I have more or less a new obsession now. I was browsing Deviant Art one day when I came across a very familiar drawing. It is a fanart of my childhood fav animated movie "The Thief and The Cobbler" and it brought me back to the memories of really stimulating artwork and my really fav of all the characters in the movie, which is Tack, the cobbler and main character in the movie.

I really missed this movie. So as I found a download link for it and got the movie, I did a little research on the movie itself. I discovered in Wikipedia that basically due to a fall-out with the creator of the original storyline he wanted to animate, and due to lack of funding and stuff, he never ever got the movie finished. And it held the record for longest production ever because it took him from the 1960's to the 1990's to do this movie before it was taken away and scrapped by Warner Bros because he couldn't meet the deadline. The full story can be found here--> [link]

So, as the article said, there are 3 versions of The Thief and The Cobbler, which is the original version which Richard Williams had envisioned it to be; The Princess and The Cobbler, which is the Majestic Version where Tack gets to talk quite a lot, and there are singing sequences in between; and the Arabian Knights, the Miramax version.

The full story plot and comparison can also be found in the link above, but in a nutshell, they were all the same story is just that it differs in some point. This is how I personally think about either 3 versions:

The Thief and the Cobbler

Well, technically the movie Richard William envisioned was never finished, so as mentioned above, there was a fan edit to match the story. For the story-wise, it was OK, especially it gives a hint of mystery for Tack who doesn't speak until all the way towards the end of the movie where you would be stunned with the deep, rich voice of Sean Connery saying "I love you" to Princess Yum-Yum. But as far as story flow and transition-wise, because this is a fan edit and the original movie was never complete, it was added in with storyboard sequence drawings and rough lineart animation, which kinda detached yourself a little from enjoying the story. I know they want to show it in a way that they can tell the story the way Richard Williams wanted it, but if they are willing to get down and dirty to reanimate the scenes and draw it themselves, I'm sure it would've turned out better and not too distracting

The Princess and the Cobbler

Here, this is what I remembered watching back when I was a kid. Probably this was the version I watched back then and thus made me fall in love with it. Tack talks in that young voice as I remembered, but also maintains his quiet attitude. They took the liberty to animate some areas where they added a mouth for Tack to show him talking. There is song and dance in it, which I absolute fell in love with, and this is where Majestic actually reanimated by drawing their own sequences for the singing part, which probably the fan edit version should've done, because if Majestic can reanimate it in such likeness to the original characters that you can't really tell the difference between the original footage and the reanimated footage, I'm sure the fan edit version can do the same. I don't really mind the singing sequences, really (although I found out not much people like it), as it gives a bit of entertainment in between. In fact it makes the movie a little much better than it is. Besides, the songs are very romantic and just to die for~!

Arabian Knight
I never got to watch this version, but I did go to YouTube where they had a video showing the same scene to compare between the 3 movies. And even though it's just a glimpse, I could tell and agree with everyone that it sucked big time. The thief has always been a quiet character and now he was given a talking role, which kills off the mood, really. It was more or less butchered in so many ways that it had become like an Aladdin rip-off, and many accused it to be an Aladdin rip-off when ironically, Aladdin's animation was inspired by The Thief and The Cobber

Anywho, it's a very good animated movie which should not be missed. I'd probably like The Princess and The Cobbler version better than The Thief and The Cobbler version better in terms of entertainment, because, let's face it, I'm a sucker for song and dance, lol! And ooh, Tacks is like the coolest character of all! I'm probably adding him to my list of fantasy lovers~!

Ratings:
TTaTC - 7.5/10
TPaTC - 9/10
AK - Don't even bother
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Watched by me:

and counting...

Watching me:

and counting...

Club I'm in so far:

and counting...