EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED.
Everything.
Stanch has sent me a VHS tape and a DVD.
The DVD contains Williams' workprint, the one we all have in poor quality, in what I can only describe as "very good quality."
This is a copy made from a copy of Fred Calvert's copy. The picture is very clear. The worst thing I can say about it is that it shows signs of definite DVD compression, so the original VHS would have been preferable.
It's clear and clean, and compared to the awful VHS copies of the workprint that are out there, this is remarkable.
The sound drops out almost entirely around the witch scene, which doesn't affect my edit much as I can just use the sound from another copy, and the picture is still clean. But it will annoy those watching this lovely DVD.
Also on the DVD is the rare and wonderful "censored" 90s Warner Bros cartoon, Blooper Bunny. Unrelated to The Thief of course, but any animation fan will love both. And hey, they both have a remarkable moving camera.
The VHS tape Stanch sent contains something equally interesting, and completely insane.
Fred Calvert's work in progress for The Princess and the Cobbler.
I want to call it a workprint, because it definitely resembles Williams' own workprint, except for the Calvert version of the film. Calvert's film has barely been begun at this point - he hasn't recorded final voices or done any animation of his own. The storyboards are hilariously off model to what Williams did, and look like they were done by retarded monkeys. The temp voices are equally bad.
The quality of this is pretty good, but not as good as the Williams workprint Stanch sent, so I'll only be using it for a few things.
This is an insane version of the film. It bears no resemblance to any version of the film you've seen before. It's wrong on so many levels, and fascinating. It really takes you behind the scenes to show you EXACTLY what Calvert did to the film, because you can see EXACTLY what Williams didn't complete, which happens to be a lot. You'll be impressed, and say, wait, Calvert actually did that shot? And during the new scenes you'll be horrified and laugh.
The film has a female narrator who is best described as "sassy." She narrates way too much of the film, describing things we already know, and her audio is really clumsily clunked into the film (all other audio cuts out as she speaks).
The Thief talks in this version (he doesn't in Calvert's final version), and he sounds like Gollum! He's constantly saying things like "Ooh, pretty pretty ... ooh, mine." It's bizarre.
King Nod is still voiced by Anthony Quayle, and Yumyum by Hilary Pritchard, except in the new scenes Calvert is adding, which appear in storyboards voiced by terrible terrible actors.
These storyboards are different from the final film, and longer, showing that Calvert had more bad ideas which didn't make it. Calvert seems to blame King Nod for everything that goes bad with the kingdom - he has a soliliquy where he wonders, what have I done?
The song sequences are limited to "She is More" and "Am I Feeling Love?" ... "Beem Bom" and "It's So Amazing" are not present at this point. Some kind soul has decided to cut both song segments out of this tape entirely, which I'm grateful for. Though it would have been amusing to see these segments as storyboards.
Okay, what you're waiting for - Williams animation that doesn't appear in any other version of the movie?
Oh yes.
There certainly is some. Not a lot, but there certainly is some.
Most notably, the entire first scene with One Eye, on the battlefield, has been completed by Williams! It's not just pencil test anymore. "And I will gnaw the golden city to the bone- and spit it out!" COMPLETED yo.
There is entirely different pencil animation for the princess in the bath - "where is my backscratcher?" - Princess Yumyum's twin is entirely gone from this version.
"None shall escape!" "Except for the princess ..." The entire scene with Zigzag and One Eye, which Williams cut out from the workprint but Calvert put back, is present here. It's mostly pencil tests, which is remarkable because it looks like Williams work in the final cut. Guess it's good Calvert inks. The amazing thing is that the original One Eye voice is present here, not Kevin Dorsey, so if I really wanted, I could put back the original voice! But I've gotten used to Dorsey. Hm.
The Witch scene is much more complete than in the workprint. Which is nice because the Princess and the Cobbler DVD isn't widescreen, and this is.
In the beginning of the witch scene, we see some Williams pencil animation of the witch originally appearing as an Aladdin like magic lamp. (This is hinted at in the workprint, but not clearly.) An eye pops out of the lamp and flies around a bit. Then the witch becomes the witch we expect. This is different from any other version.
As in Calvert's final cut, the witch is still voiced by Joan Sims, except for the beginning and end of the scene. Calvert's voice for the witch, who I think was Mona Marshall, has already been recorded at this point. It's the only voice which is identical to Calvert's final cut.
The voice for the Nurse/Nanny is hilariously bad in this cut.
There is some extra Williams pencil test animation as Zigzag charges on his horse toward Tack at the end. This scene is much longer than it wound up, and matches the workprint much more closely. It's a few extra pencil shots of Zigzag's horse attacking Tack.
MUCH more of the film appears in pencil test rather than storyboards. Most of these scenes were things that Calvert had his animators complete, but it's nice to see Williams' original pencils.
You see Zigzag talking to the crocodiles - that entire scene was animated by Williams, but inked by Calvert's hacks.
The king saying "The Prophecy has been fulfilled!" appears in pencil test, meaning that Calvert's men apparently inked that, which surprised me as it looks pretty good. Ditto Yumyum at the polo game asking "Do you know where my cobbler has gone to?"
Amazingly, the entire ending of the film - Tack saying "I love you", them kissing ... that whole bit is still storyboards at this point! Not even Williams pencils.
I can't imagine that Calvert's men did this shot. I can't. But I guess they did. Wow. Jesus.
That explains why Tack's animation here doesn't match Sean Connery's voice track.
Actually, this cut explains a lot of things. Why certain shots match Williams' voice tracks and others don't. It's because occasionally Calvert replaced the original voice tracks with his own tracks before the animators got hold of them.
Also amazingly, the entire last shot with the Thief stealing the film is still pencil test at this point. I'm shocked that this was a Calvert shot, but it is.
Most of the stuff with the brigands appears in pencil test form - like them consulting the brigand's handbook, and "I am Roofless, the Chieftain!" These shots always looked like Williams work, but slightly off somehow. This explains why - Calvert inks of Williams pencils.
A lot of what Calvert's men did in this cut makes me laugh out loud, because it matches what I did in my own edit.
There's a cut from Zigzag getting killed to the Thief, identical to what I did! And I'd thought that one bad Calvert shot of Nod at the end matched the workprint storyboards for him saying "My wonderful daughter." Well, I was more right than I could have known. =) That storyboard appears there, right there, with that voice track.
The entire "What is your name?" scene with Tack and Yumyum where they're getting to know each other - this has more Williams pencils in it, and matches what I wound up doing with my edit of it pretty damn closely! This is a weird recut of what Williams had done. Tack doesn't speak in the visuals.
STUFF FROM THE WORKPRINT?
For the most part, Calvert and company have already made their little cuts and trims to the film. Even at this early stage, they've already cut out most of the little things that are cut out in the final version.
So there is no eating Tack in jail, no Thief getting his hands chopped off, none of that. There's no extra material with the thief and the emerald, and there's none of The Thief attacking the buddha ruby with springs on his feet (sigh).
BUT much of the "adult" material that got cut out is still present here.
You'll be shocked at the random things that are still in this cut.
The maiden from Mombassa is in here. YEP. THE KING HAVING SEX WITH THE MAIDEN FROM MOMBASSA IS IN THIS CUT. I fell out of my chair when I saw that.
Since you asked, it's no more finished than it was in the workprint.
King Nod's bloody dream about the One Eyes appears, in a different spot in the film - at the very beginning actually.
There's more stuff with the Thief at the polo game, which wound up in Calvert's credits.
There's more of The Thief bouncing around as he's trying to get the golden balls from the minaret, again in the credits.
There's part of an extra shot during "Night on Bald Mountain."
The Thief flying his makeshift airplane is in here! Again, wound up in Calvert's credits.
The entire destruction of the war machine is much much longer, and includes most of the stuff from the workprint. The "scissors" and "flyswatter" gags are in here, and so is the Thief dangling precariously over a hot pool at the very end of the sequence.
HILARIOUS TEMP MUSIC!
Oh dear, you're gonna piss yourself. Roughly all of Williams' lovingly chosen music has been replaced by temp music from bizarre sources. Whoever put it together has a weakness for Danny Elfman.
The love theme for Tack and Yumyum? It's the love theme from Edward Scissorhands!
In the Miramax version, Matthew Broderick refers to One Eye's "Army of Darkness." But you can't imagine how funny it is to watch the One Eyes marching to the theme from "Army of Darkness!"
Man, Bruce Campbell and his deathcoaster versus the One Eye War Machine. I think that's a pretty even match.
Once in a while, some Williams music will poke through. They made an attempt to match the music for the witch's dance with Tack - a failed attempt, but it's the same song.
The opening notes of Scheherezade still play when Zigzag does his playing cards thing.
Aaaaaand ..... and this is really cool ..... they matched the music on the reveal of One Eye's camp - that insane shot going away from Zigzag through the fires and dancers, out of One Eye's eye - "Throne!"
It is a different mix or different recording of the same song, whatever that song actually is.
And it plays for much longer than in Williams' version, actually drowning out much of Zigzag's dialogue in the scene. It's nice to hear an extended version of this great music cue.
MEA CULPA
Okay, so I made the decision, six years ago and then this year, to include the final fight between Zigzag and Tack in my edit, even though it doesn't appear in the workprint and seems like the kind of thing Calvert added to make the film more conventionally Hollywoodlike.
I said that the scene was entertaining in its own right, and was animated better than pretty much any other Calvert scene ... even being animated on ones in many shots! It's off model and anime-looking, but unusually well done. I said that because of this level of animation quality, some of it was probably Williams' work, hidden in there somewhere (particularly at the end as Zigzag and Tack are throwing each other around). A certain someone who worked on the film also suggested that Williams did work on some of this.
Okay, well, I've been completely proven wrong by this cut.
The entire fight scene appears here in storyboard form, drawn by idiots, and completely off model. It was humbling to see that, and really be proven, in my face, that this had nothing to do with Williams.
Will I take the scene out of my edit?
I'll think about it. The animation is still good and I've included other Calvert "ideas" in my cut, so who knows. The reason I would take it out is I think it would piss off Richard Williams to see the film this way, if he ever saw it.
Hmm.