Forum - View topicREVIEW: Cowboy Bebop Live-Action
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writerpatrick
 Posts: 685 Location: Canada |
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If people held the Marvel live-action adaptations to the same standards they hold anime adaptations, Marvel movies and shows wouldn't be having the success they're having now.
You can't compare the live-action show too closely with the anime or manga. You have to take it for what it is. And when you compare it to the shows on TV today, it's not that bad. It's at least watchable. Most shows spend much of their time with people standing around talking about their feelings and wanting to talk things out, or someone constantly complaining how they were mistreated and how everything bad they've had to deal with is somebody else's fault. This show gets right to the action and shows that everybody has problems they have to take responsibility for. |
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lhernan02
Posts: 196 |
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Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I was speaking of the anime. It intentionally does not flesh them out for the better of the story. They are part of Spike, not part of the show. LA Bebop's attempt to make them into characters was the main reason I dropped the show. You would need top notch writers to turn ghosts into real characters and integrate them into the show and LA Bebop had nowhere near that talent available. In the anime Julia and Vicious are superlatives, the "great love" and the "great enemy" it would be a waste to flesh them out since they were serving their purpose (as I said, in the anime there was neither waste nor excess). In the live action they are (at least up to Ep 2) a victim and a caricature, painful to watch because they are both one-note simple and unnecessary. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13644 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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"Alita" is the extreme exception. As such, many people are not willing to give Hollywood the benefit of the doubt. "Alita" was also the final film for the Fox movie empire as we knew them. You know, before Team Mickey bought them out? |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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As someone who used to be a fan of comics I do resent that comment a bit since I feel the same about comic book adaptions being just as dumb and change just as many things as this show did. There's nothing wrong with having standards. All it really comes down is like its been said. Hollywood and other studios want to mine IPs to be the next comic book movie fad. Let's not pretend these people actually care about these properties or anime as a whole. These companies do not have our or our hobby's best interest at heart so I don't see why people feel the need to defend them and their actions so much like they have altruistic goals here. |
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Gina Szanboti
 Posts: 11706 |
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My basic reaction was, "Oh dear. Oh no."
I thought the Gren character was cool...until I realized it was supposed to be Gren.  I guess it's nice he came to terms with his PTSD and being experimented on and having his life cut short? Ok.
Not sure what to say about the characters named Vicious and Julia. They weren't the people we knew in the anime, so I guess it's fine? I mean Vicious was never afraid of the Van, and he'd have shot Julia in a heartbeat if he thought it would further his goals. If he didn't want to shoot her, he'd have just killed everyone else actually in the room and walked out with her. One simple change could've made live action Vicious a little more intimidating though, and that's if they'd swapped his white wig for a gray one. Gray is Vicious' color: broody, moody, threatening like storm clouds. Wispy white is "oops, too much bleach."
I only watched the first two episodes, and that's enough. I kept feeling like I could see Cho acting! and the banter was cringe. I hated the fish-eye lens they kept using even more than the dutch angles. Worst of all was constantly being wink-wink, nudge-nudged with little out-of-context references to the series, which I guess they thought true fans would love. They thought wrong. I was already wincing over "Watanabe Casino" in the opening scenes and it never got better or any more subtle. Maybe someone can tell me if they kept in Ed's list of inbound ships (if they even have that scene) that are all pool cue crafters. I'd be ok with that.
This is fine. Everything's fine. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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Sorry, Gina, but Ed only appeared at the *very* end of the season. More generally: I've seen the entire season now, and I thought it was... okay. Barely. I thought the guy who played Jet did an excellent job: as accurate as possible given the limitations of the show itself. If the whole show had been as accurate as Jet, we'd all be having a very different discussion right now. Spike was... okay. Which is better than I expected, to be honest. He isn't a great Spike, and the whole "Fearless" thing was pretty dumb. He was, however, way too humorless. Also, they didn't get the idea that it was *Spike* who felt that he was dreaming and couldn't wake up. I don't blame the actor for this though: it seems pretty clear that it was the director and the people in charge that decided to make him that way. Out of the three, Faye was easily the least like her anime self, though she did come closer to it later in the series, she was still pretty far off. I borderline didn't like her for a lot of the season, and I really liked the anime version of her. She is introduced with hand-to-hand skills almost as good as Spike's, which is absurd. They "went a different direction" with her. Also, I'm guessing that she's Bi and not just a lesbian, but it's hard to tell. The story... uh... sigh. There were times they seemed to get it. But those times were rare and quickly vanished away. They weren't necessarily *bad*, but they weren't anime Bebop, and when they aped scenes from the anime, it only made it even more obvious how inferior the various LA portrayals were, and also how they dumbed down or spelled out so many things that the anime had faith that the viewer would figure out. I won't go into the "woke" aspects beyond saying I felt they were there and that I found them very annoying. YMMV on that. I'm just talking about how it felt to me. Overall, it was... strange. I *really* didn't like what they did with Julia, or with Viscious. The anime touched on both from time to time, but in the LA version that was the focus of the whole thing. *Maybe* they should've gone with 12 half-hour episodes and dropped the excessive amount of Syndicate stuff. 4 out of 10 |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4179 |
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Yes, because being better is such an issue. I'd liken live action anime adaptations more to Fox's attempts at Fantastic Four movies or what Sony keeps producing to desperately keep the Spider-man IP; disingenuous cash ins that rely more on IP recognition than any sort of artistic merit. They don't care if it works on its own, they just want people to watch it. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11706 |
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I should have specified "next season" assuming there will be one since Ed came in so late.
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten (suppressed) that "Fearless" bullshit. >.< I mean wtf, where did that even come from? That was not fine. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14902 |
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Heck, Tiger King and Squid Game were very big hits for Netflix. How many anime fans do ya think watched Tiger King and Squid Game? Now think of the types of people that led to them being a hit. 
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Hal14
 Posts: 744 Location: Heart of africa |
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What a wierd and, frankly, condescending statement. Many anime fans wached those shows. There isn't any "type of people" for those shows. Squid game in particular has been compared favourably to manga like Alice in borderland and As the gods will, and is also popular with fans of kaiji. Honestly, the only other fandom i find as condescending as anime stans are some film fandoms who go on and on about 'real films' as opposed to blockbusters |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 5287 |
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I watched the first couple of episodes and there’s a lot of potential but also a lot of room to be better. The cast and the new Yoko Kanno score is the best part. John Cho is basically Spike brought to life and I enjoy the group dynamic and you could tell the cast was having a ball with their roles. The worst part was the script which often felt too cheesy and lacking in depth and some choices that are just very bizarre. I didn’t like the expansion on Vicious and Julia which Vicious never felt threatening to me like he did in the anime and he came across as too much of a 90s over the top comic book movie villain. I’ll probably finish the rest but the live action Bebop feels like it might have more appeal if you showed it to someone who’s never watched the anime before or casual fans who only saw a few episodes during Adult Swim reruns than hardcore anime fans. Which apparently it’s doing well in streaming numbers for Netflix so I fully expect we get a s2.
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CelestialEmpress
 Posts: 114 |
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I mean, Mustafa Shakir is basically the only element of this dumpster fire getting any kind of praise, so changing Jet's race to cast him definitely seemed to be the right call. They really should have skipped the weird horny granny making fetishy comments about his skin tone, but I feel like they probably would have just given her equally gross and uncomfortable dialogue no matter what race the actor was. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2630 |
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Although I had almost nothing but complaints about the character and plot changes, I did rather like the set design and costuming. I've read a number of reviews that felt the show captured the "look" of Bebop, and I largely agree with them. It's just a shame the writing (and maybe the acting a bit, too; hard to tell if Cho's stiff, charmless Spike was on him, or on poor direction) couldn't keep up with the look of the show.
That's fair, I think. He seemed more grumpy and irritable than world-weary most of the time. I feel like that's a much smaller mistake in tone/feeling than we got with Spike, and certainly than we got with Faye, though. |
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animedude1982
Posts: 16 |
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Ideally Cowboy Bebop should've been a 2 hour 30 min movie with a HUGE budget directed by an auteur (i.e. James Gunn, Quentin Tarantino) or an auteur who's a devout fan and with an original story/premise/script. Netflix bit off more than they could chew with this. Sci-Fi is hard to do. It's expensive too. Daredevil, Punisher & Luke Cage worked cause they happen in the real world and the creative team could FOCUS on developing the important parts. When re-creating the vast world that is Bebop - its gonna 'COST' money. the CGI is gonna be expensive, the sets, atmospheres and environments are gonna cost money too. At times the VFX in the netflix version are cutting edge and movie quality but when Spike & Jet walk around in what is supposed to be a natural setting it just feels like cheap movie sets sometimes. Sometimes the sets look AMAZING and COOL and other times they look really cheap!!! but thats what happens when you do a 'series' and you gotta 'save' money and focus on the here and there. The interior of the main ship looks accurate and it looks good but its just hit or miss with this.. The things that stand out to me are the final battle. The final battle at the church was REALLY good. the show did a great job with the action scenes. John Cho can kick ass. I was surprised. [Edit: removed political hectoring. Errinundra.] But what i'm sure NETFLIX didn't expect was to PISS OFF the fanbase who know the anime inside and out. When the rotten tomato scores came out I didn't pay much attention cause rotten tomato scores are not always accurate. Good lord this is one time where the critic reviews are right. Mustafa Shakir is an incredible actor. He nailed the character of Jet perfectly. He even captures the vocal tone of the the guy who voices Jet in the english dub. Cho was surprisingly good and credible as Spike too which I was worried about. The problem is their jokey 'action-buddy' banter is just hit or miss. Very often the jokes/punchlines in the show fall FLAT and don't hit and its just unfunny and humorless. I really think this is the main problem of the show beyond the cheap sets, the woke non-sense and story problems.. The two male 'leads' have weak chemistry when they're supposed to be the foundation of the show that holds it together. In the anime Spike & Jet argue a lot but their arguments are genuinely FUNNY and you get the sense that they're friends but they have different ways to approach a problem. In the Netflix series their relationship is antagonistic. You can't tell if they really respect each other or not. Spike comes off here as an asshole moreso and Jet is the frustrated complainer. And Faye...oh my... in the anime she was likeable or at times loveable. In the Netflix series. she's bitchy and aggressive. She only becomes slightly feminine near the end. After the final battle she hugs jet. I mean seriously, in the show she's not portrayed as someone who's a hugger cause she so busy being a trash talking foul mouth and a smart alec. so when she does it in the end its hard to buy it. it felt forced. but hey this experience has made me appreciate the original more. If season 2 happens (it probably will too). I won't be dying to watch..but i'm sure the Netflix subscribers are excited. This was a learning experience for me. it showed me who the Netflix subscribers are and that live action Anime adaptations are simply NOT a good idea. I heard there's a Saint Seiya adaptation coming. I'm not a fan of that property...but i'm sure the fans will be pissed off after its over Its funny cause when Netflix brings their Gundam film out the tag line will be 'From the streaming service that brought you the critically panned Cowboy Bebop...comes Mobile Suit Gundam. '
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garfield15
 Posts: 1541 |
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I don't know about Tiger King but I wouldn't be surprised if a decent amount of anime fans watched Squid Game because -There's a decent overlap in fans of K and J entertainment -Battle Royale concepts are a very familiar take for any anime enthusiast and the live-action Alice in Borderland was also decently popular prior to Squid Game -Squid Game was being compared to the titular Battle Royale, Kaiji and more directly As The Gods Will from episode 1 so there's going to be some people who want to check it out purely because of this for positive reasons or otherwise |
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