Army of Darkness and Donnie Darko: Director's Cut = Worse Cut?

Usually a writer/director creates a film, helps edit it, then releases something close to their original vision. Sometimes this turns out good (Bottle Rocket), sometimes not (The Life Aquatic).

And then every once in a while, a talented filmmaker writes and directs a movie that turns out to be phenomenal, despite their best efforts to make it mediocre. These movies are called Army of Darkness and Donnie Darko.

In the original Army of Darkness, Sam Raimi ended the film with Bruce Campbell's character Ash taking drops of a sleeping potion - but taking too many - and ending up in a dystopic future. "I slept too long!" he shouts, and then we fade out.

Luckily, the studio intervened, forced Raimi to shoot a kick-ass ending. The studio then re-cut the entire film, changing it from horror/adventure to horror/comedy, and vuala!

Don't believe me? Watch Army of Darkness: The Director's Cut. Man, that thing is a boring piece of crap.

Exibit 2: Donnie Darko. While the director's cut of Darko isn't nearly as bad as Army's, it is far inferior to the original. Essentially, the director's cut puts in a bunch of scenes that explain away the mystery that made Darko so intriguing in the first place.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, sometimes the artist know not what they wrought.

Or maybe I'm trying to say that sometimes it's best to just give your jumbled piece of poo to a good editor and say "go nuts!"

I hear that's what they did for the original Star Wars as well.

Oh snap, I smell a sequel to this article.

Or maybe a prequel.

Or something.

-KV