Movies I Associate More With DVD Than with VHS

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So this week ended up not being as busy as I thought it was, so I thought I'd come on here and talk about movies that I associate more with DVD than I do with VHS, even though all of them have VHS releases. Before going to bed last night, I watched a video made by a guy named Perry for his channel, The Cassette Phase, which is a nostalgia based channel focusing on a wide variety of 80's and 90's topics, from nostalgic clothing to VHS to old TV commercials to movies and TV shows, though he does occasionally talk about earlier stuff, if he experienced them in the 90's. This video was on his Top 10 Fantasy Movies on VHS and while he was talking about the animated The Lord of the Rings movies from the 70's, he mentioned that he associates the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy with DVD more than he does VHS, even though they do have VHS releases. Check him out here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCassettePhase

This got me thinking about the movies that I associate more with DVD than with VHS, even if I owned them on VHS at one time or another. So, here's 20 of them, using cover images of the DVD releases that I have of those movies. They're organized into a quasi-alphabetical order, since this isn't a ranking. Let's get into it.

 First up is Agent Cody Banks, starring Frankie Muniz and Hilary Duff. The movie came out in theatres in 2003, and had both a VHS and a DVD release. I'm pretty sure we rented this movie from the nearby gas station, since getting to Rogers Video wasn't as frequent as it was pre-1993, when we had one around the corner from us, and I'm pretty sure we rented it on DVD, rather than on VHS, just because by 2003 my parents had bought our first DVD player. My siblings and I most likely saw the movie on TV, but I'm about 99% sure that we rented the DVD to watch the movie.

Next up are the Austin Powers movies. Originally, I was just going to talk about Austin Powers in Goldmember, which came out in 2002, since I saw it in theatres with my friend, Keira, but I realized that, despite recording the first two movies off the TV, and watching them on VHS alot, I've actually watched them on DVD more often. Especially because I owned the third movie on DVD when I first got my own portable DVD player in the mid 2000's. I haven't watched these movies in a while, but they're pretty good as parodies go.

This next one is an interesting one, because while I know it had a VHS release, I've never seen the VHS anywhere. In fact I didn't know that Batman Begins even had a VHS release until just a few years ago, when I saw it listed on a Batman fansite in the movies on VHS section. When the movie was released on home video in late 2005, VHS was already well into its decline as a home media format, and most studios, with the exception of Warner Bros. and Disney, had already moved away from releasing movies on VHS, focusing more on their DVD releases. So it's not surprising that I never saw the VHS release for this movie, because chances are that, even back then, it was harder to find than the DVD release was. Other 2005 movies that fall into this category are The Dukes of Hazzard, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (Tim Burton), Elektra, and Fantastic Four.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker is another interesting one, because when I bought my copy of the original 2000 DVD release from the tech store at the college I was attending in 2007, I knew that it probably had a VHS release given that it came out in 2000, but, even though I still had my TV/VCR combo set in my bedroom, and still owned all of my childhood VHS collection, there was no chance of finding this movie on VHS in stores in 2007. Especially because I hadn't started going to thrift stores until 2019. And I have yet to find it on VHS at any of the thrift stores in the area that I've been to.

Directed by Jonathan Frakes, Clockstoppers is another movie that I associate more with DVD than with VHS, simply because I don't actually remember seeing it until I got the DVD a few years ago. I remember the commercials for it on TV, but I don't remember if we actually rented it or not. I can't imagine we didn't given that we're fans of Jonathan Frakes from his days playing Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but we rented alot of movies in the 2000's and some we rented on VHS, others we rented on DVD, and others we owned either on VHS or DVD, so there's a good chance that we did rent it on DVD and I just don't remember.

Being that it came out in 2000 and was released on home video in 2001, we absolutely rented The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle on VHS, so I'm not including it on the list, however the 2004 live action Thunderbirds movie is one we rented on DVD. Between having watched the original Thunderbirds TV series in reruns on YTV, and the movie being directed by Jonathan Frakes, there was no way we were going to miss it.

Next is Home Alone 4. I actually saw this movie on TV in like 2004 or 2005, but I also don't remember seeing it on VHS or DVD at the store either. I remember seeing the first three Home Alone movies on DVD at Walmart and Futureshop, but not the fourth one. Probably because it's a TV movie, not a theatrical feature film, and those seem to be harder to find than theatrically released movies for whatever reason. Of course I have all five movies on DVD (shown above).

Lilo & Stitch is a weird one for me because while I'm pretty sure we rented it before spending the money to buy ourselves a copy, I don't remember whether we rented it on VHS or DVD before buying it on DVD. The reason it's on this list is because my parents did buy the DVD release for us, and so I associate the movie with its DVD release more than with the VHS.

I own Looney Tunes: Back in Action on DVD now, though I didn't get it until probably 2018 or 2019. I remember watching the movie with my parents just after it came out on home video in 2004, but what I don't remember is whether we rented it on VHS or DVD. We had a DVD player by the time we rented it, but I don't think my parents had a VCR anymore by this point. So it's possible that we rented it on VHS, but given that we saw it in 2004, it's more likely that we rented it on DVD.

 Next is Mean Girls. My sister owned this on DVD when we were teenagers, so that's why I associate the movie with DVD rather than with VHS. I also own it on DVD now. I actually don't think I even knew that it had a VHS release until a few years ago and I saw it on Amazon when I was looking to see if the movie had a VHS release or not.

I got Men in Black II on DVD for my 19th birthday, after I got the portable DVD player that I had in my bedroom. So because I got it on DVD right away, I didn't even know if it had a VHS release or not since we didn't rent the movie on VHS or DVD and we didn't own it on VHS either.

I debated on putting Mr. Deeds on this list, just because I saw it in theatres when it first came out back in the summer of 2002, and then I didn't own it on any home media format until last year. I decided to include it just because, I remember seeing the DVD on the shelves at Futureshop more than I remember seeing the VHS release anywhere. 

Spider-Man 2 is a movie that we didn't rent, but someone bought for me when I first got my portable DVD player. I think I remember seeing the movie's VHS release at the store, but once I got the DVD there was no point in looking for the VHS release, even though I had the first Spider-Man movie on VHS, but not on DVD.

Star Trek Nemesis is an interesting one. We rented it on DVD, I ended up getting it on VHS for my birthday in 2003, thanks to a friend of mine at school, and then I eventually got it on DVD at the same time I got the rest of those first ten Star Trek movies on DVD. So even though I had the movie on VHS, I associate it with DVD more just because we rented it on DVD first, and then I got it on VHS.

The Christopher Reeve Superman movies are all movies I associate with DVD more than VHS, even though I have all of them on VHS and I saw the first three on VHS when I was a teenager. My grandparents had taped them off of TV in the 80's and still had the tapes at their house when I got the TV/VCR combo set for my 16th birthday in 2002, so I was able to borrow them and watch them. However, I've watched them on DVD the most.

The three live action Ninja Turtles movies from the 90's are definitely movies that I associate more with DVD than with VHS. I first saw them on DVD back in 2011 or 2012 when I got the 4 Film Favorites DVD collection, which includes the three 90's live action movies as well as the 2007 animated movie. Aside from the View-Master reels for the first two movies, I didn't grow up with the Ninja Turtles movies. I didn't even watch them on VHS in the hospital like I had with Batman Returns and other movies, like The Fox and the Hound. I have all three movies on VHS now, but I completely missed out on seeing them until I got them on DVD in the early 2010's. 

The Incredibles is another movie that came out on VHS and DVD that we just ended up renting, and then buying, on DVD. By the time The Incredibles came out on home video in early 2005, Disney wasn't advertising their VHS releases as much as they had in the late 90's, when DVD was just starting to become a thing. They were also harder to find than their DVD releases, outside of the Disney Store. I honestly don't remember seeing any Disney VHS releases in regular retail stores like Walmart and Futureshop after 2002. Yet I know they exist because I've seen them in thrift stores and some of them in the boxes of VHS that I've gotten over the last four years that I ended up not keeping. 

And now it's time to talk about the movies that began this entire blog post. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. We rented all of these movies on DVD as they came out. I also saw The Two Towers in theatres while I was off school for exam week at the end of January/beginning of February 2003. I didn't even know these movies had VHS releases, because again, I honestly don't remember seeing the VHS releases in stores. Especially not The Two Towers and The Return of the King. So I have more of a connection to the DVD releases than I do their VHS counterparts.

The Master of Disguise is another movie I debated whether to include it on this list or not. Mainly because while the commercials were on all the time when the movie came out in the summer of 2002, I only ever saw the movie on TV and never owned it on any home video format until I got it on DVD a year or two ago. But, I decided to put it on here anyway, just because I do own it on DVD and have never seen it on VHS.

Finally, we get to the last movie on this list, The Mummy Returns from 2001. I honestly don't remember renting this movie on any format, but I got it on DVD as a gift, either for my birthday or Christmas after I got my portable DVD player, and it's been in my collection ever since. I haven't watched it in years, but I plan on doing so soon as I have The Mummy on VHS and I haven't watched either of them in a long time.

I think that's gonna be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week, though, once again, there's only gonna be one post next week. I got a friend coming over for lunch on Monday, and Wednesday is the perfect day to put out my post on the movies I'd like to have on VHS, since I'll be on The VHS Club podcast the following night to talk about the history of VHS and VCRs with Katie and Nat. So until then have a wonderful weekend, particularly if you're going to Ottawa Comiccon like I'm doing, and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.