Unfortunately she hasn't gotten to watch much of the videos since she's still seeing double and it gives her a headache to watch tv. We did try to watch Deleted Magic - her boyfriend and I took turns reading the Deleted Magic text out-loud and it was kind of funny. Although initially enthusiastic about Deleted Magic, my cousin fell asleep about halfway through. Anyways - thank you guys for the kind words. It meant a lot to me.
Reverend - unfortunately I read that message about a week after it aired. My DirectTV receiver is set up to tell me whenever Army of Darkness, along with other programs, comes on - but I guess it's not working. Anyways, thank you for the heads up even though I missed it. The good news is that I've been tinkering with my original recording of the SciFi version - and it's not so bad having the full-screen DVD fill in for the 1 min of footage I missed at the end. Ocpmovie sent me his older recording of the SciFi version so I could put to rest any fears I had that the ending was different from the theatrical version (thanks again ocpmovie!). What I discovered was that there is one line in the tv version that isn't in any other versions - it's when the flashing blue light in S-Mart appears - Ash says "So I left her there." After that, it's exactly the same as the theatrical version. My recording stops right before Ash says, "Mam, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store" - so my recording has everything that's exclusive to the tv version. I really don't think it's a problem to patch it up with the fullscreen dvd footage.
Anyways - I should have a dvd of the SciFi version out shortly. What I'm doing now is checking for interlacing errors since I did perform an inverse telecine on the whole movie. I'm sure some interlacing problems will escape me, but I've already fixed the major problem areas, as well as a few small ones. As the whole thing stands now, it is a mighty fine progressive presentation of the SciFi cut. Also - I haven't performed any color/brightness/contrast correcting - the reason for this is that I think it looks fine as it is. I'm also hoping that since I didn't tinker with the image (aside from the inverse telecine), this dvd might be considered useful to any others out there who might work on a fan edit of Army of Darkness.
Work on my fan edit is still slowly crawling along. I recently discovered that the Army of Darkness soundtrack contains all of the music that is missing from the Little Ashes sequence on the director's cut. Naturally I restored most of that music just so I could see how it plays - and it's been growing on me. I'm very familiar with the official versions, so it's strange when Army of Darkness suddenly has music in it that I'm not familiar with, but like I said - it's growing on me and I actually like it. I put a few different versions up on youtube so you all could have a look and listen at what I'm talking about.
The Original Director's Cut with No Music
Director's Cut with Restored Music
The SciFi version of this sequence moves a little faster than the director's cut, but it cuts out the shot where you can hear the little Ashes yelling "yeeeaaah baby!" - which is something I love. It is also missing a little music, which some of you might find preferable.
The SciFi Cut
Also - just for fun, here is the crazy Australian cut. If you don't like the Little Ashes sequence, then you will probably appreciate the way the editor butchered this version.
Australian Version