The re-cobbled cut holds a lot more magic to it, and my rating is more for that edit than this one.

Pick a form: 1992, Knight, Princess or even Garrett Gilchrist's Mark 4 recobbled. I heard all this good stuff about this movie. So I got Mark IV (4) from the official site (orangecow). Story - This is a really terrible story. Horrible. Animation colors - The colors are washed out, drab and look like puke. Animation quality - On top of it all for a supposed animation masterpiece I do not see why anyone would waste time restoring this stuff. I have watched a huge number of animations from many countries and this is just terrible. There is a reason Disney never restored this trash. Its terrible. I tried to watch this on a monitor with headphones in the dark to maximize the effect. I had to watch it at 1.5x in VLC to make sure I didn't miss anything but I had to get through it as fast as possible. I still cannot see how anyone would hold this in high regard. I tried showing it to some older kids and they hated it. No laughing and no interest. Poor Garrett Gilchrist is stuck wasting his life trying to do what Williams can be bothered to finish for good reason. Anyways, on orangecow dot org in topic 8502 there is a mega link to download this Mark IV/4 version. Terrible. Respect to Garrett for trying to repair William's damaged goods.

Famously ill-fated animated feature by the renowned Richard Williams, which remains uncompleted despite his having worked on it for almost 30 years!; the film was eventually released in two bastardized versions under the titles of THE PRINCESS AND THE COBBLER (1993) and ARABIAN KNIGHT, while bootlegs – actually a workprint – closer to Williams' original vision have also surfaced (which is the edition I acquired).It's a typical Arabian Nights fantasy and it's no secret that the Disney Studios 'borrowed' some of its ideas for their hugely successful ALADDIN (1992). Of course, we have a hero (the Cobbler), a heroine (the Princess), a comic-relief sidekick (the Thief) and a villain (the Grand Vizier); the latter is recognizably voiced by the late great Vincent Price (running the whole gamut of emotions in the process), while one of the more interesting aspects of the film is that the titular figures are given no dialogue (except for one silly line by the Cobbler at the very end). Both also have other weird characteristics: the Cobbler's mouth is shaped like two nails set side by side with their points meeting, while the Thief is constantly being followed by a swarm of buzzing flies! The plot basically revolves around three golden balls atop the King's (shouldn't that be Caliph?!) palace which, if removed, would bring disaster upon the land – and, sure enough, the Thief is after them. Needless to say, the Grand Vizier called Zig-Zag (with faithful vulture companion Phido in tow) not only craves power for himself but the Princess' hand, too, and he secretly connives with a warring people intent on conquering Arabia to this end. As expected, the visual design is extremely colorful and amazingly detailed (especially effective is Williams' clever use of perspective) – though it's hardly rendered justice by the fuzzy quality of the copy under review (to check out the film as mangled by other hands is clearly out of the question for me).At 96 minutes, THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER – with its slight plot and even thinner characters – does tend to drag a bit (especially during the climax and the Thief's protracted hair-raising stunts to survive a conflagration), but the latter's amiable antics throughout and Price's agreeably hammy rendition more than make up for any such deficiencies. For the record, many other notable actors were roped in for the project over the years – with sometimes more than one person being engaged for the same role (the King, for instance, was voiced by both Anthony Quayle and Clive Revill and the narrator was either Felix Aylmer or Ralph Richardson)!

I am one of the privileged view to have seen the original version of this movie . I studied animation in college and there was a copy of this movie uncut on video in the colleges animation library. It is a masterpiece of film. I can only imagine the amount of work that went into this film and to think Disney bastardised it and made Aladdin.Im not surprised at this though Disney have done this with many a movie in the past. Princess Mononoke being prime example they stopped this from being released for a very long time. John Lassiter is to thank for GIbli studios now having the ability to release their own movies in the states without having to rely on the thieving gits that are Disney.