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[REVIEW REPOST] "The Princess & The Cobbler"

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Widya Santoso

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Sep 8, 1995, 3:00:00 AM9/8/95
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Here's my review of _The Princess and the Cobbler_, which I posted to
rec.arts.animation and rec.arts.disney over a year and a bit ago. After
reading posts about _Arabian Night_ and watching the report on
_Entertainment Tonight_ regarding the dubbing of the thief's voice, I can
appreciate the version that I've watched even more. I now personally feel
that a great disservice was given Richard Williams, in not being allowed
to finish the film in the way he wanted it. Some may think that treatment
that US producers give anime a crime, but that is nothing compared to the
mis-treatment that was given this film. If the film had to be edited for
commercial release, at least a director's cut would have been feasible.
In the manner that this case was handled, that is not a possibility. All
one can do now is watch, and wonder at what could have been.

BTW, the Australian (PAL) edition of _The Princess and the Cobbler_ is
currently on sale on video for A$24.95

The Princess and the Cobbler


About 26 years ago, a tale set in the mystical Middle East was
dreamed. A story about a simple lad, the beautiful princess he falls
in love with, her eccentric father, and their nemesis, the blue
skinned Grand Vizier and his villainous pet bird. The glue that binds
the characters together: a strange, durable, almost invulnerable
being, who brings the lovers together and the downfall of the
villain.

25 years later, Aladdin reached cinemas.

But the story I'm talking about is The Princess and the
Cobbler (originally known as The Thief and the Cobbler.)
In 1968 Richard Williams (known for his work on Who Framed Roger
Rabbit?), dismayed by the decline in the standards of animation,
set out to push the envelope. He and his small band of animators
would work on their spare time on the film. It's only recently, with
the success of Aladdin, that the film has been completed, with
the help of Kroyer Films and Wang Animation.

The film is about Tack, a young cobbler, who's just making a
living in the markets of the Golden City. The Golden City is the
last bastion of culture and peace amid the turmoil and chaos caused
by the One Eyed Giants, a evil nation bent on the domination of the
world. The city is protected by three magical balls, whose presence
in the city keeps the enemy out. But if the balls go missing, it is
foretold, the city is doomed to fall. The only thing that can save
the city is the simplest of souls, the simplest of things.

YumYum is the only child of the King of the City, Nod (so called
because he's always dozing.) She is tired of being just a decoration,
she dreams of being able to help just one person to make life in the
palace worthwhile. Her father is well meaning, a little simple
minded, but not foolish. In his dreams he has a nightmare of a
terrible war machine that will lay waste to the city.

YumYum is the prize sought after by the Grand Vizier (why are
grand viziers always the bad guys in these stories?), whose ambition
to seize the throne involves marrying the Princess. He has a retinue
of sidekick courtiers, and a (voiceless) vulture as a pet. His plans
to wed YumYum is foiled by her father's refusal, and so he plots to
betray the city to the One Eyed army by stealing the three golden
balls.

The catalyst of the movement of people and events is the thief, a
kleptomaniac who cannot resist stealing anything gold. When he
inadvertently gets tangled up with Tack, he sets in motion a series
of events that brings the cobbler and princess together, via the
Vizier. In the midst of this, he sees the golden balls, and he
schemes to grab them. His misadventures provide the light
entertainment of the film.

With the obvious similarities, one cannot help but think initially
that The Princess and the Cobbler is an imitation of
Aladdin. The storylines, the characters--right down to the
Vizier's pet bird--look too similar to be coincidental. The biggest
difference is that The Princess and the Cobbler was devised in
1968, and it wasn't until the late eighties that Aladdin was
in production. There are three songs in The Princess and the
Cobbler, but they seem to me to have been composed and animated
after the success of Aladdin. Despite this, it is amazing to
see how closely the two films match each other. The problem with
this, though, is that The Princess and the Cobbler will be
dismissed as simply a cashing in on the success of Aladdin.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

Whilst the plots appears similar, there is a fundamental
difference; Aladdin is character driven, whilst The
Princess and the Cobbler is story driven. That is, the story in
Aladdin is derived via the interactions of the protagonists,
and in the story of The Princess and the Cobbler the
protagonists go through the motions of the plot. In Aladdin
the audience gets to learn about the characters, who they are, what
their dreams and desires are, and what they do to achieve those
dreams. We begin to identify and care for the characters.

In The Princess and the Cobbler the characters are subject
to the machinations of the plot. There is no real attempt to give
more than one dimension to the characters, save for YumYum, to give
her some spunk. The story is more the focus. Unlike Aladdin,
which has a more personal feel, the story in The Princess and the
Cobbler has a fairy tale, mythical feel. The tale unravels
before our eyes, like a story teller retelling a favourite fable to a
audience of wide eyed children. The characters are really only
ciphers, to represent good and evil forces.

The centerpiece of both films is the irrepressible catalyst of a
character; in Aladdin it's Robin Williams' Genie, and in
The Princess and the Cobbler it's the thief. The Genie's
appeal is due to Williams' impromptu performance, and the Disney
animators reacting to it. The thief's appeal is also visual, but
because he doesn't speak, it's all the animator's skill. The
outstanding feature of the thief is his perseverance in the face of
insurmountable opposition. He will never give up, not on those
golden balls--and it's through those efforts he shapes and moves the
other characters and the events. To me, he is also the most
memorable; it's his gags and actions that linger most in the mind.

In The Princess and the Cobbler there is another Williams
that is the highlight of the film: Richard Williams' animation. It
is the animation and character design that are the true stars of the
film. The film's ancestor is Al Brodax's The Beatles' Yellow
Submarine in style; the art is not realistic, rather more
surreal. The character design is based on ancient Persian art, with
a tip of the hat to the cartoons based on the stories of Mulla
Nasrudin, the sufi with a sense of humour. There's also a bit of Tim
Burton in there as well, as characters (Tack in particular) look much
like those from Nightmare Before Christmas. Backgrounds also
owe much to Persian architecture and decoration.

The animation itself is what makes the film. Williams' wizardry
shines through; it's obvious that he has a lot of affection for it.
Visual wit and gags abound; there's visual illusions, there's sleight
of hand and of eye. There are immense war machines of great
complication; there are great armies, bristling with cruel barbarity;
there is a prosperous city, full of people hustling and bustling in
everyday business and play; and there is a glistening palace, with
endless staircases, rolling plains, and courtiers and palace guards
toing and froing up and down corridors. If I sound like I'm
embellishing the images, I'm not. This is not just how it looks;
it's also how it FEELS. I was constantly amazed by the complexity
and variance of Williams' artistry.

The thief seems to be Williams' favourite, as his antics are well
crafted. You can laugh at his travails, as Williams makes him jump
through hoops. Though he may be downtrodden, dragged through the
dust, flung through the air and landing in a crashing heap, flushed
down pipes, and finally flying through hails of arrows and spiked
balls, juggling the golden balls in his grasp.

I suppose it's a pity that he wasn't able to finish the film as he
had wanted, but I wasn't able to determine where his film ended and
Kroyer and Wang's film began (other than I think the songs.)
Nevertheless it is a film well worth the waiting for. The story is
adequate, but the wealth of attention to the animation and design
make up for it. It's a gorgeous film, and worth watching. It's also
free of controversy; it's not going to attract the same attention
from pressure groups as Aladdin did. It's noteworthy to point
out that a line in the opening song of Aladdin that attracted so
much comment is actually animated in the end credits of this film!
How the person gets out of this situation is worth staying on to the end.

So how does it compare with Aladdin? In my opinion,
they're chalk and cheese. Although there are many similarities, the
reality is that their directions have different destinations. One is
an attempt to interpret an old tale for an audience for the '90's;
the other is a labour of love, created by an artist. In that way,
they are as good as each other.

--Widya Santoso


--
Widya Santoso wsan...@nyx.cs.du.edu +61 6 288 0405
If Lene Lovich married Lyle Lovett, would they be known as
* Lene and Lyle Lovett-Lovich * ?
-- Unit 3/12 Araluen Street, FISHER ACT 2611, AUSTRALIA --

Mary A. Giordano

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Sep 8, 1995, 3:00:00 AM9/8/95
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In a previous article, wsan...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Widya Santo) wrote:
>
> Whilst the plots appears similar, there is a fundamental
>difference; Aladdin is character driven, whilst The
>Princess and the Cobbler is story driven. That is, the story in
>Aladdin is derived via the interactions of the protagonists,
>and in the story of The Princess and the Cobbler the
>protagonists go through the motions of the plot. In Aladdin
>the audience gets to learn about the characters, who they are, what
>their dreams and desires are, and what they do to achieve those
>dreams. We begin to identify and care for the characters.
>
> In The Princess and the Cobbler the characters are subject
>to the machinations of the plot. There is no real attempt to give
>more than one dimension to the characters, save for YumYum, to give
>her some spunk. The story is more the focus. Unlike Aladdin,
>which has a more personal feel, the story in The Princess and the
>Cobbler has a fairy tale, mythical feel. The tale unravels
>before our eyes, like a story teller retelling a favourite fable to a
>audience of wide eyed children. The characters are really only
>ciphers, to represent good and evil forces.
>

>
You've made some excellent points about the different STYLES of
animated features (and of any movies, when you think about it).
Audiences have become so accustomed to character-driven films with
purely VERBAL affectations, that they've forgotten how to FEEL the flow
and the impact of a story anymore. Most of Disney's earlier, classic
fairy tales were done in this manner, but so many people have forgotten
this, and because they've forgotten this, the studio feel the characters
must have VOICES in order to please audiences. It is so sad to know
that the ART of animation has been reduced to the level and format of
Saturday morning cartoons.

>
> In The Princess and the Cobbler there is another Williams
>that is the highlight of the film: Richard Williams' animation. It
>is the animation and character design that are the true stars of the
>film. The film's ancestor is Al Brodax's The Beatles' Yellow
>Submarine in style; the art is not realistic, rather more
>surreal. The character design is based on ancient Persian art, with
>a tip of the hat to the cartoons based on the stories of Mulla
>Nasrudin, the sufi with a sense of humour. There's also a bit of Tim
>Burton in there as well, as characters (Tack in particular) look much
>like those from Nightmare Before Christmas. Backgrounds also
>owe much to Persian architecture and decoration.
>
> The animation itself is what makes the film. Williams' wizardry
>shines through; it's obvious that he has a lot of affection for it.
>Visual wit and gags abound; there's visual illusions, there's sleight
>of hand and of eye. There are immense war machines of great
>complication; there are great armies, bristling with cruel barbarity;
>there is a prosperous city, full of people hustling and bustling in
>everyday business and play; and there is a glistening palace, with
>endless staircases, rolling plains, and courtiers and palace guards
>toing and froing up and down corridors. If I sound like I'm
>embellishing the images, I'm not. This is not just how it looks;
>it's also how it FEELS. I was constantly amazed by the complexity
>and variance of Williams' artistry.
>

I could never emphasize this last sentence enough - Williams artistry is
AMAZING, and that's probably an understatement. In every viewing I had of
this film, my sense of wonder never diminished. I was so overwhelmed by
the grandeur and brilliance of Williams' segments that I am finding it
difficult to mentally consider seeing a "regular" movie again. Anyone who
avoided this movie because of the negative reviews and the existince of
its editing job missed out on something extraordinarily special.

Mary Ann

TTHUNDERR

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Sep 10, 1995, 3:00:00 AM9/10/95
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:He and his small band of animators

:would work on their spare time on the film. It's only recently, with
:the success of Aladdin, that the film has been completed, with
:the help of Kroyer Films and Wang Animation.


I felt a correction was due here as the Kroyers are close friends of mine
and I think it is a disservice to even connect them to the destruction of
the ''Thief'''. It is obvious to me that someone wants to blame them for
what is really something they had little to do with. Fred Calvert was
given the job of completing the animation not the Kroyers. Kroyers
freelanced one small piece from Calverts. The freelance they took was
handed out to local LA animators and they were given a month to do it.
They had no control of the story,cutting,boarding,directing or final
cleanup. That was all Calverts. You should also know that this was as
Kroyers were in the process of shutting down their studio for the move to
Warner Bros and they did not even have any animators in the studio.
Calverts was soley responsible for all the new animation. I am sure it
would be nice to try and say that Kroyers {an experienced studio} had ANY
control but that was not the case. It was a service job from the word go
and they had no involvement in any of the content. The idea was *not* to
give it to anyone who knew how to finish a feature.

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