By the way, in order for my film professor to get an idea of what The Thief and the Cobbler is before reading my term paper, I let him borrow my 3rd gen workprint DVD-R, the recobbled rough cut, and Arabian Knight. I can't wait to get his reaction from the recobbled cut and then Arabian Knight. How much do you want to bet he'll turn off the last one within 10 minutes? I'm word-of-mouthing the hell out of this film...
My paper is going to be pretty awesome, I think. I'm drawing parallels to the main silent comedians, as well as relating to modes of production and other silent films. I even got permission to include images as reference figures, so I can put photos of Harry Langdon and Tack side-by-side. I gave a rough draft to him, so I'm waiting for input on what I should/shouldn't do for the final paper. I also want to include a short part comparing the mangling to The Magnificent Ambersons and Greed.
Best of all, I'll be citing your interviews with Alex Williams and Roy Naisbitt. I'll be sure to post a link to it here. It'll be a great reference on the silent influences... I really think it'll enhance the appreciation of the film. I know spotting all the silent comedy homages made it more fun for me.
One thing that bothers me is that the workprint apparently got a bad reaction from people... well, it's weird how it's so loved now. It seems to get a lukewarm reaction to a lot of animation people (not a lot of reaction to the threads on the animation message boards), yet the people that aren't really specifically animation fans love it. Maybe I'm overgeneralizing...