If you are somehow unaware of the film and of what happened to it, these articles recount the story quite well. It was a butchered movie, but we'll skip to the happy part of the story. Some years ago, a filmmaker and Richard Williams fan named Garrett Gilchrist gave himself the task of editing together a version of "The Thief and the Cobbler" that, while we will sadly never be able to see the movie that was in Richard Williams' head, would at least be much, much closer to Williams' original vision.
If you're only familiar with the version of "Thief and the Cobbler" that is available on home video (and currently on Netflix streaming as of writing; very convenient for those of us who like to compare and contrast), you probably know that any fan-edit of the film would basically have to be closer to what Williams intended compared to that thing. But Gilchrist's edit is so excellent, culled from extremely rare materials donated from people involved in the picture, that it is as profound an alternate cut as those for "Blade Runner" and "Brazil". Now, you can tell that this is edited together from wildly diverse material, I'll admit. The action, while gorgeous to look at, is also very random. Approach this as you would "Fantasia" or "Yellow Submarine"; we're here to gawk at the gorgeous artwork.
And the art and animation is a wonder to behold. It's downright astonishing to consider that everything on screen was hand-drawn, and supervised by essentially one person. (I was trying not to blink during the final half-hour or so. Hand-drawn, b*tches! One ONES from the look of it! I'm getting a hand-cramp just thinking about it.) If you care about art at all, you owe it to yourself to give this a look. Seriously, just drop whatever you're doing right now and watch:
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Art of the Day! I'll never be as awesome as Richard Williams on one of his "off days". But I try.
