Cowboy Bebop [Netflix]: Binge, Fringe, or Singe?
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Binge, Fringe, or Singe? is our television series that will cover the latest seasons, miniseries, and more. Binge is our recommendation to marathon the reviewed season. Fringe means it won’t be everyone’s favourite show, but is worth a try (maybe there are issues with it). Singe means to avoid the reviewed series at all costs.
I was actually looking forward to the Netflix adaptation of the anime classic Cowboy Bebop, and I wanted to give the streaming giant the benefit of the doubt. It used to be easy to say that Netflix originals were pretty strong in quality, even if not every project was a home run. That’s a little more difficult to cough up nowadays, but there is still even the slightest smudge of validity upon the label “Netflix original”, so something like this live-action release felt like it could have worked. The cast was looking great. Thinking of Shinichirō Watanabe’s series being shown with up-to-date special effects and world-building had my mind racing. I adore the original anime, as I discussed in my retrospective article earlier this week. I did not want this remake to fail. Well, it does. It does quite heavily. Other critics have discussed how this adaptation completely forgets to have some of the original series’ soul within its embodiment, and this is absolutely true. The Netflix Cowboy Bebop feels like an imitation as opposed to a recreation. However, this is far from the only problem, and it may not even be the series’ biggest problem. Yikes.
The only ounce of kudos I can give is to John Cho who makes a perfect Spike Spiegel and deserves his own platform to really showcase this in the way that Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine was misused (okay, maybe not quite in the same way, but you get the idea) and deserved a better space for us to really see the magic at work. The entire cast otherwise is as good as they can be in an adaptation that is miraculously both stiff and limp at the same time. The dialogue is stale. The editing feels cheap. Cowboy Bebop is simultaneously overproduced and yet barely produced, and it actually boggles my mind. How could something look as stupidly pristine as how Imagine Dragons sounds whilst also being the result of cut corners and undercooked elements? It’s like placing a TV dinner in one of those terrible microwaves you would find at a college residence’s common room, and the outside is piping hot to the point of near-burned dryness (whilst being wet and sloppy), and yet the middle of the meal is still frozen to the point of having some of that freezer burn ice on it. Yeah. This is a mess.
John Cho deserves better.
Half of the problem is that Cowboy Bebop looks like a really good indie film at one of those small festivals where first time filmmakers with very small budgets work their magic with what they have. This is Netflix. This shouldn’t be looking like a strong college Film 101 assignment. The green screen effects and CGI already look dated, and this show only just fucking dropped this morning. I can excuse something like Battlestar Galactica looking a little of its time, particularly because CGI on TV is expensive and incredibly difficult to do at certain speeds and without the budget of blockbuster films. Again. This is Netflix. Why this show would need to be rushed (the schedules of network television needn’t apply here) or under-made (these projects are paid for by subscribers) just doesn’t make sense. If we look at HBO’s Watchmen, which is similarly a re-imagining of a previous source and also a miniseries created by a subscription-based corporation, you’d find a breathtaking labour of love that went the distance. Cowboy Bebop feels so uninspired in comparison, especially because it’s difficult to ignore how this thing looks when almost every single scene (nay, every single shot) contains some awkward effects, cheesy editing, or some other distraction; the occasional strong shot won’t last long before it’s back to this parallel dimension of nausea.
Furthermore, we’re definitely learning that less is more where it counts, and that isn’t in the effects and visual departments, but instead in the episodes themselves. The original anime had bite-sized twenty-five-minute chapters, where you would move on to the next idea of this 2071 future. Instead, the Netflix version feels the need to have episodes that are doubly as long, being featurette-to-feature length episodes that exhaust each storyline or train of thought (and, again, allows you to just notice more and more aesthetic problems and filmmaking shrugs that should actually not be prioritized). If the original Cowboy Bebop felt cool and effortless, this series feels like it is trying far too hard when it comes to coming off as the next hip thing. I don’t want to dislike this series, but I do. I really do. I actually found the series incredibly difficult to sit through, when this should have been the escape it could have been. If anything, the story’s emphasis on self-aware depression and isolation should feel applicable in 2021 more than ever. That’s what Watanabe’s series is for. Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop may only make you feel lonelier than ever, as you are so distanced from this show, aware that you are watching television with all of the mistakes and questionable choices made, only to be reminded that you are in your viewing area of choice, staring at a screen, while the world around you is still in crisis mode. It’s bad enough when this series tries and ultimately falls flat in nearly every way. It’s even harder knowing there’s a near-perfect version that exists, which still holds up nearly twenty years later, and is just as accessible on the very same platform you’re watching this remake on (Netflix is now showing the original anime). The decision should be easy. Just relive the ‘90s Cowboy Bebop instead. It’ll make all of this pain go away.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.