Goddamn these studios and their randomly choosing which version of films like this to put on disc when they can easily make a disc that includes all versions. I don't suppose there's a proper BD release or international HD/BD release in the works? I notice the SD-DVD I have ("Official Bootleg Edition") is 15 minutes longer.

Was the SD matted or anamorphic?

Well, I don't think opting for the theatrical release is random. I would've liked to have seen Universal put more effort into this one since it's one of my favorites, although if I had to pick just one version of the movie to use, I have to admit that I prefer the theatrical cut.

Nothing that's what you have in mind, exactly. There's a BD from Optimum in the UK, but only the theatrical cut is in high-def. The director's cut is included in SD as an extra and reportedly looks really rough.

Matted in the sense that the movie was shot with a spherical lens and matted theatrically. The disc was in anamorphic widescreen, but it was a "fake" anamorphic since the source was low-res video rather than something that actually had any additional resolution to serve up.

I've found the R3 MGM SD DVD to be by far the best version of AOD on regular DVD. Got more copies & versions of it than I care to admit... Having said that I ordered the BD from the UK last week! Check out DVDBeavers comparison. Also dvdcompare.net has some good info.

IIRC, the HD DVD is Theatrical for HD and SD except the SD side is Anamorphic (not available on DVD like that). I remember a ton of people buying the HD DVD combo solely for that reason.

And like Adam, I prefer the Theatrical cut as well.

Agree. Its also the longest cut (International Directors Cut) (Raimi got all politically correct and removed the shot of the undead ripping off the woman's shirt from all other cuts). Its also anamorphic and has the best image quality compared to all other DVD releases. Its also anamorphic. I dont know what the other poster is saying about non-anamorphic DVDs of Army, Ive never heard of one.

Yes, the SD-DVD side of the HD-DVD Combo Format Disc is remastered 16x9 anamorphic and it blows the old SD-DVD out of the water. It really looks quite nice, IMO, it was almost like I was watching the HD side.

For the record, the old SD-DVD from Universal was the non-anamorphic one. Most people bought AoD from Anchor Bay, in one of its nineteen thousand million iterations.

This is why Universal's HD-DVD of AoD is the theatrical cut, because I imagine the DC is exclusively licensed to Anchor Bay. However, I understand that Bruce has been saying Anchor Bay is losing its license to all the Evil Dead and Halloween films (thus the "last gasp" 3-Disc of ED and 6-Disc 30th AE of Halloween), so perhaps Universal will do their own special edition for Blu-Ray down the line.

Universal Studios owns the rights to the theatrical cut only. They wanted nothing to do with the director's cut so Anchor Bay paid for the rights to the director's cut.

Because Anchor Bay was not informed by MGM that they own the Southeast Asian rights, AB had to go with elements they could find. At that time, that was Bruce Campbell's own Beta tapes.

So the HD DVD sold by Universal only has the theatrical cut. AB has yet to release the director's cut on Blu-ray...they may be holding off to try to get the elements from the international release.

As an aside, Optimum released the film on BD but only the theatrical version is in HD. They included the director's cut as an extra but in SD and from the same AB version.

I think the plot is even more convoluted. International DVD releases are from Fox/MGM and include the Director's cut, so maybe Universal only own the USA rights to the theatrical and Fox own the International rights to the Directors/International cut (?)

emachine12,

You got it.

So, I got the HD/DVD combo of Army of Darkness and the DVD's image quality is the best i've seen out of all the Region 1 dvds. Can anyone compare this version to the NTSC Region 3 version - which version has better video quality?

Personally, I believe the the image quality of the R3 import is better than the combo's DVD side. It's also the Director's Cut (I really dig the windmill scene!).

Well, then it's pretty easy to decide which DVD has the best video quality:

Theatrical Cut: HD/DVD combo DVD NTSC Region 1
Director's Cut: DVD NTSC Region 3


Simple as that!


There isn't a Blu Ray version of the Director's cut though, right?

I believe the R3 is not notable for its generally good picture quality, but merely the quality of the deleted scenes cut back into the Director's Cut. These shots all look like they are sourced from VHS on the Anchor Bay editions of the DC (fuzzy, faded, like they're underwater), but the MGM R3 has these scenes sourced from film.

I imagine the US HD-DVD Combo Format disc will have the best picture of all releases, since Universal was mastering it for hi-def and stuck their new transfer, enhanced for anamorphic, on the other side of the DVD.

While this is the HD forum, I also remember noting recently that the Universal disc went out of print. Since Anchor Bay has apparently lost the license to the Evil Dead trilogy, perhaps Universal is prepping their own Special Edition (to add to the piles and piles of editions AB already released...).