Cowboy Bebop (Live Action TV Show)

[Tassifox 418]

At ep 9. 

Spoiler

So far my one complaint it they half assed Faye's story arc. They took one of the stronger icons of female characters in classic days of anime and just shimmied it down instead of giving it the depth it deserved. I mean they took out the entire bit of trying to find a VHS player and some other bits that made her backstory so good!

I'm fine with the actress who plays her. She still gives Faye some of the confidence, sassiness, and quirks that make her who she is. I'm just disappointed with how they handled the story, and some other arcs for the most part here. 

 

I do like the easter eggs we get from the original. Especially the slip in with Ed they did in the Londes episode. The continuous spots of the 3 old men cameos. I still have 1 ep left but overall it is a better LA adaptation then there has been in awhile. 

 

[Psycho666Soldier 283]

6 hours ago, Tassifox said:

I'm about halfway through ep 4 and so far.....I don't hate it? I do have some thoughts though and I will probably rewatch the animation before confirming some of them. Music is fucking spot on though as well as the actor who plays Jet.

 

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One of which I feel like they've lightened up a LOT of Viscious's personality. Like I expect a little embellishment here and there since, it's Hollywood being a whole separate identity vs a book or an original but I never felt any kind of comedy relief or even a hint of that from Viscous from the original. And I think here they did that with him being Julia's husband and their attempt to flesh out that particular story element with Julia's visits to their old haunt and showing far more of Spike's story than (from what I remember) they did in majority of the anime, I'm not sure how I feel about that.

 

Spoiler

From what I've read, the way they've characterized Vicious is one of the biggest criticisms of the live action version.  It makes sense as an attempt to get him more screen time and make him more relatable or whatever, but it sounds like it fucks with his character a bit too much where he just comes off different.

 

I dunno, I want to check this out, but reviews I've read have not been great.  I might wait to see what the general consensus is here.

 

[Tassifox 418]

Overall, it's still worth watching for a lot of other reasons, at least once all the way through. They do a lot of good stuff here and there but that is one of my biggest complaints so far and i saved the last ep to watch this morning since i was getting tired last night and there's more i need to touch on that subject. 

[Tassifox 418]

Okay just finished the last ep. I don't 100% hate it but I do have a couple of issues of things. But overall it wasn't a total shit show, probably one of the better AMERICAN live actions done let alone live action adaptations of an anime I've seen in while. I give it a 80ish% score.
The good stuff first.
They pretty much stayed on par with keep Yokko Kanno's music in and keeping that aesthetic with the vibe of the show. Whether they just used the tracks from the original show along with some original music in there or all of it, I liked that.
I have no issue with the order of their bounties. Most of them were stand alone stories with elements that kept the main story moving along with Spike/Faye and other things. So them being rearranged isn't too bad in my case.
I loved that they kept Big Shot. I would've been legit sad if they kept that.
I loved the visual stuff they kept to that. All the easter eggs. Most of the cast was well done, and even with the faults I find I think the actors did the best they could in their roles. I don't even have an issue with Alex Hassell since the only other role with him I've seen was The Boys as Translucent.

The fight scenes were for the most part well done and filmed well, if not a little slow in some fights where I feel it was slowed down for some reason but meh.
They definitely tried to keep the spirit of the show intact and in some parts they succeeded at. But not entirely, which is sad for me. But it's not TOTAL garbage. The viewers who aren't familiar with the original show will most likely enjoy it because I have a feeling a lot of this was catered to them. I'm not surprised it's getting the the 50-67% ratings from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
Now to my issues, and again most of this is from what I remember and I'm re-binging the original as a refresher so this maybe edited later on.
 

Spoiler

After seeing where they went with his character in the end. I absolutely hate what they did to Viscous. They took someone who was way more lethal who should have been on the same level as Spike from their days as assassins and they turned him into a total fucker with Daddy Issues in the Syndicate that will always be in the shadow of Big Elder Daddy and his friend. I hate that they had to make up all this stuff with the Spike/Julia/Vicious relationship to this degree that took out a lot of the intrigue and buildup of the end (which even then I'll get to soon) 
I hate the Hakim bounty arch where we get Ein introduced. They changed his character comopletely being a pansy who stole dogs to get back at the rich people when IN FACT he was a lot more smarter than that when he stole Ein. He knew EXACTLY what Ein was and what he was worth and that was why he stole ONLY ONE DOG, NOT THE DOGS OF A BUNCH OF RICH FUCKERS.
I've said it before but I still hate that they basically neutralized Faye's character. They rushed a lot of what made her who she is on the fact that she was living on 2 years worth of memories after being unfrozen and learning her past. Danielle Pineda overall I'm fine with how she did Faye's quirks and what not but story wise I feel like they did a total disservice with her. Including the whole bit where they had that "Tech Relics" guy as I call him where they were having to try so hard to find a VHS player that was still functional to play the tape. They could have played on that but NOPE Jet just HAPPENS to have one on the Beebop and just roll on there. Which means with season 2 there's probably gonna be a lot of made of filler now of her finding her old hometown after her discovering that Suberbanville banner which miffs me.
I don't care for how they handled what should have been "The Cult" episode with Londes and making it all about Spike and letting go of his past.
WHY DID THEY NEED TO WRAP UP THE VISCOUS ARC BEFORE ED APPEARS!? WHY?! They totally took away everything that built up the tension for that iconic scene and just YEETED IT INTO THE SUN! WHY THE UTTER FUCK DID THEY END IT THIS WAY!?

Overall I feel like they catered to the non-fan viewers and tried to playcate the old fans. There was a good chunk of this overall storyarc that gives the characters the intrigue, the stupid circumstances that trip the characters up from trying to do their bounties. It's what was one of the things that made this show so good was all those little things. They focused putting ALL OF THE CHARACTERS BACKSTORIES into this one season instead of pulling it out and giving us subtle hints as if we couldn't handle it and just WASTED ALL OF THAT.

 

[Tassifox 418]

Finished rewatching the anime. Definitely still not happy with what they did with Faye/Vicious and a little bit with Julia and i have a few additional minor annoyances but mostly just what they took out so far (especially with Teddy Bomber ep now) but whatever. It will be interesting to see what S2 happens to bring. With how they rearranged things. 

[MT 917]

Cancelled!

[Tassifox 418]

This is my surprised face.

[Garlic Junior 136]

As someone who wasn't a fan of the anime (I missed the boat, don't hate me).

 

And having watched it with someone who equally missed the anime hype train.

 

Goddamn this show slapped. Hard.

 

We loved the SHIT out of it. Episode 8 definitely felt low budget as fuuuuuuuuuuuck. Really, really poor episode, especially in the first half. But besides that, we laughed, we cried, we had a GODDAMN GOOD TIME.

 

Ep 1 also felt a little ropey with the slow paced fighting but I'll forgive it.

 

Damn this was good. Fuck Netflix and their penchant for not continuing a series. I want more.

 

 

Closest thing to Firefly I've seen since Serenity. Change my mind meme.jpeg

 

[webhead 519]

Go watch the anime.  This got cancelled and you're gonna want the whole story.  Seriously, the anime is excellent.  There's a reason this got made into a live action in the first place.

[Tassifox 418]

This ^

[Revolver 27]

I still haven’t seen it. I’m vaguely curious but I also just want to go back and rewatch the anime.

 

Kind of makes me wonder why any of these reinvisionings need to happen (outside of $$$) at least a movie would have had to structure the story in a completely different way.

[Tassifox 418]

Taking out my love of the anime fandom aside and viewing it as something on it's own or as someone who's never watched the anime like Garlic and a few of my friends. It is a fairly decent show. Gives you a lot of Firefly vibes, great chemistry between the actors and their characters. Well done in that sense. It is definitely a better live action adaptation for an anime, whether done American or Japanese, that I have seen in awhile.

[webhead 519]

On 12/24/2021 at 8:54 PM, Revolver said:

I still haven’t seen it. I’m vaguely curious but I also just want to go back and rewatch the anime.

 

Kind of makes me wonder why any of these reinvisionings need to happen (outside of $$$) at least a movie would have had to structure the story in a completely different way.

That IS the only reason.  It's always the reason.  Lol.  I guess you could make the argument that this is a good way to get normies to watch anime (same with comic shit).  Of course, they need to actually make it GOOD to do that.

[Lucy 108]

I have now seen a couple of episodes of this! Watching it with a friend who visits sometimes. It's obviously been made with a lot of dedication and attention to detail, and I've really enjoyed what I've seen so far.

[MT 917]

I'm two episodes into this and i'm liking it so far. My only real complaint is the guy they got to play Vicious. Not in the way he acts, but I always thought Vicious was more of a pretty boy, and this guy definitely isn't. The guy they got to play Jet sounds a lot like him at times, which is great. I'm liking John Cho as Spike so far, and I haven't seen enough of Faye to really form an opinion just yet.

 

Watching this does make me really want to re-watch the anime, I think it's probably been over a decade since i've seen it beginning to end. I may wait until I finish this version first though.

[Mera'din 307]

I enjoyed it, I just think they pushed too hard to fit certain things into the first season that it threw off a lot of stuff despite how well they handled many of the things they did. Casting was wonderful. I feel like they should have got an Asian actor for Vicious too, but ultimately I didn't dislike him as a choice by the end I just think there were probably better options. Faye was often hit and miss for me. Spike and Jet were perfect, and they did a great job with a lot of the other bad guys they used. 

 

I definitely had the same feeling of wanting to rewatch the original after. I actually did end up doing that once I finally got through the live action one. XD
I wish they could have done another season, but at the same time I'm not bothered that they didn't mostly because of the bit at the end.

Spoiler

I don't like the way they wrapped it up, and Ed was living proof of why adaptations shouldn't necessarily do things EXACTLY like the source material. Because that kid was basically Ed 100% as they were in the anime, butdss I hated every second they were on screen and never wanted to see them again.   

 

[MT 917]

Boy was I totally unprepared for that body horror shit in episode 4. I watched it before bed, thankfully it didn't give me nightmares.

 

Also, I saw it pointed out somewhere (I think reddit) that the guy playing Jet also played Bushmaster in season 2 of Luke Cage. Blew my mind

[Mera'din 307]

OMG. That was him. Holy shit. ?

[MT 917]

I'm still enjoying it overall, but I think episode 8 is where it's starting to lose me a bit.

 

 

The actor they got to portray Pierre did an amazing job, but giving him more of a backstop wasn't really necessary. Him having a military background just doesn't really fit with the character. That or him being able to control Ein. It was a neat concept, but felt really out of place. I remember his episode in the anime being way more tragic, even though they tried to go for a similar ending, it didn't have nearly as much of an impact.

 

 

Smaller side note, but why did that Mao lady tell Vicious that Julia wanted him dead? How could she not realize how much danger that puts Julia in, for no reason other than for Mao to have a "you're not safe" style final line.

 

Also, THEY DUMPED EIN!? Why? Saw some people in the reddit thread saying it might've been a way for him to come back with Ed, but now I guess we'll never know.

 

[MT 917]

Holy fuck did they botch the ending. It legit caused me emotional damage and made the rest of the episode hard to sit through.

 

There's SOME reasoning behind Julia's turn but not enough to make it believable. Making her evil is just fucking stupid all around. The only way that makes it believable is because of how quickly she decided she fell in love with Spike. She's not a total damsel in distress type, but for her to go to 100% evil was just ridiculous. Keeping Vicious alive DOES set up for a second season (which we'll never get, but still) at least. The scene with Ed wasn't too bad, although her wig was god awful. How she randomly ended up with Ein is something that doesn't really make sense, but also could've been explored had there been a second season, I guess.

 

I enjoyed most of what I watched, but there were a lot of choices that just plain didn't make any sense. The actors they got to play the characters were great, although the way Vicious was written was just off the entire time. They nailed the vibe, and the music was awesome. I might've given season 2 a shot because of how much I love the source material, but some time would've had to pass between me watching the first and second seasons so I could move on past what bugged me.

[Tassifox 418]

On 9/28/2023 at 2:56 PM, MT said:

Also, I saw it pointed out somewhere (I think reddit) that the guy playing Jet also played Bushmaster in season 2 of Luke Cage. Blew my mind

Was I the only one knowing that going into this show? When they first announced the cast and I kinda recognized him I IMDB'd him and found that out. I really liked how he portrayed Jet.

And fucking hated what the director pulled on Fay and Julia. They were both such strong characters in their own way and his calls on the changes in their story and personalities pissed me off so much.

The only takeaway I can do with this show is I hope that it gets new fans from the LA into seeing the source material. It had great possibility in being a great show but Netflix just makes shitty calls.