Yeah, about that poster...
In the Aftermath: Angels Never Sleep is a 1988 science fiction movie. It is notable for being an Importation Expansion of Mamoru Oshii's film Angel's Egg, adding 45 minutes of live action footage to about half an hour of the anime. In addition, it also re-edits the story to be a little bit more linear.
After the apocalypse, an angel is entrusted by her brother to find a worthy creature to bestow a magic egg. The live action footage concerns a survivor, Frank, who the angel has sworn to protect.
After a long period of being unavailable on home video, it is currently available on Blu-ray.
Released by New World Pictures (originally founded by Roger Corman).
Aside from some Angel's Egg tropes, the movie also provides examples of:
- Abandoned Hospital: Frank ends up here with Sarah for a large portion of the film.
- Abandoned Hospital Awakening: How Frank arrives at the hospital.
- Abandoned Warehouse: Frank and Goose explore several of these at the beginning of the film.
- Adam and Eve Plot: Implied with Frank and Sarah at the end of the movie.
- After the End: Well, yeah.
- Afterlife Express: Johnathan makes his first appearance riding a surreal lobster-looking train.
- Apocalypse How: Type 2.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Angel's narration hints at this around the end of the film. Only a statue of her is left behind.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The reason The Angel gives the egg to Frank is because he chose to look for her in the wasteland and offers her his oxygen tank.
- Book Ends: Both the beginning and the ending of the live action portions have a survivor close to Frank (Goose and Sarah) discover and pick up a feather from the animated portion.
- Born-Again Immortality: The embryo at the end of the movie is subtly hinted at being The Angel.
- Catapult Nightmare: The Angel's screaming after her egg has been smashed is this to Frank.
- Creepy Changing Painting: After the egg is smashed by Johnathan, Frank's doodle of The Angel's face turns to one of her cradling the egg's remains.
- Dead to Begin With: The Angel and Johnathan because...well, they're angels.
- Developing Doomed Characters: Goose, Frank's partner.
- Deranged Animation: A lot of the the animated portions seem to apply.
- Dub Text: The Noah's Ark conversation in the original is changed to be the tale of Tessaria, an angel that was betrayed. This conversation mostly serves as a set up for The Angel showing Frank to her brother as well as the shadow fish scene.
- Egg MacGuffin: Possibly the most powerful example of this. The egg that The Angel gives Frank saves humanity by cleaning the toxic atmosphere of Earth.
- Ethereal Choir: Heard when The Angel first appears on Earth.
- Filming for Easy Dub: The radiation suits help for this.
- Foreshadowing: The shadow of the crazed soldier throwing the spear at Frank calls forward to the shadow fish scene, namely how the fishermen throw their spears.
- Frankenslation: It takes half the Angel's Egg and combines it with about 45 minutes of original, live-action footage.
- Gainax Ending: The ending of the animated half of the film. After she completes her mission, The Angel is told to "take flight". She then dives off a cliff into a pool of water and turns into an older version of herself, then into a bunch of eggs. The eggs float to the top of the pool and then they explode. The live action portions have a more traditional ending. The final shot of the film is that of a strange embryo, possibly The Angel herself, in an egg waking up.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Angel, let free of her duties, seemingly kills herself to bring the Earth back to life.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Frank and Goose.
- Hospital Hottie: Dr. Sarah, the only female survivor seen in the film.
- Importation Expansion: The entire reason the movie exists.
- Let Me Tell You a Story: Johnathan tells The Angel about Tessaria, an angel that was betrayed by a friend which led to a ruined planet. The story serves as a warning to The Angel of what might happen if she's wrong about humanity. She still doesn't understand, so Johnathan shows her ghost hunters chasing shadow fish to emphasise his point.
- Leave the Camera Running: The live action portions do this, mostly to set the mood.
- Lonely Piano Piece: The Carnvalito Tango certainly fits.
- MacGuffin: The egg in the original movie becomes this in both portions of the story.
- MacGuffin Girl: The Angel is this in the live action portions.
- Minimalist Cast: The live action portion only has 5 speaking roles and 4 extras.
- No Name Given: The Angel is never referred to by name.
- Our Angels Are Different: The Angel and Johnathan, her brother.
- One-Book Author: For most of the actors, including Rainbow Dolan (the live action version of The Angel) and Filiz Tully (Dr. Sarah), this was their only film.
- Only One Afterlife: There doesn't seem to be a heaven or hell but more of a surreal neutral world.
- Posthumous Narration: The Angel's narration throughout the movie is revealed to be this at the end.
- Red Sky, Take Warning: Averted. The sky turns blood red when the egg releases rays of light to purify the atmosphere.
- Related in the Adaptation: The Angel and Johnathan are siblings; the nameless girl and man in Angel's Egg were not.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: Briefly done both times when The Angel appears to Frank.
- Secret Test of Character: Johnathan breaks the egg for The Angel's negligence, only to give it back after she realises her mistake. The Angel also gives the egg to Frank after she sees him risking his life to find her in the wasteland.
- Simultaneous Arcs: The Angel's and Frank's plotlines occur at the same time. It's implied throughout the film that their actions are actually connected to each other.
- Spirit World: The animated portions seem to take place here.
- Taken for Granite: After sacrificing herself, a statue of The Angel joins a set of similar statues.
- Tap on the Head: How the crazed soldier tries to kill Frank.
- Wandering the Earth: Frank and Goose at the beginning. Implied to be Johnathan's fate at the end in the angel dimension.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Goose talks at length about Frank's girlfriend early in the film. She is never brought up again and Sarah seems to take her place.
- You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: The Angel's response to Frank when he asks questions about her.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Frank says this to Sarah when telling her about The Angel's apparation.
