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News Live-Action ‘Cowboy Bebop’ tv series in the works

More detailed pictures from the Netflix Geeked account (though from the trailer). I do appreciate Adrienne Barbeau being cast as an ecoterrorist, is someone a Swamp Thing fan perhaps?
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1442223197747879942
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441857790025166856/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441835276418969600/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441835271826206723/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441835267594272772/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441835262968057856/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441835248887664640/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441835231741308930/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441831171600625665/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441830147582214145/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441830147582214145/photo/2
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441830147582214145/photo/3
https://twitter.com/NetflixGeeked/status/1441830147582214145/photo/4
 
valkyrie013 said:
The Fans do have "some" say, as in theyre the audience
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Well, no. Fans are part of the audience. The majority of people who watch a TV show are just people watching a TV show, and if there are enough of them, the show stays on the air. Even with Star Trek, most of the people I know who watched The Next Generation regularly never went to a con, never read a tie-in novel, never posted online about the show (and there were places to post online back then), and didn't bother with DS9 or any of the other later shows. The Next Generation was just a show they watched. And when they moved on, the later Trek series ratings went down.

Netflix is bound to be relying to some extent on the anime's fan base to generate some interest in the show. But they want a whole new audience who don't know or care that it's a remake of a cartoon. They can't just cater to the existing fan base. There aren't enough of us.
 
Steve Roby said:
Netflix is bound to be relying to some extent on the anime's fan base to generate some interest in the show. But they want a whole new audience who don't know or care that it's a remake of a cartoon. They can't just cater to the existing fan base. There aren't enough of us.
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Right. The whole point of doing a new version of a premise in a new medium or format is to introduce it to a new audience, to expand its viewership or readership beyond what it had before. It's good if you can draw in the old audience too, make it appealing to old and new viewers alike, but the new ones are the real target.
 
Christopher said:
Right. The whole point of doing a new version of a premise in a new medium or format is to introduce it to a new audience, to expand its viewership or readership beyond what it had before.
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And how does making it look like a shit live-action cartoon with bad CGI backgrounds do that?
 
On the other hand if the show is too obsessively focus group driven you’re left with a bland, unmemorable, interchangeable, fully date coded mediocre cash grab.

It’s fine to target newer audiences as long as you’re still telling your own unique story.
 
Yeah, some of the characters the designs work fine for a serious anime, but transferred directly live action look kind of campy.
 
I just hope it doesn't stray into Speed Racer territory in terms of slavish fidelity to the original style. I know that movie has a loyal following, but I found it to be unwatchable. Like physically uncomfortable to sit through.
These things are called "adaptations" for a reason after all. Each medium has it's own quirks, things it does better than anything else, and things it can't do very well if at all. A good adaptation should aim to lean on it's strengths and make the story, characters and setting work in the new medium in their own right, not just attempt to directly transpose as much as possible for the sake of recreating someone else's work of art.
 
Roko's Basilisk said:
Netflix Geeked on Twitter: "how many easter eggs can you spot? i'll go first: there's a television #TUDUM https://t.co/rm9b4vvMjM" / Twitter

Have I spotted what might be Ed in the TV Tower of Babel? It's the picture above the main three cast members - a young-looking, androgynous person wearing a VR type headset.
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I've decided that's almost certainly Ed even though the VR glasses are a different design from the ones in the anime. A main theme of the anime is about people becoming trapped by their past and being unable to move on. Spike, Faye, and Jet are stuck but Ed and Ein aren't so if this adaptation turns out the same, I don't expect those two to be permanent cast members.
 
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Christopher said:
It's called "Bebop" for a reason too. Its storytelling and attitude are jazz-inspired, so it's lively, fun, and loose, but has an edge and intensity to it as well. Probably the closest thing to it in American TV is Firefly.
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YES! That was the first thing I thought when I saw Cowboy Bebop. The same kind of "laughing one minute, crying the next" storytelling (I can't remember which ep - I think it was "Speak Like A Child" - that literally did that to me), misfits thrown together and becoming family, lots of Dark Pasts, and the fun mix of Western and Science Fiction.

"I'm not a criminal. Oh that makes me seem even more like a criminal, doesn't it?" - Spike or Mal? :hugegrin:

Reverend said:
I just hope it doesn't stray into Speed Racer territory in terms of slavish fidelity to the original style. I know that movie has a loyal following, but I found it to be unwatchable. Like physically uncomfortable to sit through.
These things are called "adaptations" for a reason after all. Each medium has it's own quirks, things it does better than anything else, and things it can't do very well if at all. A good adaptation should aim to lean on it's strengths and make the story, characters and setting work in the new medium in their own right, not just attempt to directly transpose as much as possible for the sake of recreating someone else's work of art.
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When I finally saw the Speed Racer movie, I loved it! I thought leaning into the craziness was a fun choice. To each their own.

However, I *do* agree with you about adaptations. There are only a teeny tiny number that worked well directly transposing the original work. IMO, it's why Snyder's Watchmen movie didn't work. Of course, trying to do a super-faithful movie adaptation of a comic that was specifically written to show the possibilities inherent in comic books as a medium was probably a dumb choice from the get-go. :lol:

Roko's Basilisk said:
I've decided that's almost certainly Ed even though the VR glasses are a different design from the ones in the anime. A main theme of the anime is about people becoming trapped by their past and being unable to move on. Spike, Faye, and Jet are stuck but Ed and Ein aren't so if this adaptation turns out the same, I don't expect those two to be permanent cast members.
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Agreed on all points. :)
 
Roko's Basilisk said:
Have I spotted what might be Ed in the TV Tower of Babel? It's the picture above the main three cast members - a young-looking, androgynous person wearing a VR type headset. Or is that some villain I've forgotten?
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Probably a victim.

Edward was prevented from wearing that in mind scratch…Ein wore it as a foot in the door.

Look for a mind fuck…

Now, If I were the show-runner… I’d keep to the script except at the end of each episode.

The cult leader is cuffed in a moving scene…and as Jet and Ed walk away…I zoom in on a reflection of an evil face. I think some twist may interlock these disparate stories. I would kill Vicious in the church…lead the audience into thinking Spike will have a happy ending…until the last episode: Pierrot le Fou.

He is my choice of a big bad…but he isn’t a catatonic spree killer after all. After a brain boost…he runs the assassin outfit. ISSP was behind the tests that made him mad.

Who do you think really took Jet’s arm? The music box plays again…an assasination trigger…and now Jet and Faye try to kill Spike and he has to deal with them too. Ed crashes an elevator and a horrible firefight ensues…bullets detach fingers. Spike is the only one left alive…he runs to Julia…and she lays him out on the steps with a head shot.

You’ll carry that weight….
 
Wednesday Addams said:
However, I *do* agree with you about adaptations. There are only a teeny tiny number that worked well directly transposing the original work. IMO, it's why Snyder's Watchmen movie didn't work.
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Snyder's work (in Watchmen and more generally) is a case of replicating the surface without understanding the substance. While I was in the theater for Watchmen, I found myself thinking practically from the very first scene that it was way too slick and stylized, that it should've been done in a gritty cinema verite style instead. He took what was meant to be a grounded, naturalistic deconstruction of the larger-than-life fantasy aspects of superhero comics and made it in the style of a larger-than-life fantasy, and that was just massively missing the point. It's the same problem as Chris Columbus's Harry Potter films -- focusing so much on copying the surface details that the film fails to capture its real essence.

You can make a good adaptation that follows the original text reasonably closely. For instance, the Hunger Games movies follow the books pretty closely, aside from extrapolating scenes outside Katniss's first-person perspective. But the point is that you don't have to, that being faithful isn't what makes an adaptation good. The goal of an adaptation is not to duplicate the original, but to use the original as a starting point for building something new that's worthwhile on its own terms. A good adaptation is not a clone, but an offspring.
 
I liked the movie of Watchmen but it was too long, overstuffed, and included clichéd music choices. The changed denouement was ok; perhaps the comic-book squid ending would have worked - I don't know. It was referenced in the TV series, which unfortunately turned Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias into a right dickhead.
 
@Christopher I agree with you on all points. My favorite Snyder movie is Sucker Punch, which is original and not an adaptation. It ain't a great movie, but at least it was fun.

Oddly, I did like the ending of The Watchmen. It was certainly simpler and putting it all on Dr. Manhattan was an interesting choice. Plus, the squid-alien wouldn't have made sense in the movie since none of the plot points leading up to it (the missing writers, artists, etc.) were there.

That said, I was initially leery of The Watchmen miniseries on HBO, but ended up loving it. IMO, it used "the original as a starting point for building something new that's worthwhile on its own terms." Regina King was brilliant and deserved her Emmy. Yes, Veidt is a dickhead, but given where he was sent and how long he was there, I bought it (and he always was one IMO). And Irons was so much fun! :lol:
 
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