Let's talk about the Cowboy Bebop live action some more
- Thread starter Ezekiel
- Start date
I can't tell if he's trying not to lose his shit or burst out laughing. Maybe both? Either way I can't blame him.
Listening to them I feel like I made a very good decision not to continue after episode 2 and I feel like I can just rematch the real episodes and slip into my happy place.
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Boy, am I glad I waited before I responded to this. My first draft was basically along the lines of "don't let my poorly worded ramble dissuade you, I still like the Bebop crew enough to see more even with my long complaint, yada yada". Well, having now seen ~9 episodes of this (I skipped the ninth episode and am little over half way through the last), I can now comfortably say "this show is terrible, watch at own peril". So, in spirit of this show's 'back to front' approach to the source material, I'm going to start out by spoiling the end of the season by just listing off where our characters are left narratively: Faye, having found that VHS tape from her past, has left the Bebop to search for more leads about who she is out on her own; Jet, having barely rescued his daughter from Vicious, has sworn he would kill Spike if he ever sees him again; Spike, now on his own after having been shot by Julia, is called upon by Ed to the plot of the movie; Vicious, after successfully pulling off his coup against the Elders and wresting control of the Syndicate, has after 10 minutes of rule been usurped and imprisoned; Julia, now angry that the man with whom she spent about one night together for not having come rescue her from her abusive husband Vicious, has pulled a Lady Macbeth and taken over the Syndicate, shooting both Vicious and Spike; and Ein, having been abandoned by the Bebop crew on a random pier on some random planet has now, somehow, been picked up by Ed. Yeah.
Ok, so I told myself I wouldn't harp on the production side of things again...
God, it is so awful. I actually like the overall 'look' of the show, minus the overuse of dark contrasting with neon and the weirdly sterile look of the camera, not to mention the terrible CGI. But the actual consistency of the world is fucked. The show has a character fire a dozen shots out of a six shot revolver: this is the level of wrong we are dealing with here. Episode eight features Mad Pierrot, which explains away his wacky anime powers with anti-gravity boots (which will later be used to launch him into space) and a personal force-field. The company that made him, Cherious Chemicals (same as from the movie, here also having created Ein by putting Pierrot's brain into him. Yes, it is indeed as dumb as it sounds), having made this amazing tech on fucking computers with built in 8-inch monitors and motherfucking floppy disk drives. This show feels like they designed it around mid-80's Texas, not a goddamn fantasy space adventure. They, somehow, have no money at all for any sort of space action (there is not a single action set-piece in all 10-hours of this nonsense set in space. The closest we come is the first episode with the death of Katrina and Asimov), or even any of our characters ships. The Swordfish II gets about three minute of screen time, maybe, the Hammerhead is now a shitty trike, and the Red Tail (I finally figured out the name of Faye's ship), which is in the title sequence mind you, doesn't show up until the very end of the seventh episode and has about a minute of screen time. Meanwhile, every single vehicle in this futuristic space romp is a classic vehicle, all built before 1980. This leaves the world of the show in this weird state where you can't walk five feet without seeing a 100 year old car in pristine condition, but you can (apparently) go years without seeing a real dog.
To sum up what I've read here in a few words, "Every time they zigged they should have zagged and every time they zagged they should have zigged."
Almost everything they were faithful to should have been different because of the live action and every time they did something different they ruined core plot or character traits. Seem right?
Almost everything they were faithful to should have been different because of the live action and every time they did something different they ruined core plot or character traits. Seem right?
So, I've not watched this, eh, show, but I have just seen the Ed scene and eh ...
Oooof, bullet dodged
Imma watch some JoJo now. I need something ridiculously dramatic to cleanse my eyeballs.
Oooof, bullet dodged
Imma watch some JoJo now. I need something ridiculously dramatic to cleanse my eyeballs.
I'm only about a quarter of the way into it, and I'm without question coming at this from a different perspective... but I'm enjoying it a lot. The reason my opinion isn't particularly useful to most people about Bebop is twofold. A: I don't like faithful adaptations... I find them boring. And B: Cowboy Bebop (the Anime) stood out as a much-loved classic for me mainly because the music was so awesome and it was scored so well. So an adaptation with many changes and music that is on-point... it's kind of like it was they asked ME to remake it in live action. At least so far.
I'm glad you're enjoying it. I wish I could feel the same way because I tried hard to give it a chance and I just couldn't enjoy it the way I hoped I would.
I think adaptations that don't strictly adhere to the source material can be great. I just wasn't entertained by this. Granted I only got through two episodes before giving up on it there were flaws that just stuck out like a sore thumb. I notice so much of it now with primetime movies and television. So much of it is about accomplishing a thing and not - does this make sense? Does this work? Will viewers appreciate what is happening.
Spike is an utter turd and he talks too much. In this sort of context this character is meant to be distracted, disinterested, but with some compelling underlying reason. Thats good detective, bounty hunter noir at its best. This action feels cheap and poorly storyboarded. That was kind of a high point of the original with this chaotic jazz tempo music leading the fights and action sequences bleating out highs and lows. Instead its more like they put in a bare minimum of effort because of budget and Chos limited acrobatic capability. It feels like they just sort of felt out the scenes when in reality they should have been spending a lot of the budget making these scenes memorable. Truthfully this is one of those rare circumstances where I wonder if they might have been better served to seek out a new comer with more skills in the martial arts department. I mean how much does spike really talk in the show? I know we're doing the diversity thing, but I can think of several french, spanish and german mma guys who not have the skills to replicate Spikes jeet kun do, but also look just like him.
Similar to Force Awakens, what ultimately ruined this for me was vicious. Its the same problem as Kylo Ren. You can't expect me to be engaged by such a sniveling twit of an antagonist. He's just awful and Julia is completely wasted as his whiny codependent girlfriend. Why should I care about any of this? I have trouble believing Spike would pine for this twat.
The only redeeming quality of the show is Jet. He's fine, I kind of wish they gave his character more time outside of the group narrative. He ends up coming off as only being there to complain about the state of things when in the original he's much more thoughtful. Theres a sense that he's got his own life going outside of the primary narrative. After the first episode it immediately made me I really wish they'd done a new show that picks up after the original instead of this. I like the idea of a mini-series following Jet after the original show to close out his story. They could easily tell it in such a way that doesn't require people to have seen the original. A kind of Clint Eastwood late life cowboy story.
After two episodes it just occurred to me that I simply did not need or want to see more because I already know what happens, itll just be slightly worse and I already the original on Bluray. Id rather just watch that.
Spike is an utter turd and he talks too much. In this sort of context this character is meant to be distracted, disinterested, but with some compelling underlying reason. Thats good detective, bounty hunter noir at its best. This action feels cheap and poorly storyboarded. That was kind of a high point of the original with this chaotic jazz tempo music leading the fights and action sequences bleating out highs and lows. Instead its more like they put in a bare minimum of effort because of budget and Chos limited acrobatic capability. It feels like they just sort of felt out the scenes when in reality they should have been spending a lot of the budget making these scenes memorable. Truthfully this is one of those rare circumstances where I wonder if they might have been better served to seek out a new comer with more skills in the martial arts department. I mean how much does spike really talk in the show? I know we're doing the diversity thing, but I can think of several french, spanish and german mma guys who not have the skills to replicate Spikes jeet kun do, but also look just like him.
Similar to Force Awakens, what ultimately ruined this for me was vicious. Its the same problem as Kylo Ren. You can't expect me to be engaged by such a sniveling twit of an antagonist. He's just awful and Julia is completely wasted as his whiny codependent girlfriend. Why should I care about any of this? I have trouble believing Spike would pine for this twat.
The only redeeming quality of the show is Jet. He's fine, I kind of wish they gave his character more time outside of the group narrative. He ends up coming off as only being there to complain about the state of things when in the original he's much more thoughtful. Theres a sense that he's got his own life going outside of the primary narrative. After the first episode it immediately made me I really wish they'd done a new show that picks up after the original instead of this. I like the idea of a mini-series following Jet after the original show to close out his story. They could easily tell it in such a way that doesn't require people to have seen the original. A kind of Clint Eastwood late life cowboy story.
After two episodes it just occurred to me that I simply did not need or want to see more because I already know what happens, itll just be slightly worse and I already the original on Bluray. Id rather just watch that.
I still have my Cowboy Bebop Anime Legends box set from 2007.
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Oh Nos.....I guess we won't get to see an entire season of Ed being maximum Cringe.
Anyway.
Oh Nos.....I guess we won't get to see an entire season of Ed being maximum Cringe.
Anyway.
Oh Nos.....I guess we won't get to see an entire season of Ed being maximum Cringe.
Anyway.
This is why I'm against "inspirational" sayings like "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take". This shot shouldn't have been taken.
Oh Nos.....I guess we won't get to see an entire season of Ed being maximum Cringe.
Anyway.
Reviews of Cowboy Bebop generally criticized the show’s weak pacing and cheap-looking costumes and sets, while it also failed to capture the essence of what made the 1996 anime one of the best examples of the genre.
Oh Nos.....I guess we won't get to see an entire season of Ed being maximum Cringe.
Anyway.
Ah well
Nick Calendra might want to have words with you about some of that. Or he might not.
I'm sure he'll drop in if he does.
Was anybody expecting more than a single season? I wasn't. That's kind of Netflix's "thing." Their algorithm shows announcing new series increases subscribers, but furthering established series with new seasons doesn't. Subscriber numbers only significantly decrease with price hikes. So they announce netflix produced new series all the time, but really don't have any incentive to prolong them past a single season (excepting massive successes like Stranger Things.) I never expected live action Cowboy Bebop to be a success on that scale... so I wasn't expecting any more. Maybe that's why I was pleasantly surprised by the series, I really wasn't expecting much. I mean, has a live action anime adaptation ever amounted to much?
Come to think of it, this might be the best live action anime adaptation... at least that I've seen. Not really a high bar to clear there.
Come to think of it, this might be the best live action anime adaptation... at least that I've seen. Not really a high bar to clear there.
Yes.
- Battle Angel: Alita
- Death Note (The two Japanese Live Action movies) - Those ended up being better than the manga and anime.
- Guyver: Dark Hero
- Speed Racer - I thought it was just okay.
- Edge of Tomorrow - Another fine one, but it's more so based off the light novel, All You Need Is Kill. Which is a way better title.
- Jojo: Diamond is Unbreakable
Highly and questionably debatable. It's better than Dragonball Evolution, but there are plenty live action adaptions better than that and Bebop.
That's because Alita and Jojo already set a higher bar. I honestly detest the "low bar to clear" statement, because whenever someone uses those words, it's almost (or is) as if they downplaying, or ignoring what the adaption or property set out to achieve, or did achieve to move the medium forward.
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With a bigger budget and some better writers it might have been salvaged if it had gone on longer, but I don't think any great potential was lost there.
Oh Nos.....I guess we won't get to see an entire season of Ed being maximum Cringe.
Anyway.
We'll just disagree then, I thought all of those except Edge of Tomorrow and Jojo were garbage compared to the source material. I never read All You Need is Kill, so I can't make the comparison there; and I never got into Jojo at all so I didn't see the live action version. And as far as "low bar to clear"... the only thing adaptions set out to achieve is making money. And I don't care how much money a studio makes, so what it achieves doesn't enter into my calculation of how good it is. My own enjoyment of it is frankly all I care about, not what a studio achieves or what anyone else thinks.
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The same applies for me. I wasn't talking about the money. My point was intent and my own personal enjoyment. And guess what? I don't consider Alita garbage. Nor the live action Japanese versions of death note. The Netflix version of the other hand....
Everything I listed I personally enjoyed. That's all that matters to me.