[adamsea]

Regardless of "origin story", I'd argue for the (non-CGI'd) original film to be viewed first. The reason is that it contains all the essential themes, visual motifs, and characters. To me it still feels like the "core" of the films/shows.

[gknoy]

Perhaps.... but I am skeptical. The original will always have a special place in my heart, but it feels like there's too much gratuitous nudity and violence that almost masks the deeper interesting sci-fi part. Bateau and the Major seem really well developed, but the other characters feel two dimensional (e.g. Togusa and the Old Man). The later movies never really spoke to me, but I'll have to re-watch them.

SAC really seemed to nail the character portrayals, IMO, and felt more accessible. Arise adds the backstory of how they got together that I really had always wanted to see.

Maybe a season of SAC, then the movie(s), then Arise? I don't know, I'm sure the order is not critical. It's not like Star Wars or Star Trek movies in that regard. :)

[tjl]

One thing I really liked in Arise is that they showed how Togusa joined the Major's team (and how they joined Section 9). We got some good back story on Togusa in Ghost Tears.

Unfortunately, Alternative Architecture (and the Arise OVAs) are all behind Funimation's subscriber paywall. I've seen the first three Arise OVAs on Netflix (although OVAs 1 and 2 come down today). The fourth OVA hasn't come to Netflix (at least here in Canada).