What version of Dawn 78 should I show a new zombie fan.

[beat_truck]

I agree that the European cut sucks, but I have to disagree about the fan edit. First, it makes little difference to me whether it was "official" or not. The version I have was done very well and doesn't look cobbled at all. Folks that aren't intimately familiar with the movie would probably never even know it wasn't official. I don't really get the lack of coherence part either. Most of the added scenes already partially existed in other versions, just shorter and/or with less dialog, so it's not like they were just stuck in, in some random wrong place. Like I mentioned before, the only small complaint I have is the couple hiccups in the soundtrack. I suppose nothing could have really been done about it, though. Overall, I definitely can't complain as whoever did it spent a LOT of time and did an awesome job. Also, it's not like one can't go back and revisit the official versions whenever they want to. By the way, I also like the fan edit version of Re Animator, where everything from the Unrated and R rated versions were edited together. I originally had a VHS R rated copy, and then bought the Unrated DVD. The first time I watched the DVD, I was like WTF? Lots of scenes were removed that made others no make sense.

[JDP]

I agree that the European cut sucks, but I have to disagree about the fan edit. First, it makes little difference to me whether it was "official" or not. The version I have was done very well and doesn't look cobbled at all. Folks that aren't intimately familiar with the movie would probably never even know it wasn't official. I don't really get the lack of coherence part either. Most of the added scenes already partially existed in other versions, just shorter and/or with less dialog, so it's not like they were just stuck in, in some random wrong place. Like I mentioned before, the only small complaint I have is the couple hiccups in the soundtrack. I suppose nothing could have really been done about it, though. Overall, I definitely can't complain as whoever did it spent a LOT of time and did an awesome job. Also, it's not like one can't go back and revisit the official versions whenever they want to. I like that "Mall Hours" cut a lot, I love how it has gathered almost all the Dawn footage that has been released (there's only a couple of scenes missing from an obscure German cut of Dawn, as far as I know), but it does have a few continuity problems because some scenes were not inserted in the most appropriate places. For example, when the biker gang has already started the assault on the mall, we see a scene where some of the bikers evidently have just come back from taking a closer look at the mall's parking lot and are reporting back on the situation to the rest of the gang. This scene should obviously have been inserted BEFORE the assault on the mall starts, but it's weirdly placed AFTER the assault has already started! As was inserted, the scene makes little sense. Why would the rest of the gang need feedback on approximately how many zombies are wandering around the parking lot when the gang has already started assaulting the mall??? This scene should obviously have been inserted previous to the sequence when we see the whole gang descend on the shopping mall to break in.