Netflix is trying so hard on this, just to get it to look like a cheaply produced fan-made parody of itself.

 

That opening is definitely going to give people opinions, lol. They got Tank! and straight up did a Tank! opening, which was a good call. You can't beat the original music and I'm glad they realized that.

It was jarring for me at first but I think it's because the animated opening is so ingrained into my mind that seeing it in live action, it just didn't line up for me and my brain wouldn't accept it at first blush. (Real life human beings don't move as fast or frenetically as anime characters.)

But after watching it multiple times, I warmed up to the live action version a lot. They're leaning into the 1970's funky camp cheese and stylized pulp fiction that the original anime homaged, which I like. And so many hints to the episodes that they'll be featuring too as I recognized quite a few of the characters and set pieces.

That being said, I'm a little worried that it looks like they might be doing Mushroom Samba but without Ed, and that would be wrong without her as the central focus point of the episode. Also, Vicious looks like I feared he would, like a bad Viserys Targaryen cosplayer from Game of Thrones with the white hair. Hope he's presented as being more menacing in the show than in the opening (including him in the OP was a mistake, I think).

Still, I'm excited for the show and looking forward to watching!

 

Two things concern me...

1) this is Vicious, the series main antagonist in the Manga/Anime - looks like Malfoy.


2) As far as I know, there is NO Edward. Someone told me she is NOT in the cast.

 

My thoughts exactly. Well, I thought Viserys Targaryen but Lucius Malfoy works too, lol.

Mushroom Samba without Ed would be criminal.

 

I think anything without Ed is a crime 

 

Remaking Mushroom Samba should be a crime. I thought this was going to be original stories.

 

1) That Vicious looks beyond stupid.

2) How the fuck do you do Cowboy Bebop and not have Ed at all? Are they just saving her for a possible second season?

 

People are hoping that. But we will have to wait to find out. If they don't have her later, or have made some kind of change to the character the fan backlash will be quite interesting to watch.

 

Casting kid actors/characters is difficult since the danger is that they age out of their roles (see Stranger Things) but I think in the case of Ed, she's an oddball character and finding the right kid to play her would be a challenge.

I'm hoping they save her appearance as a surprise and then quietly insert the character into the intro opening without missing a beat but who knows.

 

I actually liked the opening for the most part. My 2 big disappointments:

1). No Ed.

2). All the bit villains appearing makes it less likely the story is original. Do we really need the monkey ecoterrorists to appear again?

 

According to IGN:

Ed has been confirmed to show up in the series but still no word on the actor or the character's design or when Ed is set to appear. Could be season 2 or could be a drastic reimagining of the character. At this point, no one but the show runners know for sure.

 

My fear is a drastic reimagining of the character, which is why we haven't seen anything yet if Ed is in this season. Hopefully this fear will prove wrong as it will not go over well with Most Bebop fans as ED is many people's favorite character.

 

Yeah, folks are claiming that the one quick scene in the opening with the hand towards the end, belongs to Ed. Could very well be.

 

It looks faithful enough.

But toning down Faye the femme fatale was a bad choice IMO. She just looks like a generic female outlaw in the intro.

 

The opening just feels so stilted and weightless with all its shots trying to replicate the snappy animation. This is such a shallow homage to the anime and it just feels so tacky, it feels more like something you'd see in an SNL short. The OP was basically just a James Bond opening sequence mixed with other pulpy elements, there's so many ways you could approach this sort of style in a way that'd work for live action

The HP sequel looks interesting.

 

Crazy speculation time:

The intro we saw was intended to be cheesy/fan-madeish to generate buzz, the real intro may be much more improved.

It's also possible the intro was done this way intentionally, I mean the kicks and such look stunted and not very smooth, I don't think a fight scene from the show would go over well if it was that stunted in action.

But that is just me, I'm also in the camp of if it sucks oh well I have the orginal show in dvd and blu-ray and can always go back to it. It doesn't have to be 1:1 to be a good series, sometimes things change in adaptions and you have to make peace with that.

 

The more I see the more I hate this show. I think this will suck badly.

 

i know it's the intro so it's super stylized and overly edited, but I am getting live-action Speed Racer vibes from this

 

Problem is it doesn't look like it's intentionally cheesy, it just looks shitty. It's so flat and slow, and even the poses and actions not replicating the original intro look lame and stilted. Even the characters look silly and overdone, like the clown guy now having, like, runny makeup and black eyes or something? Was the character not creepy enough by just being a perpetually smiling psychotic, you needed to overdo it?

But this is what I don't understand, and what I said earlier: Cowboy Bebop is remembered for its dynamic animation and style. Doing it in live-action is already missing the point. You've taken out 50% of what made the series what it is, and in it's place is a weak attempt at reproducing its iconography with a medium that is categorically inferior at doing so.

 

It could be done well with the right stunt coordinator and film crew. But unlikely on a netflix budget.