Cowboy Bebop (Netflix)

[NowhereMan]

Haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else but Netflix has made a Cowboy Bebop live action series. Aesthetically it feels similar to Altered Carbon with a big hit of kitsch. They have also rewritten quite a few of the stories, I suspect to make the characters more meaningful (so less 'the gang have made contact with a random person with a separate story' and now 'they've made contact with a seemingly random person but actually they're working for the Syndicate as part of a grand plot'). It's got some fun moments but I'm not really a fan of some of the changes they made (Viscous is now a psychotic manchild who very much comes across as responding to his own lack of confidence or competence with angry violence). The music is good but doesn't really get the same opportunity to dominate scenes.

Overall I'd say they took an anime that, at its best, transcended being space action to being art adjacent, and instead ran it through Netflix's sci-fi series algorithm to add more slapstick humour, adding new plots for the purposes of giving agency to some characters or adding an understandable emotional drive (Jet now has an ex-wife and kid he spends all his time trying to be a dad for). The only character they didn't have was Ed and seeing the final bit - I think that was a good idea. It was fun enough to watch but I'm left hoping it's not going to get renewed. If I was still an anime turbonerd I'd probably be outraged but if you pretend it has nothing to do with the anime it's mostly entertaining and ultimately a bit disappointing.

[satael]

I thought that Cowboy Bebop was mostly ok (thanks to copying iconic scenes from the anime) with pretty good choices for actors for the first 7 episodes though it didn't offer anything better than the anime. But then the last 3 episodes hit and
 and it just went down from there to the horrible

[NowhereMan]

I've got mixed feelings about some of the changes because they were clearly done in an effort to provide more motivation/purpose/relatability to characters e.g. Jet wanting to reconnect with his kid but how they did it just feels formulaic. The one I'm really ambivalent about is  I think what I don't like about it is it feels like a change aimed at giving them space to make a whole load more series if this does sell rather than giving the impression the showrunners had a story or adaptation idea. I guess partly I enjoyed the original because it had a story, it told it and it was over, I think I'm getting a bit tired of shows that seem to want to make an impact and then keep spinning their wheels until they get cancelled.

[Surlyboi]

How has no one posted about this?

Is it the anime? No.

John Cho positively nails Spike’s mannerisms though.

The story is reworked. Some of it is true to the original and even shot for shot. Other parts make sense for live action.

Verdict, I liked it.

[Trippy]

The discussion started in the Useless TV thread which has now been merged here.

[Phildo]

I thought they nailed the look and feel of Jet as well as Spike, but still walked away feeling pretty disappointed.  There was just very little fun here in a show about space bounty hunters.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Started watching this last night.  Only through the first four episodes and I'm enjoying it, but to be fair, it's been a long time since I've watched the anime so I don't remember it exactly. I'm enjoying it but it also feels like the baddies/targets in each episode are taken down so quickly.  I know that's the same as the original show but still...

Don't care for Vicious too much, mostly because the actor just looks horrible to me.  Everyone else has been more or less fine.

[MediumHigh]

This is probably one of the cheesiest things I've watched in a while. Coincidently it did keep my attention for all 10 episodes, and didn't manage to instantly piss me off like most live action anime. Someone informed the actors to give their best Saturday morning cartoon expressions, as most save for Spike are loud and hammy in both the lines they deliver and the situations they find themselves in. A good chunk of anime fans hate this because of the tone shift between the anime and the live action, the anime is cool and subdued, the live action is loud and cheesy. Its an "ok" experience if your willing to rock with the loud, blaring, honk honk nature of the live action and the last 3 episodes summarizes the best of what the live action is trying to do.

It feels like I'm watching someone trying to make Cowboy Bepop Abridged in the same vein as say Dragonball Z Abridged or Hellsing Abridged.

[Trippy]

One (season) and done.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cowboy-bebop-canceled-netflix-1235060256/

[Surlyboi]

Yeah, fuck Netflix for that.

[satael]

I do feel sad about this since as much as I had problems with the first season all of them could have been easily addressed in the second season.
It would have been interesting to see what direction the show would have taken now that setting up the (main) characters was done.

[NowhereMan]

Netflix really takes the most frustrating approach to this shit. Taking a shotgun approach and producing series as single season things to see what might hit the right viewer metrics to get put in for more to be produced is absolutely a fine approach but if you want to run things that way, don't fucking write seasons that end with a big cliff-hanger/set up for future seasons. Do them as self-contained stories that can be built on if there's really an appetite, hell you don' need to resolve every character's arc or subplot that gets raised but don't set up a whole load of arcs as the final episode of something that's likely to get canned. Don't fucking bother introducing a new character 30 seconds before, apparently, ending the series entirely.

I don't know that I wanted another series of this but Netflix could do themselves a big favour by just directing showrunners that their first season needs to end with closure. It would make their strategy for greenlighting feel a whole lot more coherent and possibly even help with some series attracting followings later. To be clear, I'm not unhappy this isn't continuing, I just am tired of TV shows that end without any sense of closure and in Netflix's 1 season pilots that's entirely avoidable.

[Phildo]

It's weird that I didn't particularly enjoy this show because of how greatly it deviated from what I wanted and set up some pretty awful story arcs, but I'm still angry that it was canceled.  Going to have to do some self reflection.

[NowhereMan]

I mean, it was a lot more crappy made for TV movie than Cowboy Bebop was but the aesthetics were fun and they managed the characters' visual designs pretty well overall. I rank it with Altered Carbon as schlocky, fun Sci-Fi and if they hadn't radically dropped the quality and Ed hadn't been as horrendously annoying as she seemed in her intro I'd have happily watched another season of this if there was nothing better on.

[Phildo]

Also, as a person who owns a Corgi quite literally because of the cartoon, they did Ein dirty.

[Ashamanchill]

I've never read the source material, but this was a fun watch. Favourite character was Jet, by far. I thought this thing was more popular, or do I only know nerds?

[schild]

this show was a piece of shit

edit: ok fine that wasn't enough - not a single person in it was comfortable with their character or lines, everything deviated in the most strange ways from the cartoon when it really didn't need to considering the cartoon was about the characters, and the casting across the board was fried ass. It never should've been greenlit if this were the direction it was going but it's just further proof nothing is data driven and everyone is just guessing

[Rendakor]

Netflix really takes the most frustrating approach to this shit. Taking a shotgun approach and producing series as single season things to see what might hit the right viewer metrics to get put in for more to be produced is absolutely a fine approach but if you want to run things that way, don't fucking write seasons that end with a big cliff-hanger/set up for future seasons. Do them as self-contained stories that can be built on if there's really an appetite, hell you don' need to resolve every character's arc or subplot that gets raised but don't set up a whole load of arcs as the final episode of something that's likely to get canned. Don't fucking bother introducing a new character 30 seconds before, apparently, ending the series entirely.

I don't know that I wanted another series of this but Netflix could do themselves a big favour by just directing showrunners that their first season needs to end with closure. It would make their strategy for greenlighting feel a whole lot more coherent and possibly even help with some series attracting followings later. To be clear, I'm not unhappy this isn't continuing, I just am tired of TV shows that end without any sense of closure and in Netflix's 1 season pilots that's entirely avoidable.

I suspect showrunners do this deliberately, to try to get fans more excited for a second season which might, in turn, pressure Netflix to make one.

[MediumHigh]

Pretty much saw this coming. No amount of production values, casting, and talent can overcome literally going in the opposite direction of the source material where it counts. Cowboy Bepop is remembered for being cool and calm masterpiece when compared to the loud and abrasive battle shounen that dominated that era of anime. Most peoples chief complaint was the tone literally not doing the source material any justice. Its fine as its own thing but Netflix probably projected this to have an impact similar to Arcane and got something closer to CW show about a superhero no one heard of.

[Teleku]

Yeah, this whole thing was such a weird swing and a miss.  The ascetics and design where top notch.  Like, I was legit blown away about how good of a job they translated the cartoon into real world.  I was ok with the characters at first, and thought they mostly did well channeling the characters with their own take on them (particularly Jet and Faye).  But then it just steadily fell off and really jacked up the other characters (Viscous/Julia), and started breaking from the anime in all the wrong ways.  I barely made it through the episode with Spike stuck in the AI machine and them flipping Faye to be gay (which apparently seems to be a trend in adaptations lately, heh) and just haven't bothered watching anymore since.

[Phildo]

Did anyone else catch the similarity to Daybreak with the heel turn at the end?  Another Netflix show canceled after 1 season with a very similar cliffhanger ending, though I don't think any of the same creative staff were involved in both projects.

[Hoax]

Daybreak was genuinely fun to watch at times tho
Nobody had fun watching this drek

[Ashamanchill]

Raises hand timidly. I did.

[Samwise]

Raises hand timidly. I did.

UNACCEPTABLE!   

I thought it was fine.  It was faithful to the best part of the anime, which was the theme song.

[Kail]

I don't know why we keep getting these.  I have never once in my entire life heard someone go "Yeah, I'd probably like Akira / Cowboy Bebop / Dragonball / whatever more if it was live action, you know?"  I do get in arguments with people who always want more sequels or remakes of their favorite shows or games, but even then they generally realize what a train wreck these live action versions almost always are.

I didn't think the Netflix version of Bebop was TERRIBLE, but it just felt... unneeded?  It didn't really gain much from being shackled to the original cartoon, and never really felt like it was able to do it's own thing until the last episode, which was smushed between an entire season of pandering to the original on one side and an unresolved cliffhanger on the other.

[satael]

I'd be interested in an Akira tv-show mostly due to how much more there is to the story than what the (awesome) movie could ever tell.


though I know it would in all likelihood be a horrible travesty.

[slog]

I don't know why we keep getting these.  I have never once in my entire life heard someone go "Yeah, I'd probably like Akira / Cowboy Bebop / Dragonball / whatever more if it was live action, you know?"  I do get in arguments with people who always want more sequels or remakes of their favorite shows or games, but even then they generally realize what a train wreck these live action versions almost always are.

I didn't think the Netflix version of Bebop was TERRIBLE, but it just felt... unneeded?  It didn't really gain much from being shackled to the original cartoon, and never really felt like it was able to do it's own thing until the last episode, which was smushed between an entire season of pandering to the original on one side and an unresolved cliffhanger on the other.

My uneducated guess is that it's easier to pitch these shows to clueless senior management for funding.  "It's like the Marvel universe, except Anime.  And the kids love Anime!"

[Cyrrex]

I would be more curious just to see what kind of numbers it did.  I had no relationship to this IP going into it, and I think it is relatively entertaining.  Visually it is quite good.  My biggest gripe is why they don't spend more time doing their actual bounty hunting job.

[Sir T]

When I saw Akira, i was very lucky to see it with someone who had read the comic it was based on. Because he was able to explain what the fuck was going on, becasue otherwise the rest of the room would not have had a clue.

[Samwise]

  I don't remember it being that complicated.  They deliver a shitton of exposition in the last quarter or so of the movie that kinda ties everything in a bow.

[Khaldun]

I don't think the last quarter is that complicated, it's just really weird and different and maybe not where folks thought the story was going if they came into it cold.

[satael]

I don't remember it being that complicated.  They deliver a shitton of exposition in the last quarter or so of the movie that kinda ties everything in a bow.

Akira manga is 2000 pages. 

[Teleku]

I remember when I first watched when I was young thinking it made no god damned sense.  But I haven't seen it in forever so I'm sure if I watch it now I'll pick up on stuff I missed the first time.

[Samwise]

I'm not even sure what part of it it would not make sense.  Psychic kids go boom.  It's the same plot as half of the X-Men movies.

[Sir T]

Uh... whats the experiment they are doing? What happened to this "Akira" they talk about occasionally? Why does Tetsuo turn into a blob? What the fuck is this random gibberish and random images I'm watching?

Yes, I know the answers NOW, but it was a mess of images and stuff that made no goddam sense.