Finally, along came a live action adaptation of the show. But before a non-binger like me could even get through the 10 episodes, Netflix cancelled it. Not enough people watched it fast enough, it seems, for how expensive it surely was to make. And if it had at least been "on the bubble" in viewership? Well, the critics -- and many of Cowboy Bebop's original fans -- seemed staunchly aligned against it. So... easy come, easy go, I guess.
For what it's worth, I thought the live Cowboy Bebop was "not bad." But far too much time has passed since the original for this new version to hew so closely to it. Is it unfair that 20 years of pop culture has cribbed from the anime, and now the live version feels like IT is the copy -- of Firefly, Veronica Mars, The Mandalorian, and more? Sure. But nobody forced the live action version to essentially remake the old scripts and retain its now-predictable plot twists.
If the scripts sometimes felt like they weren't trying hard enough, the visuals felt to me like they were usually trying too hard. In 10 episodes of Cowboy Bebop, I think there might be something like 5 "normal" shots total. Most of the time, the camera is reveling in heavily-tilted Dutch angles, conspicuous fisheye lenses, and more. Every shot is special, and so no shot is special. It's just distracting.
On the other hand, Cowboy Bebop had perfectly cast actors portraying very enjoyable characters. John Cho, Mustafa Shakir, and Daniella Pineda made a delicious, sarcastic, unflappable trio. The banter was smart and sharp. They had a sense of style that went far beyond the costumes and hairstyling. They were good at the action too. And the remaining cast and guest stars were often just as fun. The chemistry always had me looking forward to the next episode -- even when I was halfway through the current episode and had already guessed the ending.
I think overall, I would only give Cowboy Bebop a B-. But I totally would have been there for another season, had there been one. And I suppose my takeaway is to be on the lookout for those three main stars I liked so much, hoping for them to wind up on some other TV series in the future that makes as good use of them. (Another takeaway: a fantastic theme song that's going straight into my ski mix. Yes, I know it's exactly the same banger that the anime featured too. Better late than never.)
1 comment:
We're big fans of the anime, and the big pain-point we hit was the writing. The actors are all well cast, the visuals look like "anime brought to life", and music is on point. And then they tried to shove the better part of 26 half-hour episodes into 10 hour episodes, while doing a bunch of additional "here's the whole Syndicate story", while having some... just painfully bad dialogue. (And I feel for the actor playing Vicious, because he's got Lucas-level bad writing going on.)
And it's a shame, because you can tell everyone else is working their butts off.
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