This material I didn't record so I'm writing it down from memory now, as best I can.
The Nasrudin film shut down because there were crooked dealings going on behind the scenes. An article at Eddie Bowers' site blames Idries Shah's sister for the breakdown - she taking credit for some of the stories that she helped translate, and claiming she owned them outright and would sue. But Naisbitt blames Omar Shah, Idries' brother. A pleasant but shady character on the business end, who was taking advantage of things.
Anyway, it broke down.
Naisbitt doesn't know much about the voice recordings, when those took place. The Bowers article says 1967-1968, Naisbitt thinks it must have been much later, like in the 80s, since the story didn't take obvious shape until then, except in Dick's head. Probably a combination of both. In I Drew Roger Rabbit Sir Anthony Quayle discusses coming in over and over again over the years.
Originally there were two princesses, sisters, Meemee and Yumyum. Nasrudin saw a horrible ogre and jumped over the wall to save - well, probably princess Meemee seemed to be in peril. But Meemee says, "No, I love that horrible creature!"
Later, everyone goes to the old witch to try and change the ogre back into Prince Bubba.
Witch lines from the Thief Who Never Gave Up documentary:
"My child, it is obvious to me that he is under the influence of the double whammy."
"Mystic fumes, show me the way! Show me how this curse to break!"
That IS Princess Meemee you see in the bath with Yumyum. From behind, they changed it to look like a mirror was there instead. Roy mentioned the bath scene before I said anything. =) He said a lot of things right as I was about to ask about them ...
How much art still survives?
Roy said - You'll have to ask Fred Calvert. Which was not the answer I wanted to hear. =( It seems that Calvert got it all. And his Korean animators threw out everything they did.
So ...
Not good news.
Roy is thanked by Richard in The Animator's Survival Kit for having saved a lot of things that Richard would have thrown out. This doesn't apply much to The Thief though - not much was left. Roy notes that Richard's instinct was to throw everything out. There was a huge amount of material from all the commercials, and the huge bunker for The Thief that you see in I Drew Roger Rabbit - so much material. Richard wanted to throw it all away, and Roy wanted to save it.
Roy wound up taking everything he could, having his wife go through it (He says she became quite the expert on animation in the process, though of course she isn't) .... they threw out the less interesting stuff and saved the best.
Eventually, Richard took it all back - and was really grateful that Roy had saved it. Roy doesn't have much of any of it now. "That's all right," he says.
On Aladdin - Roy notes that Eric Goldberg did very little on The Thief, mostly working on commercials. Eric was quite brilliant. He remembers being at a talk where one of the main animators on Aladdin - I can't remember now who but I think I recorded this part anyway - was talking about why they designed Jafar the way they did, a curly beard blah blah blah to signify he's evil and of course he was just talking about the exact design elements of Zigzag. And Roy just throws up his hands.
Roy has another reason for the film shutting down. Warners wanted a different film than Richard was making. They wanted songs. They said they loved what Richard was doing, but in the wake of Little Mermaid et al. they weren't really liking it as much as they said they were .... didn't feel it was marketable enough. Of course it wasn't progressing. Richard was asked to add songs - hence the song about the moons and stars that appears in the script, but not in the known film.
Roy had worked on 2001, and was impressed that Richard did the same thing Stanley Kubrick did, using existing and classical music to fit his scenes. They'd had a lot of composers in, including George Martin, and it was felt that if one composer did the music it might all sound the same ... Roy feels that a lot of film scores, it reassures you, you feel with the music that nothing bad can happen to the characters. It takes the edge off. Richard just used music to suit his scenes rather than another way round. He remembers Robert Folk coming in on the Calvert version, and his work was okay, but not the same.
Roy liked Calvert, thought he was a nice guy, and was amazed at the horrible things he was doing to the film. Richard was long gone at that time, and Roy was still there, trying to fight for the film - He was always talking to Calvert, quite desperately - but it was often in the pub, and after a few drinks he wouldn't fight so hard. It was a lost cause - he notes that Calvert was really working under a committee, who were making a lot of the decisions. He was annoyed that so much great animation was chucked out - he remembers when they cut The Thief stealing Yumyum's shoes, saying it didn't advance the story. He asked, have you see the version where the credits run over animation of The Thief? That's guilt, that's a guilt inclusion. Calvert felt bad for cutting so much out.
Roy says that the film was a little long and that Richard, if he'd finished it, would have trimmed a few things, tightened it. Perhaps. The Thief pole vaulting, the war machine scene, those go on a bit. That's because over the years when they were working on commercials Richard would always have people doing little vignettes with The Thief, and they'd tend to be similar and a little bit repetitive, but nice anyway, and they'd wind up in the film.
I'll post the rest of the conversation shortly.
Andreas Wessel-therhorn writes:
roy was a great guy. i had a desk closest to his and he was the man with the most patience I have ever seen. He had to take a lot of crap from dick and he handled himself always as a gnetleman.. and boy can he put away those pints..
Oh, and Eddie Bowers' site is now linked at:
http://thiefandthecobbler.com
Isn't that nice? Same as it was, and the latest news bulletin mentions my restoration. My latest t-shirt designs etc are also there.