Short Version:
anime is kind of lame watch this instead


Long Version:

Let's face it. 99.98% of the fans of anime do not realize that artistically, it has pretty much nothing to offer. Sure, you have the Miyazaki films and the stylistically mature things like Bebop or Big O, but the vast majority of modern animes contains (1) shitty j-pop music, (2) shitty animation, (3) shitty characters, (4) shitty stories and (5) a shitload of unnecessary episodes.

But let's take our minds off of this anime, for a moment, and look at other forms of animation. In the western world, animation is very, very different--or at least, it was. I won't go in depth on the history of animation, but I'll tell you what I've gleaned from my experience and Wikipedia: the modern era of animation in the west is seeing a significant rise in computer animation, while traditional animation is declining rapidly.

That's not to say traditional animation (which means pencil and paper, for those who know little in the ways of animation (stupid) ) is completely dead. In fact, Disney is currently producing a new, traditionally animated feature film that is due out in 2009. And if there's anything I respect about anime, it's that anime is pretty much one of the few things in the world that use a significant amount of traditional animation, though its quality is on par with cheaply produced Saturday morning cartoons.

There are tons of things to hate about Disney, though, and I'm not up for talking about that. Instead, the main focus of this topic, which has been skewed in the introduction, is on a traditionally animated, incomplete masterpiece by Richard Williams: The Thief and the Cobbler.

These next few facts are taken directly from Wikipedia:

"The Thief and the Cobbler (released as The Princess and The Cobbler in Australia and South Africa, and Arabian Knight in most other countries) was the twenty-six-year animated feature film pet project of Canadian animator Richard Williams. Beginning the work in 1964, Williams intended for the film to be his masterpiece, and a milestone in the art of animation. The Thief and the Cobbler was in and out of production for over two decades, until Williams, buoyed by his success as animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, signed a deal in 1990 to have Warner Bros. finance and distribute the film. This deal fell through when Williams was unable to complete the film on time. As Warners pulled out, The Completion Bond Company assumed control of the project and had it finished by producer Fred Calvert without Williams."

So what do we know about Fred Calvert's lovely rendition of The Thief and the Cobbler? Again, from Wikipedia (hmm what a handy website):

"Calvert made several significant changes to the film. Much of Williams's finished footage was deleted from the final release print to make way for newly created scenes and song sequences. Steve Lively was brought in to record a voice and narration for the previously mute character of Tack and several other characters that already had vocal tracks prepared for them were re-voiced. The new scenes were produced on a very low budget, with the animation being produced over a short period of two months by freelance animators in Los Angeles (some from Kroyer Films, who is also credited), former Williams animators at Premier Films in London, and Don Bluth animators working under Gary Goldman in Ireland. The ink and paint work was subcontracted to Wang Film Production in Taiwan, who themselves outsourced most of the work to their satellite studio in Thailand; additional ink and paint work was done at Varga Studios in Hungary. The end results have been compared to Saturday morning cartoons from Korea, and it is obvious that little regard was given to matching the painstaking quality of Williams's original scenes; the primary concern was to complete the film in as little time and for as little money as possible."

Provided you're still following this story, The Thief and the Cobbler then gets published twice: once in 1993 as The Princess and the Cobbler and again in 1995 by Miramax as Arabian Knight. Much of Williams's original artwork is gone; originally, Williams kept this material in his vault. When the film was taken away, this material was sent to artists in Thailand and presumably discarded by the artists there.

The story doesn't end there, however. The Thief and the Cobbler has a loyal fanbase, perhaps more loyal a fanbase than any anime has ever had. Using sources from The Princess and the Cobbler and bootlegged workprints, and help from some of the original animators of the film, fans have produced unofficial restorations of The Thief and the Cobbler. Other plans for restoration have been made by professionals, more notably by Roy E. Disney in the mid 1990s. The only restoration that has any content in it, however, is the fan-restored version.

I won't say much on the plot, other than that it involves a thief, a cobbler, a princess, and has a strong influence from Near Eastern folklore.

The fan made cut of The Thief and the Cobbler is available online and can be watched here. It's still unfinished--a couple spots here and there have no content and are portrayed by stills. Any person who has some respect for the craft of animation is really obligated to watch this. Richard Williams is a brilliant animator, as seen in his work and his rather well-written Animator's Survival Kit. The film is also animated by some of the most highly regarded animators, Ken Harris being one of them. Though I may be generalizing just a bit, most people here don't know any of these people. Well, you fucking should. Read some Wikipedia articles or something. I reccomend reading the ASK if you're into the craft of animation or are an animator yourself. Williams was the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which I'm sure many of you have actually seen.

For those of you who actually watch (or have seen) this, I'd like to read your opinions on the film. At first glance, a couple people may immediately get the idea that it stole from Aladdin, but if you read closely in your Wikipedia articles, you'll notice that it pretty much came before Disney's Aladdin was even thought up. The Thief and the Cobbler vastly different, regardless--in terms of style, transitions, story, characters, and pretty much everything. It's the last film that has Vincent Price voice in it. Oh yeah, and Sean Connery voices the main character.

yeah i'm referencing and quoting wikipedia articles but hey it's easier for me i have to write less.

edit: i added a shorter version of this post because the long version is fucking long

okay i'm gonna get this out of the way; holy SHIT is this overrated. for a while it was a supposed holy grail of animation and now in order to watch it in its "original" form you have to watch a version that isn't even fully animated. the official version isn't much better. it's incredibly overrated.

however it is also a braintape movie, you should know about it for sure and it's worth watching one of the many remakes. it's very very overrated though. jesus christ. the plot isn't WHOA SPECIAL and fans of this go insane defending it against Aladdin for some reason.

It was heavily focused on movement and execution of animation technique. From a movie standpoint it doesn't offer much, but from an animation standpoint you'll have a hard time matching it. It's a good movie based on the sheer amount of enjoyment you can get from something like that, since it was the only thing Richard Williams cared about enough to be good at in the first place. (Aladdin is a good comparison to this because they, are both shallowly written and full of contrite filler so it's easy to compare the two side by side. Anyone with eyes should be able to see which one has more taste and visual enjoyment inserted.)

If nothing else, it should be held in esteem as an aspiration for future animators to come to in persuing more significant works.

could have done without the ANIME VS WESTERN ANIMATION bit imo, it's not a topic of discussion for anyone who knows anything and it kinda detracts from the significance of the rest of the post.

that said, no one argue about this itt, just talk about the thief and the cobbler or whatever else you find relevant. I'm the Mod of this forum now and well I can't warn you but I'll fucking report your post and maybe make fun of you in the text box so all the able Mods can see.

it's a beautiful animation!! I don't really remember, it doesn't have many arab/persian tunes does it? maybe Williams had planned for it. regardless that's one thing the film really could have used. it's also kind of lame? and you kinda have to pay attention to the small parts instead of the whole thing if you're gonna appreciate it at all. good tho, would recommend

Yeah the anime vs western animation was a bit much, sorry. Won't talk about that in this post though.

Back to the Thief and the Cobbler - The music didn't have many Arab/Persian tunes; it's pretty much orchestrated stuff. The animation is fantastic. From what I can see, nearly all of the character animation is done on ones (on ones = 24 frames per second, on twos = 12, on threes = 8, etc.). The story certainly isn't much to gawk about. Williams touted the story as some masterpiece while he produced it, but it's not that great. Still, the way it was told was rather creative and exceptional.

I also find the history behind the film to be really interesting. Overall, I find that Richard Williams's work is often overlooked by the vast majority of casual animation audiences (like casual gamers. except switch game with animation).

wait, why is it overrated?

unless I can dig up my old movie magazines my movie obsessed friend had, you'll have to take this on my word I'm afraid but when I call this HOLY GRAIL I'm not exaggerating. people would have just...like...HOURS of rants on this damn thing. my friend cried when he got a copy of a particularly famous fan remake. not even a great movie like Citizen Kane could stand up to the shit Cobbler fans have elevated this movie to, and it's not even the best animated film around, let alone a GREATEST MOVIE EVER.

it's not bad but holy christ you will still run into people who just have severe fucking feelings about this and YOU HAVE TO LOVE THIS YOU HAVE TO, IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE IF YOU CAN APPRECIATE...ART. it's basically the definition of cult movie. goons will know of Ogg Oggilby, infamously awful goon who was one of these people.

one of these days I'm gonna dig up some of my unbearably elitist magazines I somehow have a small collection of and post scans of them. remember gamefan magazine, where they would review mainstream games like turok and compare it to japanese game directors no one had heard of?

but yeah this was like the movie that defined cult classic for me for years. people would pass around VHSs of this thing like it was made of manna.

holy shit i remember seeing the trailer for this movie when i was like 7 and watching aladin and thought it looked awesome and then forgot about it until this topic. dont care what steel says im downloading this

edt: youre right heres what a youtuber says: "the thief and the cobbler the greatest animation movie of all time way better than aladdin"

no one's saying it sucks, it's def worth a watch if you don't hate animation.

wait, why is it overrated?

All it has to offer as a superior animation is highframerate. There, I said it.

Anime shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread though. I doubt anyone would argue that mad panning and offensive looping/ recycles would be supperior to anything but tweenfest vector animation.

I started watching it again and argh what's that song they keep playing? this is gonna piss me off, it's around 4:00 in this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ7cY4OEZN8&feature=PlayList&p=18B0CA620B61D076&index=2

All it has to offer as a superior animation is highframerate. There, I said it.

Most people believe that the only thing that makes a superior animation superior is highframerate. (It's why they all like Pixar and Dreamworks so much.)

If that's all you are going to say, then I have no choice but to lump you in with that group.

This is a neat thing but I can't see how this is THE MOST AMAZING ANIMATED FEATURE EVER CREATED.

i remember watching this when i was young and being really really blown away. the story is pretty meh but i know there's one scene and they're just running and jumping and sliding through black and white tiles and part of my brain melted out my ear.

iirc it's really long, and also the old woman that tells him the key is attack is naked iirc

holy shit i remember seeing the trailer for this movie when i was like 7 and watching aladin and thought it looked awesome and then forgot about it until this topic. dont care what steel says im downloading this

edt: youre right heres what a youtuber says: "the thief and the cobbler the greatest animation movie of all time way better than aladdin"

i have no idea if this is a joke or not because statements like this actually are all over the comments.

One of the reasons the Thief and the Cobbler was never fully completed is because by the time it nearly was completed Disney released Aladdin.

theres one specifically referencing the aladdin thing, and I'm not going to post the dozens of GREATEST MOVIE EVER comments. the wikipedia article even mentions:

Although The Princess and the Cobbler/Arabian Knight was not a financial success, the film's history and intent has given it significant cult status among animation professionals and fans.

why would I make up a subculture around the fucking THIEF AND THE COBBLER? it exists and if you think fans going through hours of work print and attempting to make their own version of the "original vision" before the internet was really prominent (this particular version is a new one) isn't proof of this what would convince you? I never even said it was bad, just that it's very much overrated in certain circles.

it's not on youtube. granted i didn't go into backpages but the "comment" reads like sarcasm. earl chip picked up on it too.

I wasn't joking or being sarcastic