Crushed by the Shoulders of Giants

October 04,2023

First episode:

What the fuck is this action movie opening heist scene? This is supposed to be space noir. Go watch the first 5 minutes of the anime. The anime STARTS after the first 20 minutes of the live-action show, you know, because it’s unimportant. In the anime, It’s simply 30 seconds of dialouge between spike and Jet arguing about why they don’t have meat. It establishes:

Their characters

Their dynamic

Their role

Their world

Their situation

50 minute goddamn episode, fucking stupid writing gotta-start-off-with-a-fucking-bang-ass-yippe-kayay-lowest-common-denominator shit. Coulda been 23 minutes.

So far this seems like a runaway fan production or cosplay that went too far. None of the gravitas or purpose of movement is there. Bebop works because it has a tightly-controlled flow, something that live-action D-grade actors cannot accomplish individually for every character. Even the best character portrayal so far, Jet, isn’t really elevating the performance beyond an admittedly phenomenal impression.

But Spike kind of blows.

Spike is supposed to be cooler than cool, that’s why the original had the smooth and smokey voice of Steve Blum. This guy doesn’t seem in control so much, seems like he always has something to prove.

Example:

Original

Spike:”Tiahuana? That place is for small fries.”

Jet:”They have out of this world meats”

*Spike has to be enticed to go to Tiahuana because he is bored of it.*

Remake

Spike:”Tiahuana? That place is too dangerous, I got stabbed tryig to buy a churro”

Jet:”My ship my rules.”

*Spike is a bitch*

In the anime, Spike goes toe-to-toe with Azimov and dances circles around him. Where’s that? Where’s the “always one step ahead of the criminal” Spike? Also, is this headphones thing going to replace Spike’s whistling? And that fight scene where he keeps punching the knife back into the guy? What is this, fucking Suicide Squad (the first one)?

Speaking of, it’s too goofy. It’s immediately repeatedly parodying dystopian future tropes which were played straight in the original. You know when the first time the original really hit upon the kind of humor they keep ham-fisting their way through here? It’s the episode with Fayei’s Ex, where the twist is he stuck her with a shitton of debt. I’m twelve minutes into this shit and Jet’s asking the station if they’re going to charge him to piss and the station guy says, “we already do, check the fine print” (side note, Jet’s surprise at the toll implies that this kind of stop isn’t routine for Jet, which it certainly is). And it’s not like there wasn’t low-brow humor in bebop, but again visual gags go a lot farther in a fully-controlled / constructed scene that one gets with animation, and cartoony elements are, well, part of cartoons, but cartoony elements shoved into live action stick out like a spykids 3D. It’s just that we’re ¼ through the first episode and I’ve already heard 3 bathroom jokes, like jesus christ.

“who don’t like cupcakes?” LOL RANDOM XD fucking hack writing choc-a-bloc-filled-with-gags-because-you-can’t-make-a-scene-interesting-ass

Fuckn cheap-fps-ass redeye scene.

The music transitions are shit, in a remake of a show renouned for its soundtrack the sound design on this shit blows. I have been jarred multiple times by the cuts, over-levelling, or mis-application of music.

Yo it just me or do harold got weird nipples?

Aiight, at least the 3 old men scene was done well, but that is due to those gag characters fitting neatly in the writer/director’s comfort zone. Love the old men gag in the original.

They curse A LOT. The blasé tone to conversations, flat shots, and bad lighting all make this look like an amateur production and again detract from the gravitas and smooth flow of the original series. I don’t know where “Space Lion” would even fit in in this series, and I am dreading the bounty hunter tv show.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH this Faye SUX. OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH this Faye SUX. This fast-talking manic shit ain’t Faye. Faye makes mistakes, Faye pops off, but Faye is a goddamn adult woman. She’s immature in her motives, but she is always trying to hide everything best she can, weasel her way out of things, NOT shout “FUCK YOU” to her captors on the toilet before immediately going, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, we got off on the wrong foot”. If Faye is telling someone off, it means she sees no way out of her predicament that schmoozing, lying, and sneaking can accomplish. This is character slaughter. Also, if they’re going to shoe-horn Faye into the first episode, the least they can do is make the plot alterations make sense:

If Catalina is a mogul’s daughter, why does she need money to escape to Mars? Why is she so naive about Mars? In the anime, she’s clearly of the same caste as Asimov. This is their big break. Asimov has to use the redeye to get them out of trouble, and she sees what it does to him, making him aggressive even towards her. It’s not Spike who gets her to realise that her whole dream of being in love, getting rich, and going to mars was a shaky foundation built out of socioeconomic desperation, it’s the friction between her and Asimov as he becomes more psychopathic due to the redeye. She realises that she doesn’t love Asimov and she has no future SO SHE SHOOTS HER LOVER IN THE HEAD. THAT’S NOIR. Spike is not the primary mover, not the moral paragon, he is an incidental observer who has to internalize and live with the things he’s seen. What the live action presents is someone trying and failing to save people. That’s not noir.

ALSO HER NAME IS CATALINA, WHY THE BRITISH ACCENT? Is it because if she had her catalonian or brazilian or whatever accent then she couldn’t be rich??? I can’t figure any other reason besides sci-fi british == fancy. Piece of shit.

THIS CONSTRUCTED JET’S DAUGHTER ANGLE IS ALREADY TIRING.