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Netflix releases first visuals of their live action Cowboy Bebop


Jman

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8 hours ago, elfie said:

I knew this upon first hearing this and seeing these images confirm it for me: ..... this will not at all be like the original anime. But at hey they got Yoko Kanno!

These pics are only showing the costumes and a few facial expressions. Y'all are picky. I'll wait to judge when a trailer drops.

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17 hours ago, PokeNirvash said:

For Christ's sake, Jingai, can't you go a single post without being far-right as fuck?

Back on topic, main cast looks good, particularly John Cho as Spike.

I'm not far-right. Far from it in fact.

I'll make a prediction to demonstrate my point. I predict that when the series comes out Rotten Tomatoes will have a critic score in the high 80s-mid 90s and the reviews will be "stunning and brave...a bold and fresh re-imagining of a beloved classic" etc.. The fan scores will be lower mid 60s-mid 70s. Some of them will be disappointed weebs who were expecting an exact live action version of Cowboy Bebop, others will be fans who are okay with the show and would have scored it higher if it was a stand alone series that was influenced by Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Trigun, Harlock et al., however being that it is specifically a live action remake/reboot of Cowboy Bebop they will shrug and not be nearly as excited.

 

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I'm just going to watch and see how it goes. I have absolutely no expectations, aside from the assumption that it is very unlikely to improve upon or even complement the original. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, who knows. It does have some things going for it (Kanno, Watanabe's involvement, Cho). With that being said, the set pieces have me more concerned than anything right now. They look very generic, too pristine/polished and somewhat amateurish. I'm hoping something is getting lost in translation through the still photography, but I was picturing something much grittier.

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8 hours ago, saito34 said:

I'm just going to watch and see how it goes. I have absolutely no expectations, aside from the assumption that it is very unlikely to improve upon or even complement the original. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, who knows. It does have some things going for it (Kanno, Watanabe's involvement, Cho). With that being said, the set pieces have me more concerned than anything right now. They look very generic, too pristine/polished and somewhat amateurish. I'm hoping something is getting lost in translation through the still photography, but I was picturing something much grittier.

The anime was inspired by film noir.

I see NONE of that in these photos.

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2 hours ago, elfie said:

The anime was inspired by film noir.

I see NONE of that in these photos.

No..not at all. Maybe there's a post production CG layer missing or something. They're reminding me of the Altered Carbon set and I absolutely hated the way that show looked.

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I'm sort of reminded of the problem with the Ghost in the Shell movie, not Scarlett Johannsen, surprisingly enough, but the distance between the original anime and the LA movie made a lot of the visual aesthetics and plot points cliché because of decades of them drawing influence from Shell.  So when that happens, you're sort of stuck in the unenviable position of telling a story people have heard plenty of times before, and wondering why they should care.

Bebop is much the same.  Firefly jokes abound, but the fact is, a lot of Bebop's aesthetic and character work have been put through the ringer in everything from Space Sweepers to Guardians of the Galaxy.  It's not original anymore, and that means that the casual audience is going to need some hype to care.

Which brings us to...weebs.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the phrase "you only have one chance to make a first impression" is an apt one.  And now and forever, the first and last word on live action anime is Dragonball Evolution, or if you're feeling generous, Death Note 2017.  Alice in Borderland?  Never happened.  Rurouni Kenshin?  Didn't happen, plus the author is a perv so fuck him.  With Hollywood's stellar track record (I know Kenshin and Alice are Japanese productions, even if Alice's director is apparently being hired to make the MHA film) and only two examples that are considered some of the worst movies of their respective decades (if you really wanted to be generous, there's the equally awful Fist of the North Star movie and the awful and cheesy Guyver and the less bad Guyver II: Dark Hero from the 90s), this show has zero benefit of the doubt.  So even the tiniest change (Faye's outfit, which led to the usual nonsensical Twitter spats) is sacrilege and proof that the show will be shit.

Which brings me back to my first question - Why?  I know why in a broader sense, Netflix is scrambling to find shows to compete with the juggernaut that is Disney and their plethora of recognizable IP and they figured that mining anime was the next logical step, but all things considered, Bebop is one of the worst shows you could do this with.  It's gone from being a trendsetter to something of a cliché unto itself, much like Shell.

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16 hours ago, Jman said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the phrase "you only have one chance to make a first impression" is an apt one.  And now and forever, the first and last word on live action anime is Dragonball Evolution, or if you're feeling generous, Death Note 2017.  

Or, for broader western recognition, The Last Airbender.

Anyway, amusing thought I had: The worst part about this whole thing is that it's going to be filmed in English, so this is what we're stuck with. There'd be absolutely nothing stopping, say, Japan from dubbing over it with all the original VAs (barring any deaths or retirements) for a more authentic experience.

Unfortunately for us, there's just no way of getting an experience close to the original voice cast while also trying to remain true to the characters themselves. Arguably, Jet was maybe the only character voiced authentically. So, a live action adaptation is doomed from the start, with two options: whitewash the source to make it feel closer to the dub which much of the target audience is familiar with, or cast actors closer to "true" to the characters. and pray you don't lose too much of the characters/personalities we're familiar with in the process.

The adaptation maybe has what it takes to be adequate. But, as you said, it's hard to be truly optimistic about it.

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20 minutes ago, elfie said:

I am sick and tired of articles for live-action anime adaptations being met with users posting cosplay photos. Stop complaining and start learning how to design wardrobe for film and television under the direction of a producer!!

Sometimes I understand why because of obvious negligence towards things during production, but folks are sounding stupid as hell about these costumes. These clothes are supposed to withstand the rigors of action scenes while being fairly accurate to the characters, and most cosplay outfits cannot accomplish that. Go to any convention and you'll see how quickly they fall apart just from walking around.

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1 minute ago, DragonSinger said:

Sometimes I understand why because of obvious negligence towards things during production, but folks are sounding stupid as hell about these costumes. These clothes are supposed to withstand the rigors of action scenes while being fairly accurate to the characters, and most cosplay outfits cannot accomplish that. Go to any convention and you'll see how quickly they fall apart just from walking around.

I feel like this is just another example of anime fans being so staunch in tradition that they refuse to accept any alterations, because of how horrible the examples of alterations have been (Evolution).  Most fans of comic books accept that things need to be changed for productions and even then, the changes aren't too dramatic (case in point, Doctor Strange wearing a more practical version of his comic outfit that still reflects how he looks in the comic, the various takes on Batman's armor).  To have such a dramatic change in a medium that traditionally has translated incredibly poorly to live action is an immediate red flag.  And that's not getting into bad faith arguments, it's just that there is no trust in doing this correctly.

Hell, one of the few manga/light novel adaptations to get it right, Edge of Tomorrow  (the adaptation of All You Need is Kill) changed the exo--suits from mini-mecha that surrounded the pilot into powered armor so you could see the actors (and watch Tom Cruise get killed over and over).  People didn't mind because it wasn't a well-known story and it had a genuine A-list actor in Cruise.  Alterations between mediums are an inevitable part of adaptations to other mediums, but manga and anime fans are, with some admitted cause, so terrified of another DB Evolution or a 1991 Guyver film that any changes are immediately proof that it sucks.

 

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6 hours ago, elfie said:

I am sick and tired of articles for live-action anime adaptations being met with users posting cosplay photos. Stop complaining and start learning how to design wardrobe for film and television under the direction of a producer!!

The wardrobe honestly is fine, but the lighting and "flat" looking cameras doesn't help (and I severely doubt the final product will look much different).

That's why they really should've shot this on film instead, or at least put a LUT over it in post that emulates it like they did for Knives Out. The gritty color grading makes a huge difference.

Unretouched:

E9ehimsWYAo7oJy?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

35mm LUT:

fv3qxg1.png

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8 hours ago, Sketch said:

Adult Swim has taken Cowboy Bebop off of their website and app so they probably just lost the broadcast rights. So much for that 20th anniversary run I was hoping for.

I could have sworn DeMarco said he essentially had them in perpetuity,  Can’t say I’m surprised though.  An ad campaign about “the real Bebop” writes itself.

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10 hours ago, Jman said:

I could have sworn DeMarco said he essentially had them in perpetuity,  Can’t say I’m surprised though.  An ad campaign about “the real Bebop” writes itself.

IIRC, they have the rights to the standard def episodes in perpetuity, it's the HD tapes that they have to renew every so often and, in this go-around, not at all.

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On 9/2/2021 at 6:33 PM, PokeNirvash said:

IIRC, they have the rights to the standard def episodes in perpetuity, it's the HD tapes that they have to renew every so often and, in this go-around, not at all.

I'd never given thought to the fact that SD and HD would have different rights associated with them.  If it's true, then it really is the end of an era for Toonami.

Unless of course DeMarco just throws the SD tapes on.  I would pay to see that.

As for live-action Bebop, I think I'm gonna have to watch this.  I have absolutely no expectations that this will be good, but I need to know.  I need to see this for myself and experience the pain first hand.

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On 8/23/2021 at 5:40 PM, DragonSinger said:

These pics are only showing the costumes and a few facial expressions. Y'all are picky. I'll wait to judge when a trailer drops.

Yeah we need a trailer to get a better idea.  Still, John Cho looks wimpy compared to the original Spike, even if he did "get in shape for the role."

On 8/24/2021 at 12:03 AM, bnmjy said:

Truly disgusting display of Western cosplaying. This is the final straw. I'm cancelling my Netflix subscription.

 

On 8/24/2021 at 4:26 PM, bnmjy said:

Yes.

(I'm joking.)

only-asians-can-cosplay-anime-characters

I thought you were the Asian carpfish that plagued us in the past at first. xD

On 9/1/2021 at 10:47 PM, Sketch said:

Adult Swim has taken Cowboy Bebop off of their website and app so they probably just lost the broadcast rights. So much for that 20th anniversary run I was hoping for.

Oh shit.  Demarco must be going into convulsions right now.  Hell, can Demarco even continue to exist without the Bebop rights?

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On 9/12/2021 at 8:15 PM, PokeNirvash said:

I don't remember the Asian supremacist, but if I did, I probably just brushed it off as someone's alt dedicated to ranting about bullshit they couldn't say on their main.

How could you forget that whacko?  He plagued us for quite a while with his nonsense.  Here is a screenshot from his website -

490.png

On 9/12/2021 at 9:59 PM, MasqueradeOverture said:

It was back on the ASMB. They kept making threads about how Asians had superior genes and are thus the master race.

It was too frequent to not be genuine.

Yep he was serious about banishing non-Asians from cosplaying as anime characters LMAO.

The funny thing is, people found a picture of this guy, and he doesn't look anything like a Japanese person either!

On 9/13/2021 at 3:11 PM, bnmjy said:

ProudAsian was an Indonesian troll, whereas I am a filthy half Jap. I just occasionally copy his shtick because it's funny.

There have been some prominent cosplaying youtubers who complained about him, lol

Yep, that was him haha.

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Ask most anime fans and “Tank!” is, if not considered the best anime opening ever, it’s at least in the top 10.

Apparently the Netflix people agreed, because they literally just remade the anime OP.  It’s the same damn track from the anime.

 

 

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