which stands as a work of art quite unlike any other.
In 2006, at age twenty-four, I edited a restoration of the film combining the low-quality workprint with better quality DVD sources. I called it The Recobbled Cut. Restoring such an obscure film, I assumed only a handful of people would be interested. Instead, the Recobbled Cut has become something of a cult phenomenon, with viewers becoming captivated, as I was, by the tragic story of the film’s demise, and then seeing it restored as intended, in the best quality available. Although often criticized for favoring animation style over the substance of story, the film is a masterpiece by any standard, on par with Disney’s Fantasia, and considered by many to be one of the greatest animated films ever made - something you’d never know from watching the released versions.
Garreth Gilchrist
Watch his restoration of The Thief and the Cobbler on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZibUpH-AME
Or download his restoration in HD here: MEGA
Summary
- Richard Williams wanted to make his magnum opus, a movie so unlike any previous attempts within animation that it would elevate animation into the fine arts and be acknowledged by young and old.
- 20+ years in production (1964-1992)
- The last work from many of the best talents from the golden age of animation.
- No computers, no 3D, no Xerox. Everything was animated with 24 pictures per second.
- Lush, vibrant and different approach to storytelling, characters, movements and backgrounds.
- The best 2D animation the world will probably ever see.
- Williams studio self-financialized the project by making commercials throughout the years.
- Got on contract with Warner Brothers after Roger Rabbits success in 1988.
- Got forcefully taken from its creator due to deadlines being overdue, and Warner Brothers not understanding the vision of what they had signed up for. Disneys Aladdin stole much of its artistic ideas and designs from Williams (Jafar and Genie is this movies evil vizier ZigZag split into two characters. Jasmin is very much inspired by Princess YumYum and the Sultan’s appearance closely resembles King Nod). With Aladdin coming from Disney, Warner Brothers got cold feets and used the contractual rights to seize Williams material.
- The movie got butchered in merciless fashion not ones but twice. First as Princess and the Cobbler (Australia) and later Arabian Knight (US).
- In the late 00�?Ts it has been restored from a plethora of different sources, many just storyboards, pencil test or low quality VHS workprint by the fan Garreth Gilchrist who have spent years on making the edit as closely to Williams vision. This is called The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut (Mark 4)
Legacy
Williams is considered the saviour of traditional animation. He secured the bridge form talent from the 40�?Ts by hiring them to teach his (and competitive) studio to share the art before they died, and help him on his masterpiece as well. Williams collected all their knowledge into The Animators Survival Kit; a book that any animator today will treasure amongst his top 5 books on animation. Old Williams went beyond that and released a 16 hours DVD version of the Animators Survival Kit, which shows examples, physical and animated, and shares many great anecdotes and stories of the greatest animators. This was around 2010 and in 2013 he released the book as an iBook with video examples as well. For 20 years he has travelled the world with his animation masterclass, and none of todays movies (3D or not) would move as they do, if Williams had not done this!
Plot
The plot in the feature is not the important factor. Under the spoiler tag I�?Tll give you a brief overview, but keep in mind, that this movie is phenomenal due to how it tells its story, not the story in itself.
Spoiler A middle eastern city comes under siege by the Mighty One Eyes (pretty much Warriors of Chaos with a gargantuan warmachine). The city is protected by magic from the 3 golden balls atop the tallest minaret. A poor cobbler wins the princess heart, while a simple minded thief steals the 3 golden balls, but loses them to the evil vizier. The king goes into a panic, and the vizier tries to get the princess hand in marriage to solve the situation. The king declines, and sends the princess and the cobbler into the desert to seek out the magic from an ancient witch. Meanwhile, the vizier brings the 3 golden balls to the Mighty One Eye, who launches his attack on the golden city. In the desert, the witch prophesies that the cobbler will save the day, and with the help of some lost brigands, the cobbler faces the warmachine of the Migthy One Eye and the evil vizier in order to save the day. Throughout the movie, the thief pursues valuables and expecially the 3 golden balls, which leads him into the inferno of the warmachine, that carries the 3 golden balls atop. /Spoiler (Mark or copy to read
)The warmachine scene from the recobbled cut
I will of course advice you all to watch the entire movie, but in case you don�?Tt have the time, read the plot above, and click this link to the climax of the movie with the warmachine. Keep in mind that varied sources and quality makes some parts crystal clear, and others appear nearly unwatchable. That is how it is. The clip is around minutes long and starts here: https://youtu.be/akvpU-nU2P0?t=3m18s
(Continue to part 7 to see the finalé: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkxR_MQuJ6I)
I hope this story was worth your time. It�?Ts one of the hidden oddities that rarely gets mentioned outside of animation circles, even though it is absolutely marvellous from an artistic point of view. As a closing note I give you the evil vizier ZigZag who tries to get acceptet into the camp of the Mighty One Eye. This scene is one of my favorite scenes from any piece of animation ever <3
ZigZag is voiced by Vincent Price and all his lines rhymes. It is the last work he did before he died and it is such a shame that it is not known by the casual fans. Migthy One Eye is voiced by the (at the time) tallest man in England, that was brought in and coached to reach as deep as voice he could manage with his big vocal chord xD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ogPvybOiA (From the beginning and 3:47 into the clip)
