Talk:The Thief and the Cobbler

Rotten Tomatoes review
Recieved a 40% rating via Rotten Tomatoes for the 1995 Miramax version (Arabian Knights). 99.129.112.89 (talk) 01:51, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 1 August 2013:Please Remove "The Thief and the Cobbler" from Category:Art films
Not only that the claim for this film being an art film is unsourced and I couldn't find references to it being one anywhere, the fact is that none of the majors scholars of art film (e.g., Ray Carney, Susan Sontag, etc.) - indeed, no major scholar of any art form whatsoever - consider cartoon flicks (one can call them animation if one so wishes) to be art films. One can go to http://people.bu.edu/rcarney (or http://insidebostonuniversity.blogspot.co.il) and, using Google, search for "Disney," "Cartoons," etc. and see for oneself. I have never seen either this film or its director being mentioned by serious scholars as belonging to the canon of art film. The film's director, unlike the director of any other film listed in the "Art films" category, is also not mentioned in Wikipedia's List of directors associated with art film category. Cartoon flicks also cannot be art films due to the very fact that so-called "animation," no matter how sophisticated, cannot capture the nuances of facial gestures, vocal registers, emotional subtleties, etc., which are the very purpose of art film (and art generally). If anyone here have references that show otherwise or go against anything that I have just said, please do post it here as I would highly appreciate it. The bottom line is: Does anyone here seriously belive that this Hollywood-produced cartoon - and I think it goes without saying that Hollywood-produced films cannot by definition be art films (again, read Carney's website) - belongs in the same category with the works of Dreyer, Tarkovsky, Costa, Bresson, Kiarostami, Syberberg, Akerman, Cassavetes, etc.? Does this movie have anything to teach us about life and society or is it just escapist entertainment? Will it help us improve our lives, understand people and the complexities of human interactions better, bestow upon us a complex emotional experience, etc.? I think not. Further support for this flick not being an art film is the fact that it was distributed by Majestic Films, Miramax Family Films, and Miramax Family Films/Lionsgate Home Entertainment, i.e., "family" - i.e., kids - affiliated and oriented companies, at once even associated with Disney... Also, I've found out that this movie's director has previously worked on such flicks as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Doesn't sound like something a director of art films would do. In conclusion, I would highly suggest that this entry be removed from the "Art film" category. Thanks!

109.186.234.86 (talk) 12:22, 1 August 2013 (UTC)


 * per Edit_requests. Request appears controversial (being made midway through ongoing discussion in the previous section) and the reason this article is locked is due to the requester's edit warring over this exact change. --McGeddon (talk) 15:56, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * @109.186.234.86 (talk) I would recommend doing a bit more research before bringing this up again if you feel the need to press the point. For instance, this film was actually independently produced for the majority of its production. I think most of your concerns about this not being an art film would be addressed by watching the Recobbled Cut of this film on YouTube, which features many of the characteristics of art films that you mention (these were lost in the Miramax cut). If after watching that you still feel that this should not be categorized as an art film, feel free to bring it up again. Luthien22 (talk) 20:03, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Joke?
Are there really that many people who sincerely think that whether a Wikipedia page has a little blue link at the bottom saying "art film" or not matters enough to be worth spending this much time and effort on? Surely, surely, this must be a joke. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:01, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I believe its one of the discussions that kind of got away from us, probably due to some heated exchanges and stubbornness. Sergecross73   msg me   16:44, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Useable Sources
Please post articles/other sources that you find and are not already referenced in the article. Here are a few:

(these are taken from the archives of this talk page because I noticed many are not being utilised in the article while many non-notable links are. All this is the work of LaukkuTheGreit. --Coin945 (talk) 18:00, 18 October 2013 (UTC))


 * http://web.archive.org/web/20080213052357/http://www.toonhound.com/thiefcobbler1.htm
 * http://www.harrymccracken.com/lastword.htm
 * http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/868599/


 * Some reviews of Arabian Knight:


 * http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4672/The+Thief+%26+The+Cobbler+(aka+Arabian+Knight/Genius)
 * http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117904382.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
 * http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/25051/thief-and-the-cobbler-the/
 * http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1995/08/26/DD30379.DTL
 * http://www.moria.co.nz/fantasy/thief&thecobbler.htm (reviewing the Princess and the Cobbler)


 * A common opinion seems to be that the art direction and William's animation are the best part of the film.


 * http://www.awn.com/news/films/disney-restore-thief-and-cobbler-original-version A piece of news from 2000, with some details on the status of the film material at the time.
 * http://www.animatormag.com/archive/issue-11/issue-11-page-8/

Recent interview with Richard Williams: http://www.onehugeeye.com/richard-williams/

Mike Clark's review of Arabian Knight: http://www.usatoday.com/life/enter/movies/lef089.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Interview with Garrett Gilchrist: http://www.tested.com/news/44961-thieves-cobblers-and-fan-edits-the-50_year-odyssey-of-an-animated-masterpiece/

Interview with Kevin Schreck: http://www.milehighcinema.com/2012/10/23/sdff-interview-kevin-schreck-on-persistence-of-vision/

A recent interview with Richard Williams: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/apr/19/richard-williams-master-animation


 * Unfinished Films: The Thief and the Cobbler, Game of Death, the Day the Clown Cried, Ąque Viva México!, Something's Got to Give, the Works


 * A recent Danish news article about the film (Google translated to English). The machine translation is full of mistakes, and my knowledge of Swedish barely allows me to decipher the original Danish page. Apparently a Canadian distributor is going to put the workprint in theaters in 2014 as a double feature with Persistence of Vision! -- Laukku  TheGreit (Talk•Contribs) 21:49, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2014
Category:Media franchises

75.80.129.37 (talk) 05:05, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not really a franchise, is it? Doesn't franchise imply it's a series? This is all essentially different cuts of one movie, right? Sergecross73   msg me   15:31, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.  there have been a lot of recent similar request for Category:Media franchises to be added to movies and such.  I've closed them all as "Question" asking how they think a single movie is a franchise.  I'm under the impression that a franchise is a company, like the studio that created the movie or the distributors for the movie (like Mirimax), but not the movie itself.  I've gotten 0 replies so far. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 22:50, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * No, a franchise is a license which implies a brand, not a series. Just look it up.  (Franchising)  In practice, it often follows existing commercial success, which often then also precedes a series — but not always. Some things could be created just to be franchise-licensed, for someone else to then create a product.  It's a matter of strategy and ability. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 21:46, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Overlong plot sections
The lists of differences between versions are far too detailed, and the bulleted lists are entirely unsourced. We should cut these down to paragraphs that sum up the main differences between versions. --McGeddon (talk) 18:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
 * McGeddon you're probably right about this, although you could easily make a case for the current version. Maybe a chart showing the differences between the version, like the cast chart, would be the best approach? Luthien22 (talk) 20:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Completely agree. IPs are always coming in and bloating the plot section, which is far too long per WP:PLOTSUM. I just don't know the plot enough to trim it down personally... Sergecross73   msg me  21:13, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * @ Sergecross73  msg me  do you think a chart would work (like the cast one that's already in the article)? If so, I can make that pretty soon. Luthien22 (talk) 16:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

RW receives present while still being alive
Williams was given a copy of the film before he passed away

Yes, obviously it was before he passed away. (And it was around 2015, so not even close to his death.)2A02:AA1:1011:99F2:44F5:9767:3E68:F131 (talk) 20:08, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

The Thief and the Cobbler-themed encyclobox
An encyclobox is a userbox telling users a fact about something. In this case, for this encyclobox I made for The Thief and the Cobbler, it tells you that the animated film took around 3 decades to make:

I 𝚒𝚊𝚜! : 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚋□𝚡I  04:22, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I also have this regular userbox with a The Thief and the Cobbler theme:

I ,,. ias O 08:55, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Ken-and-Dick.jpg

"unfinished"
As the article mentions, the film was clearly finished, just without Williams' involvement. I wanted to point that out here before removing the reference in the opening sentence, in case anyone wants to argue that a film that was released twice can be considered unfinished. 128.151.71.7 (talk) 13:47, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
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