MOVIE NEWS – “This is clearly not Cowboy Bebop,” said the director.
Adapting any story from one medium to another will always be difficult – there will always be changes to make the story work in another medium. But while some adaptations work, others don’t, and Cowboy Bebop director Shinichioro Watanabe said in a new interview with Forbes that Netflix’s adaptation of his legendary anime simply doesn’t work.
“For the new live-action adaptation on Netflix, I was sent a video to review and review,” Watanabe said. “It started with a scene in a casino, which made it very difficult for me to continue. I stopped there and only saw that opening scene”.
“It was definitely not Cowboy Bebop,” he continued. “That’s when I realized that if I wasn’t involved in it, it wouldn’t be Cowboy Bebop. I felt that maybe I should have done it. Although the value of the original anime is somehow much greater now.”
Watanbe did not elaborate on what it was that he found so off-putting about the series’ opening scene. Our reviewer liked the reworking of the characters and the use of music from the original anime, but the pacing felt a bit choppy and some of the characters were translated too literally. Shortly after the show’s release, Netflix canceled the series, ending any fan hopes that the main character Spike’s story would continue, or that the series would get a chance to live up to the post-credits reveal about Radical Edward at the very end of the series. The series performed well at launch, but quickly declined in the following weeks. Netflix is still working on live-action adaptations of several popular animated projects, including the pirate anime One Piece and Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Source: GameSpot
