COWBOY BEBOP (2021) - Netflix Series Review

#cowboybebop #netflix #deepfocuslens

[BadGuyRants]

Hollywood has this obsession with turning everything animated into live action because apparently that means we’ll take it more seriously. It ends up sucking the life out of what made the original so special.

[julianshadez]

If someone would have told me that first episode is a fan made movie with some people cosplaying, I would have totally believed it. Would have even said it's a good effort. But for this thing to be an actuall fully featured series with paid actors, wow. If you are even a remote fan of the show, you can't help but be disappointed.

[Moosemoose]

Even the setting speaks volumes: these strangers who feel empty inside are constantly traveling within the emptiness of space to places which have been abandoned, forgotten and stuck in the past...like Earth, Callisto, Tijuana, Ganymede, Io and Venus. Little is ever spoken about the pasts of these places, adding to the mystery of how they got to be like this, hell, not much is even shown despite a few frames to establish the basic setting. It makes you want to explore these environments beyond what the episode shows you and makes you curious about what the cultures and societies are like in these places. Even Earth - which is the most well explained in the series - is still shrouded in mystery. Adding to these is the abandoned mining colony where the Chessmaster lived among other misfits and outlaws. Most of the ancillary characters have mysterious pasts which are only glossed over, like Annie, the Heavy Metal Queen, Pierrot the Fool, Rocco, Gren, the Earth Satellite, just to name a few. This makes the show feel more identifiable as we are just as clueless as the cast about everyone's history and learn as they learn, instead of having every little thing explained to us in detail and having the mystery and intrigue disappear. And the times we actually learn something, we don't really learn very much: only enough information that pertains to the situation at hand, leaving everything else a mystery. The main characters' locations of birth and previous lives also emphasize how different they each are and isolated they are from each other: Faye and Ed were born on Earth, Spike on Mars and Jet by Jupiter, they're each from totally different worlds. Ed was a hacker roaming the wastelands of Earth on her own, Faye was a professional gambler as well as a cryogenic revival with no memory of her past, Spike was a syndicate enforcer, Jet was a cop - totally different pasts. The only things that unite them are the Bebop, the emptiness of space that confines them in it, and their occupation as bounty hunters.

[christopherfields]

To all my Bebop fans "We're gonna carry that weight". Knew it wouldn't live up to the original anime. At least we still have the OG version

[Brothaman]

I just finished. The show runners for this show knew that this show had fans out there in the world somewhere. But they themselves were not fans of the anime. They didn’t vie for this project; they were available and their agents made some calls and came across this project and said “you want this Netflix project?” They watched the show with a pen and pad to take notes and said “sure, I can do that.” They didn’t watch the show to grasp what resonated with true Cowboy Bebop fans.

I like Jet even though I wasn’t a fan of the daughter and ex wife thing.

Spike was Fearless, not Spike Spiegel. To be fair, like she said, no one can really be Spike. Especially Steve Blum’s Spike.

Faye….oh boy. “Faye.” I can understand the want to strip her of the overt sultry sexiness (even though I wouldn’t have because I think there’s a way to make it work) but this character was too goofy to even be called Faye. As another commentator commented, she might as well have had a different name. I wouldn’t have mind then because I did find myself laughing at some of this characters comedic moments and she wasn’t the worst…she just wasn’t Faye.

Viscous was THE definition of scary and stoic in the anime. And you could sense he was truly respected every time he was on screen. What on God’s green earth was this portrayal of Viscous? Terrible.

Julia…don’t even get me started.

To be fair, just about all the main characters in the anime sans Ed are pretty stoic and cool. I suppose that it wouldn’t have translated well to do a 1 to 1 depiction of their personalities. Too many characters being stoic and cool may not translate well to live action. But then, as most CB fans have pointed out, they should’ve just left this IP alone in the first place.

[everlywatch]

Wow, I just looked through your channel and you have an amazing body of work spanning over 12 years. I totally read your passion for films and filmmaking, and totally understand why this adaptation didn't work. Keep up the good work, and I hope your channel grows even more.

[paulreveresluggage]

I don't know why people make live action animes in the first place. The animation is an integral part of what makes them good. Making them real, unless maybe it's a realistic drama, just takes them a step down.

[sandrahelen]

One of my biggest gripes was how they actually all connected and had the “found family” concept. I think Jet said it best(in the OG anime) when he said outright in the show that there is no comradely and they leave and do what they want, etc. So you really hit the nail on the head with this! I also found that I did feel that emptiness that you were talking about on the first watch, but in retrospect I can see just how intentional it was. Changes in plot and such are totally fine, but the show needs to have the same feelings/themes to really show respect for what the OG was putting out. I actually usually despise episodic series, but in the context of this show it makes so much sense. During my first watch of the anime I had found myself wishing there was a connecting plot. However, when I tried watching the show I found myself absolutely despising how they tried to make a connecting plot with Spikes past. His past being ambiguous was absolutely perfect in the first and I really felt that exploring his past really brought nothing to the table

[stephenmier]

I love how well you articulate the empty sort of feeling of the original show.

To me, the driving theme of Cowboy Bebop is the give and take of coming to terms with your past. You start out with all of these characters who are lost, rudderless, and frozen in time because they are at odds with their past in a variety of ways. And as the show continues, we see each character coming to terms with their pasts but losing important parts of themselves in so doing.

The live action adaptation captures nothing about that thematic framework. It’s seriously really really bad.

[Shoulder_jelly]

Keanu reeves was the closest they could get to spike and that wasn’t even good enough

[TRUTHISABSOLUTE]

I remember working a dead-end job at a factory and I picked up a anime magazine to read when I was on break. I remember learning about the Cowboy Bebop series and being fascinated by the characters. I came to really love those characters when I finally got around to buying the Cowboy Bebop Blu-ray a year ago. It feels really bad to see Netflix stcrew up these characters so much.

[mcanu]

Wow - I love the original anime, but I never noticed how all the characters are really alone. I felt it, though. When I watched it as a kid, it always struck me that Spike and Jet don't help each other much in their respective story arcs eg. Black Dog Serenade or even the whole Vicious plot. Only Faye gets pulled into Spike's story line, for a bit. Great observation!

[TheKariahMarey]

Netflix really just regurgitates anything it sees profitable, and leaves fans with just that. A regurgitation, unneeded regurgitation. Too many series to count have fallen victim to this, and is why netflix will never —in my eyes— reach a standard above mediocre.

[Nominrath]

I only watched the first episode and thought, “This isn’t Bebop. It wants to be. It’s trying real hard. But it isn’t. It’s just… wrong. Spike is wrong, Jet is wrong, Faye is SO wrong. It doesn’t move right. It looks off. This is all wrong.” I was actually very bummed. I went in hoping it would be at least ok.

[MauricioRodriguezRamirez]

Amazing and overwhelmeming analysis that shows that the core between art and imitation of art. Cowboy Bebop it's a work that as they stated, "will become a new genre itself". Can't be equalized.

[jackofblades]

Pretty good review. One part that bothered me about this show is that they gave Jet a daughter which completely messes up his character since in the original the only "family" he had was the Bebop crew and he was for the most part a lonely person. I also disliked John Cho as Spike since he just looks too old for the role and Spike's youth is a big part of his character.

[dougmann]

An excellent analysis of the anime - I agree with all your key points, except maybe your love of UFC. I've actually lectured on Cowboy Bebop in university, and I highlighted the film noir origins of the show and the idea of being "lost in the past", as in the Robert Mitchum film OUT OF THE PAST. Spike, Faye and Jet are all trapped in mental prisons, though Jet somewhat less so (as when he throws his watch into the canal). You're right - it's almost impossible to capture a character like Spike in live action. I think that the church fight, complete with dense flashbacks, in Ballad of Fallen Angels is the best scene in all of anime. There's so many influences on it - noir, Leone, Hong Kong action films, Godard (notice the tricoleur title cards in Toys in the Attic, and Pierrot le fou), classic rock, jazz, maybe John Woo - that it's a treasure to watch and rewatch.

Also, the idea of the original anime being a series of pop singles (as evidenced by the titles) that you could enjoy in bits and bytes was one of its strengths, all the while knowing that there WAS an overarching mystery about our heroes' lives.

Well, as least Ein looks good in the new version.

[ManSeekingMeaning]

Cowboy Bebop inspired a generation of animators, filmmakers, and storytellers. A nuanced, deliberate, jazzy tale of people lost to ghosts of their past, looking for a connection and meaning among the stars and sometimes or almost finding it. It’s a somber, hilarious, haunting piece of fiction.

The NETFLIX monstrosity had the music (which they overused) and the cosmetics (detrimentally adapted almost entirely) and some of the funkiness… and none of the heart. None of the philosophy. All of the crazy and none of the beauty. They missed the forest for the trees. Thanks for articulating it so well.

[TironaBloodspiller]

'It made me desperately want to watch the original' I rewatched the first episode because i'd forgotten some of the details and wanted to make a better comparison. Specifically the conversation spike has with katerina and their initial meeting. It's a minor change but it makes such a massive difference with him revealing himself as a cowboy vs being exposed as a cowboy. A moment where spike should have been cool and in control was changed into an almost slapstick action scene instead of a short intense one to show just how dangerous that bounty target was. Spike is cool, but this drug is dangerous. This was changed to faye's introduction and just doesn't 'feel' right. This scene was important because later on it's paid off when Spike is able to beat the bounty despite the drugs enhancing him. Further driving him deeper into the addiction and tragedy.

And the poetry of not having katerina responsible took so much soul out of the final scenes. It's just a surface level sad, not deeply tragic.

[CosmicJestar]

The only person that comes to mind that could possibly play Spike is a younger Adrien Brody.