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ocpmovie

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Post
#189533
Topic
Info: 'Beer Wars', eh, you hosers?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/189533/action/topic#189533
Time

Someone sent me an old VHS tape (as part of my Thief and the Cobbler project over in forum 11) …

And at the end was a very funny film which might be very old now. It wasn’t a good copy, I’ll say that.

The first Star Wars, the entire film in shortened form, had been reedited to use audio from Strange Brew, starring Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as the MacKenzie Brothers, eh, you hosers.

For fans of this comedy duo, this was gold. I was laughing constantly. The film does have a few Star Wars and sci-fi type references in it, so it was eerie how well it went together with the video.

Would be nice if someone was willing to take the real video from the 2004 DVDs (and the film Strange Brew for one shot), in either pan & scan (as this edit is) or widescreen, and edit it to match this edit, so that we could have “Beer Wars” in good DVD quality.

Anyone wants this, especially if you want to try this, drop me a line.

Post
#189511
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/189511/action/topic#189511
Time
Oh, in cases like that (and in general) I don't touch the audio.



Here's an example of some of the more complicated digital effects work I'm doing on this project.

http://orangecow.org/thief/warmachinerainsm.jpg

This shot doesn't exist in the workprint (or Miramax version). It's possibly a Calvert invention. Either way it only appears in the "Princess" version of the film, in pan & scan.

For shots that are only in pan & scan, I had the option of either using them as pan & scan in my edit (easy) ...

Or doing a lot of work and creating moving backgrounds for them.

Knowing me, I did the latter.


An early version of the painting for this shot appears in the Princess WIP. I redrew it to match the final version, and animated it myself to add rain to it, and lightning, and match the general look of the shot.

Then I place the pan & scan version over it.


From Princess WIP:
http://orangecow.org/thief/warmachinepainting.jpg

Photoshop ...
http://orangecow.org/thief/warmachinedrawingphotoshop.jpg

Then I added rain. Keyframing is used frame by frame to roughly match the flashing lighting of the real shot.


Other shots:

This background was created for a shot of the Thief falling, which I only had in pan & scan. It was cobbled together from various screen grabs. It was keyframed to match the actual background as he falls, frame by frame.

http://orangecow.org/thief/thieffallingbg.jpg

Here's a big background for a major shot of the witch. This had to be keyframed to be the right brightness in each frame, and then it moves at the end, and that had to be matchmoved also.

http://orangecow.org/thief/witchbigbg.jpg

Another witch backdrop, which had to be matchmoved.

http://orangecow.org/thief/witchbg2.jpg
Post
#189290
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/189290/action/topic#189290
Time
Hey Sangyoku! I dunno - if you've got any ideas, email me. =)



MORE THOUGHTS on the Princess WIP


About the last shot not matching Sean Connery's voice track, but my thinking it's Williams pencils anyway ...


This is possible. The Calvert team actually reworked the mouths on some Williams pencils to make it match their own voice track. King Nod saying "Oh my darling, take care" (seems to have been silent in Williams' version, mouth movements added) ... and Yumyum introducing herself to the brigands - this was reedited to match the faster temp track by some bad actress, and the final animation was inked off of that.

The final shot could well have gotten the same treatment - a faster Tack speaking, but the basic poses could still be Williams, with Williams backgrounds, Williams birds flying by and Williams rose petals (or whatever that is) in the air.

Yes, at this point in this edit, I am thinking about these things in this kind of detail. It's gotten COMPLICATED yo.




MORE THOUGHTS ON THE PENCIL TESTS


Ken Harris, great Warner Bros. animator, was "master animator" on the film - I've always associated him most with the character of The Thief. It's said that he animated very fast and very simply - he was known less for his drawing skill than his skill with motion.

There is a pencil test here of the Thief rolling down the hill in a wheeled garbage can, and it's very simple and very elegant, and seems to speak of Ken Harris. I've almost never seen pencil tests of The Thief because all his stuff was finished early on (when the film was The Thief Who Never Gave Up).

The garbage can is just its basic outline, none of the complicated colors and extra lines that were added to it later. The Thief is drawn simply and directly, looking more like the Roadrunner than he does normally. It has no bells and whistles, but the motion is dead on to what it is in the film.

Very interesting. The styles bear comparison. All of Williams' pencil animation of Zigzag, seen in the workprint and elsewhere, is really complicated and on-model. The great Art Babbit's animation of the dying soldier is equally complicated ...

Ken Harris does it simply but gets it just right.


(There is one shot in there too of an early King Nod, by Babbit presumably, which just doesn't look right yet.)
Post
#189282
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/189282/action/topic#189282
Time
Have been sent a 17 minute reel of pencil and camera tests from the film.

My reaction:

Wow. It's fascinating. Just 17 minutes of fascinating. The quality is impeccable, and it REALLY shows you how they made the film, how some of the difficult effects were planned.

With this quality it's the kind of thing you would pray to see on an official DVD release!

Some of it is timing tests, using cutouts to see how difficult effects in, say, the war machine scene would be planned. There isn't a lot of character animation, but what's there is very interesting. There are even snippets of the enchanted prince and the Thief on springs.

I'll be spreading this around - it would actually make nice DVD menus too, to tell the truth.

There's actually a couple of little things here I can use in my edit itself. Very little, but they're in there. There's a bit of Zigzag saying "for breakfast, you'll have cobbler" ... and then shots of the staircase ... Zigzag and Phido aren't on the staircase there so I'll have to fiddle with it, but certainly usable stuff there. There's also a pencil test of an overhead shot of Zigzag and Tack on the battlefield, and that's a shot which is just a storyboard in the workprint. Brief but it's in there.

Such artistry. This was gold. Thanks so much to the sender.







Eddie Bowers, who sent me SLP copies of his copies of things YEARS ago, which got me interested in The Thief in the first place, has now actually lent me his original SP tapes of things.

Most notably, this gives me a better copy of Animating Art.


And Chris Sobieniak has lent me his tape of various Richard Williams commercials.


All this came today. It was a good day.



The edit is going well. I've managed to do a lot of new compositing effects and fix all the old ones. The combinations of workprint and finished footage in the witch scene is a lot smoother now. I've got a little left to go over there but I'm starting on the war machine.


Kevin Dorsey's voice is no longer in the dub anywhere. I sitll prefer his reading of the lines in that one scene, but with a good copy of the original recording now in my possession, there was no reason to use his reading anymore.


I am making changes to the sound mix to cut down on Robert Folk's score.


It's going well.





MORE NOTES ON THE CALVERT PRINCESS WORK IN PROGRESS:

I said the Calvert "Princess" work in progress had no actual Calvert animation in it yet ... but it does contain at least one shot that was animated by Calvert's team. There's a shot of Tack saying "please, you must help us," in pencil test, so Calvert's team definitely did that.

It's probable that they animated the one pencil shot of the witch's eye in the lamp too then. It matches the Calvert storyboards.

There's a curious shot of the witch's knee shaking, and her grabbing it to stop it shaking - this looks like a bad Calvert shot in the final cut, but it appears as finished animation in the Calvert WIP. And the animation in the WIP is different from what we see in the final (different background, slightly more on-model witch). Normally having finished animation in the WIP would mean it was a Williams shot, but it's too bad animationwise. My guess - Calvert's team started with the witch scene, doing test animation for this scene before any other, and they had a rough version of this shot done early on, which they later redid.

Also, I'm convinced that certain scenes which only appear as storyboards in this WIP, which SHOULD mean that Williams' team never even penciled them, were actually pencilled by the real guys and just not included in this cut.

Nanny's fight with the brigands seems like Williams work, and so does the last shot with Yumyum and Tack (despite it not matching Sean Connery's voice track).

There are other examples, but I'll stick with those.
Post
#188498
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188498/action/topic#188498
Time
That's my new copy of the workprint. I think it will do nicely. =)



Miramax, if they still existed, deserves a lynching for far more than that. Arabian Knight is an insult disguised as a film. =) It's terrrible.



Here's another oddity I noticed in the Calvert WIP. The witch swinging through the air and hitting the Thief has been cut out entirely. Calvert put that back for the released version, but reedited it a bit from Williams' workprint. I've gone with Calvert's sequencing in my edit.
Post
#188492
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188492/action/topic#188492
Time
Hold off on watching the workprint, and just watch this cut, when it comes out. =)

http://orangecow.org/thief/gnawthegoldencity.jpg

"And I shall gnaw the golden city to the bone, and spit it out!"

Completed animation only found in the Calvert WIP.


http://orangecow.org/thief/Thiefopening.mp3

For Ogg ... This is how good the sound is gonna sound now! This is the opening narration of the film ... and boy does it sound better than it did.
Post
#188434
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188434/action/topic#188434
Time
I would never cut the dirty parts. I was talking about how Miramax cut the dirty parts. The ones they noticed anyway.

If I cut something that Calvert did, it's because it has little or no artistic value, has no place in a Williams director's cut, and will not be missed. You can "enjoy" the Miramax cut at myspleen.net already anyway ... =)

If you really care about the alternate versions and extra material, you're gonna have to get them from me I'm afraid. I can only guarantee that the Recobbled Cut itself will be upped at myspleen ...

I am fascinated by the four completely different opening sequences this film has had - from Williams' version to Calvert's rough to Calvert's final to Miramax's. Those would be amusing to include.




Tony White writes:

I got your package today and was overwhelmed by it all... again. The
quality is so good... much better than I thought it would be. Thank
you.

I haven't looked at all of the movie yet but the first 30 mins or so
reminded me why I totally think that Dick was (and is) a genius. (A
wayward genius... but a genius nevertheless.) It reminded me why he
trained us up to be ready for just this one film. But, unfortunately,
wasn't able to hold it together long enough to enable us to.

I feel very much that I would love to go back and help him finish it,
his
way... if that were ever able to happen. At the very least, I will at
least write to my contacts in Disney and see if they will re-open the
possibility of Dick finishing it... now that John Lasseter is
effectively
running the animation division. (Yee-hah!!!) Hmmmm??? Must think
seriously about how this could be achieved!

I hope you can send me the new material sometime, included in the
present
edit when its done please? I showed some of my students the 'Charge of
the Light Brigade' material and the trailer you did and they were blown
away by it all. I promised to show them a little more of Dick's work
as
the term goes on and maybe even show them the full movie edit on the
last
day of term. It would be great to include the new material you have
just
got... but if that's not at all possible I will understand.

Anyway, thanks again Garrett... I really appreciate all you are
doing...
and for Dick too. I don't have any contact with him anymore but my
heart
still lies at the core of his 'obsession'.
Post
#188365
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188365/action/topic#188365
Time
>> anything that you cut out that is of any redeeming value, could you possibly include it as extras?


I didn't cut out anything important that Williams did. And none of the Calvert stuff I cut out has any redeeming value. =) That goes for you, "Beem Bom."


I would like to include some of the rare Williams pencil tests from the Calvert work in progress - that would be a lot of work though!

Speaking of rare pencil tests, I've got some coming to me in the mail, but I don't know what they are. =)


There won't be an alternate audio track, that would be insane - but you'll be able to snag any of the other four (!) versions of the film from me.
Post
#188361
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188361/action/topic#188361
Time

>> Unless someone can send me the animation segments of "Charge" I think I'll omit it from the credits reel since it's excerpted in the Thames doc.


Chris Sobieniak has them, I just sent them to him. He'll also have Raggedy Ann and Andy now, which is terrible but a lot of fun. And he'll have Princess and the Cobbler, and anything else you need.
Post
#188323
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188323/action/topic#188323
Time
Other things I missed about the Calvert work in progress --

They change certain characters' names.

King Nod becomes King Zod - Nod is just a nickname. Yes, Zod, like Terence Stamp in the Superman movies. General Zod.

...

Even in the final Calvert version, the narration says "Everyone called him King Nod," suggesting again that in Calvert's world this is just a nickname.

(Yet other characters can have names like Tack, Yumyum, Thief, Zigzag, One Eye etc ... why this one character was singled out for his name I have no idea.)

The witch is called the "Magja." Not sure on spelling, but it's a female version of "Magus", singular form of "Magi."

All this merits a huge "WTF?"

>> First off, a fully remastered/5.1 sound version of Blooper Bunny appears on the first Looney Tunes 4-disc set. It even has a Greg Ford commentary.

I knew that it was on one of the sets somewhere, but I don't have those sets and I'd never seen it before. It's great! =)

>>The Miramax version has a wall-to-wall voice track. They just couldn't let one second pass without someone yakking. The new music is distractingly overloud and drowns out the voices sometimes. It was shocking to see the jump cuts in several places where some of the coolest sequences were originally. All I can say is that it's a shame The Princess and the Cobbler isn't available in widescreen.
The shots not drawn by Richard Williams stand out like a sore thumb. I can't stand Robert Folk's score, either. I was annoyed that the ending clearly intended to have another really long zoom out, ending with the THE END and they covered it up with a freeze-frame (geez, this is THEATRICAL not saturday morning crap) and jump cut to it.

LOL. Yep, that's the Miramax version. Well described.

>>About the "added" shot... you know, I just don't think Williams would have had Tack toss Zig-Zag. That's out of character for both.

True enough. I actually cut a couple of things out of the fight sequence in my current cut. I'm thinking of cutting it down shorter, and that might mean cutting it out entirely. Who knows?

>>I decided to see if I could modulate some of the Kevin Dorsey overdubs to match the original One-Eye track.

I'm sure the original track was lowered. I only used Dorsey's dub in that one scene, because that scene didn't appear in full in the workprint, and I wanted to keep it complete with music, from the Princess version. It was weird to cut from the music-y Princess audio to the workprint audio.

I now have the original recordings of both lines from that one scene (with temp music on it - it would match the Princess audio well), so I am considering using the original voice. But I've gotten used to Dorsey's reading of that one scene!

>> Dorsey didn't read the lines with an English accent like the original voice actor. As a result, the lower-pitched voice fits better, but the lack of an accent hurts.

The english accent comes out really thick in the new line from the Calvert work in progress. =) "Nonn shell ischype!"

It's weird to hear that after all these years.

>> Also, one possibility why the Calvert workprint has stuff that was still in storyboard form in the 2nd workprint... it's possible that Williams had all the paper animation finished but never photographed them for a workprint.

No, they were still working on it. A few weeks passed before it was taken from Williams. I knew that before, but our friend has talked about it in his post above.

>> One other possibility is that what if some stuff was fully inked and painted already, but not photographed?

It's a possibility. I've kind of suspected that some stuff of Phido (in Phido's first scene), and other "too good to be Calvert" shots were inked by Williams. Who knows, though.

>> One thing that really bothers me, though... in the Miramax LD transfer (via torrent), there's an alarmingly high amount of print dirt and scratches. The DVD isn't this scarred I hope?

The DVD is not a great print. It's kind of "blown out" - the bright parts of the image, like Tack's face, get overexposed and lose detail. It's not scratchy though. I have no choice but to use it, but I think the colors are truer in the Princess version, which is also an ugly print. For example, One Eye is blue the first time you see him in the Princess cut, but red in the Arabian Knight disc.

Anyway.


>> By the way, I'm willing to reconstruct "Animation Art" to an extent by replacing all of the clips from DVD versions. This way, we can get high quality shots of Dumbo, Pinocchio, Snow White, Fantasia, etc. It'll contrast a lot with the noisy non-clip stuff, but it'll at least do justice to the original animation.

That could be nice. There's not many clips, but there are some. There's also Goofy in that one where they're moving, with the piano. You can send them to me, and I'll cut them in when I'm making my DVD of Animating Art. I'm waiting on a better version from Eddie Bowers.


>> As for GBS-TV airing... now that you have some new footage to work with, there's no question that the airing should wait until you can drop that stuff in.

Nah, go ahead with it. At 320 x 240 nobody can tell the difference. Go ahead and show it, it'll be a good preview for it.

You can show the final version later.

1. The Commercials Reel (and I'm going to add the title sequences to Casino Royale, The Return of the Pink Panther, and The Pink Panther Strikes Again)

CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. That's his best movie work. Include it.

>> I don't know if I want to air the workprint, though.

Please don't. It's crap, and Chris Sobieniak's copy looks like the one I had years ago.

Princess and the Cobbler, again, would be much more fun than Arabian Knight. It's much rarer, it's fullscreen which will play well on your tiny little screens, it's still got all the stupid stuff (including one extra song) but you can watch it without slitting your wrists.

[quote] Does the 2nd workprint have better audio, at least?[/quote]

What, the Calvert work in progress?

There's not much audio that's useable, it's covered by wall to wall music, most of it hilariously recognizable. There are a few things I can use though.

This new copy of the Williams workprint seems to have pretty decent sound, apart from the witch scene and thereabouts where it has almost no sound at all. I'll see what I can do with it. It's certainly all gonna come in handy.
Post
#188300
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188300/action/topic#188300
Time
A certain someone is asking some questions and providing some info on the workprint. I'll put this info here as it might help understanding of what exactly the workprint is.

"A workprint was produced a few months before the project was taken from Dick and put onto 2 U-Matic cassettes for exhibiting to would-be composers, financers etc, and also so the crew could view it. (I was actually left in charge of this workprint over night. Oh if only i had a time machine!) The reason I ask is that we produced a HELL of a lot of footage after this workprint was produced as we were on our 'final push'. Dick spent a week storyboarding the unshot sections of the movie to be inserted into the working cut. I don't think a U-MATIC was produced of THAT workprint. It's a shame that i can't see all of the versions you have because I could tell you exactly was Dick's work and what was added after it was taken away."



Me:

And, let me guess, the break between the two U-Matic tapes the workprint was stored on was ...

Tape 2 starting when the Thief passes by the many language signs going for the Buddha Ruby.
Post
#188277
Topic
The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Director's Cut (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/188277/action/topic#188277
Time
BIG UPDATE!



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."

http://orangecow.org/thief/workprint1.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/workprint2.jpg
http://orangecow.org/thief/workprint3.jpg

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.
Post
#187980
Topic
Star Wars DVD Covers
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/187980/action/topic#187980
Time
Jedi's posters are mostly crap, no getting around that. =)

You and I had the exact same problem during Classic Edition really .... the released poster is great, but there aren't any good "cast montage" type paintings apart from that, they're all pretty poor.

The saber poster I never liked, but I like how you use it here for what it's worth.

This is the best "saber" cover I've seen, certainly.

The blood poster with Luke and Vader is good for what it is ... but maybe you can come up with a clever way of using the released poster in a way that's different? The "blood red" take on it that you wound up doing for Classic Edition worked. Anyway.

Don't worry about it.

I'd like to also see a version of Empire with that poster you used before, with Han and Yoda and all that. I think I scanned that one in my directory ...

Can we see larger versions of these? I'd be curious to have a close look at how the images are coming off.


Also, it's "Alec Guinness."