| Episode: | 1 | | | Writer: | Christopher Yost |
| | Director: | Alex Garcia Lopez | | | Air Date: | 19-Nov-2021 |
This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the first episode of Cowboy Bebop, again. Though this time it's the first episode of the long-awaited live-action version that finally debuted on Netflix a week ago. This would've actually been filmed at some point in 2019 I think, before John Cho's knee injury put the brakes on filming for 6 months. Still, the timing's not that bad, as it's only two months shy of coming out 20 years after the first English airing in 2001.
Look, they've given me an actual title card to use for the picture, just like the anime did! Though this time the background text is Japanese and the foreground text is English, which is a nice touch. They've also pretty much recreated the classic opening credits sequence and they've flipped the script on that as well. My ability to read katana hasn't improved any in the last few days but I'm fairly sure this says "Cowboy Gospel", as in gospel music. The original series featured music-related episode titles and they're carrying on the tradition here. That's one of the few things that Cowboy Bebop has in common with Castlevania games.
The original anime series lasted for just 26 episodes and a movie, mostly because the creator, ShinichirÅ Watanabe, didn't want the series to become something like Star Trek that just keeps going on and on forever. Now we're in 2021 and Star Trek and Cowboy Bebop are both airing new episodes this month, so I guess that plan failed. We're also getting new The Expanse, Lost in Space and Star Wars soon, plus there's a new Blade Runner anime, so it's a pretty great time to be a science fiction fan. Well, assuming any of them are any good.
There will be SPOILERS beyond this point, but not as many as you might expect. The entire season dropped on Netflix at once, so I'm sure most people who've seen episode 1 will have also seen episode 10 by now, but I'm watching through them slowly and I don't actually know where the season goes from here. Plus I've forgotten most of the original anime series, so I can't spoil much of that either.
I feel like my initial instinctive reaction tends to be irritation, because I want things to stay true to what they are. People argue that an adaption has to change things, especially if it's being adapted to a different medium, but I feel like I want the contents of a product to match the name on the box. I don't want the Netflix adaptation of doughnuts to taste like carrots, even if the new showrunner really likes carrots and feels like they're better for me.
So I can definitely relate to the people who felt that Battlestar Galactica 2004 was 'Galactica in Name Only'... though I actually enjoyed BSG 2004 right to the end. I'm a big fan of JJ Abrams' Star Trek 2009 too. In fact I'm even hyped for the new Babylon 5 series that may or may not get made. So why do some reimaginings pull me in while others drive me mad? Why did I watch the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes but stay way clear of Paul Feig's Ghostbusters?
In that last case it's probably mostly because new Ghostbusters looked kind of terrible, but it's also because the original Ghostbusters story felt unfinished, like we were waiting for the next chapter to come, and Ghostbusters 2016 was in the way of that. And we did finally get that next chapter in Ghostbusters: Afterlife so I suppose all the negativity had a positive result. Unless Afterlife is rubbish (I haven't seen it). Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, felt surprisingly faithful to its source material. Plus it helps that the character exists in a million different adaptions at this point, without any one ongoing continuity to get attached to.
Some other franchises go on for so long with one continuity that they accumulate enough semi-consistent history and world building to develop into a living universe greater than the individual series that make it up. If you reboot a universe like this, to try to simplify things for new viewers or whatever, the old continuity doesn't really go away, you just end up with a DC Comics situation where no one can keep track of what happened anymore and it's hard to care about anything. On the other hand, if a new installment goes along with the flow and doesn't fight against it (looking at you Star Trek: Discovery), it can be strengthened by its association. The Mandalorian, for instance, reboots nothing (well, nothing that wasn't already thrown out by The Force Awakens) and lives in a well-established alternate world built up from four decades of accumulated lore without being unwelcoming to new viewers. In fact it inspired me to watch The Clone Wars and Rebels recently, in the same way that Star Trek: The Next Generation once got me to watch Star Trek: The Original Series, and I'm very grateful for that. It's so satisfying when it all fits together and feels right!
But like classic Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5, the original Cowboy Bebop pretty much resolved things and then stopped. So it was basically asking for someone to come in and revive it. Though I had no idea how much of a reimagining live-action Bebop was going to be. Was it going to be telling brand new stories? Was it going to be a straight adaptation of the anime? Was it going to give us a different take on the characters, mix up the tone, and mess up the design of the spaceships just for the sake of being different?
They also kept the music consistent, by bringing back the actual composer from the anime! That's a clear sign they recognise that elements of the classic series do not need fixing. It seems that no one involved felt the need to challenge Yoko Kanno at her own game and that was probably wise. They even brought 'Tank!' back as the theme! I'm a big fan of series that update their titles and theme each season or so, but sometimes you just need to stick with the correct choice.
I'm only one episode in, but so far Cowboy Bebop 2021's universe looks, sounds and feels like the anime universe come to life and that suits me just fine. Sure people can look a bit like cosplayers sometimes, but I'm counting that as a positive. I mean have you seen how good cosplay is lately? The characters look true to their source, even if their source was actually the movie Desperado.
It's almost like a 'what if?' story, changing a few details to see what happens, and putting familiar characters in slightly unfamiliar situations. In this case it's mostly "What if Faye turned up a few episodes early?" Spike still has his chat with Katarina, but this time Faye interrupts and distracts him. Asimov still dies from a gunshot, but this time it's Faye's bullet. Though on the other hand, Spike and Jet visit the space casino during the teaser and Faye isn't there.
It makes sense though I think, to remix Cowboy Bebop like this. The anime series was always inspired by jazz, and if there's no improvisation if they just straight up copy the original. I'm glad they're playing around with it a bit, as long as they keep the spirit of it intact. Jet and Spike seem pretty faithful so far, so they've got that bit right. Plus they're both very watchable, which always helps. Faye, on the other hand, is an annoying pain in the ass, so she seems pretty faithful to the anime as well. I mean she is who she's supposed to be and I look forward to seeing more of her. She seems fun.
Vicious didn't really appear on screen long enough for me to form an opinion of him as a character, but he's still an unwelcome presence in the episode for me. I really don't need this version of Bebop to pull the reveal of Spike's backstory forward and give Vicious a story arc threaded throughout the series; I'm in this for the one-off stand-alone tales of bounty hunting. Television has evolved since the 90s, but there were plenty of serialised anime series back then, like Outlaw Star from the same studio a few months earlier. I'm sure there was nothing stopping them from making the original Bebop anime fully serialised, they just chose not to.
COMING SOON
Next time it's actually definitely going to be Babylon 5, season 5, episode 5: Learning Curve. Unless it's not. I've learned not to make promises.
Please leave a comment if you want to!
And! Ridley Scott has promised us a Blade Runner TV show! (Yay)
ReplyDeleteI'm only three episodes in but I've very much warmed to Cowboy Live Bebop. It's different enough to the anime that both can coexist and it never feels pointless, like Sin City did. I like that the stories have a bit more room to breathe now they are not chained to a TV schedule.
(Although it's made by the American wing of ITV (!) so I expect to see it turn up on ITV4 in 20 years.)
There was something... not bothering me as such, but tickling at me, and I think I worked it out by the third episode. It all felt a bit odd, sort of unreal, almost theatrical, like there was no attempt to seem realistic at all. At first I thought it was a mistake, that they got the tone wrong, but I think it's deliberate. Basically, I think what they are doing here is what they were doing in the 60s Batman TV series, except they are being more subtle about it.
Anyway, liking it a lot so far. Not sure abut Tesco Value Witcher, but everything else is good.
"It's a bit like 60s Batman except sometimes Tesco Value Witcher turns up and he sucks" is a quote that needs to be on the Blu-Ray case.
DeleteThe irony of the 'Galactica in Name Only' fans is that, if the show had been named something else, the same fans would have complained that Ronald Moore had ripped off Battlestar Galactica.
ReplyDeleteIronically he was secretly ripping off Star Trek: Voyager. Well, he was doing all the things he had wanted to do on that show at least.
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