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REVIEW: Cowboy Bebop Live-Action

I wonder how many people comparing this Netflix adaptation to the original have only ever seen the English dubbed version?

It's been interesting reading reviews and comments that talk about how Spike and Jet sound a lot like their anime counterparts. I couldn't tell because I'd only seen the sub.

it would be a waste to flesh them out since they were serving their purpose (as I said, in the anime there was neither waste nor excess).

There's nothing wrong with having standards.

When the rotten tomato scores came out I didn't pay much attention cause rotten tomato scores are not always accurate. Good lord this is one time where the critic reviews are right

animedude1982 wrote:

When the rotten tomato scores came out I didn't pay much attention cause rotten tomato scores are not always accurate. Good lord this is one time where the critic reviews are right

It's clear all the changes they made were to pander specifically to critics, but the problem is they fumbled the ball in the process so the critics were against them as well as the fans. I'm sure they were expecting praise and admiration for all the changes they did, and indeed, up until the show aired you had a lot of people defending the casting choices, the outfit changes, and other bits of info being revealed. But then the show came out and we get a lot of racial jokes with Jet, Whedon-esque Faye, blink-and-you'll-miss-it Gren, and other stuff that rub the people this was meant to pander to in the wrong way. Just like when the show dropped and the show's Twitter promoted Ed as being non-binary and using they-them pronounds I'm sure they expected heaps of praise for the inclusive change, but instead the replies were all complaining about how they whitewashed the character by casting a white kid. Some additional tweaks would have won the critics over and have them singing the praises of this work, I feel. Even this review takes a few jabs at things like Faye's anime outfit so I imagine if Faye's personality was the same as the anime and only the outfit was changed it would be seen as an objective improvement over the anime, same with the other changes. Cut out the black jokes with Jet, make Gren more improtant to the plot, de-MCU Faye, and cast an Asian or Black kid for Ed, and I imagine a lot of the complaints go away and people would be praising this a lot more.

I'm pretty sure they were expecting praises for the homages to the original while enjoying the show as it's own thing. Thankfully alot of people did that but alot of anime fans just wanted a recreation of the original and have been trashing the show ever since they found out it was not that.

I haven't watched this yet, might watch it down the road. But did they make Faye Bi or outright Lesbian?

In the original anime her love interest in the past was male, and she is pretty much canonical in love with Spike. You could argue she was at least infatuated with Julia, so she could lean bi, but the stuff with Ed to me is more big sister little sister.

This almost feels like a repeat of Tracer from Overwatch. They gave her some pretty bland pose that was deemed too "sexy", and next thing I know she is now gay, clearly not 180 by the game writers trying apologize/earn credit with a certain crowd.

So Faye was viewed as some kind of negative stereo type despite a big part of her original character being a female fatal, and so they really tone down her appearance, and then have her show a canonical lesbian encounter. Sure okay.

everydaygamer wrote:

I'm pretty sure they were expecting praises for the homages to the original while enjoying the show as it's own thing. Thankfully alot of people did that but alot of anime fans just wanted a recreation of the original and have been trashing the show ever since they found out it was not that.

You keep saying "alot", and "alot", and "alot" as if the people who liked this show were a majority, when in reality there are more people complaning about the show than people praising it. The general consensus is that it barely stand as its own product from a production and writing standpoint, and that is very bad compared to the original anime. As I said earlier, there are things to like about this dumpster fire, but there are, quoting you, "alot" more flaws which are so many that they just can't make up for the good stuff.

So many people have such brain rot with the "woke" talk. Its clear whenever that is unironically in someone's vocab when talking about the show it's clear your problem is with those elements themselves and not how they were executed. The anime was already pretty progressive for it's time so I don't know why this show is "woke" in particular other than the Netflix show being way more overt and you didn't notice the social commentary in the anime.

bleachj0j wrote:

So many people have such brain rot with the "woke" talk. Its clear whenever that is unironically in someone's vocab when talking about the show it's clear your problem is with those elements themselves and not how they were executed. The anime was already pretty progressive for it's time so I don't know why this show is "woke" in particular other than the Netflix show being way more overt and you didn't notice the social commentary in the anime.

I know it's a common defense tactic to say something was always progressive when people complain about that stuff in modern American media, but it's obviously not the case in cases where pretty much everything had to be changed in adaption. All the things people have listed so far were never in the original series so it's disingenuous to paint it as not being out of place or similar and not worth criticism. If anything, we're seeing a lot of hate being directed towards the original anime now with outlets saying it was problematic and Netflix is now righting the past wrongs of the anime and such so they apparently disagree with that notion as well.

AmpersandsUnited wrote:

bleachj0j wrote: So many people have such brain rot with the "woke" talk. Its clear whenever that is unironically in someone's vocab when talking about the show it's clear your problem is with those elements themselves and not how they were executed. The anime was already pretty progressive for it's time so I don't know why this show is "woke" in particular other than the Netflix show being way more overt and you didn't notice the social commentary in the anime. I know it's a common defense tactic to say something was always progressive when people complain about that stuff in modern American media, but it's obviously not the case in cases where pretty much everything had to be changed in adaption. All the things people have listed so far were never in the original series so it's disingenuous to paint it as not being out of place or similar and not worth criticism. If anything, we're seeing a lot of hate being directed towards the original anime now with outlets saying it was problematic and Netflix is now righting the past wrongs of the anime and such so they apparently disagree with that notion as well.

The criticism comes from the execution of those parts not the fact they exist at all. Also, what outlets are saying Bebop was problematic the whole time? Literally who? I know Gren's actor and the creators said that, but I haven't seen many outlets saying that. I see more people like the reviewer pointing out that the show's attempts to "fix" the anime ended up making more regressive.