Cowboy Bebop (Netflix) - ***SPOLERS INSIDE***
It took me awhile to get around to watching the Cowboy Bebop Netflix remake, but I finally found the time to make it a priority. Say what you will about our crumbling society and slowly burning world, but we have a LOT of great media options and we will not be bored as we preside over the end of human civilization.
Anyway, this review comes with the caveat that I am a bigtime fanboy of the original anime series (also called Cowboy Bebop), upon which this show was based. I’ll try to address how that interacts with my experience of the show. Also fair warning, if you are reading this review before watching the show despite my spoiler warning, this show has already been cancelled. So enter at your own risk if you decide to watch it.
And now, on to the review:
So I planned, before watching this show, to really enjoy it. There is always a pre-thing backlash when someone remakes a beloved property. And I get it. A lot of folks feel like it’s impossible to do justice to an old classic. A lot of folks get really excited to see a new property rejuvenated. Personally, I am always torn by remakes like this. I like to consider them on their own merits and try to enjoy a beloved property in a new context, but I am also SO SICK of remakes! More people are writing books and graphic novels than ever before in our cultural history, but all we can do is rehash stuff from 20 years ago? Please.
Anyway, pre-thing backlash. We saw a huge pre-thing backlash with the Rings of Power (black elves? ::clutches pearls::) and with Sandman and with like every Marvel property that has been released in the last 2 years. Generally I find pre-thing backlashes to be very often toxic. If nothing else, I object to the idea of condemning something before experiencing it. So I came in with a vested interest in wanting to enjoy the Cowboy Bebop live action show.
Unfortunately, I did not. Here’s what I think happened in general, and then I will share some specifics and some spoilers below. Generally, I think what went wrong here is that this Cowboy Bebop fell into a sort of show-remake Uncanny Valley. If you’re not familiar with the term Uncanny Valley, it’s a term conventionally associated with the idea of human-like androids or digital reproductions of humans. Consider a robot. A metal humanoid that looks nothing like a person. Not problematic - it’s just a robot! Now consider trying to make that robot seem to be human. If you succeed, it will look and move and speak like a human and things will be fine (until the android revolt). If you FAIL, you have created something that is ALMOST human, but causes great revulsion in the viewer. It’s too close to human, without being human, and our brains can’t handle it. If you want to see this phenomenon being put to good use, check out the trailer for upcoming sci fi horror flick Meghan (no I will not be watching this, thank you).
Anyway, in context of Cowboy Bebop being in the Uncanny Valley, what went wrong is this: The show makers did their very best to hew incredibly close to the show… except when they didn’t want to. Meaning I believe I could have enjoyed a Cowboy Bebop show that loosely resembled the anime, but just did its own thing unabashedly. Or I could have enjoyed a Cowboy Bebop show that did TRUE justice to the anime. But I was left floating in the middle, unfortunately revulsed by some of the crazier decisions. Or maybe I’m just a toxic fanboy who didn’t like them changing my beloved anime series? Let’s look at some examples below.
***SPOILERS INBOUND***
Let’s talk characters first.
Spike Spiegel was played (very well, by the way) by John Cho. This was a focal point of pre-thing backlash initially. He’s too old, he’s not handsome enough, he’s not JAPANESE (the character is named SPIKE SPIEGEL and people were legit complaining that John wasn’t Japanese). I think he did a damn good job with the script he was given. He dressed and looked the part, he did a great job with the martial arts performances.
Jet Black, played by Mustafa Shakir, was GREAT. He had the presence of Jet, looked spot-on for the part, and just generally killed it.
Faye Valentine, played by Daniella Pineda, was amazing. Daniella was spunky and sharp and killed the action scenes as well. I also loved some of the liberties that were taken with her character. Faye’s outfit in the anime… defied the laws of physics in a way that would be difficult to reproduce, and probably didn’t bear being reproduced anyway. Faye’s sexual discovery scene with Mel seemed great. What an amazing moment made possible only by a sci fi show - woman awakens from cryo sleep missing her memories. Discovers, to her surprise, that she is lesbian or bisexual (unsure which based on the show). Is it realistic for someone missing all of their memories to be surprised by this? I’m not sure, but I like to think there was a conflict between societal norms and her impulses. And when she gives in and embraces who she is, she LIGHTS UP. This was all great.
So if they all did great, what’s the problem? The problem is these characters were written more like a wise-cracking Marvel superhero than the tragic characters of the anime.
Why is that unfortunate? I LOVE wise-cracking Marvel superheroes. It’s unfortunate because it put the show in the uncanny valley. The show made liberal use of the incredible music from the anime, but seems to have missed the point where the music and characters intersect. Spike, Jet, and Fay in the anime are all tragic characters. Each of them embody the blues music that the show so often employs. Each of these characters is resigned to his or her lot, drifting through life in a dream after experiencing a tragedy too great to come back from. We have this great blues music, but it really doesn’t fit in with the spunky, wise-cracking hero team the show gives us.
Nowhere is this uncanny valley more problematic than with Julia and Vicious. Julia diverges most from the original anime characters, which would have been fine if the show went on to do its own thing with her. The show turned her into a dramatic lounge singer archetype - beautiful and sultry. The most powerful description in the anime goes like this:
“Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What’s Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. That kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can’t leave alone.”
The show hews SO closely to most of the characters, that it feels like they just missed the point with Julia. And then she is shoe-horned into a sort of passive damsel-in-distress role for 90% of the show, because the show HAS to get her to the church scene in the season finale. Only then unveiling - plot twist - EVIL MASTERMIND Julia who takes over the syndicate. This moment is completely unearned, not just because she shows almost no signs of being an evil mastermind previously (she manipulates Mao into betraying Vicious by… asking), but because Julia is not really a fully-fledged character. Julia is a melting pot of whatever aspects of the anime the show makers wanted to keep, and whatever else they felt like doing to try to drum up better ratings.
And Vicious? Oof. I don’t want to talk about Vicious, but I will. In the anime, he’s a menacing villain - evil to be sure, but not randomly so. There is always method to his madness. He betrays Gren on Titan not because he’s an evil dick who likes screwing people over, but because he has a scheme and Gren is a patsy.
The live action show turns Vicious into a caricature - oafish and evil just to prove he’s evil. A villain in the vain of “oh, not sure he’s evil yet? What if he goes back and beats that guy to death just because? Do you get it now? EVIL.” This is fine for a certain kind of show, but it’s NOT fine if you expect us to believe that former bad-guy gone VERY-good-guy Spike Spiegel once devoted his life to partnering with Vicious. The Spike we see would NEVER partner with the Vicious we see… but that’s because the anime is about Spike and Vicious being former partners, so while the show changed the characters, it did not change the relationship… and hence the relationship is broken.
So here is the takeaway, I guess. If you do a remake, it’s probably a bad idea to pick and choose the things you want to keep and the things you want to change. A truly well-told story could not be told any other way. The characters organically flow into the story action, and the things they do are the things they MUST have done, because that character wouldn’t do anything else. Change the character but not the actions, and all of the sudden the story is no longer believable. The new puzzle pieces don’t fit into the old puzzle.
Wise-cracking Marvel superhero Spike Spiegel would NEVER believe oafish villain Vicious that Julia chose Vicious, because nobody in their right mind would believe a word out of that man’s mouth. Spike would therefore NEVER have abandoned Julia and therefore never given her cause to turn evil at the end.
My advice? Probably don’t watch this. I would watch and rewatch these three actors doing a wise-cracking space adventure as bounty hunters ALL DAY LONG. But unfortunately, the attempt to shoe-horn them into “Cowboy Bebop” brought it all crumbling down.
That said, they did nail the music and the aesthetics. There are cool action scenes, and I can see how people would enjoy it if they weren’t carrying the baggage of having seen the anime and weren’t in a particularly choosey mood when it comes to believable character arcs. there were certainly moments of enjoyment throughout.
I’d give it a 2.5 out of 5 overall. Don’t watch unless you’re truly bored, but then it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you are truly bored.
See you Space Cowboys.