I had been impressed by the fact that it had taken Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) nearly a decade of pre-production to achieve what he wanted with his dream project, Steamboy, and the results are a wonderful animated feature.
Several great visionaries have invested immense amounts of time and energy, in what many would consider obsessive manner, devoted to their dreams. Successful filmmakers/artists, who have little to prove to anyone, sometimes choose to travel along rough roads to make something special. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they fail.
I am sure that anyone who has seen Lost in La Mancha would have been as heartbroken as Terry Gilliam, who struggles to this day to complete his Don Quixote film. Dune fans must be very aware that David Lynch's uncompromised vision for the film has never been shown. Across all entertainment media, there are numerous stories of creators who are unable to see their visions through. The explanations for the interrupted works are quite varied, and each one probably makes for a very long story.
I came across a recent article on Twitch that discusses one of the biggest stories of a masterpiece that has never been shown to the world as its creator intended. The masterpiece of animation is Richard Williams's The Thief and the Cobbler, which was in production for 25 years before finally being overtaken by Warner Bros. and turned into something else. But luckily, one fan has taken the task to lead the restoration of The Thief and the Cobbler, and after painstaking work, has produced a version of Richard Williams's film that is as close to his original vision as possible:
Garrett Gilchrist has combed the world for every bit of footage that he could find (some of which came from veterans of the original Williams crew), and produced what he calls "THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER: RECOBBLED CUT". It's taken from the Miramax version, the Calvert version, the Williams workprint, and other sources that he discovered.
The full story of Richard Williams and The Thief and the Cobbler is incredibly fascinating, and the full article at Twitch is a good place to start, available here.
For those who are curious about the restoration work done by Garrett Gilchrist, you can follow how his work progressed, as he documented it at a Star Wars forum, available here. There are over fifty pages of posts, but it is all very interesting stuff, even for those who have no idea about animation. It's very impressive to see how Gilchrist (who uses the name ocpmovie on that forum), and those who helped him, transform incredibly low-quality video images to clean animation. Some of the images are very striking (all images in this story come from posts in that forum).
As for Gilchrist's The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut, the project was completed some time in May, and is available on DVD (I am not sure where, or how legal all of this is). The trailer, and full version of the Recobbled film, is available for viewing on YouTube, available right here. Those who are familiar with YouTube know what to expect as image quality, but still it is better than nothing I suppose.
From YouTube:
This is not intended for profit, just a fanmade research project and tribute to this classic film. The film was worked on for 26 years, with a team of master animators like Ken Harris and Art Babbit. This film inspired Disney's Aladdin. Ruined versions of it were released as Arabian Knight and The Princess and the Cobbler. For more info, visit originaltrilogy.com (forum 11), orangecow.org, ffrevolution.com, and thiefandthecobbler.com.
I watched the trailer and the first parts of the film, and I am so far very impressed with this magical film. Right away, three thoughts entered my mind: Disney's Fantasia, Disney's Aladdin, and Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack). The similarities to Fantasia come in the lyrical aspects of the film, where beautiful visuals are combined with moving music, the fluid animation and a wonderful and highly inspired/inspirational design for characters and backgrounds.
Concerning Aladdin, it copied from The Thief and the Cobbler.
And finally, Tartakovsky has apparently cited this film as one influence for his own work. Geeks are perhaps most loving of Tartakovsky for Samurai Jack, which is yet another example of a creator not receiving the opportunity to complete his vision.
According to Twitch, who call The Thief and the Cobbler "the pinnacle of traditional animation," Richard Williams "heartbroken, quit animation and [...] refuses to talk about this film to anyone, to this day."
