By my count, there are approximately eleventy billion different versions of Army of Darkness in existence, with run times ranging from 81 to 96 minutes.
There are so many versions, in fact, that even I do not give enough of a shit to look them all up and write about them here. That way lies madness.
Several years ago, I picked up the Boomstick Edition, which is one of two official releases (I think) that includes both the Director's Cut and the original theatrical version in the same package.
Tonight I attempted to watch The Director's Cut on our HDTV only to discover that the picture quality is so unbelievably shitty, I could not finish watching and had to switch to the much clearer theatrical version for the final battle.
No judging. As this is my project, I reserve the right to veto a version midway if I have a better looking version on hand. (Note: This does not work for marriage.)
Ironic, considering I spent a good 5-7 years perfectly happy watching a VHS copy on my standard definition, CRT television.
In fact, didn't we all spend a good 15 years perfectly happy with VHS before DVD came along? In all the years of VHS, I never heard anyone complain about picture quality prior to, say, 1998.
We settled for some pretty shitty picture quality. We'd tape TV shows and re-use VHS tape until the analog snow fuzzed out the picture, and we'd still re-use the tape.
I'd say we had no alternative, but, um...we did. We had Betamax, Laserdisc, MMCD, and SD...and you've never heard of a couple of those because you were so happy with VHS, you weren't looking for something new.
We'd rent movies that had been watched dozens, maybe hundreds of times in dozens of different VCRs of varying quality and condition, and we'd watch the film in 4:3 "full screen."
We'd maybe hook up our VCRs to our stereos so we could listen to our movies in glorious 2.0 sound. But that was really pushing home entertainment. That's some audiophile shit right there.
So to moan and bitch about a flawed print/transfer of Army of Darkness seems rather, well, moany and bitchy. With that in mind, while typing this, I've gone back to The Director's Cut to finish that version too. I can't really tell what's happening, but this feels like a trip back in time.
See what I did there?
It's amazing how much we didn't know we were missing. I think a big thing that changed is that television programs began to improve in quality. Shows like '24' 'The West Wing' and 'Alias', among many others, began to bring movie quality visuals to the television screen. And they shot in widescreen. And we realized they looked a whole lot better like that.
ReplyDeleteI still get upset when my dad picks up a full screen DVD. He doesn't care. But at least when people get the letterbox copies of stuff now, they very rarely complain about 'missing part of the picture'.
(it's Dave Baker, I can't remeber my password and don't care enought to get it...)
ReplyDeleteI like what you did there. But do you still love the movie like you did when you first saw it? Much like Anchorman,this also falls into that quotable catagory for me.
I've never complained about picture quality (unless of course its truly mind boggling bad).
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, I usually prefer the 'low quality' of VHS over DVD or BluRay when it comes to some of my long time favorites. They may call it low quality, but it can add a bit more atmosphere... if done right.