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WARNING: SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE LIVE ACTION AND THE ANIME
Also, these are just my thoughts. I’m no famous critic, I just like Cowboy Bebop a lot.
TLDR:
I’m super biased and can’t get the original out of my head. If you’ve already watched the anime, and loved it, I would skip the live action. You’ll just be focusing on the negatives and what they changed. If you didn’t like it, you might like this version. If you haven’t watched the anime, I’d still recommend to watch it over the live action. But if you absolutely don’t want to watch 26 episodes (which is a dumb reason) or don’t like anime, the live action might be ok.
Review
I first watched Cowboy Bebop in 2019 and it was the first real anime that I had seen. I was hooked after just the first episode. The story of Asteroid Blues was just so cool, I loved the setting, the characters we were introduced to, the music, all of it. Each episode had its own flair and just continued to amaze me. Overall Cowboy Bebop is very personally meaningful to me, and I always find something new in it when I watch it. There is no doubt in my mind that it is my favorite TV show. My first tattoo was from the closing card of the final episode, “You’re Gonna Carry That Weight.” on my left inner bicep.
Cowboy Bebop is a dark story of how the characters overcome each of their problems/pasts in tragic and bittersweet ways. Even though this show is set 50 years in the future (at least in 2022 it is, it was closer to 70 when it was released), the struggles Spike and the Bebop crew face are very real and very human (apart from maybe Faye’s amnesia, which isn’t as common in the real world). They are simply told in a setting that is nothing like what we have today.
That being said, I think that the live action missed the importance of these struggles in the original and made a confused abomination. I’m all for changing up some things in the show, that is to be expected. But it’s not even the same story, and I was left very disappointed.
Spike (“Fearless”) and Vicious’ backstory
Something that Cowboy Bebop was really good at, in my opinion, was leaving things open ended enough to where you could form your own opinions on what happened. There was very little concrete evidence about what lead up to Spike’s departure from the syndicate, apart from a few scattered flashbacks of him and Julia’s relationship and presumably the point where he faked his death. We know he faked his death, or at least was presumed dead because several people were surprised to see him (Annie). In the live action, they had it very linear and laid out that Spike and Vicious were partners, and there was a betrayal. I think adding to their story and having more flashbacks about how they met, and of Spike’s, “Fearless’” (the DUMBEST name), time in the syndicate, really didn’t add anything. Based on what we had in the original, that was enough of what you needed to know. It was really just connecting the dots for those who couldn’t do it themselves. I will admit that the scene of Spike going and killing all of the people from the Neptune gang was cool from the way it was filmed.
It added more to Vicious being a daddy’s money kid, but that was a horrible change too. That really was my main gripe with the live action, is they ruined the characters, but Vicious was the best example of it. He was so cool in the original, he didn’t say anything more than he needed to, and despite what a lot of other people think, I think most of his motives were clear. Vicious wanted to overthrow the elders currently in power, and once he found out Spike was alive, he had to kill him for fear of him coming back to overthrow him. Or to get back at him for stealing Julia. In the live action, he is such a “daddy’s money” type of person and he was so infuriating and insufferable. I think making a character simply to be hated has its benefits and use cases, but I don’t think that Vicious should’ve been this character. This Vicious had 10x the dialogue than the original, and was 10x too long. He acted more like a child than someone who could overthrow an entire crime organization that had been around for many years. I just didn’t like him.
Thoughts on casting choices
If the live action Cowboy Bebop did anything right, it was picking Mustaf Shakir to play Jet. I really don’t think they could’ve picked a better actor to play Jet in all honesty. I think he looked great, his costume was good, his voice matched really well. Honestly perfect casting choice. I think Mustaf Shakir was a better pick for Jet than John Cho was for Spike.
I heard early on that people wanted Keanu Reeves to play Spike. I’m not claiming the validity of them looking into him as a choice, but it’s just something I heard. If it were back in the 90s I might’ve been on board (but I also wasn’t born yet), because although he has aged incredibly well, I don’t think he would’ve looked young enough today. I think maybe someone like Brandon Lee would’ve also been a good choice if it were the 90’s. It’s really weird to see that John Cho is actually older than Mustaf Shakir, but Jet is older than Spike.
You’re never going to have a perfect casting choice that everyone agrees on. Especially not for live action remakes, they are never going to act 100% like the character they are portraying. However, I think they should’ve given the role of Spike to someone younger. John was almost twice Spike’s age, and looked super goofy with his hair done up like Spike’s. But on one hand, it’s good they didn’t give the part to someone else. If it was someone not as well known as John Cho, then it could’ve been a career-ender for them. I think he will be able to bounce back and continue acting no problem. This isn’t a stab at him as an actor, I’m not super familiar with him, but I think he’s probably a decent actor in other things since he is so popular. He just missed the mark as Spike. Vicious is also pretty old compared to the anime too. Spike and Vicious are about the same age. And according to the Cowboy Bebop wiki, they are all older than Jet is estimated to be (I think Jet only being 36 is kind of weird because he is an old looking 36).
Ed was completely awful, I hated the last 30 seconds of the show. That was incredibly horrible. In the anime, Ed is eccentric and not a character I particularly enjoy, but her story is really sweet and I’m glad she ends up finding her father. She was also useful to the Bebop crew, and gave Ein a friend, so I saw her importance. In the live action it seems she’s borderline making fun of people with special needs in her very short appearance, which didn’t help anything with the story and only seemed like she was included to be a segue into season 2 (I’ll talk more about season 2 later). I’m glad they didn’t include her in the live action for any longer, I don’t think anyone would’ve finished it. I’m also glad she just wasn’t included mostly anyhow, she is not a character that transfers well to real life. Her mannerisms and cartoony antics are what make her Ed. Anytime someone does that kind of stuff in real life (think people that talk like “uwu”, or do excessive body motions to imitate what they see on tv), they just come off as weird.
Diversity
Really the 2 issues I have with the diversity changes they included were Faye being a lesbian (or bisexual at least, I can’t remember), and Gren being openly non-binary.
Faye having a lesbian relation with the woman who fixed the Bebop added nothing to the story, and seemed sorta like fan service. I wouldn’t have cared if she mentioned she had a girlfriend, or something to that effect. It would’ve been a change, but it would’ve been simple and less in your face. The scene where they’re on the floor of the Bebop just did nothing to advance Faye’s character or her story, and only to sexualise her. Cowboy Bebop was never a sexually charged show. Despite Faye’s appearance, there wasn’t really any mention of sex or anything. What was added really wasn’t even that bad, I wasn’t like “ugh, lesbians are ruining my favorite show!!!”, it just didn’t help anything and was sort of put in. Faye’s story was her finding out her past identity, in which this didn’t further it at all. Maybe this was to “make up” for the live action Faye not showing enough skin, I don’t know. I was cool with the costume change. Faye used her sex appeal to her advantage in the original a few times, but she didn’t have to use it in the live action. I don’t even think you have to wear skimpy clothes to be “sexy”. I don’t know. Her being a lesbian just seemed out of place.
My complaint over Faye isn’t as bad as with Gren, this change incredibly irritated me. Jupiter Jazz part 1 and 2 were some of my favorite episodes from the original series. They were set somewhere interesting to me (Callisto), they had kickass music, the story was a prime example of “Cowboy Bebop Tragic(TM)” and it helped advance the story between Spike and Vicious to a degree. When I saw Gren in the bar I knew Jupiter Jazz, or a similar episode, wouldn’t happen.
If you haven’t seen the original, Gren is a man who lives on Callisto and plays the saxophone for a bar. In his past, he was a soldier who fought on Titan (one of Saturn’s moons) along side Vicious. After they left Titan, Gren was accused of being a spy, by Vicious, and thrown in prison. During this time he was given drugs that upped his estrogen levels and changed his physical appearance, giving him feminine features. With his reputation being trashed, and his literal physiology, he just wanted to know why. His life was ruined by these changes. Yet he held these times on Titan in high esteem, and wanted to die heading to Titan.
This new Gren had none of the backstory, and could’ve just as easily been a man, a woman, or a non binary person in that position that Gren played being just a bartender, and totally left him out of the new story. It was a cheap change of “Oh, here’s this character that was different sexually. Let’s make him non-binary and way less interesting.” that helped nothing and removed such a good part of the story, all just to include a more diverse cast. He was a war hero, and he was reduced to a symbol of “look how diverse and open we are including a non-binary character”. Gren was a man, who presumably wanted to remain a man. It just felt like a slap in the face to him. I know it’s stupid to get this angry over a cartoon character, but it was such a good story that they just removed and tarnished so badly. I’m more mad about this than the ending.
Use of profanity and crude humor:
I heard the words “God damn” more times in one episode than I heard in the entire original series. I’m not usually one to complain about profanity, but there were a few times where it was simply gratuitous and didn’t make sense. It felt like a 13 year old using those words in the wrong way, just to sound cool to their friends.
The level of humor in the live action was something I wasn’t really expecting. It was funnier in some spots, and just weird in others. One of my favorite jokes is where Jet is talking about bidets and buying 2 for the Bebop. “One for each foot” he says. Jet and Spike were much more “buddy-buddy” in this one than the original, which wasn’t too bad. Obviously they lived together, there were going to be spots where they got along better than others. But the humor was kind of off and seemed forced. It also wasn’t as special as when Spike told the story about the cat before he went to go face Vicious. That didn’t happen in the live action, but if it had then it wouldn’t have been special because they were joking about bidets.
The humor I think they were going for with the guy who eats balls (yes, this man supposedly tortures people and eats their testicles) just wasn’t as funny as I think they meant for it to be. Personally, I don’t think I’d work with a guy who openly eats testicles. It was a very weird few interactions.
The Cowboy Bebop anime to me is a perfect 10/10. It literally hits everything I love in stories. I think that is why I just can’t like the live action, even though I was super excited for it and really wanted to like it. I just kept focusing on the negatives and couldn’t really find any positives. From what I hear, they were planning on having a season 2, which was possible because Spike, Vicious and Julia are still alive. But they were cancelled and now I’ve heard they’re trying to petition for another one. I’d like to see it I think and see if they can sort of clean up their mess and add something cool to it. Or even just a show that is set in the same universe. Kind of like a “Better Call Saul” thing, where it’s more of the inner workings of the Syndicate and the police force that Jet was on. I love the setting of Cowboy Bebop, so I would probably be interested in at least a season of that. They would have total freedom to do what they wanted with it, and they could only mention the characters from the main show in passing.
My rating for this would probably be a 3/10. I can’t really give it anything higher.
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