I had gotten it early last week from BB and I thought it looked pretty damn good for being such a low budget 90s movie. The daytime scenes looked super bright with alot of nice contrast. It did have an orange/brownish feel to it, but I thought the picture was very clear. Really good coloring. There seemed to be a couple of marks on the print, but nothing distracting. AVS claims the region 3 dvd offers the best overall presentation, but I'd take this any day.

My copy's in the mail. I should have a review up this weekend.

Just got mine from Amazon, along with Willy Wonka. And I got A Nightmare On Elm. St on DVD and Different Class on CD, as well as Charlie & The Chocolate Factory yesterday. Busy day! :D

Personally, I thought Army of Darkness was about the best you could expect the movie to look without going back to the original negative and cleaning up every single element. And even if you did that, it might still not look much better.

Adam, thank you for the review. Being the super fan I am, I had already planned on getting this release. Your review just made the sell feel better due to the lofty price :). I will have to compare the video to the R3 and see how it looks. Thanks again.

Thanks! Happy to have been a bad influence. :D

I've seen the MGM R3 and this one has much better color reproduction. And, of course, it's in HD. :)

I am so tempted to buy this now thatnks to that review. But the lack of extras irks me (which shouldn't given I have the 2-disc not-quite-so-limited edition). I really wish Sam Raimi would recut the extended edition given that in the audio commentary of the so-called director's cut, he explains there are things he preferes from either cut and it'd be nice to finally see a definitive version.

Isn't the International Version essentially that cut Raimi mentioned?

Dunno. I've never seen the international version. I just know he prefers "Good... Bad... I'm the guy with the gun," he really liked the deleted cabin footage and the extra third act mayhem. It's basically a mix and match type thing.

I think Henry the Red still arrives too early in the fight at the end.

Ah.

I think the theatrical version is better overall and wasn't aware of an alternate version until the first Anchorbay 'limited' release came out.

So in my opinion,it seemed everyone who loved Army of Darkness loved the theatrical edit of the film. Since everyone I knew,only knew of the theatrical edit and it was a huge favorite growing up.

And upon seeing the alternate edit. I was underwhelmed by the bloated running time,the 'downer' ending(I imagined it being much 'cooler' and 'wow that's grim and epic!' than it turned out) and the less badass "I'm not that good" line.

The only thing I enjoyed in the alternate version was the extended windmill scene which is very funny. Of course I noticed a huge difference in tone compared to the version aired on Sci-Fi Channel. The Sci-Fi version of the extended sequence contains the 'funny' score which makes the scene very quirky amusing. The A.B. extended dvd has no score over the sequence,so it feels 'lifeless' somewhat and less amusing.

So it's the theatrical version all the way for me. If a hybrid cut could be created with the extended windmill sequence(with score),and a couple other smaller good additions the extended version contains. While retaining the theatrical ending(with maybe a branching option to watch with the downer ending). I'd be interested in that,but the extended version in it's current form is less than special in my opinion and not as much fun.

I don't understand why the fans prefer the original ending; the cinema cut was the only version of the film until DVD. I've seen it many times. The "director's" cut really changes the film and character of Ash. It's just a curiosity to me.

Not true, the international cuts of the film had the original ending. My wife saw the international cut first and freaked out when we first watched the US cut together; she didn't know there were different endings, and could've sworn there had been more with the tiny Ashes.

Alright guys. I finally got around to comparing the R3 and the HDDVD (SD side). I don't know of anywhere else comparing these two right now. I must say, they are both good in their own right. The HDDVD (SD) seems to be a little on the warm side, while the R3 is on the cool. The HDDVD (SD) also looks a little sharper. I took a few screen caps so you all could be the judge. I tried to get as close to the exact frame as possible. Both are 1.85 anamorphic widescreen transfers. I could not get caps of the HD side because I do not have an HD player on my laptop, but at least all of those who have the much coveted R3 now have something to compare to. The MGM R3 is on top and the Universal HDDVD (SD) is on the bottom. All screen caps were taken with WinDVD7 with the exact same settings. If I were ONLY making a judgement on the video quality, I think the HDDVD (SD) would win, but, overall package has to go to the R3. The caps are a little on the large side because I wanted to show some detail. Sorry to all 56k users.

R3
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/1...rkness0wf5.jpg

HDDVD (SD)
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/1...rkness0mf8.jpg

R3
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/9...rkness1fd4.jpg

HDDVD (SD)
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/8...rkness1wk4.jpg

R3
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7...rkness2ee3.jpg

HDDVD (SD)
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2...rkness2mz3.jpg

R3
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/1...rkness3oi5.jpg

HDDVD (SD)
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/8...rkness3sm4.jpg

R3
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7...rkness4zw7.jpg

HDDVD (SD)
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/5...rkness4xy6.jpg

R3
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/4...rkness5pj4.jpg

HDDVD (SD)
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/3...rkness5qs2.jpg

Actually, Army of Darkness in general changes Ash's character from what he was in the first two Evil Dead films. In Evil Dead 1 he's basically a wimp fighting for his life. In Evil Dead 2 he's pissed at the demons and wants to fight back, and is somewhat resourceful about it, but isn't exactly a master or anything (for example when the possessed hand runs into the wall, Ash really gets his ass handed to him).

In Army of Darkness, they took Ash in a totally different direction. In AOD, he's a kick-ass fighter who can create highly sophisticated weapons and devices using high school textbooks. The only scenes in AOD that show the old style Ash are when the tiny Ash's get the better of him, and when he can't remember the words to safely get the Necronomicon out of the graveyard.

The director's cut ending brings Ash back to the way he was in ED 1 and 2, well meaning but a little dim. The commentary on the DC makes all of this clear. Raimi and Campbell prefer Ash as a guy who never ends up being entirely successful at anything he does, hence the DC ending.

finally got the best (in terms of PQ) for Army of Darkness. It may not be that packed with special features but its worth (getting it only $18 overall).

As a non-HD type, the standard DVD side of this is my definitive Army of Darkness.

More caps I posted of comparisons:

http://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3278