Have you ever watched a film that made you say, “Why didn’t I find out about this sooner?” The Thief and the Cobbler made me say that.

Envisioned by Richard Williams in 1968, the film is about a kingdom besieged by a scheming Grand Vizier and a destructive army from a foreign land, and the lowly cobbler who rose up to defend it. Oh, and it’s also about this really crafty thief who manages to be involved through it all. The film took twenty-six years just to be able to get out of the gate, and even then it wasn’t really finished. You can read more about its tumultuous history here. Me, I’m just happy I found out about it.

See, The Thief and the Cobbler is a visual feast. A sight for the eyes. The film draws from the rich visual history of the Middle East, so there’s immediately fertile ground from which the movie can get ideas from. Pattern imagery abounds everywhere.

Richard Williams intended this to be his masterpiece however, so rightfully the focus of the work was on the animation.

There are a lot of moments in the film that truly take your breath away, especially when you take a moment to imagine the painstaking work behind each frame, hand-animated as it is. Take for example the palace chase scene between the two titular characters, the Thief and the Cobbler. It’s played against a backdrop of vibrant colors and some optical illusion or two. Really eye-popping. The 11-minute destruction of Mighty One-Eye’s army also stands out vividly from memory; that was a fantastic segment. I don’t think mainstream animation efforts can devote that much time for just one scene.

The version I watched, I think, was Garrett Gilchrist’s, owing to the fact that original drawings and storyboard sequences were interspersed throughout the entire one and a half hours. It gave me a way to see firsthand how the film was made. It did break up the fluidity of the experience though. I might have to hunt down for a completed copy of this sometime, even though many have said the other copies weren’t that good.

A final note: one look at Zigzag the Grand Vizier and you immediately know he’s the villain. I mean, look at him! One glance is all you need to know: nothing good’s ever going to come out of that face. Just like Jafar. And Snidely Whiplash.

Fuck it, throw in Dick Dastardly as well.

Yes? Yes?