The Thief and the Cobbler, few people have heard of it, but it is the most legendary independent animated film in the world. The animation was directed by Richard Williams, with lead animators Ken Harris, Babbitt and Grim Natwick. Williams had conceived the project in 1964 and began production on the film in the late 1960s. The exact timing is unclear, but it is certain that the dubbing work began in 1968. Initially Williams planned to make an animation about Nasruddin (Avanti), he began to read and collect various stories and legends about Nasruddin, and finally Williams decided to make this animation into a movie specification, and named the project Nasruddin. In 1972, Williams suddenly decided to terminate the production of Nasruddin, changing the style of the animation to be closer to the tone of 1001 Nights, and the film's title was changed to The Thief and the Shoemaker, but some of the characters previously designed will still appear in this animation. Williams wanted the animation to be a 100-minute hand-drawn epic, and wanted it to be as good as a detective novel. He designed the two protagonists to be dumb so that the audience could fully focus on the performance of the animated characters, and in his words he wanted the animation to be a "silent movie with sound." Funding has always been the main constraint on this original animation, and the main source of production funding is a portion of the profits earned by Williams' own advertising studio. Due to limited funds, the production progress was quite slow, and it was not until Williams became famous for directing "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" that the animation received investment from Warner, and it was already 1988. On the other hand, Disney has also started production of "Aladdin". Since "Aladdin" is strikingly similar to it (no doubt, "Aladdin" plagiarized a lot of "The Thief and the Shoemaker", and even the Djinn completely copied the villain of The Thief and the Shoemaker, without even changing the color), if "Aladdin" is released first, which is bound to pose a serious threat to its commerciality. At this point, however, his animation had only been completed for less than 20 minutes, so Warners insisted that Williams fill in the rest of the plot with sub-shots and drafts - a rough version that, of course, didn't get much response. In September 1992, Warner withdrew its capital and withdrew from the project, and the control of the film fell into the hands of the performance securities company. Fulfillment Securities approached TV animator Fred Calvert, gave him a fairly low budget, and asked him to complete the rest of the production as quickly as possible. To this end, Fred Calvert made a lot of changes to the completed parts, and deleted many complicated scenes in the original film to prevent the newly produced cheap scenes from being unable to connect with them. The remaining content was all completed by the outsourcing company within two months. . After production, the film was first released in Australia in 1993, and the global release was in 1995, and the profitability was quite dismal. Since Fred Calvert took over the film and made a lot of cuts to the completed parts, all the versions released around the world did not see all the scenes of the original version of Williams. In the late '90s, Disney's head of animation Roy E. Disney began a project to restore Thieves and Thieves, which was shelved in 2003 due to its departure from Disney. Williams kept all of the design and original animation film in the cellar, but when the animation was taken over by Fred Calvert, these things were sent to Thailand for outsourced work without any protection, so it was almost impossible to restore. . Disney hasn't given up on the project, though, and with some unofficial animation fan restorations in the works, maybe one day, we'll get to see the movie in its entirety. This animation is all hand-painted, and all the lines and coloring are done by hand. The movements of the animated characters are impeccable and can be said to have reached the limit of 2D animation; the various designs and effects that are very artistic are dazzling. The most amazing thing is the perfect 3D effect in the film. 3D sense has always been the production concept of the film. Unlike other hand-drawn animations, the movement of the lens in this film will drive the perspective change of the background! And these are completely comparable to the computer-made 3D effects, which are still hand-painted! It can be said that the part Williams they have completed is the strongest voice in the history of hand-drawn animation! And that's one of the reasons the animation was slow to make in Richard Williams' hands. Of all the releases, the highest-rated version is the Miramax release by Disney. On the Online Film Critics Association's "Top 100 Animated Films of All Time", Miramax's version of "The Thief and the Rogue" came in at number 81.
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