Netflix’s ‘Cowboy Bebop’ is everything wrong with nostalgia reboots

2 min read

Cowboy Bebop is the same as the other when airing twenty years ago. It is Neo-Western which is located in the room; A noir thriller next to the spectacle of martial arts and John Woo-Esque shots; Existential vision of a damaged future where characters are forced to live with the destroyed past. And above all that, driven by an iconic soundtrack that is easy to dance between genres. We don’t have much time in Bebop-verses – only 26 episodes and films – so every second feels like a miracle. How can the Netflix live-action adaptation according to it?

Simply put, no. While the original performances are love letters of cinema and pop culture, made by the creative dream team (director Shinichiro Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto and Composer Yoko Kanno), Remix Netflix mainly fall in love with cowboy bebop. It wants to remind us of the anime, in such a way that it replicates many iconic sequences shot – to be shot, but does not stick to what makes it so special. Holy melodies, but don’t have a soul. This is a common hollow tone to reboot that focuses on nostalgia, such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and almost always hold them back.

Almost every size, I have to hate Bebop Cowboy Netflix with desire. But, this is proof for talented actors involving me no. John Cho would not be my first choice to play a very cool spiegel spike (which would be sung by Kang, fast and angry King Han), but he tried hard to replicate his charm. Mustafa Shakir easily brought the nature of black but pleasant jets. And Faye Valentine and Daniella Pineda are absolute scene thieves.

But this talented group fails with confusing production, which often looks worse than a cheap doctor whose episode. Some sets appeared made of cardboard and spray paint, no one delivered broadcast on anime aesthetics captured very well. There is a glimpse of visual brilliance, to be clear, but which mainly comes from digital effects that often replicate shots from the original series. Sometimes, Bebop wants to replicate the aesthetics of live-action cartoons from Wachowski speed racers. Then, later, it will only have a bright “porn” sign in the background, as if it was enough to deliver the environmental benong.