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

Stayed up late to watch the first episode.

Pineda absolutely stole the show and there's a lot to love otherwise, but I don't know. There's just something about it that just feels off. For one, the acting outside the main cast isn't very good. Or rather, I think it might be the acting direction itself. It's hard to describe, but there's this almost student film quality to it. The action is good though, even if a little too over-stylized at times.
 
Or rather, I think it might be the acting direction itself. It's hard to describe, but there's this almost student film quality to it.
The atmosphere for lack of a better word is a bit flat. Comparing against the first episode of the anime it's missing a bit of that occasional cinematic feel and jazzy vibe (to use another vague term).

I'm still adjusting to it, it's a bit jarring to see it come to life and try to separate what it is vs what was in my head and judge it fairly on its own terms. I've only seen the first episode myself and it's not bad but again I feel I need to see more to say for sure what I think.

- I had to rewind because I thought Spike and Faye killed that doctor with that stray shot.
- How that old lady didn't get sucked into space I have no idea. I thought they forgot about her at first.
- The bar scene definitely had a Rodriguez Desperado vibe to it.
- Haters probably going to make a meme of the Watanabe sign getting shot to shit
 
Is this series a 20 years later tale? Spike appeared to be at least 20 years old in the anime version but the Netflix version appear to be at least 40 years plus. If this is an extension I think that is a clever idea bc I always wanted to see more episodes of that awesome anime.
 
So I binged the first 5 episodes and would have happily gone all the way to 10 if it weren't for real life getting in the way. I hold the anime in very very high regard. Watching the live action version pretty much feels like I'm still watching the anime again. It's fairly seamless in style, tone, characterization. John Cho is excellent as Spike or "fearless" as he is often called in this series. I didn't think he could pull it off but actually he is perfect in the role. It's a very well cast show. I don't have any real criticisms. The first episode didn't feel as smooth or polished as the others but overall I really dig it. Looking forward to hitting the last 5.

Is this series a 20 years later tale? Spike appeared to be at least 20 years old in the anime version but the Netflix version appear to be at least 40 years plus. If this is an extension I think that is a clever idea bc I always wanted to see more episodes of that awesome anime.
This is basically an expanded live action take on the animated series. I guess Spike is supposed to be in his late 20s or early 30s here. John Cho plays it as a wise head on young shoulders. I think physically he can play the part no problem and he has the maturity that is needed for a character like Spike. To be honest, after watching this I felt he was wasted as Sulu.
 
Having watched the first episode you can tell there was an attempt to replicate the imagery and tone of the anime. Sometimes it works, sometimes it falls flat. The most jarring thing to me is that pretty much *ANY* of the hand to hand fight scenes with John Cho look really silly. It doesn't look like he has any force at all to his punches or kicks and everything looks slowed down and unrealistic.
 
I'm liking it a lot so far. I'm rationing myself but I still watched the first three episodes in one sitting. The pacing likely seems different because each episode is twice the length of an anime episode. I'm looking forward to Radical Ed appearing - not sure when that's going to happen.
 
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I watched the first episode and I enjoyed it. It's fun, and the writing and acting were pretty good. The actions scenes were pretty cool overall, a little over the top at times, but just enough to give it a bit of a stylized feel, and not to goofy. I loved the productions designs, they did a great job of making the anime's designs more realistic. Looks like they are introducing some of the stuff about Spike's backstory earlier than they did in the anime.
 
I was originally planning on watching this without having ever watched the anime. Then I realised there's only 26 episodes of the original so I could watch them easily before the new show came out. I really liked the anime: the animation was really beautiful, the music was great, it had so much style. I grew attached to the characters by the end. I wish I'd watched it 20 years ago when I was younger and more impressionable and could have grown up a bit cooler.

Anyway, I watched the first episode of the live action and it was...okay. I agree with it feeling just a bit "off." Some of the dialogue was bad, the music (while still great) felt a bit out of place. Jet metioning his DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT eight times was annoying. But the three leads were very well cast and it wasn't bad, so I'll watch more.
 
So, they DO have artificial gravity in the show, right?

You mean the live action show? I hope so. The anime's inconsistent treatment of microgravity is irritating -- like having cigarette smoke waft upward while characters are tossing weightless objects to each other, oh, and those characters are somehow standing normally. Better to fudge artificial gravity than to do microgravity poorly (and I've rarely seen it done well).
 
I was originally planning on watching this without having ever watched the anime. Then I realised there's only 26 episodes of the original so I could watch them easily before the new show came out. I really liked the anime: the animation was really beautiful, the music was great, it had so much style. I grew attached to the characters by the end. I wish I'd watched it 20 years ago when I was younger and more impressionable and could have grown up a bit cooler.

Anyway, I watched the first episode of the live action and it was...okay. I agree with it feeling just a bit "off." Some of the dialogue was bad, the music (while still great) felt a bit out of place. Jet metioning his DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT eight times was annoying. But the three leads were very well cast and it wasn't bad, so I'll watch more.
The doll that his daughter wanted is comedy gold. It really captures the nature of commercialism aimed specifically at children so that their parents feel forced to waste their hard-earned Woolong on trashy, over-priced pieces of junk that they believe they will keep their progeny loving them. Jet being obsessed by this seems natural given that he's competing with his ex-wife for his daughter's affection. It's hard to explain to a child that they are being cynically manipulated by capitalistic forces into wanting garbage.
 
Not proud of it but I've worked my way through this thing in the past couple of days. I'm going to try to tip toe around spoilers.

Around episode four or five it kind of goes in this new direction where it's focused on some character arcs and comes off a bit different than the first episodes with the various goofy bounties. It also gets less ambitious with the settings and keeps the alt-80s stuff without bringing in as much of the sci-fi fluff. The look reminds me a bit of something like Sin City or Sucker Punch where there's a sense of artificiality to it all. It's a fantasy setting to be sure but it doesn't sell the verisimilitude of it. There's this sense of it looking like a live-action cartoon that may be too stylized for its own good.

I have to give credit to Daniella Pineda who makes her Faye work very well within the context of this series without that sense of just someone doing cosplay. In that regard, I think she is the most successful of the cast.

I will say the ending left my jaw open, I can't wait until everyone catches up with this to see what they thought.

Had a couple of belly laughs with
Woodcock and her rationalization of blackmail and Spike getting his ass handed to him in the window while Jet watching his daughter's recital

The scene with
gunning down the naked drug workers
seemed really out of place and gratuitous in this series.
 
The look reminds me a bit of something like Sin City or Sucker Punch where there's a sense of artificiality to it all. It's a fantasy setting to be sure but it doesn't sell the verisimilitude of it. There's this sense of it looking like a live-action cartoon that may be too stylized for its own good.

I'm sorry to hear that. Despite its sloppy treatment of microgravity, the anime was set in a fairly plausible future, without too much dodgy science and with believably detailed settings and tech. It would've been truer to its spirit to give a live-action version a naturalistic look (I'm sick of the overused word "gritty," but it's not far from the mark), to set it in a world that feels believable.
 
We watched the first episode last night. I thought the initial fight looked like they were trying too hard to look like the anime, so it looked off to me. After that, I thought they did a better job of capturing the tone and style of the anime without trying so hard to imitate it. Yoko Kanno is always a plus! I've actually got CDs of her music. :)

The bar scene definitely had a Rodriguez Desperado vibe to it.
Right? I turned to my hubby and said, "Look! Banderas and Hayek!" :lol:

I just looked (because my memory sucks sometimes) and this was the same basic plot as the first episode of the anime, with a few changes, including adding Faye and Vicious and...Julia? I didn't expect that. (I loved how Katerina hid the drugs.)

John Cho is a wonderful actor and he both captured the attitude and brought some nice nuance to Spike. But he's 49, and it showed in some of the close-ups. Spike is only 27 in the anime, which I sometimes thought was a little young for everything he's been through. I hate that the lines on John's face bothered me (he's 4 years younger than I am). I'll get over it. :)

Mustafa Shakir did a good job as Jet and Daniella Pineda *nailed* Faye's attitude. Alex Hassell was every bit as chilling and scary as Vicious should be.

I'll keep watching, but I wasn't as blown away as I'd like to have been.

FYI, we *WILL* get Ed!
https://decider.com/2021/11/19/cowboy-bebop-netflix-ed-final-scene-eden-perkins/
 
Its not a patch on the original, but what is? I liked the first episode, but if I was gonna change something, it'd definitely be a change to the length of the episodes. Bebop excelled partly cause it was like 20-30 minutes an episode, it moved at a fast but perfect pace, this one feels a bit slowed and filler.
 
You mean the live action show? I hope so. The anime's inconsistent treatment of microgravity is irritating -- like having cigarette smoke waft upward while characters are tossing weightless objects to each other, oh, and those characters are somehow standing normally. Better to fudge artificial gravity than to do microgravity poorly (and I've rarely seen it done well).
It is also a good explanation why every planet and moon appears to have gravity similar to Earth's. My theory is the failed experiment in the Moon gave the technology of the artificial gravity too. I mean, after FTL, artificial gravity is not a stretch.
 
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