About the live-action Cowboy Bebop remake... - The Chuffington Post: issue 1

Written by The Curmudgeon

Hello, and welcome to my brand-new segment I like to call The Chuffington Post. Because chuff is another word for asshole, and that’s exactly what I am. Yes, it’s a great title, and in no way did I steal the idea from a friend.

Anyway, this is a little segment I’m going to dedicate to film/TV-related news which I may have thoughts on. Don’t expect it to be frequent – I’m too boring and elderly-of-heart to be overly-interested in the sinking ship that is the contemporary film industry. But every now and again, something pops up which piques my intrigue enough for me to feel like I have something to say.

In this ‘issue’ (can I call it that?), I’ll be musing on the upcoming, live-action Cowboy Bebop remake from Netflix that no one asked for. If the history of live-action anime remakes has any bearing on the quality of this rendition, there probably isn’t anything to be excited about. Plus, Netflix has been on a bit of a downward spiral recently.

I do feel like I should say, however, that the following is simply the thoughts of a fan of the original. I must have seen Cowboy Bebop (1998) at least 20 times over the last 2 years alone. I practically breathe it. And while I have collated pretty much everything there is to know about the remake as of the time of publication, this isn't an attempt at reporting, or a pseudo news article. This is just an opinion piece, plain and simple.

Anyway, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of it. We’ve got almost a full cast for the main characters at this point, the only exception being Ed. But I’ll get to Ed in due course…

As you’re all probably aware, John Cho has attained Spike Spiegel status. At a first glance, he seems like pretty thoughtful casting. He’s of East-Asian descent, so he’s at least ethnically befitting of Spike’s Bruce Lee, Chinese mobster vibes. But there is one problem with this particular casting which I feel kind of mean pointing out.

The guy is 47 years old. Spike is supposed to be around 26.

I’m not trying to be “ageist” or whatever, but it feels like a bit of a stretch. Are they going to digitally de-age him? Or maybe slather him in E45?

We’ve already got a bit of a peek at what he might look like in the role (image below if you haven’t seen it already), and I just can’t help but feel like he’s just…too old. That’s not to say he’s old in the scheme of things, just too old for Spike. I mean, Jet is supposed to be older than Spike, and the casting for Jet is actually younger than John Cho by 4 years. With that said, Cho isn’t cool enough to be Spike, either. I don’t think anyone is cool enough to be Spike. Spike’s level of coolness is something which is only possible through animation.

Mustafa Shakir has been crowned our live-action Jet Black, and is, in my opinion, the only casting choice I have no qualms with. The guy gave a solid performance in the painfully mediocre Luke Cage (2016-2018), as well as Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017). Plus, he’s got similarly silky, deep tones to Beau Billingslea of the original. Perhaps he can pull off the bizarre combination of archaic sternness and paternal friendliness which make Jet so damn lovable. After all, it’s that comparative groundedness of Jet’s character which, in my opinion, make him easier to translate into live-action.

Mustafa Shakir looking very film noir-esque in Quarry (2016)

Next up on the roster, we’ve got Daniella Pineda cast as Faye Valentine.

Unfortunately, the most I can say for her is that she looks like Faye, close enough anyway. But I’ve literally never seen her in anything, so my thoughts on her skill as an actor are non-existent. Plus, she’s got a pretty small portfolio, all things considered. It seems she’s only been active since 2010, and in that time, I’ve seen nothing of her work. For all I know, she could be amazing, or she could be terrible (what are your thoughts? Educate me!) You might be familiar with her involvement in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), or The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017), both of which seem popular. But, as established, I’m a chuff, so I ain’t seen ‘em. I can say the same for Elena Satine, who’s been cast as the enigmatic Julia (see below).

Elena Satine in The Gifted (2017)

Satine seems to have a slightly more extensive career than Pineda, and both of them have an expansive generic repertoire. The most important thing to take away from this is that the casting – at the very least – doesn’t appear to have been organised on star power, or popular demand. This can only be a good thing, since (for reasons unbeknownst to me) people seem to think Keanu Reeves would make a good Spike. I love Keanu Reeves, but while we’re on that topic, that would be a fucking abysmal idea, since Reeves is over 50, and has the acting range of a disembodied colon. Moving on…

I guess Alex Hassell is going to be stepping up to play Vicious. The guy looks about as close to Vicious as a pile of unripe lemons do to a fruit salad, but he seems to be a capable actor. He gave a solid performance in The Boys (2019), and I was none-the-wiser to the fact that he’s as English as battered cod dipped in Earl Grey. This leads me to believe he might do a decent enough job of capturing the Bebop antagonist’s gravelly voice.

While perusing IMDb for information on Mr Hassell, however, I noticed that he’s been labelled as cast in every episode.

Admittedly, this is mostly conjectural, seeing how they’ve only just started filming in Auckland (click here for more on that). But I also think it could be a sign of misdirection. Vicious was basically present for a mere 5 of the original 26 episodes, and for good reason. Cowboy Bebop wasn’t about the past, it was about the aftermath. It was about a bunch of poverty-stricken, jaded bounty hunters burying themselves in the mundane and the quotidian as a way of escaping their pasts. An overabundance of Vicious, or an overemphasis on the backstory, seems off-kilter with the tone of the original.

Finally, we get to Ed, who has yet to be cast. Ed presents an interesting conundrum as far as the live-action adaptation is concerned, for one major reason. Ed is unimaginable without animation.

So much of Ed’s identity is inseparable from the way she’s animated. The way she moves and behaves is executed with cartoonish erraticism, an expression of her utterly insane characteristics which just couldn’t be replicated with a real human body.

Truthfully, this could be said about so much of Cowboy Bebop. Their bizarre outfits, for example, which work perfectly in the internal logic of animation, but might just come across as a bad cosplay in reality. Like that cancerous cloud of regret and masochism that is the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist (don’t look it up kids, it’s not worth it. Not even once).

And, to reiterate: there is no human being alive who is cool enough to play Spike Spiegel. No one.

Realistically, Cowboy Bebop was created in animated form because it’s supposed to be animated. It’s so carefully constructed, dripping with meaning, and emotionally charged (click here for more on that). It’s depicted in an aesthetic which is so meticulously detailed and atmospheric, populated by memorable character designs and gorgeous, hand-painted backdrops.

Two stills from Cowboy Bebop episode 10 Ganymede Elegy

Frankly, this ridiculous trend of making very poor attempts to render popular animations in live-action is just insulting. It’s insulting to the people who put time, effort and passion into making stellar animations like Cowboy Bebop, it’s insulting to the people who love them, and it’s insulting to the art of animation. It’s insulting to believe that the “live-action treatment” can inherently improve the quality in any way, as though animation is the uncool, less-respected younger sibling to live-action’s burly, arrogant, chlamydia-infested older brother.

In either case, what are your thoughts? Are you looking forward to the imminent remake? Are you cautiously optimistic? Or are you, like me, hoping it'll happen, and then disappear quicker than my will to live?