Netflix Cowboy Bebop adaptation releases opening credits

September 26, 2021 12:21 AM

Netflix releases the opening credits (Tank!) for the new adaptation, which comes out in November. Original here, for comparison

I'm curious what others think. I'm torn! I really want this adaptation to be good! I'm generally down with the casting (honestly my favorite choice thus far is Jet, he looks awesome). The style they are going for in the credits reminds me of Sin City or something...which is good and bad? It seemed like their plan was not to be too tied to the original, which I thought was smart...TV isn't anime, and has its own strengths and weaknesses (anime fans be damned). But this makes it look like they are trying really hard to have a more "anime-esque" TV show...which makes me a little worried. It's entirely possible they just played that up to make the opening credits match up with the original, though (which honestly is what I hope!)

That said, I'm glad Mushroom Samba made it. The casting for the characters looks great and that's a really fun episode from the original.

Honestly the think I'm most excited about, by far, is that they got Yoko Kanno to work with them. If we get some new music out of this then the rest be damned, it will have been worth it...

posted by wooh (71 comments total)

That looks like it was shot by Zack Snyder with a TV budget, with all the good and bad that connotes. Still happy that Netflix is trying this, but if the show’s going in for shot-for-shot remakes of moments from the original anime I’m concerned. (Everything looked a bit sluggish relative to the original , because people can’t move like cartoons.)
posted by Going To Maine at 12:41 AM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yeah, looked to me like I remember all of those scenes from the original so yeah maybe just the same stories.... (anime fan, so mostly cool with that). And second the "people can't move like cartoons.)

I would love to see the church fight done all Jet Li and somebody and filmed like a good Japanese gangster movie fight between Spike and Vicious. But I'm not that level of hopeful.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:04 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

It looks awful.
Like a shampoo commercial trying to evoke a 70s kung fu movie.

And this is the stylized trailer.

Just let the original stand on its own and come up with some other fucking idea, would you Netflix?
posted by lkc at 1:05 AM on September 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

I don’t care how bad it is, let this be an impetus for someone to adapt Black Lagoon in live action next.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:10 AM on September 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

I’ll be fine if they revisit the same stories too - I just want them to be told in a cool new way.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:23 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

That looks like it was shot by Zack Snyder with a TV budget, with all the good and bad that connotes. Still happy that Netflix is trying this, but if the show’s going in for shot-for-shot remakes of moments from the original anime I’m concerned. (Everything looked a bit sluggish relative to the original , because people can’t move like cartoons.)

I’ll be fine if they revisit the same stories too - I just want them to be told in a cool new way.

I agree entirely, Going to Maine.
posted by wooh at 1:54 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I like the middle bit where it evokes the setting more than the original opening does. Not sure about that John Cho running-in-place bit. Appreciate that it's not a shot-for-shot remake, without abandoning the tone (or music) of the original.

As much as I feel like they're treading on sacred ground here, I also recognise that adaptations are how stories are kept alive. If this adaptation is bad, nothing takes away from the original, except for the march of time that grinds everything into irrelevance. If this adaptation is good, or at least decent, or at least exciting, it keeps the Bebop flying for a generation, and wouldn't that be nice.

(Also why I'm not bothered that they're making a movie adaptation of Uncharted, which is 'Indiana Jones the video game' - most of its target audience has never seen an Indiana Jones.)
posted by Merus at 1:57 AM on September 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

I'm enthusiastic! I'd rather have them lean in than try to play it cool, and it looks like they're leaning in. If this tanks (pun semi-intended), I'd rather it be because they tried like hell to shove as much Cowboy Bebop as possible into it.

I think retelling the cartoon's stories is probably the choice they had to make for this to be a proving ground; I was vaguely hoping they'd lean hard into the aesthetic but tell stories that could have happened in between Bebop episodes, but that's a tough row to hoe.

I'm not really a big follower or reader of the "business of Hollywood" type stuff, but I'd be interested to know whether the creators here are approaching this with the conceit that it's a show for a bunch of people in their 40s and 50s clinging tightly to a 20-year-old cartoon, or whether they're making this thinking of introducing Bebop to a new generation of people.

If the former, it feels like they're hamstrung and will be damned if you do -- you can't make live people do cartoon things -- and damned if they don't ("that's not Cowboy Bebop"). If the latter, I hope they don't try to stick so slavishly to the cartoon that they don't make the best live-action series they can.
posted by Shepherd at 3:10 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

I absolutely feel the way the people feel oddly sluggish vs the cartoons - i think that's probably hitting harder because all we have is these credits, so there's no show to then watch and get accustomed to seeing the characters in live action?

I only watched the cartoon last year so I'm coming more from a place of "oh neat, more bebop" than with the worries of a more passionate fan, but my main reaction is just relief that they're at least shooting for a sense of fun than going for an edgy, dark take. Even if it's not great it looks likely to be a fun, interesting failure more than something like Altered Carbon, which, yawn.
posted by ominous_paws at 4:06 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I thought the trailer was fun, but directly juxtaposing the anime with live action might have been a mistake. Overall, it looks like it might be good, but it's hard to judge from this trailer or stills how the show itself is going to feel.
posted by Foosnark at 5:17 AM on September 26, 2021

Based on this intro, I predict that the champion of hewing too closely to inconsequential details or plot beats while completely missing the main point(s) is still going to be the movie adaptation of Contact. But there is both room for concern and room for hope with this show.
posted by eviemath at 5:25 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Well, I’m here for it. If it doesn’t turn out to be good, I still have the original on DVD.
posted by Fleebnork at 5:39 AM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Hilariously, when I tried to watch the second clip, the original opening, I got a note saying Bandai had blocked the content in my region, which, uh, is Japan.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:03 AM on September 26, 2021 [9 favorites]

Where's Ed?
posted by kyrademon at 6:15 AM on September 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

Somehow, I never realized how much Archer’s opening credits aped CB’s credits.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:52 AM on September 26, 2021 [14 favorites]

They left a hole in the closing montage for Edward. It looks like they're leaning into Ed not showing up until well into the show.

I'm hoping this turns out well. I gotta admit... that moment where the title sequence changed from the stylized, primary-color thing to live-action turning the key and throttle? I dunno what it was about that, but I had feelings.

Glad to see we'll be getting Punch and Judy.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:52 AM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

GCU Sweet and Full of Grace: “I gotta admit... that moment where the title sequence changed from the stylized, primary-color thing to live-action turning the key and throttle? I dunno what it was about that, but I had feelings.”

Yeah, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I love Bebop and I'm excited for this. I feel like them using Kanno's music was trying to let the real fans know it was going to be alright.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:39 AM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm excited for this to be as goofy as the original show was.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:14 AM on September 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

I liked it. This makes me feel more optimistic for the show.
posted by biogeo at 8:59 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

The series ended in such a way that the Netflix show could continue from there. Edward had left to stay on Earth by that point, so maybe there is no Edward?
posted by fiercekitten at 9:01 AM on September 26, 2021

I tend to agree with folks upthread. The trailer's motion graphics are very well done and very smooth, but it clashes with how human and un-smooth the human actors are. I'm kinda surprised they did basic chromatic effects on the footage with no fine-tuned kinetic effects to blend it with the motion graphics. Maybe the trailer was made under a tight deadline?
posted by Philipschall at 9:12 AM on September 26, 2021

Uh, I can think of a way that the series ended so that there wasn’t much room to continue without some dramatic changes in the cast….

There might be no Ed because Ed would be really hard to cast? Manic Pixie Dream Child Androgyne is a really hard role to sell to a mainstream US audience.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:14 AM on September 26, 2021

O, also I don’t believe Ed showed up in the credits until after being introduced. Could be wrong, but that’s my memory.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:22 AM on September 26, 2021

Also from the way this was first presented online elsewhere, I initially read it as being the show's actual credits, whereas it seems to actually be a trailer that's a remake of the anime's credits... is that right??
posted by ominous_paws at 9:25 AM on September 26, 2021

123 let’s jam. I’m hopeful this will be fun to watch.
posted by interogative mood at 9:37 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I saw this and got very excited. I have heard lots about Cowboy Bebop but I've never seen it. I have seen A LOT of people on the Internet shitting on every single thing here that has been released, which both makes me grumpy at the Internet and makes me think that no matter what this show does it will be trashed.
posted by rednikki at 9:42 AM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

> I have heard lots about Cowboy Bebop but I've never seen it.

really just try it. friend me on discord and i'll even stream it to you
posted by glonous keming at 9:49 AM on September 26, 2021

Adaptations of beloved material are easier for me to enjoy than what seems to be typical -- I credit my comparative-literature undergrad major for this.

The new Bebop looks fun and stylish as hell and I'm here for it. Triply here for more Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts.
posted by humbug at 9:52 AM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'll take it. Could be terrible, but I'll watch anything that gives me a little more Bebop.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 10:09 AM on September 26, 2021

O, also I don’t believe Ed showed up in the credits until after being introduced. Could be wrong, but that’s my memory.

At least in the version on my server, ep1's title sequence has Edward.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:02 AM on September 26, 2021

John Cho is too old!!!

Otherwise, I want to believe.
posted by subdee at 11:15 AM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oh and also Ed being missing... The titular Cowboy Bebop!

They also seem to be rewritting Faye Valentine from an extremely messy femme fatale disaster person, into a generic Action Girl and it just seems like such a waste of a good character.
posted by subdee at 11:49 AM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Somehow, I never realized how much Archer’s opening credits aped CB’s credits.

It's possible CB was a reference, but I'd guess that both are interpreting the Saul Bass-type styles of 60s title sequences.

https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/archer/
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 11:57 AM on September 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

I loved CB. Every single second of it is etched into my mind and I even loved the movie and watched it countless times.

And. I'm 38 now and I can re-watch the series and realize that many of the things I loved were forced, canned, totally unnecessary fan-service, or that the show writers were taking themselves too seriously. It has some extremely cheese-ball moments that would make a contemporary kid cringe themselves into paralysis.

So much of this new nostalgia content that is targeted directly and weirdly at me (I guess I have the money to spend and the empty nostalgia of youth to chase after) - but I'm torn. Do I want something that's gonna make me happy or something for the next generation of CB fans? Honestly? I want the second thing.

That's what made me fall in love with the The Force Awakens. It obviously wasn't for me. And that's a very, very good thing in my opinion.

These canons don't owe me anything. They're brilliant literature and I was incredibly lucky to have them when I had them. I want the same thing for 16 and 17 year olds, today. They don't want what I had and what I had is weird and boring and problematic to them. They want the new thing, I want them to have the new thing, and frankly I'll be disappointed if the new thing is just the thing that I had remade to make me feel young and cool again. That kind of generational vampirism comes to an end, I think. The boomers did that shit with their Christmas music and I'll never forgive 'em.

I hope it's brilliant, makes the kids go wild, and flies high over my graying head.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:35 PM on September 26, 2021 [12 favorites]

I'm excited for this to be as goofy as the original show was.

The teddy bear suggests a Teddy Bomber episode, which means Andy, the literal cowboy nemesis of Spike. Which was the most insane episode of the original series.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:37 PM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

I hear what you're saying, baby_balrog, but i just don't think making Spike old and Faye into an action girl and removing any kind of messiness from the characters is really gonna make the story better.

Plus they seem to be going for a shot-for-shot recreation of the opening (minus Ed) so like, it's not like Faye was turned into an action girl and Ed was removed in service of making the story into something new and different.

The set design looks pretty good though, I'll give them that.

I think someone else in another thread said it well, fans just don't want to let the story alone. It had a beginning, an ending, and a movie, it really doesn't need more content. But the Western fans just want more content, so that's what they're getting.

Hopefully it will be good and I'll just be a hater. I hope so.
posted by subdee at 6:01 PM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Which was the most insane episode of the original series.

That's a tough call to make. Me, I hope they remember that after being proven repeatedly to be one of the toughest fighters in the world, Spike gets absolutely clowned by Ed's father. He's a weirdo scientist obsessed with meteors, but also the baddest motherf***er ever for whatever reason.
posted by Chronorin at 6:30 PM on September 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

They also seem to be rewritting Faye Valentine from an extremely messy femme fatale disaster person, into a generic Action Girl and it just seems like such a waste of a good character.

Given what we've seen so far, there's an approximately 99.9% chance we're getting an episode where they try and get an old VCR working, and I'd imagine they're writing their Faye to that arc. So she might be cool action girl in this title sequence, but if you don't write her as an absolute trainwreck of a human being as well, what's on that cassette tape simply doesn't land, and neither does Faye being the last one to see Spike alive before he goes to confront Vicious. (Previous interviews have suggested that they're at least aware that Faye's supposed to be a trainwreck.)

We Shall See if they actually manage to write to that arc or whether it's a Zack Snyder's Watchmen scenario where you get all the big beats but none of the story setup's been done so they land badly.
posted by Merus at 8:25 PM on September 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

That's a tough call to make. Me, I hope they remember that after being proven repeatedly to be one of the toughest fighters in the world, Spike gets absolutely clowned by Ed's father. He's a weirdo scientist obsessed with meteors, but also the baddest motherf***er ever for whatever reason.

There's also flashes of that big round clown guy, the hyper-assassin with the mind of a child, which was also a bonkers episode.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:00 PM on September 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

Which was the most insane episode of the original series.
There's also flashes of that big round clown guy, the hyper-assassin with the mind of a child, which was also a bonkers episode.

"Pierrot le Fou" ("Requiem for a Clown")

That was the first episode I ever saw. CB had been on Adult Swim and I thought it was about Cowboys or something and whenever I flipped by it was some slow beat story sort of thing. Then one night there was *nothing* else to watch and I got "big round clown guy" and just went DAMN why haven't I been watching this all along.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:29 PM on September 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

Broadly bullish on the idea of a live-action remake, but this intro looks… well, like, it's the sort of thing you'd watch, and you think, oh wow, those college students did a solid job of this hobby thing that they uploaded on Vimeo, and then you find out that it was actually made by professionals with an unlimited budget

You can tell it was made by Americans because it has pointless Japanese text everywhere, often turned 90° in a way that looks hilariously bad, so that's fun

It's kind of heartbreaking to watch, because the original intro sequence basically makes maximum use of the animated medium for really dynamic angles and silhouettes and movements, and trying to recreate that with actual human meats and bones makes the running silhouettes look less "sprinting" and more "winded"

Overall though I could see it working well as an actual show just because the original series so clearly wanted to be a western, but man, at least the intro kept the iconic extremely good music
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:00 PM on September 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

You can tell it was made by Americans because it has pointless Japanese text everywhere, often turned 90° in a way that looks hilariously bad, so that's fun

Er, the original has this, but with english.
posted by wooh at 11:50 PM on September 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

You can tell it was made by Americans because it has pointless Japanese text everywhere, often turned 90° in a way that looks hilariously bad, so that's fun

Er, the original has this, but with english.

The English in the original intro isn't (total) nonsense. It reads:

Once upon a time, in New York City in 1941... at this club open to all comers to play, night after night, at a club named "Minston's Play House" in Harlem, they play jazz sessions competing with each other. Young jazz men with a new sense are gathering. At last they created a new genre itself. They are sick and tired of the conventional fixed style jazz. They're eager to play jazz more freely as they wish then... in 2071 in the universe... The bounty hunters, who are gathering in the spaceship "BEBOP", will play freely without fear of risky things. They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called... COWBOY BEBOP

posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 12:05 AM on September 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

the English in the original also kind of makes thematic sense since they basically wanted to make a western

mostly though the Japanese text in the background is ubiquitous to the point of distraction, and also there is a kind of overwhelming sense of "they did not understand that vertical Japanese text is still written with the glyphs right-side-up"
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:43 AM on September 27, 2021

or as this Japanese Twitter user put it, the way they did the Japanese text makes it look like Niconico Video comments rather than, say, worn print
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:56 AM on September 27, 2021

John Cho is too old!!!

In term of visual design, yes, but in terms of characterization, Spike seems to be older than he looks on the show itself. He’s done a lot, which explains how he’s such a smooth operator and excellent fighter. He just looks the way he is because of anime/cartoon character design.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:58 AM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

I am entirely, one million percent on board and I am going to love every minute. Even if it sucks. I'm IN.
posted by Occula at 8:23 AM on September 27, 2021

Which was the most insane episode of the original series.
There's also flashes of that big round clown guy, the hyper-assassin with the mind of a child, which was also a bonkers episode.

There's also a shot of what appears to be the Space Warriors and their mother, Twinkle Maria Murdoch, from "Gateway Shuffle."
posted by Gelatin at 8:43 AM on September 27, 2021

The choreography has no snap. Every human movement seems slow and without focus, ending in droopy little wiggles. There's no speed, no obvious decisions. That sword pose with the wiggling at the end... instead of tight snappy freeze is disappointing. The music, as always, rocks, and oddly, the indecisive biomechanics look worse while it's playing. Faye's draw and fire was weak and lacked punch. Everything lacks punch.
posted by Wetterschneider at 9:09 AM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

in terms of characterization, Spike seems to be older than he looks on the show itself. He’s done a lot, which explains how he’s such a smooth operator and excellent fighter. He just looks the way he is because of anime/cartoon character design.

I've long suspected that Spike was consciously designed as a bishonen ("pretty boy") version of Elliott Gould in "The Long Goodbye." So I'm all right with the idea of a live-action Spike being either a weathered 35 (as Gould was in '73) or a well-preserved 49 (as Cho is in 2021).
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:29 AM on September 27, 2021

I'm even more worried about super-serious Spike now. The essence of his character is relaxed goofiness, and I'm not seeing any of it in the limited shots we've seen so far.
posted by CaseyB at 11:41 AM on September 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I know I will draw quite a few indulgent chuckles here, but as someone with zero CB background I'm very late to the party and mostly I'm just struck by the total debt owed by the opening credits to Archer, a real Now You Know moment. I could tell it was based on things, I just did not realize it was based very much on This (CB) Thing.

Mostly I think adaptations can infrequently fight innumerable odds to be decent or even good, here's hoping we get at least decent.
posted by elkevelvet at 1:41 PM on September 27, 2021

Sorry guys. But Spike is only pretending to be old. He's a young person pretending to be an old person. Also the wiki says that he is 27. 27!!! He's at that crossroads where you either die young bc you feel it's romantic to die young or figure out how to gracefully become old. That tension is at the heart of his character. Casting John Cho (49) was a mistake and it's keeping another Asian-American actor who could use the exposure from getting it.
posted by subdee at 7:53 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have to say, a lot of this criticism feels very Bitch Eating Crackers to me. As in, there are many things about what's been released about this project so far that are totally normal stylistic choices or casting choices or whatever that may or may not turn out well in their execution, but in other contexts no one would bat an eye at. I mean, I dunno, this could be terrible. Most remakes are, so if I had to lay money I'd probably take the safe bet and say it will be. But it feels like an awful lot of people have basically already made up their minds to hate this, or just genuinely hate the idea of it, and are looking for things that will justify that feeling.

I don't think that feeling needs justifying. If you love the CB anime and think a live action remake is just a terrible idea as a concept, that's a completely legitimate perspective. Don't watch it, unless you enjoy hate-watching things, in which case have fun. But a lot of the things people are criticizing with this trailer just feel... strange, and I think many of them are things people would probably like or at least find interesting (e.g., the live action / animation movement blending) if it weren't a CB remake.

Anyway, I'll leave this recent rendition of The Real Folk Blues here for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, or for anyone who has seen it to rewatch because it's amazing. I was in a pretty rough place when I saw this last year (who wasn't, really) and man it did my soul good.
posted by biogeo at 9:29 PM on September 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

Watching this, I was sure they had changed the music, but I guess not. It really felt like one of those covers of a jazz or rock classic where the musician just doesn't have an ear for it -- shifts everything to the downbeat, can't maintain the rhythms, and doesn't really even perceive what they are missing. It happens a lot with older greats late in their careers too, like McCartney singing his old songs. But I guess it's not the music that was borked (though it is certainly muddier), just the editing and animation. Which is an interesting illustration of how you can cut visual scenes like jazz, off the beat or full of swing, or just plod along from scene to scene as if you barely even know what jazz is, and through the miracle of human psychology that really affects how it sounds too. ...And rewatching the original again in the middle of this comment -- even the continuous motions in the animation are perfectly synched to the beat or the offbeat! What a work of art.

On the other hand, I suppose the fact that the editors didn't manage a fairly subtle and hard job doesn't necessarily have any boding for the acting, writing, or directing in the show proper.
posted by chortly at 9:56 PM on September 27, 2021

He's a young person pretending to be an old person. Also the wiki says that he is 27. 27!!!

Was he a chid soldier and then a tween gangster then a teenaged gangland commander capo type and then a twenty-something bounty hunter because based on the flashbacks he had a career that spanned over a decade and he must've also been a prodigy to get so high in the ranks + be so respected at his job + be capable of fighting, shooting and fancy flying.
posted by Apocryphon at 1:16 AM on September 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

But it feels like an awful lot of people have basically already made up their minds to hate this, or just genuinely hate the idea of it, and are looking for things that will justify that feeling.

People have been talking about Western film adaptations of Cowboy Bebop and Akira for ages, and one of the barriers has typically been that Western anime fans do not want it in a way that doesn't apply to, say, Death Note, or Battle Angel Alita. There is a widely-held expectation that a Western adaptation is an arrogant dismissal that the original could ever work for a Western audience; if Western creators could make something like Akira, they already would have.

The fact that fans aren't going into this writing the series off is due to a lot of PR work. (It's also, I think, possibly due to the show aging, and some of its flaws being easier to see with the benefit of new perspectives.)
posted by Merus at 2:30 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

So my feelings about Cowboy Bebop were kind of "meh" except for the opening music, which was great. Good choice not replacing that. This means I'm kind of spared the remake-anxiety everyone else here seems to be going through. There's nothing sacred in CB for me so as long as it's not a shot-for-shot copy like these credits, or the updates they made were just bigger explosions and longer fights, I might give it a try after checking reviews.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 7:57 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

(posted from a well-stocked nuclear bunker, don't bother sending bounty hunters after me)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 7:59 AM on September 28, 2021

It's fun to be cranky and complain, I don't think you guys need to like chastise the fans for complaining. I didn't even mention that Spike is now much older than Faye so the romance is out or different.

Anyway I'll give it fair shakes when it comes out like I always do.
posted by subdee at 10:50 AM on September 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

Spike is now much older than Faye

John Cho might be a good bit older than Daniella Pineda, but I expect Faye will still be rather older than Spike.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:19 PM on September 28, 2021 [7 favorites]

No matter how good or bad it turns out, if it serves to introduce people who've never seen the original TO the original, it will have served a good purpose.
posted by Quasimike at 3:34 PM on September 28, 2021

John Cho might be a good bit older than Daniella Pineda, but I expect Faye will still be rather older than Spike.

Touche!
posted by subdee at 2:01 PM on September 29, 2021

It's fun to be cranky and complain, I don't think you guys need to like chastise the fans for complaining. I didn't even mention that Spike is now much older than Faye so the romance is out or different.

TBH, I never really got a romantic vibe from Spike/Faye. The interpersonal dynamics on the Bebop feel much more familial -- Jet is clearly the dad/mom, Spike and Faye are the bratty kids, Edward is the baby, and Ein is the dog.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:22 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

TBH, I never really got a romantic vibe from Spike/Faye. The interpersonal dynamics on the Bebop feel much more familial -- Jet is clearly the dad/mom, Spike and Faye are the bratty kids, Edward is the baby, and Ein is the dog.

While it’s certainly familial, I think there’s also a bit of a Nick & Nora vibe to them. Or, more aptly a male-main-character-of-an-80s-movie and a female-best-friend-of-main-character in an 80s movie. Julia gets so little definition compared to Faye, ditto Spike’s doomed love for her. (If the new version can rectify this, I’ll be very happy.)
posted by Going To Maine at 4:49 PM on September 30, 2021

I think it’s refreshing to have two available hetero leads of opposite genders who aren’t paired with each other. They are coworkers, after all.

For both, romance is something tragic, from the doomed past.
posted by Apocryphon at 6:13 PM on October 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

Netflix put out what I think is a new promo, "The Lost Session", which it looks like may be all footage shot for this purpose rather than cut together from episodes or whatever.

I don't like it. But it's hard to know exactly how representative it is of the actual show. Anyway I remain cautiously pessimistic.
posted by grobstein at 8:45 AM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Hmm. Yeah, the original series was definitely lighthearted and humorous in places, but not in such a slapstick way.
posted by eviemath at 1:48 PM on October 19, 2021

I watched "The Lost Session" and also didn't care for it much. I'm hoping it's just punched up for the promo. I liked Scott Pilgrim, but if they did that style to the whole of Cowboy Bebop, I'm out.
posted by Fleebnork at 5:09 AM on October 20, 2021

"...the original series was definitely lighthearted and humorous in places, but not in such a slapstick way."

I'm currently re-watching it with my wife because she had never seen it. We just finished season 1. I would have said the same thing based on memory but .. it is actually quite slapstick-y.

The cuts in the promo feel like a clever gimmick for the promo and I'd be surprised if there was much of that in episodes proper, but, yeah, the slapstick level seems on par to me.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 7:42 AM on October 20, 2021

The slapstick in the original show had different beats and was quite natural and organic, because it was a cartoon so things were already loosey-goosey. The promo amps it up for hyper-stylized live action imitating animation, so everything looks glossy and cinematic and not subtle. Unnatural and inorganic. We'll have to see how if the show actually handles it in a more appropriate way.

The way they did the Vicious callout in the promo and spliced in the music was so hamfisted.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:32 PM on October 20, 2021 [2 favorites]