Cowboy Beebop Live Action Movie...

Regarding the opening post, I've never understood why people get angry (Or are in fact surprised) when a film version of their favourite game/book/anime doesn't turn out exactly the same as the source material. I mean, if you're making a film version of something, surely the whole point is that you're adapting it to give it wider market appeal. In the case of an albeit popular anime series like Cowboy Beebop, it strikes me as entirely fucking pointless to make something that appeals to fans of the original as they've all already seen it, they know what's going to happen, there's no fucking way on Earth you could ever appease them anyway and frankly, there's not enough of them to make any money back off them.

The only people who'd watch an exact remake of Cowboy Beebob in live action form would be fans of the original. Why? Because the people who've not seen the original didn't for a reason, either because they don't like anime films (And what's to say they'd like them any better with real actors who looked and sounded exactly like the ones in the anime instead of cartoon characters) or because they watched a few episodes and thought it was pretty dull or something.

I'm sure there are quite a few fans of the anime who are of the die hard breed who get angry when this kind of thing happens but are there enough to make enough money from a live action version that only they watched to cover the cost of a Hollywood movie? No chance.

Instead, in order to make money (Which despite what some of you might think, is the basic aim of pretty much everyone making movies these days. Doing it for the love of the art or whatever happens but not in the case of live action anime remakes) they have to give the film more wide appeal. This means shipping in some big name talent, chopping out most of the rambling story so you can fit the film in under a couple of hours and normally, Americanising the whole thing.

I mean, that's just obvious isn't it? It must be because it happens every time a book or game or comic or anime or whatever is turned into a movie and yet for some inexplicable reason you still get a bunch of fans of the original actually getting angry about it like you've p[ersonally insulted their family or something.

If you don't like it, don't go see it, simple as that. I really will never understand nerd-rage.

That said, I do hope this is a little more fast paced than the anime which I watched a few episodes of and found pretty dull. I'm not a huge fan of episodic stuff at the best of times and I found this pretty hard going. There's obviously a big budget ready to spent though for them to have secured Keanu Reeves so I'm sure it'll look nice at least.

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Originally Posted by Josh_1

If Yoko Kanno isn't scoring this, then I won't watch the film. She is the only person who really captures the mood of CB. Without her it isn't Bebop. Period.

But what if they found another composer who wrote even better music! You'd be shooting yourself in the foot a bit then huh?

And anyway, just because it might not be true to your beloved Beebop, doesn't mean it won't be a good film in it's own right. The Lord of the Rings films cut huge chunks out of the story but I kinda enjoyed them anyway you know.

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Originally Posted by Phatcorns

It's not about beating her score. It's the fact that we want to hear Cowboy Bebop music in a Cowboy Bebop movie. So no Kanno, no go.

But as I said earlier, they're not making it for people like you are they?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Rage still seems an odd emotion though. Disappointment or surprise would be fair enough really but for it to actually make you angry suggests you're a little too into Cowboy Beebop than it's normal for a person to be into a tv show.

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Originally Posted by Kairi Li

I have to wonder though, if they're not making the movie for anime fans, then who is the their target audience? If its people who never heard of Bebop in the first place, why not just make something original that's inspired by Bebop instead? Like Shin said, we're not the target market, so why bother going to all that trouble and money to buy the licence? Its not like they waltz into Sunrise and immediatly get the rights, it must have been alot of work and money.

I just find it a little hard to believe that so much paperwork and money was used just so people who never heard of Bebop can see a live action version of it, and the anime fanbase is not even considered to be a tiny fraction of their market.

People would say "well that's cause they wanna show Bebop to a broader audience!". Ok, fine, but what is the point of adapting Bebop if in the end, it doesn't look or sound like it? Might as well make something original, cause we all know Hollywood needs it.

The difference between LOTR and this is that, LOTR never really had a major visual representation except a few cartoons, so they came up with music and the looks on their own and it was good. But Bebop already has a visual and audio representation, which makes me wonder why bother at all if they don't intend on using the music and similar designs. If anything, this saves companies alot of money since it already exists.

Its like when games get made into anime and they use the game soundtracks. Air, Kanon, Clannad, and Tales of Abyss did that.

Of course this is still tentative, maybe they will get Kanno back and the design of the film will be just like the show. Who knows?

They won't be abandoning the look and sound of the anime, they'll be following it, just not to the extent that a hardcore fan (i.e. someone who knows the name of the original composer) would want it. People here are suggesting that getting in a different composer will mean it's nothing like the cartoons but that's because they know the original so well. To someone like me who's seen a couple of episodes however, it's likely they can get close enough to the sound for me to not tell the difference or have my experience of the eventual movie lessened any. Likewise, if you're an ardent fan of the cartoons, I imagine that Keanu Reeves looks nothing like the dude but again, if memory serves the protagonist is a dude with black hair and an 80's haircut, I'm sure Keanu can manage that.



See?

I'm not suggesting that this will be a film aimed at people who've never ever heard of the show as that would be stupid but rather, they're trying to appeal to casual observers who are aware of the programme in a pretty vague sense and might be interested in seeing what it would be like as a Hollywood blockbuster, possibly because they're not overly interested in episodic animes.

Comparing this to companies making animes out of computer games is silly too because the market for both is pretty similar. People who play a lot of Japanese computer games, I would suggest are going to be into animes. The people making the animes are aiming the product at the games players and as such, they're going to try to stick as closely to the original source material as possible. If this film was going to be a low budget indy release then it would more than likely try to ape the cartoons as closely as possible as they'd make more money from getting every fan of the cartoon to watch it then they would from trying to drag in newcomers. As it is, it's a high budget Hollywood effort and they simply wouldn't make enough money from the original fanbase to cover costs, hence why they're going for wider market appeal.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Yes, protecting stuff you own from your competitors using it without paying for it is a really horrible thing to do. Why can't everyone just get along?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?