The Cobbler and the Thief: Recobbled Cut Mark IV (2013)

I had seen a few things posted on line about this film, but really knew nothing about it.  Apparently this film had been in production for nearly 3 decades.  While at least 3 versions of the film have been released, some with additional dialogue and even songs, this is supposed to be as close to the original vision of the director Richard Williams.

The film, epecially the animation style is very odd.  Each character has such a unique look, as if they were each done by an independant studio.  It' hard to understand if the Cobber's black and white coloring (though color is used sometimes) is intentional or just unfinished.  Some of the character are so "stylized"  that they seem unreal, while it seems only the princess looks like an actual human.  The Vizier looks like a combination of Jafar and Genie from Disney's Aladdin, so much so that you would think the producer could sue.

The film is mostly without dialogue, and strangely the villian has the majority of the dialogue and is voiced by Vincent Price.

There are also a lot of scenes that are somewhat long with character's running around in stylized rooms or being flung around and nearly and oblivisously avoiding death while chaos rains around them.

While this film is a great accomplishment, especially for Garrett Gilchrist, it lacks appeal for modern audiences. While a lot of great animation has been made in the last few years, it has been lacking variations in style a bit.  Though that does not detract from the appeal of modern animation (which really has been pretty much entirely CGI), it does show that there are a lot of other possible styles, like those used in this film.

I would like to see the two other versions of this film and compare them to Richard William's original vision.