There has always been some confusion about the ending of director Sam Raimi’sArmy of Darkness. The third movie in theEvil Deadseries has two endings. And while both of these endings are readily available on Blu-ray and DVD, some fans are only familiar with one of the two. And because of this, there has been some confusion as to why and how the events ofAsh Vs. Evil Deaddon’t seem to match up with what happened in that trilogy endingfantasy thriller. It was producer Rob Tapert who assured everyone this past July at Comic-Con thatAsh Vs Evil DeadSeason 2 would finally acknowledge the events ofArmy of Darkness. But in a recent interview to promote the release of Season 1 on DVD, star Bruce Campbell says that’s not true, and won’t be happening at all.
The original theatrical ending forArmy of Darknessactually matches up withAsh Vs Evil DeadSeason 1 quite nicely, as it putAshley Williamsback in the S-Mart. Though he now longer was working for that establishment at the beginning of the Starz series, he was still an aging lothario and stock boy at another retailer, before theDeaditesreturned. Where it gets confusing is the alternate ending that was released on DVD and Blu-ray, which is the much more widely seen ending. It has Ash oversleeping his hibernation in Medieval times, only to wake up in the Apocalyptic future. Perhaps we can all write that off as a dream?
The problem with reintroducingArmy of Darknessback into the timeline ofAsh Vs Evil Deadisn’t story related.Army of Darknessis a Universal Pictures movie, and there still seem to be some rights issues with the title. And it was rumored early on that Universal wanted to rebootArmy of Darknessas its own franchise as Sam Raimi and company moved forward with the sequel series. According to Bruce Campbell, this is what is keepingArmy of Darknessand its events out ofAsh Vs Evil Dead. About Rob Tapert’s earlier comments, the iconic cult actor had this to say toArrow in the Head.
“I’ve been sort of putting that to bed. It was a random thing that Rob [Tapert] said, and you know how the internet is, if you see one sentence written, it’s real. I think Rob was more alluding to the fact that we’ve already taken stuff that would have been in Army of Darkness. He still time-travels before Army of Darkness. People have always asked, “Where is Army of Darkness?” Like, we don’t really need Army of Darkness. That was sort of our take on the whole thing. You’ve got to be careful referencing certain movies, because then you have to make deals with certain partners that might own those certain movies.
Perhaps this will change in upcoming seasons? Rob Tapert seemed pretty adamant that the events ofArmy of Darknesswould somehow be brought up in the show. Some how. Some way. Here’s what the producer had to say at Comic-Con.
“We actually can reference [Army of Darkness], and we reference it in this coming season. We just don’t pull upon that universe, but this coming season Ash is able to talk about events that happened in Army of Darkness, although people are not likely to believe him, of course.”
Ash vs Evil Dead returns to Starz for season 2 onOctober 2, 2016. Lee Majors will be making his series debut as Ashley Williams' dad, with Ash making his way back to his hometown. There will be plenty ofnew ghouls and monstersfor Ash and his friends to fight. And this next season promises to be even better than the last. We have a newly released poster that shows the whole gang saluting America in case you missed it from early in the month.
