Once upon a time, Williams was a man with a dream вЂ“ to create the greatest animated film the world had ever seen. ThereвЂ™s perhaps nobody else in the history of cinema whoвЂ™s been as royally fucked over harder than Richard Williams, the genius director and master animator behind The Thief and the Cobbler. Unfortunately, life has an unfortunate knack for being cruelly unfair most of the time, and if thereвЂ™s anybody on the planet who can attest to this fact with absolute pathos, itвЂ™s Richard Williams. The masses would always flock to quality-made productions, artists would always get the upper hand over money-grubbing business executives, and inspired creations painstakingly crafted by good-natured people would always see the light of day and achieve the accolades they deserve. In a perfect world, things would never go wrong for talented people. IвЂ™m gonna start off by stating the obvious: itвЂ™s not a perfect world. Whether or not you read this before seeing it is your choice. I highly recommend you watch this film unspoiled, if you havenвЂ™t already. This review was written before the release of Mark IV, so itвЂ™s not entirely up-to-date вЂ“ however, it will still get the job done. Mark IV, a more complete, slightly different, hi-def version of The Recobbled Cut has since been released and is available at various places online. (Just a few notes before we begin: this review is for the 3rd version of The Recobbled Cut, otherwise known as Mark III.

The thief and the cobbler