Let's talk about the Cowboy Bebop live action some more

[Mister Mumbler]

Ok, finished the first episode and yeah...this just kind of sucks. The production design just feels lazy, like the whole lived in world of Cowboy Bebop and it's various locales and general designs of the ships and vehicles was a huge draw for me, and it feels weird seeing a supposedly futuristic setting filled with bog standard old cars like that late 70's Camaro that gets blown up or that old Impala. I want to see cars like this;

We live in the age of 3D printing, is it really that hard to make fake body panels for a car? The closest car that I've seen to fitting in is a quick shot of what looks like a Citereon DS in the opening to the second episode which, while looking more the part, is still just a plain old car. Also, why is space Mexico sepia toned? Touching back to that 'lived in world' aspect, TJ in the show was in a glass dome, which gave one of my favorite visuals of the entire show with the reflection of the contents of the dome across the 'sky'.

What's more, is that the direction and writing is just the worst. There is absolutely no mystique or intrigue here, they just lay their cards flat on the table and shine a big light on them. Here is the introduction to Jet's character:
"Hi cop I used to work with, I still dislike you."
"That's okay, cause I still dislike you too Jet. Anyway, here's a tip for you, compliments of your ex-wife."
"Thank you. I need the money to buy my eight year old daughter a birthday present." (What the fuck even Netflix, why give Jet a daughter?)
That is paraphrased a bit (not by much), but goodness it is not great and Spike gets the same treatment in regards to his backstory (and god is the name 'Fearless' just dumb, and I can't remember if this is from the anime or not). Katrina gets her whole character moment just swept out from underneath her when Faye just shows up and shoots Asimov right before the end. Then we get to the end of the first episode and here is Vicious and Julia just hanging out in a weird fish factory. It feels wrong, especially in an adaptation of an anime known for being a bit of a slow burn in regards to it's overarching narrative.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Spoiler

That was painful. I feel bad for the actress. Gonna be more hated than Jake Lloyd by the fans.

What.

What.

WHAT.

 

[09philj]

I want to see cars like this;

Spoiler

View attachment 4948

Something something UFO CAR! UFO CAR!

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

The most notable thing about Bepop (2021) is that it's the first mediocre American anime adaptation that feels like a mediocre Japanese anime adaptation. Same clumsy attempts at "cartoony" acting, same hokey costumes, same cheap looking set design that betrays a budget that's just not nearly enough to match the visuals of the animated version. So the whole thing mostly just feels like a bunch of cosplayers hamming it up in front of greenscreens and whatever locations are available to them. The sort of thing that's not a good enough adaptation to appeal to people who liked the original and not a good enough standalone series to appeal to those who haven't seen it.

 

[BrawlMan]

What.

What.

WHAT.

​

 

[Samtemdo8]

Why couldn't they just adapt anime/manga that is far more feasible to work in live action?

Like Lone Wolf and Cub? And Legends of the Galactic Heroes?

Cowboy Bebop mabye be more grounded and less cartoony then something like One Piece, but still "cartoony" enough that it feels weird to be in live action. Especially with these character designs.

Cowboy Bebop is like a far more serious Lupin the Third.

 

[BrawlMan]

Like Lone Wolf and Cub?

That already got an adaption several times in live action. Another one would just be needless shelf space.

 

[Piscian]

I was reading an interview with the person playing Ed and they were talking about the wig and how they can't touch it because its molded and it occured to me..."wtf is it molded?". It's the same issue with Spike in that his hair is just meant to be bushie and unkempt, thats it. I think thats whats really lost in all this, I just don't feel like anyone in the production gives two shits about made Cowboy Bebop popular above any other anime. Writing Writing Writing. If you're not going to write a good story then dont even bother trying to replicate Jets "look". Fuck I hope the world "Iconic" Dies with my generation. I'm so fucking sick of hearing about the "Iconic" shows and movies from my youth.

 

[BrawlMan]

Fuck I hope the world "Iconic" Dies with my generation. I'm so fucking sick of hearing about the "Iconic" shows and movies from my youth.

Even Ubisoft got tired of using the word iconic by 2019. But before that point....

​

 

[Dalisclock]

I watched the first episode a few hours ago and I have mixed feelings. So I kinda like that they're remixing it and changing shit around, because a shot for shot remake would be a bad idea. And I say that because the stuff that does feel close to the original feels like a cheap knockoff like 75% of the time. Notably, in the opening scene is essentially the Opening scene of the movie with the convenience store heist and it just reminded me how much better that version was in comparison, if for no other reason then that it was much pithier and didn't feel silly. Seriously, the movie opener is less then 5 minutes long but it works very well in establishing characters, being punchy and giving you a feel for the show. The casino hiest opener in the Netflix version is at least twice that long and really does a poor job of establishing much of anything other then "Don't kill these dudes or we don't get paid"(of course, they kill almost all of them).


And honestly a lot of the action scenes feel silly here, because in the anime they can kinda handwave why everyone isn't getting shot in 15 seconds but in this version half the time everyone is banging away at each other with nobody behind cover at almost point blank range and it feels wrong. I'm not saying you can't pull that shit off in LA because movies have but this....this did not effectively sell the fantasy of being able to survive through wits, skill and audacity that the show often did.

With that off my chest, I like the new faye a lot, and the other two are generally well played. Though spike routinely have PTSD flashbacks to julia was starting to get old by the end of the episode. Like if this happens every time a pretty girl is in danger I don't know how he's still functional or even alive at this point and the original show was far better at, you know, keeping those flashbacks brief enough to be interesting and not tiresome.

So I'm gonna keep going as long as i can stand to but my hopes aren't high right now. They weren't high when I started but from what I've seen I don't expect any miracle of "It gets better".

 

[Samtemdo8]

That already got an adaption several times in live action. Another one would just be needless shelf space.

From what I heard none of them are that faithful to the original Manga.

 

[BrawlMan]

From what I heard none of them are that faithful to the original Manga.

I really didn't see that as a big deal. Being faithful doesn't automatically make it better. They can try to make it a more accurate adaption, but it will be almost pointless. I rather the Japanese just do it themselves, than Netflix.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

Ok, so I was going to finish the third episode up before I started my next post, and then all of a sudden, Vicious, our cold blooded murderer of an antagonist, said Moshi Moshi. Now, not just said it: picture a little girl saying it in a twee manner.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I just watched the clip of the "Black male" joke. Christ. Give these writers an award, television as an art form has reached its zenith.

 

[BrawlMan]

​

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

​

Something about Pat's face just seemed like it needed to be closer to Woolie, lol

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

​

Yeah, my reaction pretty much mirrored Woolie's.

 

[Dalisclock]

Finished episode 2 and I'm quickly losing my patience. I'm trying very hard not to just throw up my hands and give up but it feels like this show is actively working against me at every turn. I kinda like some of the interaction between Spike, Jet and faye but at this point that's the only stuff I'm enjoying at all. Everything else just feels off or worse and I can't even. Especially the shit with Vicious and Julia. I know Vicious in the anime wasn't exactly a deep complex character but he was menacing. This guy just looks like a poor Sephiroth Cosplayer or something.

I'm torn between giving this show 1 more episode to show some potential and just giving up now and going on to watch something better(or potentially better). It really doesn't help that I can see where they're drawing from for these episodes and yet all I keep thinking of how much better the original source material was. Like the whole Teddy Bomber episode was far more entertaining than.....whatever the hell this was.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

So, I'm about halfway through the fifth episode and I feel safe in saying that this show is bad. And I'm both disappointed, and also am mildly curious. Woolie's face in that thumbnail might as well be used as promotional material, as I can't sum it up better than that. For a quick TL;DR: cast great (at least, the Bebop crew), music great, show overall is bad.

So, first on my hit list is the production/look of everything. I know I've harped on this before but god, it's just terrible. They took one of the most grounded and realistic sci-fi settings and pretty much turned it into Star Wars. Remember how Hakim had to get an actual surgery to change his face? Now he just has a magic tech-gizmo that can change his face in real time, but it is tied to a server (for some reason). Bullet wounds? Magic goo that heals it instantly. Remember those fungal spores they were using for terraforming that one planet that sometimes caused blindness in some people? Now it instantly (and violently) turns you into a tree. Thinking about it more, I'm pretty sure there wasn't any energy/particle shields to protect the various settlements in the anime, but every single one is here though. We have standing full 3D holo messaging straight out of Star Wars, but with color and high fidelity. This all serves to make it even more absurd when the streets of these futuristic space cities are lined with shitty, old, American cars. Not even with future tech inside of them either, as we see in episode five, just an old analog radio with a small adapter stuck to it. I've seen more goddamn Chevy C10s than I have spaceships.

Speaking of spaceships, why the hell does only Spike have his ship? Five episodes in, and Jet has been stuck riding around on some piece of shit trike, meanwhile the only ship we've seen Faye in (what little we've seen her thus far) is some random other ship even though her ship is right there in the opening sequence. But on the flipside, all of the more believable tech like the communicators and the computers look terrible and lazy. The communicators are half-bricks, meanwhile every time we see a computer screen, it literally only displays what is needed for the scene ("Tracker Deactivated", "Analysis Complete", you know what I'm talking about) in the most generic font they could. Also, the CGI is just not great to look at for long periods of time, which really miffs me because The Mandalorian has been out for a couple of years now and it's special effects look good, with the ships especially being great. You think with Netflix levels of money you could just build a full-scale Swordfish II (or Hammerhead, or...whatever Faye's ship is called) for filming with the actors.

Now on to the other item, the writing of the show. I could just say that one blackmail "joke" they had that @Bob_McMillan mentioned above, but that would under sell just how awful this script is. This show feels like it's been written by someone who has never seen the show, but had the project dropped on their desk and 30 mins to research it. I saw the talk of remixing vs straight adaptation, and I agree (and would have loved actually) to see something new and interesting done with the property. This is not that. Their idea of "remix" involves taking plot points/characters from the original and just flip them 180. This is how we end up with our two more poetic villains (convenience store robber, teddy bear bomber) become violent psycho killers while the guy out only for money gets a more noble background. The teddy bear bomber one is really egregious too, because not only do they turn him into some nut job with no motive (and missing the point the point of his character entirely), they turn him into Buffalo fucking Bill. This is not an exaggeration either, what I thought was a simple coincidence with a partial bear suit visible in the background (complete with diamond stencils), we get a full on take of the basket with lotion in it. I wish I was kidding.

Entire character motivations and the actual investigative work they do to find the bounties have been airblasted away to make room for by far an away the worst thing they could have done, which is this awful Vicious/Julia subplot. Every scene needs to come to a screeching halt so we can cut away to see what these two are doing, and it ruins the whole flow of the show. These episodes are twice as long as the anime episodes, yet somehow can't fit any time in for any of our villains because we keep needing to have exposition about our characters to completely remove any mystique from them. It makes it feel like it's racing through this plot that I assume is getting multiple seasons. First episode basically pulls back the curtain on Spike's backstory, the first time we see Faye after the first episode and we find her already hunting down the cryo-sleep people. The episode I stopped on (number five) is a retelling of the episode with his old partner on the prison ship for Pete's sake, which here since Jet has no ship and this show somehow has no budget, is now just in some city somewhere since the ship in question crashed. This leads me to my next point: every change they make is somehow worse in every way over the original. Jet's ex-wife is now just a bog standard ex-wife, complete with suburban home and shitty 80's GM station wagon. The best part? Imagine my surprise when I find that the cop I slagged off in my earlier post is actually married to his ex, with the added bonus that Jet thinks he's the dirty cop that set him up. The eco-terrorists are now basic eco-terrorists instead of being hyper-focused on that space sea rat, but they still wear the outfits here for some reason, and they only manage to unsuccessfully threaten a construction company instead of an entire planet/moon.

The worst part is that I actually quite like the main Bebop crew. They all fit their parts pretty well in regards to the original, and play well off of each other, and I know I'm going to get weird looks for this, even Ed. I feel the person playing Ed was always going to have the hardest time, because while everyone else gets to play characters along the spectrum of "being cool", Ed is so out there and different to the point of being almost drawn in a different style to the rest of the show. The problem is that the writing just cannot support them. I like a Spike/Jet dynamic where they are more jovial with each other, what I don't like is when these two start laughing about how funny of a face some guy made before they shot him in it (they seem to make light of violence a lot and it feels weird). Spike feels less like a suave cool guy and more like a lunatic when he finishes off bad guys by shooting them half of a dozen times execution style. Faye feels less like a cunning temptress and more like a female Deadpool with how crass and vulgar she is, though I do admit I can see where they are going with this, just that they forgot the whole "temptress" bit of her character save for five seconds of flashback.

Anyway, sorry for this wall of text. It had been building up for a few days but I just kept coming back to see more of the wreck unfold. There are some points I missed, like how awful Vicious is here or those dumb masks the syndicate elders wear, but this essay has gone on long enough. Time to go watch the movie again.

 

[Dalisclock]

Anyway, sorry for this wall of text. It had been building up for a few days but I just kept coming back to see more of the wreck unfold. There are some points I missed, like how awful Vicious is here or those dumb masks the syndicate elders wear, but this essay has gone on long enough. Time to go watch the movie again.

No, I appreciate this. I've been feeling much the same way and was trying to decide if I should even bother giving the show another episode to get better before dropping it. After reading this, I've decided to just save the time and quit right now. I can watch the anime and the movie again if I'm really in the mood for more bebop.