Death of a Bebop

maynard

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I had low expectations going in

translating from one medium to another is always challenging

and even so I was underwhelmed

mainly the continuity in the story is janky

I knew from the anime that Spike was a former member of the Syndicate

but the protagonists and antagonists are thrown together without even a hint of their backstory here

cancellation? no great loss
 

Jolly_Green_Giant

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I remember someone's post here that first announced the live action remake, and my reaction to it: "no way this is gonna work". It wasn't because we weren't getting an anatomically similar Faye Valentine, like twitter would have everyone believe. "People are just mean!" I saw someone say. "The perverts aren't getting what they wanted" another would say. Like how daft do you have to be, some things are just better left alone, and this is one of them.
 

Aramsolari

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Cowboy Bebop just wasn't very good. I got to the second episode and had to quit because I just couldn't get past the cringey dialog and acting.

I think we can all agree that Hollywood needs to quit it with the live action remakes of anime IPs. Ghost in the Shell, Death Note, Dragon Ball: Evolution, etc, etc. It's just a long list of money wasting garbage.

Want good live action remakes? Give the Japanese money and let them do it. I don't understand why everything has to be made into English. Read some goddamn subtitles for crying out loud.
 

Lorddarthvik

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The live reaction when the cancelation was announced on his open bar stream was gold lol

This was the least unexpected thing to have happened this year considering all the feedback it got.
Frankly I just couldn't get past ep1. Later I've listened to a breakdown of who and what got changed and it's just pure junk, glad I didn't go on.

The Only good thing that came of this, for me personally, is that I could finally watch the original conveniently on Netflix without having to order region locked DVDs or pirate it,, something that I wanted to do for a very long time, just never got around to it. Now I'm as cultured as the next novice weeb yay!

@Aramsolari
The problem is, have you seen what live actions they make? Have you tried watching for example the FMA live action movie? It's sooooo horrible lol
It's really weird to me how the country that puts out the best animators in the world is almost totally incapable of doing CG stuff right. There are a few exceptions, like Gantz:0 (2016) that I'd argue has the very best human movement animation I've ever seen, but by and large they all look jank af. And then there's the argument of CG in anime, that we definitely should not get into lol

I'd think the only reasonable way to do this would be to have the whole Hollywood production method and crew and know-how behind it with all the money that's usually involved, and let the Japanese do all the creative side of writing scripting directing and acting, with zero input from the western side. But maybe even that would suck. Some things just don't work in other mediums...
 

maynard

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... Scifi shows are expensive to make ...
as a former set builder/propmaker I can tell you the production values on Bebop were cheap and cheesy - nobody was spending the big bucks here

second, the sci-fi was incidental - genre-wise, it's just a Western set in the future rather than the historic Wild West

gunslingers come to town to take on the bad guys, mayhem ensues, rinse and repeat
 
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Shadow Reaper

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as a former set builder/propmaker I can tell you the production values on Bebop were cheap and cheesy - nobody was spending the big bucks here

second, the sci-fi was incidental - genre-wise, it's just a Western set in the future rather than the historic Wild West

gunslingers come to town to take on the bad guys, mayhem ensues, rinse and repeat
It was pretty genre bending. The noir aspects were crucial to what Bebop was. I think had they done a few things better than they did they might have gotten a better result. I hate to point to a single issue, and I don't want to be misunderstood as misogynistic here, but consider (with drinker above, who's commentary I generally find dead on) the choice they made for Faye and her costume.

The fans complained from the earliest production days about who they chose for Faye. Regardless of the actress they could have stuffed her bra except that modern sensibilities forbade. Had they chose a size 2, 6' tall busty woman and dressed her in the same outfit as the anime did, all by itself that would have changed the popularity. People would have heard about the "horrible misogyny!" but they certainly would have heard and there would have instantly been a larger audience. There would have been far fewer fan complaints and people might have given it more time before rejecting.

I hate to say this, but it looks like another example of "go woke--go broke". I think drinker's commentary was dead on, and I am sad. I am not one who thinks this was hard to bring to live action. It just needed a desire to present the source material rather than to pander to modern sensibilities, which it violates gratuitously.
 

Talonsbane

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I say fuck the "narrative" that hollywood has been pushing far too much for far too long. If you're going to do a live action version of something animated that is that cherished by it's already huge fan base, follow in the footsteps of the original Deadpool movie by everybody doing their best to be true to the original source regardless of the modern standards & politics.
 
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Montoya

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I also think they should stick to the original as much as possible, but Im not sure that hypersexualizing Faye to be true to the original would be the magic bullet that would have saved it.

Scifi is already a niche segment, cowboys in space scifi is even harder to push.

Boobs might have helped, but Im not sure if they would be enough.
 

Talonsbane

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I also think they should stick to the original as much as possible, but Im not sure that hypersexualizing Faye to be true to the original would be the magic bullet that would have saved it.

Scifi is already a niche segment, cowboys in space scifi is even harder to push.

Boobs might have helped, but Im not sure if they would be enough.
I wasn't actually referring to them needing to make her more sexualized, just that when it comes to remakes in general, my preference is that the more that they stick to the original material the better.

This being said, in the original cartoons & manga, her dressing / acting that way was part of her character. In bounty hunting, whatever works as long as it doesn't get the BH in trouble with the law themselves I suppose. (aka boobs make great distractions)

Have you seen this Disney show called The Mandalorian?
Good show.
 

NoizeMaker

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I couldn't make it past Episode 2. I feel like it shouldn't be a surprise it was canceled. Look at who directed/wrote it:

  • Apart from the (weak) Marvel stuff he's done, Christopher Yost has only ever handled animation and has never even touched material outside of American production houses. He's also never done live work without having his hand held by the House of Mouse.
  • Katleman and Alex Lopez are one-shot directors. Not series guys. Anything they've stuck to longer than 1-2 episodes are B-tier off-brand crap.
  • Sean Cummings - Staff Writer for the show and what has he done before that? Been an assistant on-set to producers for gems like "The Purge", "TMNT", and "The Purge Anarchy". Who in the hell thought this was a good idea?

With this clown-show, it's not hard to figure out why CB never made it off the ground. Barely any experience, or what experience there is is unrelated/micromanaged, no backgrounds in non-American material production, no experience with Noir, very little experience with sci-fi... garbage in, garbage out.
 

Talonsbane

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I couldn't make it past Episode 2. I feel like it shouldn't be a surprise it was canceled. Look at who directed/wrote it:

  • Apart from the (weak) Marvel stuff he's done, Christopher Yost has only ever handled animation and has never even touched material outside of American production houses. He's also never done live work without having his hand held by the House of Mouse.
  • Katleman and Alex Lopez are one-shot directors. Not series guys. Anything they've stuck to longer than 1-2 episodes are B-tier off-brand crap.
  • Sean Cummings - Staff Writer for the show and what has he done before that? Been an assistant on-set to producers for gems like "The Purge", "TMNT", and "The Purge Anarchy". Who in the hell thought this was a good idea?

With this clown-show, it's not hard to figure out why CB never made it off the ground. Barely any experience, or what experience there is is unrelated/micromanaged, no backgrounds in non-American material production, no experience with Noir, very little experience with sci-fi... garbage in, garbage out.
Given how quickly this show was cancelled, it seems that they helped cause this series to be Purged?
 
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