Dek Rollins

Updated first post.

jedimasterobiwan said:

so that and the theatrical ending are the only things missing. also with the tv scene your using i think the german version has better quality if you want to find out look up ridgeshark’s abandonded edit page.

I don’t think I can use the television version for the extended windmill scene, because it’s edited differently and too much footage is missing. I’ll be using deleted scenes footage, but I still haven’t decided if the Shout! Factory BD is the best source for those or not.

jedimasterobiwan said:

Dek Rollins can you look in to doing that kinda of hybrid cut i don’t know how to do that kinda of thing and i’d do anything for that kind of edit

Sorry, I don’t think I can afford the time or space to do anything more than what I’m already trying to do. I’m sure it can be frustrating to be without good software and hardware to do this kind of stuff yourself. (I don’t even have everything that I think I might need yet 😛)

And an update on my editing plans:
I think I’m going to cut the idea of starting it with the end of Evil Dead II, because there doesn’t seem to be a good way to get the two scenes to mesh well, even if I was able to reduce the music in the mono. So, after the edited opening recap, the beginning of the film will continue largely identical to the Director’s Cut.

I’ve also been trying to decide whether or not to cut the “Boom Stick” speech that Ash gives to the villagers. Since neither the finished opening or the theatrical ending will be used in my edit, this line will be the only reference to S-Mart, and that seems like it might feel out of place in the long run. In that case, I would cut straight from “This is my Boom Stick!” to “The next one of you primates, even touches me…” I’m not sure about it yet, as I do like the line itself, but I just don’t think it works very well in the context I’ve created.

I don’t think so.

I don’t think so. They don’t really flow with the film in my opinion. But I think deleting the scene outside the windmill was a great loss to the pacing and tone of the scene, not to mention that it properly explains the scene that comes after, so I decided to include that.

Okay, I may use the International Cut as a main source, but I might just go with the Director’s Cut for the majority of the film since that’s the cut I’m basing my edit on. It would just make it easier. But I really haven’t decided yet.

And like I said, I also haven’t decided on what I will use for the reinserted scene. I could use the TV cut, but I might end up using the version from the “Deleted Scenes.”

I said in the first post that I will be using “Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun.” I’m not sure what you mean by “4k mastered footage.” My main video sources will be the three different cuts from the Shout! Factory Blu-ray set.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll be using the TV cut as a source. I’m not planning on using the theatrical opening or the theatrical ending. All of the info on my current plans for the edit is in the first post.

^Fo already said that he wasn’t referencing someone posting on this site.

*Darth Ender leaves in tears!*

Eye masta’ inherent ah!

Halidoo e’rie bourn, ked I’m geoing y’ patuy?

This is an attempt to fanedit Army of Darkness to my personal liking, as I feel that none of the official cuts represent the best possible way to follow-up Evil Dead II and end-cap the Evil Dead Trilogy.

(NOTE: I originally planned to use “The Medieval Dead” as the title of this edit, but I ultmately decided to keep the original title for a few reasons: 1. I can’t animate. 2. Changing the title would create confusion when referencing the film in conversation if this edit was a person’s definitive cut. 3. Irvin Shapiro suggested the “Army of Darkness” title during the production of ED2, and I think it is fitting to leave the title in honor of the help he provided to Raimi & co.)

UPDATE: 13 JANUARY 2017 (Friday the 13th!)

Okay, I’ve re-watched the Director’s Cut again, and I now have a short cut list. It’s a lot shorter than I expected it to be. I guess I remembered being bothered by more things than I really was (regarding things that I can actually edit, that is).

• New opening - Created from both the finished and original openings.
• New title card - “THE MEDIEVAL DEAD”
• Color correct beginning segment to resemble the end of Evil Dead II.
• Reinsert deleted scene outside the windmill.
• Cut handstand shot in “Little Ashes” scene.
• Possibly replace “I ain’t that good” with “Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun.”

I decided to keep the “Boom Stick” speech, but I’m having second thoughts about replacing “I ain’t that good.” After looking back at both lines, I actually like the delivery of the original line more, despite the re-shoot line sounding better on paper. So, it may be even closer to the DC than I originally planned.

One thing that I really want to change in the film is something that I absolutely can’t edit. That is, Ash should’ve used his chainsaw hand in the final battle with Evil Ash. But, he didn’t, and I can change that just as much as I can take five inches off the end of his shotgun (which I also really want to do, because the double barrel shotgun in Army of Darkness is longer than the original; I honestly can’t figure out why).

Original First Post

I’ve started working on a fanedit of Army of Darkness, with the goal of making it fit a little better as an “Evil Dead III” like it should. That’s what it is, after all. I’m sure others have done the same sort of thing in the past (I know of “The Fan Cut”), but I want to tackle it myself with my own ideas.

As the thread title says, I’ll be using one of the original working titles during production, The Medieval Dead, which was supposedly preferred by Raimi. I thought about using the more conventional title, Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness, but I figured it didn’t sound as good.

The Director’s Cut will be the main source, with maybe a couple of replaced shots from the two theatrical cuts (all from the Shout! Factory 3-Disc set). I’m using Sony Vegas Pro 11 to edit.

I’ve started some tests on the opening, which is where my edit will differentiate the most. I want to create a blend of the finished opening and the original opening, using as much footage from Evil Dead II as I can.

An issue I’m having trouble figuring out is the opening scene. I want to use the “RENAISSANCE PICTURES PRESENTS” card, continuing through the shot of Ash’s lonely eyes as he begins to narrate exposition (from the original opening). This scene has never to my knowledge been released in HD, meaning that I would have to use upscaled SD footage with a grainplate. I think that the 1080i upscaled footage on the Shout! Factory release would be my best option, but I’m not certain.

For the title card, I’m going to have to re-animate the new title over a clean background of the vortex. This is going to be a difficult task as animation of any form is not my strong suit, and I don’t think either of the films show more than a couple seconds of empty vortex at any given time for me to repurpose. As of now I’m not sure even how I’m going to approach this, and I’m thinking that I’ll just leave it on the back burner and worry about it after the rest of the edit is finished. I’ll have to figure out my options.

After the title sequence finishes, I want to use the end of Evil Dead II rather than negating it like Army of Darkness originally did. This brings me to my biggest issue I’ve been having in my editing tests:

I can’t smoothly transition from the end of Evil Dead II to the beginning of Army of Darkness without removing the music from the scene. But, Evil Dead II has mono audio, and the 5.1 surround, as far as I can tell, is just that mono track distributed among the front channels with music and sound effects on the surrounds. So I can’t remove the music as far as I know.

I haven’t completed a cut list yet, but I generally just want to remove anything that I feel doesn’t belong, whether it’s because it’s just too corny (like the handstand shot in the “Little Ashes” scene), or if it’s because Ash is acting out of character, etc., add back in the deleted scene showing Ash go outside the windmill during the night, and replace the original “I ain’t that good” line with the US theatrical reshoot line, “Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun.”

Once I have some time to sit down and watch through the film again I should be able to edit this post with a completed cutlist.

Any help (or interest of any kind) would be appreciated. 😄

^And it’s not just Star Trek that has issues in writing consistency. Most time-travel stories that continue past an original work end up having some kind of discrepency. T2 is probably the time-travel inconsistency that annoys me the most.

You’re right about some of those. New list, now top 35:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Star Wars (1977)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Return of the Jedi (1983)

Robocop (1987)

The Evil Dead (1981)

Evil Dead II (1987)

The Medieval Dead (a work-in-progress fanedit of Army of Darkness that I’m trying to get done)

Batman (1989)

Batman Returns (1992)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Spider-Man (2002)

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Die Hard (1988)

ALien (1979)

Head (1969)

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Rocky (1976)

Back to the Future (1985)

Jaws (1975)

Jurassic Park (1993)

The Terminator (1984)

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

I wouldn’t consider The Voyage Home quite good enough for a list like this, though I don’t dislike it. I do dislike Aliens, though.

I suppose visuals of some sort between two Federation ships would make sense, but between a Federation ship any other kind of ship, I don’t like as much. And imperfect communications would be nice considering the direction they took it.

If we had got Captain Sulu we wouldn’t even need to worry about all this! 😛

In no particular order:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Star Wars (1977)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Return of the Jedi (1983)

Robocop (1987)

The Evil Dead (1981)

Evil Dead II (1987)

The Medieval Dead (a work-in-progress fanedit of Army of Darkness that I’m trying to get done)

Batman (1989)

Batman Returns (1992)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Spider-Man (2002)

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Die Hard (1988)

ALien (1979)

Head (1969)

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Rocky (1976)

Back to the Future (1985)

Jaws (1975)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Yeah, yeah, it’s a top 30, but screw the thread rules, I can’t be expected to make important descisions like this! There are still things that I had to leave out!

The ships were described essentially as submarines in space. Cramped and such. I doubt they had visual communication between ships like that. It doesn’t matter either way, I just think it would make more sense and be aesthetically better that way.

The tech that they used shouldn’t have existed in that form. They shoudn’t have had visual communication, they shouldn’t have had transporters (even if it was “new” tech in the show), they shouldn’t have even had phasers. It should have been as the past was described in “Ballance of Terror.” That would’ve made the show more interesting as it takes place in the past from a TOS perspective.

And yeah, Voyager sucked too. The only Voyager character that I like is the Doctor, which is why I only like watching episodes about him. I think his plot in the episode “Real Life” is the best thing to come out of that series (which bothers me even more because they kept interupting his meaningful moments with some dumb and unnecessary sideplot that destracted from him in very jarring ways).

In DS9, Sisko calls the NCC-1701 the first Enterprise, which implies that the in-universe cannon most likely doesn’t include that ship. It was just an unused design for a previously existing Enterprise that was never written into the storyline.

It’s hard to say, though. Of course, the series has always broken its own cannon on various occasions, but ENT was as ridiculous as Frink’s Star Wars edits, only in a bad way.

Am I the only one who thinks all of ENT sucked? It’s a bunch of terrible characters being forced through dumb situations, and it ultimately comes down to Archer doing everything before Kirk, even though Kirk was the first one to do/encounter those things in ST cannon. Even down to the show’s namesake; the original enterprise, as captained by Pike and Kirk, was the first Enterprise! And don’t even get me started on all of the technology they used throughout the show that didn’t exist yet at that point in the timeline.

I wish Scott Bakula was given a real ST show, because I think that with good writers and good directors, he would play a great captain. And I like Scott Bakula, so I actually would’ve really liked to see him in good ST show.

But I still wish they made a “Captain Sulu” series instead of ENT. Would’ve had much greater potential.

EDIT: By the way, I had to sit through the entire series because my parents were watching it, and most of the time they were watching, I was home with nothing to do but sit in font of the television.

Halosche!

Now you have yourself a good time mister Stave.

I’m The Original Version

I would like to compliment the forum members and mods for working to bring up the site from the steaming pile it was starting to smell like. I’m glad we can all have some fun again. 😄

towne32 said:

L9B5 said:

Hey guys I’m new to this, can someone just give me a quick summary of everything that has happened?

In the beginning, the Universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

LOL. Thanks for making my day, Towne. And reminding me that I still need to finish reading the third book. 😄

I haven’t been on all day and it feels great when the first post I read brings a smile to my face.

Dreamaster said:

Dek Rollins said:

Dreamaster, this version looks wonderful; thanks for uploading it!

May I inquire as to how you applied the regrade and re-encoded?

You want to know the secret sauce eh? 😃

Amazingly, it was a free to use software called Avidemux. It’s pretty good for quick, one pass adjustments with a few caveats. It seems to render the video with more red versus the green… so I typically have to “get the preview perfect” and then pull the red channel back until the image is starting to just look a tad green. Blech, lol

For this project I had two color filters, MplayerHue, set to +14 and then I added the MPlayer eq2 adjustment with these settings:

I set the audio as “copy” so it didn’t get altered, but set the Video output to Mpeg4 AVC (x264) and then changed those settings to do a 2 pass render with a target size similar to the original grindhouse.

That’s it!

Thanks! I’ve been looking into doing a single pass regrade on a film in the near future, so I thought whatever route you took might help me figure it out. 😄