Army of Darkness - 3 Versions

[Ill_Be_Back]

What does the Theatrical cut look like? Is it better than the UK release?

[Sky_Captain]

No. It looks worse. Yellow tint and edge enhancement.

I also feel that complaining about the variation in PQ with regards to the DC, is not being able to see the woods, for the trees.

[WorkShed]

Also, the US Theatrical is over-saturated. If this is your favorite cut of the film and the only one you'll ever want to watch, then the French blu is not the way to go.

[Ill_Be_Back]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

No. It looks worse. Yellow tint and edge enhancement.

I also feel that complaining about the variation in PQ with regards to the DC, is not being able to see the woods, for the trees.

Originally Posted by WorkShed

Also, the US Theatrical is over-saturated. If this is your favorite cut of the film and the only one you'll ever want to watch, then the French blu is not the way to go.

OK thanks guys, I will buy it just for the DC...

[WorkShed]

Originally Posted by Ill_Be_Back

OK thanks guys, I will buy it just for the DC...

Then you will be quite happy. The presentation on the DC is probably the best I've ever seen any version of this title look.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by WorkShed

Army of Darkness was still a pretty low budget film. They were asking a lot for the optical effects. Like Oblivion138 said, it would take a major recomposite from the original plate negatives (if they exist) to fix that. It's like the old days of making VHS dubs from a VHS. You lose quality with each pass, which is why bigger budget films would shoot FX shots at 65mm, so that they would match after all the passes. I doubt Army of Darkness had the luxury.

Sure, there are some scratches and dirt on the film. However, I think that that's part of the fun. The clarity does differ from shot to shot (again depending mostly on effects work), but the image quality far more often than not is very impressive. I'm also happy to see the color grading (for the Director's Cut) is back to the style of the Evil Dead films with a cooler palate. Also, it matches the color grading of the promotional material (TV Spots/Trailers) for the film.

BINGO!

Fact is, nobody is gonna dissect the negatives to clean it up. It's useless. And that's because the TECHNIQUE used to film the movie was faulty to begin with. It's about the WAY the movie was filmed. I'm sure they cleaned up and remastered the thing anyway, but that is not gonna rid of all countless imperfections inherent to the way it was filmed. It was a low budgted movie, guys, not Terminator 2.

[Inspector Toschi]

I'm personally very happy they left the scratches, dirt & "flaws" as-is in the transfer. I was afraid that due to having 3 different cuts on one disc, they'd dnr the hell out of it to remove any possible compression noise. Which is what happened with Lone Wolf & Cub (6 films. 2 BDs. Lots of DNR) But they left AOD alone. There was only a handful of darker scenes where I felt compression noise became a distraction.

As others have pointed out, the TC is really awful looking. Yellow tint to virtually every scene, and EE gives it an awkward digital appearance. But I bought this for the DC. And while the amount of clarity, sharpness & detail changes from scene to scene (Sometimes drastically) it was always film-like IMO.

[Oblivion138]

Originally Posted by WorkShed

Army of Darkness was still a pretty low budget film. They were asking a lot for the optical effects. Like Oblivion138 said, it would take a major recomposite from the original plate negatives (if they exist) to fix that. It's like the old days of making VHS dubs from a VHS. You lose quality with each pass, which is why bigger budget films would shoot FX shots at 65mm, so that they would match after all the passes. I doubt Army of Darkness had the luxury.

Sure, there are some scratches and dirt on the film. However, I think that that's part of the fun. The clarity does differ from shot to shot (again depending mostly on effects work), but the image quality far more often than not is very impressive. I'm also happy to see the color grading (for the Director's Cut) is back to the style of the Evil Dead films with a cooler palate. Also, it matches the color grading of the promotional material (TV Spots/Trailers) for the film.

Exactly. Introvision's work was ideal for a low-budget production like AOD. Sure, it was a bigger-budget affair than the previous two films, but Raimi also used that budget to do far more elaborate FX than he ever would've tried on a small budget. Enter Introvision to do the compositing. And for the film, it works fine...but the problems have always been, and will always be noticeable. You just have to turn a blind eye...or consider it part of the film's low-budget charm. Either way, what was seen in theaters in 1992 looked no better on that front.

And the grading for the International/Director's Cuts of the film is great. The colors are identical to the R3 DVD, but with better contrast levels. Very well suited to the look of the film, and the overall aesthetic of the series. The warmer tone just doesn't work.

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

No. It looks worse. Yellow tint and edge enhancement.

I also feel that complaining about the variation in PQ with regards to the DC, is not being able to see the woods, for the trees.

The US Cut's transfer is definitely in the same ballpark as the US and UK releases. They're all derived from the same master. The UK release had warmer grading than the US, and that's what I'm seeing on the French disc...though perhaps even more oversaturated. In short, I'm thankful that the US Cut is my least favorite version of the film. It's nice to have it on the same disc strictly for comparison purposes, but I'd never default to it.

[UniSol GR77]

The International cut should appear more and more DIRT free than the DC just because it comes from original film elements easier to remaster, right?

Said that, I think the DIRT is ONLY inherent to those shots were they superimpressed the Skeletons or other elements in the picture. That's obvious. Low budget + old FX technique pre CGI...

Any confirmation?

[UniSol GR77]

This movie costed about 11 millions to make. 1992's Universal Soldier had a nice budget of 23 millions of dollars, more than the double. Go figure.

My point: AoD cannot look better than this, even with some extensive restoration.

[kdo]

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

I think this is a nice representation of what the film probably looked like theatrically.

It is ...This is one that I saw theatrically on opening night, and while it was the US Cut, it had an appearance much more in line with what is seen on the DC and IC Cuts of this Blu (and to a slightly lesser extent, the UK TC BD, though not quite as warm). It did not look anything like Universal's sharpened and processed "Screwhead Blu," or the French TC (which is even warmer than the UK BD, and clearly has some color & crush issues, though I wouldn't consider them nearly so terrible as to render that version unwatchable by any means).

The shots that are blurry (opticals, rear projection, etc.) have always been blurry, and always will be. And barring a major clean-up effort (which is highly unlikely), we're just gonna have to live with the positive dirt that sometimes speckles the print. Most of which is on the material that is exclusive to the Director's Cut.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by WorkShed

Army of Darkness was still a pretty low budget film. They were asking a lot for the optical effects. Like Oblivion138 said, it would take a major recomposite from the original plate negatives (if they exist) to fix that. It's like the old days of making VHS dubs from a VHS. You lose quality with each pass, which is why bigger budget films would shoot FX shots at 65mm, so that they would match after all the passes. I doubt Army of Darkness had the luxury.

Sure, there are some scratches and dirt on the film. However, I think that that's part of the fun. The clarity does differ from shot to shot (again depending mostly on effects work), but the image quality far more often than not is very impressive. I'm also happy to see the color grading (for the Director's Cut) is back to the style of the Evil Dead films with a cooler palate. Also, it matches the color grading of the promotional material (TV Spots/Trailers) for the film.

And it also matches how the film looked theatrically from what I recall. I did see this one in the theater when it was released (the US Cut), and it did look to me much more along the lines of what we're seeing on the IC and DC cuts of this Blu.

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

I also feel that complaining about the variation in PQ with regards to the DC, is not being able to see the woods, for the trees.

I agree.

Originally Posted by WorkShed

Also, the US Theatrical is over-saturated. If this is your favorite cut of the film and the only one you'll ever want to watch, then the French blu is not the way to go.

Again, agreed. While I personally feel the IC and DC Cuts of the French Blu offer the best video quality of this film available, for those who are partial to the US Theatrical Cut, they'll want to get the original Optimum UK Blu, as that's the best presentation of the US TC currently available, followed by the heavily processed looking Universal "Screwhead" Blu, and then by the TC of the French disc (which is probably the weakest presentation of the three due to the black crush and off-colors, though at least it doesn't have the oversharpened/digital look of the "Screwhead" Blu). However, I will say that I still feel the Optimum Blu itself is nowhere near ideal, as it too contains an overly warm color-timing in many instances (though not as oversaturated looking as on the French BD).

Whatever the case, I'm just happy that the DC version (which is the only "true" version of this film for me) got the proper treatment, and that it looks and sounds just as it should .

Originally Posted by Inspector Toschi

As others have pointed out, the TC is really awful looking. Yellow tint to virtually every scene, and EE gives it an awkward digital appearance. But I bought this for the DC. And while the amount of clarity, sharpness & detail changes from scene to scene (Sometimes drastically) it was always film-like IMO.

Yes, it seems that the US TC on the French disc was taken from the same master that was used for the previous TC Blu-ray releases we've seen in the UK and US. And frankly, none of them are quite up to par in my opinion. The Universal "Screwhead" Blu is easily the most processed looking (with heavy oversharpening), while the French TC suffers at times from odd colors and black crush. The UK TC BD is the best looking of the bunch, but even that presentation has some issues, including a color-timing that's still too warm for my tastes in certain instances (albeit not as oversaturated in appearance as the French Blu TC)...

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

Exactly. Intervision's work was ideal for a low-budget production like AOD. Sure, it was a bigger-budget affair than the previous two films, but Raimi also used that budget to do far more elaborate FX than he ever would've tried on a small budget. Enter Intervision to do the compositing. And for the film, it works fine...but the problems have always been, and will always be noticeable. You just have to turn a blind eye...or consider it part of the film's low-budget charm. Either way, what was seen in theaters in 1992 looked no better on that front.

And the grading for the International/Director's Cuts of the film is great. The colors are identical to the R3 DVD, but with better contrast levels. Very well suited to the look of the film, and the overall aesthetic of the series. The warmer tone just doesn't work.


The US Cut's transfer is definitely in the same ballpark as the US and UK releases. They're all derived from the same master. The UK release had warmer grading than the US, and that's what I'm seeing on the French disc...though perhaps even more oversaturated. In short, I'm thankful that the US Cut is my least favorite version of the film. It's nice to have it on the same disc strictly for comparison purposes, but I'd never default to it.

Completely agree with you here.

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

This movie costed about 11 millions to make. 1992's Universal Soldier had a nice budget of 23 millions of dollars, more than the double. Go figure.

My point: AoD cannot look better than this, even with some extensive restoration.

Well, I'm sure it could to an extent, but I'd rather this one just be left alone. It looks fine as is .

[Oblivion138]

Originally Posted by kdo

Well, I'm sure it could to an extent, but I'd rather this one just be left alone. It looks fine as is .

Agreed. It could look better, but let's be honest...it's a cost-to-profit ratio question, and no one is going to go all out on a new HD scan and frame-by-frame clean up. The Director's Cut presentation on this BD is exactly what I was hoping for ever since the dawn of BD (and especially since the excellent Anchor Bay release of ED1, and the Lionsgate 25th Anniversary Edition of ED2), and I'd kind of begun to worry that we might never see it. Glad to see that my waiting paid off, and yes, it's pretty much exactly the presentation I'd hoped for.

[tenia]

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

The shots that are blurry (opticals, rear projection, etc.) have always been blurry, and always will be.

I guessed that it's due to the material itself, but it impacts the PQ nonetheless, which was my point. On top of this, it makes the SFX more obvious than never, and (but that's my point of view) makes them look incredibly cheap.

I just read an French Amazon review of the Street Fighter II BD, and the guy was saying "The BD makes the movie looks much older than it is, because it increases the sense of basic animation and drawing".

There's a lot of this in my feelings towards Army of Darkness' BD. I'm not saying I can't handle movies like this (and, in fact, liked more Army of Darkness for his stop-motion skeletons than for its mini-Campbells in rear projection), I have, more often than not, but sometimes, it really looks cheap.

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

And barring a major clean-up effort (which is highly unlikely), we're just gonna have to live with the positive dirt that sometimes speckles the print.

That's also what I was pointing out : the lack of a real work of restoration behind. Or at least, a simple dirt cleaning, which I believe should be the minimum to do.

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

And I don't know if you ever had to endure the old "Bootleg Edition" Director's Cut DVD from Anchor Bay, but compared to THAT presentation (where the spliced-in scenes were sourced from an awful videotape source), this is relatively seamless.

Fortuantely, I haven't, and it was the first time I watched the movie, I guess I'm pretty lucky.

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

My point: AoD cannot look better than this, even with some extensive restoration.

As said above : it certainly can, by at least remove the dirt you can often see.
A simple thing like this would change my view on the PQ. For me, even if the visual rendering is what it is, I can totally understand it. Rear projection, small budget, etc etc.
But a copy so dirty is just, IMHO, the sign of not even bothering cleaning the copy a bit. It's almost disrespectful.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

Agreed. It could look better, but let's be honest...it's a cost-to-profit ratio question, and no one is going to go all out on a new HD scan and frame-by-frame clean up. The Director's Cut presentation on this BD is exactly what I was hoping for ever since the dawn of BD (and especially since the excellent Anchor Bay release of ED1, and the Lionsgate 25th Anniversary Edition of ED2), and I'd kind of begun to worry that we might never see it. Glad to see that my waiting paid off, and yes, it's pretty much exactly the presentation I'd hoped for.

IMHO they surely did a new HD scan and the movie has been preserved and archived properly, so expect a future cleaning up... just not now. The process needs a lot of money.
Just remember, the clean up happens after the HD scan, not during.

[kdo]

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

Agreed. It could look better, but let's be honest...it's a cost-to-profit ratio question, and no one is going to go all out on a new HD scan and frame-by-frame clean up. The Director's Cut presentation on this BD is exactly what I was hoping for ever since the dawn of BD.

I completely agree.

Originally Posted by tenia

I guessed that it's due to the material itself, but it impacts the PQ nonetheless, which was my point. On top of this, it makes the SFX more obvious than never, and (but that's my point of view) makes them look incredibly cheap.

There's a lot of this in my feelings towards Army of Darkness' BD. I'm not saying I can't handle movies like this (and, in fact, liked more Army of Darkness for his stop-motion skeletons than for its mini-Campbells in rear projection), I have, more often than not, but sometimes, it really looks cheap.


That's also what I was pointing out : the lack of a real work of restoration behind. Or at least, a simple dirt cleaning, which I believe should be the minimum to do.

But a copy so dirty is just, IMHO, the sign of not even bothering cleaning the copy a bit. It's almost disrespectful.

While I can sympathize to an extent with some of what you're saying here, there's really not all that many instances of print damage during the film (with the exception of some of those optical shots). As for your describing the film as looking "cheap" because of those shots, I don't really know what to say other than that's just how the film looks, and is how it should look, and how it looked theatrically . Have you ever seen the Lionsgate "Evil Dead II" or Universal "Darkman" Blu's? Both are Raimi pictures that used a lot of optical effects, and even when you watch those discs (which are of good quality), you can see similar types of issues as you do with the DC Blu of "AOD." Due to the way that the effects shots were done, some of that stuff is inherent in the film print, and to go about trying to clean it up, not only costs money, but oftentimes comes with a heavy price visually speaking (as you can get a very digital or processed looking image instead of a filmic one).

This presentation on this French Blu is a beautiful depiction of what this film looked like in its original theatrical form, and I wouldn't have them change one thing about the way it looks or sounds.

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

so expect a future cleaning up...

I wouldn't count on it.

[UniSol GR77]

I agree with KDO, as always. Me and him, like Joe Armstrong and Curtis Jackson.

The optical effect scenes cannot be fixed at all. It is inherent to them. This blu-ray is truly the best the movie can look FOR NOW.

[kdo]

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

I agree with KDO, as always. Me and him, like Joe Armstrong and Curtis Jackson.

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

The optical effect scenes cannot be fixed at all. It is inherent to them. This blu-ray is truly the best the movie can look FOR NOW.

I'm sure they could be cleaned up to an extent, but they would still have a rougher, grittier look regardless. The Blu-ray looks great, and is about as good as I'd ever expect this film to look. To this day, I'm still amazed with the results of this production, given the budget they had to work with. Raimi did an incredible job overseeing this one, and in my opinion it will always be his "legacy" picture so to speak. You can tell simply by looking at what's onscreen, that everyone involved in the making of this movie worked their butt off. "Army of Darkness" is one of the most beautifully shot (and under-appreciated) movies in history IMO. And as I've said before, I'm still dumbfounded that Universal opted to butcher the film for its theatrical release...

[UniSol GR77]

I'm not too sure it is overlooked or underrated. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, one of the most visionary and poetic movies of the eighties, is almost universally hated by almost anyone.
ARMY, despite being a HUGE departure from its (serious) sequels (call me crazy, but I find "Evil Dead 2" as being rather serious), is almost universally loved by all movie buffs, cult movie lovers and even general viewers out there.
I agree, this is Raimi's testament and definitive "legacy", it's a very vital and magic movie dealing with excellent cinematic feelings and dynamics.

... and despite having a very low budget for these type of movies, it managed to do visual miracles. Actually, I'm just glad they did a HD scan of the movie (surely 2K) and thus preserved it from time decay. Within the next decades they'll do a proper remastering and cleaning up based on the actual HD master. This is digital post-production, first you must get a HD master.

Said that, I dream Anchor Bay importing the MGM HD master in America. That's the real movie to me.

[Oblivion138]

Originally Posted by tenia

I guessed that it's due to the material itself, but it impacts the PQ nonetheless, which was my point. On top of this, it makes the SFX more obvious than never, and (but that's my point of view) makes them look incredibly cheap.

It doesn't really effect the PQ...or at least not the PQ score...because the best the PQ for any release can hope for is to accurately represent the best the source elements can look. The only thing that knocks the PQ down perhaps half a notch is the printed-in dirt on the opticals. But even that would have been present in theatrical prints. Would the PQ be a bit better without it? Surely. But it's fine as is. As for blurriness and other faults of the source elements, the transfer cannot be faulted. It represents the way those shots look, warts and all. And not much more can be asked. You seem to have a problem with the way the film looks, not the way it's presented on this disc.

The FX shots are what they are. This was not a big budget film. Do the FX sometimes look cheap? Yes. But that's because Raimi was determined to do as much with his budget as he felt possible. It wasn't a lot of money for Hollywood, but it was certainly a lot for an Evil Dead movie, and he tried to take full advantage. Probably, he tried to do more than he could effectively do, and ended up with some shots that don't look as good as they should. But that's only because he tried to do as much as he could in the film, which is what gives it its energy.

Fortuantely, I haven't, and it was the first time I watched the movie, I guess I'm pretty lucky.

You're definitely lucky. The first time I saw the Director's Cut of AOD (I was already a fan of all three Evil Dead films), I was so excited that the terrible quality of the DVD transfer really didn't bother me much. But on repeat viewings, it was nearly unwatchable. Here's a screenshot from the Director's Cut material that was spliced in:



That's not a blurry photo taken off my TV screen, either...that's an actual screenshot. Versus a screenshot of the Region 3 DVD that I eventually got, captured via the same process:



As you can no doubt imagine, after years of living with the "Bootleg Edition," I was thrilled when I got my hands on the R3 DVD. And the BD is a nice upgrade over the R3 DVD, so I'm happy once again. Newcomers may not think this looks very good, but to those of us who've had to live with much, MUCH worse, the BD presentation of the Director's Cut is a thing of beauty.

Originally Posted by kdo

I'm sure they could be cleaned up to an extent, but they would still have a rougher, grittier look regardless.

The best that could be done for the FX shots would be to spot-clean them, as was done with the FX shots for the remaster of The Terminator. It does make those shots more seamless, but yes, they still look a bit rougher than the bulk of the film. So pretty much, we could expect them to digitally clean the printed-in dirt, maybe recalibrate the contrast of background layers to more closely match the foreground action, but that's about it.

[WorkShed]

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

Said that, I dream Anchor Bay importing the MGM HD master in America. That's the real movie to me.

Anchor Bay would not get rights to it. That studio is now owned by Starz. Universal again has sole distribution on the title in the states. However, they have been working fairly well with Shout! Factory recently on genre titles that Universal doesn't care much about.

I would love to see a Shout! release of The Thing or Tremors.