Ghost[s] in the Shell: Versions (1991—)

There's a lot of Ghost in the Shell content out there. But if you're new to the franchise, what order would you tackle them in? Can you skip any? Would you want to? If I was to gather up all that I own and offer it to a friend who had yet to experience anything GitS related, to avoid too much confusion I'd suggest that he/she approach them in the following order. Links to the relevant media's review page(s) will be included, when available. I fully expect that what follows will get a little complicated for people who aren't major fans (bad pun intended).

ABANDONED POST: The Amityville Movies (1979-96)

The Amityville Movies (1979-96)

Dirs. Various

Do the Amityville movies deserve a post? Absolutely not, they're mostly rubbish, horror shite, cliché, garbage, but I did it anyhow because they were already written (for a previous blog), which meant most of the work was simply copy/paste. It's Friday. It's pissing rain outside. And I wanted an easy post.

01. The Amityville Horror (1979), Dir. Stuart Rosenberg, which was reportedly based on true events, is the first of many not-very-good entries in the haunted house franchise.

Newly-weds Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and a long-lost Gibb brother (James Brolin) occupy 112 Ocean Avenue, a house in which a vicious murder spree once occurred. Before long, their happy life develops a homicidal slant.

In Defence of Batgirl in The Killing Joke (2016)

The Thorny Portrayal of Batgirl

in Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)

While I agree that the first 28 minutes of the animated adaptation of Alan Moore's The Killing Joke (1988) are tonally different to what follows, I also feel that it isn't as bad as many reports proclaim it to be. It may even have more in play than it gets credit for, and the gut-reaction of naysayers could, at least partially, be unfair and unwarranted.

With that in mind, I decided to give it a fair crack of the whip and discovered it's not the worst thing the Batman animated universe has shat out - that award goes to Batman and Harley Quinn (2017), from the selection that I've seen, to date. If there's a worse feature than that, I don't want to see it.

In order to properly discuss the story and Batgirl's controversial role in it, I'll need to include spoilers, including revealing the ending. If that wasn't explicit enough, expect UNRESERVED SPOILERS from here on.

LINK - The DCAMU Movies

The DC Animated Movie Universe posts that were here in December 2022 didn't fit with what I want the blog to be about, so they've been moved elsewhere: Click the image above to go there.

Godzilla: Millennium Era Japanese Film Posters

Godzilla: Millennium Era Japanese Film Posters

Related to the Godzilla posts on The 7th and Last.

It's what the title says. Images are arranged in sequential order.

Godzilla: Heisei Era Textless Japanese Film Posters

 Godzilla: Heisei Era Textless Japanese Film Posters
Related to the Godzilla posts on The 7th and Last.

It's what the title says. Images are arranged in sequential order.

Godzilla: Shōwa Era Japanese Blu-ray Cover Art

Godzilla: Shōwa Era Japanese Blu-ray Cover Art

Related to the Godzilla posts on The 7th and Last.

It's what the title says. Images are arranged in sequential order.

Superman: Animated Collection (2016)

Superman: Animated Collection (2016)

A five-movie collection released one week after the similarly titled Batman: Animated Collection, except this time it's Superman themed, with some bonus Batman. Go figure.

As before I'll list them in the order they're presented in the collection, which, likewise, is NOT the order that they're best viewed.

Perhaps whoever assembled both collections ought to have did a little more research before the arrangement (and cover art) was finalised, or at the very least gracefully stepped aside and let someone with dignity take over the task.

Up first is 01. Superman: Unbound (2013 / Dir. James Tucker), in which a bland and boring version of Krypton's most famous son has to contend with Supergirl's super-angst and the possibility of the planet Earth being wiped out by the big bad. I'm not sure which is worse, or which is the most overused plot device.

Batman: Animated Collection (2016)

Batman: Animated Collection (2016)

Dirs. Various (see individual paragraphs for respective credits)

Five animated films that showcase a number of different aspects of the Batman universe.

Alternatively, a money-grabbing collection from unconnected eras in Batman's animated history that don't complement each other much.

However you look at it, it's the only way to get three of the five films on Blu-ray in the UK without importing, so is perhaps noteworthy to those that prefer that particular format.

See below the cut for short musings on each one. I've listed them in the peculiar order that they're presented in the set, which isn't the order they were made or released and definitely isn't a very logical way in which to view them.

W.A.S.P. - Reidolized - The Film (2018)

W.A.S.P. - Reidolized

(The Soundtrack to The Crimson Idol)

Dir. Ralph Ziman

Even though I'll be referring to the album itself, the text below is primarily for the sixty-minute 'film' that accompanied W.A.S.P.'s re-recording of their fifth studio album, The Crimson Idol, which was originally released back in 1992. If ever I do a band discography post I'll give the new version of the album the kudos it deserves.

The 'film' is the album's songs with occasional v/o narration by vocalist Blackie Lawless; i.e., parts of The Story of Jonathan (Prologue to the Crimson Idol) track that was included on the 1998 remaster of the 1992 concept album.

Documenting the tragic rise and fall of a fictional rock star named Jonathan Aaron Steele, and incorporating such themes as abandonment, emotional need, addiction, ambition and, ultimately, self-worth, it's presented in grainy lo-fi B+W with frequent splashes of symbolic crimson. It's a conceptually interesting idea that nevertheless gets tiresome pretty quickly.