Originally posted by: ocpmovie
To tell the truth, I think that as far as doing what needs to be done to get the word out and get Disney more interested in a reconstruction, this project is accomplishing that already.

That's just it; the objective Patrick and I have discussed is more than just a reconstruction. The most ideal situation would be that Disney would not only restore the finished footage, but actually go back and do the rest of the animation (and re-animate the junk that Calvert wrecked or that the artwork doesn't exist for, through referencing of the workprints and such), preferrably bringing in surviving (and still active) Thief veterans such as Roy Naisbitt, Alex Williams, Holger Leihe, Gary Dunn, and Andreas Wessel-Therhorn, and other Williams protegés such as Eric Goldberg, to animate scenes and help the Disney crew get the Williams look down. (And come on, how many animators would turn down the opportunity to help finish Richard Williams's magnum opus?)

Williams left enough stuff behind that Disney could finish the film without actually having to bring him in to directly work on it. Stanley Kubrick, though not directly involved, offered advice for the restoration of Spartacus, and Richard Donner did the same for the new recut of Superman II (which is one of the recent happenings which has convinced me that such a project is indeed possible).

This is wishful thinking, I know, but it would probably only require $10 million and about a year of work, and could well be out in theaters by 2008 if we started pushing for it now. A Variety ad and full-scale (dare I say, OriginalTrilogy.com-scale) campaign, publicized on other forums, including professional animation-related ones such as Animation Nation, AWN, and The Animation Show, and at places like ASIFA, could help drum up enough voices of support, both inside and outside the animation industry, to convince Disney that it would be profitable to undertake a REAL project to complete the film. I mean, with people like John Lasseter (who, being the ultimate animation geek, almost certainly admires The Thief and the Cobbler) and Don Hahn in high places, the chances of this actually happening are greater now than ever before.

I know it's an utterly insane idea, but it would finally bring a fitting conclusion to the decades-long ordeal...and I'm sure there are plenty of people here who would give their left kidney to see a 100% complete and true to Williams's vision version of The Thief and the Cobbler.