The GHZ Forum

MirmAxe will be releasing the full 111 minute uncut version of Shaolin Soccer on DVD in August. This is good news as the theatrical version was edited by 30 minutes and had Chinese text digitally replaced.

Doesn't look like it'll have extras, though. And based on recent releases, there's not guarantee of accurate English subtitles.

So? I have an authentic copy of the Hong Kong DVD, which has all the extras.

Oh, and speaking of that movie, did it ever actually make it into US theaters?

Miramax... I thought they did classy films, like The Piano or The Crying Game.

... what the fuck would they cut?

WhoopA wrote:Miramax... I thought they did classy films, like The Piano or The Crying Game.

Yeah, well, when they made She's All That it all went downhill.

What was the name of that old, Aladdin-esque animated film they did in the early 90's? I can't think of the name of it, but that was really good.

WhoopA wrote:Miramax... I thought they did classy films, like The Piano or The Crying Game.

I think they do whatever makes them money.

Ahhh, I've been wanting to watch that movie. it combines two things I love: Martial arts and soccer.
~Neo

Gibs, you're thinking of The Thief and the Cobbler, also known as The Princess and the Cobbler and Arabian Knight.

The film was a personal project of animator Richard Williams, the absolutely brilliant animator behind projects like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Believe it or not, even though the final film wasn't released until the 1990s, production on The Thief and the Cobbler began in 1968. Williams invisioned a revolutionary animated film, done entirely in ones and featuring things that were incredibly complex to animate. The budget was small because Williams paid for everything himself using his income from creating commercials, but many great animators signed on anyways because of the challenging, unusual and exciting nature of the film. Getting hired to work on William's secret project was like an animator's dream job. Unfortunately, the inconsistent funding meant lots of stops and starts in the film's production, and the complexity of the work extended the time it took to animate even further.

By the mid-eighties, many individual scenes of the film were completed, and they're still mind-boggling to look at today. It was a demo reel of these scenes that got Williams the job on the Roger Rabbit project. After the massive commercial success of Roger Rabbit, Williams finally had a bit of clought. He sought out and obtained an external studio investor for The Thief and the Cobbler, so that he could finally finish the thing. There were about 10 to 15 minutes of the film left to animate.

Unfortunately, the investors got nervous, booted Williams off of the project he had been working on for two decades, chopped it up and spliced in new scenes featuring terrible farmed out animation and obnoxious songs. They rewrote the story, reshuffled some scenes and removed many others, dubbed in a voice for the originally silent main character... it was a completely different movie. Several different edits were released around the world, and all of them are a horrible rape of the original film. The version we have here was release by... guess who... MIRAMAX.

It's the greatest fucking tragedy in the history of American animation, I kid you not. The Thief and the Cobbler as it was finally released is still worth seeing, because it still has some of the brilliantly animated bits chopped out of Williams' version. But if you ever get a chance to see the bootleg version of Richard Williams' "Work Print" of the film... the work-in-progress version that was 15 mintues incomplete... SEE IT! Compare it to the final butchered version that was eventually released, and you will cry for the movie that could have been, and that almost was! FIFTEEN MINUTES! GAH!

That's the quick and dirty version. There are entire BOOKS written about this flick, since it has such a long and complex history. I wish I had my own copy of the workprint, but I don't. :/

I remembered reading that the idea for the movie was concocted in the 60's, but the version I heard said that they just plain ran out of budget and the project was completely dormant for 2 decades.

Light Speed wrote:

WhoopA wrote:Miramax... I thought they did classy films, like The Piano or The Crying Game.

I think they do whatever makes them money.

I'm pretty sure WhoopA was quoting Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, rather than making actual commentary.

Gibs, that's sort of right... The project actually kind of stopped and started several times, but there was a long period of time when the project was mostly/completely dormant, starting around the late seventies or early eighties... I can't remember exactly. Williams' attention was pulled away from the project initially when he did the Raggedy Anne movie... when was that, '78?

But a significant chunk of the project was completed early on, in the late 60s and early seventies. Some pretty legendary 60s Disney and Warner Bros. animators were on the project at that point. Like you said, they eventually ran out of money and the project stalled. But I'm under the impression that even then, Williams himself kept tinkering with it himself during the late 70s and early 80s. Then a big chunk was done in the late 80s and early 90s, from when Williams got studio funding to when the kicked him off the project and rewrote the movie.

Sorry I'm a little fuzzy on this... the most detailed history of the project I ever read was in a book called "Cartoon Capers," which was all about Canadian animators and devoted a chapter to Williams. Unfortunately, I read that chapter in the bookstore instead of buying the book. ;)

In 2000, Roy Disney announced that he was going to work with Williams to re-release the film as he had originally intended. But apparently by that point, they were having trouble finding some of the original footage. I haven't heard anything about the re-release since then, though, so I'm thinking it's not happening anymore.

Here is some stuff, if anyone is actually that curious about this film:

Seriously, look at this thing! No computers! It's crazy:
http://www.vmresource.com/_temp/zig-zag.mov

This is a pretty good article summing up the history of the film:
http://www.toonhound.com/thiefcobbler1.htm

This is a more detailed timeline:
http://www.geocities.com/eddie_bowers/edsummer.html

It's pretty fascinating stuff! It's been a long while since I saw the bootleg of the work print... I wish I had my own copy!

It's possible that the rerelease project is still underway... lost footage can take years to locate or recover, if it still even exists. I certainly hope it's still underway, at least, now I'm extremely interested in seeing this.

Incidentally, has anyone seen the recent Kino International DVD release of Fritz Lang's Metropolis? As much as a whole quarter of the film has been permanently lost, but the missing chunks are filled in with text explaining what's going on. It's amazing how far ahead of its time this movie was.

Ooh, I'll definitely have to grab that.

Metropolis is an amazing film... it's crazy just how much people didn't "get" it. I mean, even Orson Wells didn't get it, and he must have been at least half as smart as I am.

Amazing Grant wrote:

Light Speed wrote:

WhoopA wrote:Miramax... I thought they did classy films, like The Piano or The Crying Game.

I think they do whatever makes them money.

I'm pretty sure WhoopA was quoting Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, rather than making actual commentary.

Indeed I was, with the faint hope that someone would pick it up and run with it.

Grant, you have made my day. Thanks.

Esrever wrote:Ooh, I'll definitely have to grab that.

Metropolis is an amazing film... it's crazy just how much people didn't "get" it. I mean, even Orson Wells didn't get it, and he must have been at least half as smart as I am.

Yeah, I didn't get it.

Yeah, I didn't get it.

Which version did you see? There have been about a bazillion different cuts released over the past 75 years, but the original film only existed in its complete state for a year or two. It was doctored again and again by different studios hoping to make it more appealing to the mainstream. Now most of the cut material has been lost, but the 75th anniversary DVD compiles all the existing footage with some newly restored footage along with the original script and the original score, so it's as close to the complete movie as we'll probably ever have.

I saw the one they had at Blockbuster. I wasn't really searching for a deeper meaning or anything while watching though. I was just expecting a good story.

Holy Hell! I knew that title was familiar, but I never imagined it was that! Thief and the Clobber, DAMN good movie, masively enjoyed it. I truely want to know if it's out on DVD or anything, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
~Neo

Segaholic2 wrote:So? I have an authentic copy of the Hong Kong DVD, which has all the extras.

Does it have English subtitles? If so, how are they? Are they as bad as the subtitles on Hong Kong anime bootlegs?

They're not horrible. Good enough to understand what's going on. Of course, you won't get a lot of the Cantonese jokes, but I can't either since I don't know Canto.

Segaholic2 wrote:They're not horrible. Good enough to understand what's going on. Of course, you won't get a lot of the Cantonese jokes, but I can't either since I don't know Canto.

Nei gam ja ga!

Kekekekekekekekeke... eh, Gam yat ho yit. Jan hai ho la!

Nihao!