Slashdot Mirror
Keanu Reeves To Star In Cowboy Bebop
It excites me incredibly to know that a Cowboy Bebop movie is happening. But it makes me scared to think that Keanu is getting the lead in what might be my single favorite Anime series of all time. I'm very skeptical that he can pull off this role. For now we'll have to wait and speculate who the rest of the cast will be. I'm mostly curious who will get Faye Valentine. And we can only cross our fingers and hope that the soundtrack remains intact.
Just as the Starwars, or any media that we grew up to like. A redo of it with new actors no matter how good they do it will always seems lame to the old faithful fans.
When something new is released and it isn't just right, for our expectations, then it just seems like an abomination.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I don't care who the cast is, it still sounds like a bad idea.
I think I am going to go watch the entire series right now to wash the very idea out of my mind.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Reeves is in no way suitable for this role. Not even close. His voice lacks the gravely, emotional sarcasm that Spike is portrayed as having. His near monotone delivery will kill the character and reduce him to a mere shell of the original. Not to mention his hair won't be anywhere near as flowing as Spike's.
The only thing he has going for him is in the looks. His face has a similar appearance to the comic and his body is more or less the same build. Other than that, it's, "Whoa!" all over again.
But hey, since it's a semi-geek thing, I'm sure it will do as well as Serenity did.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I want to see Milla Jovovich as Ed. That would be perfect.
Spike: Adrian Brody or Adam Brody
Jet: Clancy Brown
Don't know about the others
but yes, they definitely need The Seatbelts/Yoko Kanno. Bebop isn't bebop without the music.
I'll probably have to skip this movie. I love Cowboy Bebop, but keanu reeves is one of the absolute worst actors of all time. I mean that both as serious and funny. So with a light heart I'm going to go find a bottle of cheap vodka to wash away the idea.
Can anyone explain to me why good actors such as Heath Ledger die, OD, or whatever but people like keanu don't? If the man had any honor as an actor he'd step down and let some one who can act take the part.
Oh, and here's to hoping Bruce Willis is cast as Jet. The voice may not be right but the look would be. Oh, and if Halle Barry is in the movie in any way I'm leading the boycott.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
See you, space cowboy
Stop making live action remakes of animated work. Actually, stop making remakes at all, but damn, some things work in animation for a reason.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I'm mostly curious who will get Faye Valentine.
There's already a porn actress that goes by that name . . . maybe she could do it? :) (If Googling she also occasionally goes by Faye Reagan - and offtopic IMHO she's in the top 5 best looking gals currently in the business).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Voice acting was better in the English version, which just doesn't happen
Madonna
There are certainly exceptions, but I would wager that most live action adaptations of japanese animation/manga have been failures. Which means the worst case scenario boils down to "Cow Boy Bebop live movie is bad, just like nearly every such adaptation, life goes on."
However, I would have a little hope for this one, because the ambiance of Cow Boy Bebop is kind of a stereotype of "american wild west" (or at least its representation in japanese minds). And Keanu Reeves does not strike me as such a bad choice for Spike; I mean, physically speaking they have the same build, don't they?
Dracula? Are you kidding me? He is HILARIOUSLY bad in that movie. He drops and finds his accent multiple times throughout. It's just a disaster. A Scanner Darkly is good, though.
Bale also apparently did a voice for the fairly good English dub of Howl's Moving Castle. So yeah, he already has a foot in the Japanimation universe and would probably do the role the most justice out of anyone.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
think about it a little harder... ...
That was his point. He was hoping that the music isn't changed.
I'm up for new tunes as long as Yoko Kanno gets to be the one composing it.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
What in the hell did you watch? It wasn't Cowboy Bebop. The English voice acting was terrible. Faye sounded like some dumb bimbo and almost all of the dialog was terribly unnaturally delivered.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
You know, I like Star Wars, but I don't DEEPLY DEEPLY LOVE IT like many here. Yeah I know, turn in my geek card, etc, except I DEEPLY DEEPLY LOVE a lot of anime, so I think I should get to keep it.
Anyway, bearing that in mind, I didn't really mind the "new" Star Wars. Actually, I liked it (except Jar Jar, obviously), and thought all those people complaining about how Lucas was basically ass-raping their childhood innocence, etc, were kind of overreacting.
But holy shit, now I know what they meant. I fucking love Cowboy Bebop, I fucking LOVE it, and now Hollywood is going to fuck it up the ass.
There is NO WAY this movie is going to be a worthy continuation or even a semi-accurate movie version of one of my favourite anime series of all time. NO FUCKING WAY. They just cannot do it, Hollywood just cannot make that kind of movie. Cowboy Bebop is deeply nihilistic in a way Hollywood just does not understand. I have nothing against Keanu Reeves but there is no way he can possibly even comprehend the character of Spike. No-one like him can. I am sorry but happy dumb Americans living in sun-drenched California just cannot understand this kind of emotion. They don't even know what to shoot for.
Faye Valentine? Dear god it'll probably be Lucy Liu. Why not eh? It's an "asian" series so we should get someone from "asia"! Argh!
God, I'm sorry Star Wars fans. I should have fought for you. "Next they came for the Star Wars fans, but I did not speak up, for I was not a Star Wars fan" ... well now they've come for me ...
Let my new 7-digit UID be a lesson to all - write down your passwords.
Ein as the Taco Bell dog? Actually that will work better than trying to find a Corgi that can act. I've owned a Corgi I'll tell you, there is no way you can get them to do anything they don't want to do. Besides a Corgi has many times the personality of Keanu Reeves and is in serious danger of up-staging the main actor.
It's become popular to trash Keanu, and I'm not saying he's Johnny Depp, but I could also see him doing a respectable job here.
Pressing the panic button at this point is pure groupthink.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
and utter disappointment. why doesn't somebody just staple a 'fro to a wooden plank and let that be Spike. micheal clark duncan can be miscast as Jet and the hot chick from transformers and try acting as Faye. Ein will be CG and Ed will be any female actress...using CG to reduce their size.
and dont get me started on what a catastrophe the soundtrack will be.
No, no, no... Clearly Michael Ironside was born to play the role of Jet Black in the live-action Cowboy Bebop... It will also be one more film to add to his repertoire of crap sci-fi movies...
Ed will be played by a hot girl with big boobs. Instead of talking in rhymes and nonsense she'll be a hacker/greasemonkey/tomboy type character - everyone will recognize her as the character who would be totally hot if she just stopped talking about computers for a minute. They won't bother sticking to the original story, certainly not about little details like Ed's age...
Seriously, how can any fan of the original be excited about this news? I expect a disaster of "Aeon Flux" proportions, personally...
Bow-ties are cool.
Unless you flip the switch that moves him from suck to blow.
This space for rent, inquire within.
Because acting up when playing a super villain is good acting, while acting up when playing a normal person is bad acting.
Acting is about portraying a role. Sometimes a stereotype if you must. Ledger acting up as a very smart but completely batshit insane Joker was brilliant. And believable (if you can say something like that when dealing with the superhero/supervillain genre).
Actors that are prone to overacting work best in a setting that doesn't deal with "reality". Ledger acting like this in a much more "realistic" setting would have been bad, at best. Actually terrible.
Acting doesn't have to be realistic, unless you're trying to create a realistic environment.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is how art works, it builds off itself. If you really love Cowboy Bebop, then you should applaud somebody trying to reach the masses with something based on the original.
Name one live-action adaptation of an anime that was good and didn't just mar the name of an original. Just one.
Or name a live-action adaptation of a western cartoon. Or of a video game. Or any American remake of a non-art film from the east.
The closest I can think of is the American remakes of Japanese horror films (but I'm no fan of either the remakes or the originals), or "The Magnificent Seven" which wasn't a remake so much as a complete recasting of "The Seven Samurai" and is just not the same thing.
Face it, Hollywood getting its hands on an anime for a live-action remake stands a very good chance of being right up there with "Starship Troopers," "Mortal Kombat," "Godzilla," or "Silent Hill." Even those formats which make for fair adaptations stand a good chance of screwing up. Think of the average comic book movie. (e.g. The Hulk) Think of the average remake of a classic movie. (e.g. Cheaper by the Dozen)
Hollywood has almost never taken an original idea and made it better or even nearly anywhere as good as the original. That's not what Hollywood does. A live action Cowboy Bebop, especially one starting Keanu Reeves, stands about as good of a chance as being likable and introducing a whole new audience to the wonders of anime as Congress stands of passing a budget without some pork project in it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I hope he gets Spike's character of "I'm too lazy to land an enthusiastic blow so I'll use some wicked aikido" rather than his typical character of "I'm too cool to exert myself so I'll use some slack-ass tactic". At least we can count on Hollywood to find some actress that will match Faye's rockin' tits.
Help fight spam
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think Julianna Rose Mauriello of Stephanie fame would be the perfect choice for Ed.
FAP FAP FAP
I find it hard to believe I am actually writing this, but Keanu could be actually a good choice for this role. Bebop's cool calls for a pulled-back emotional expression, and Keanu, being unable to express human emotion, is a natural candidate.
Also, I am sure this will brings lots of kids to the original series which is a very good thing.
I am more concerned with the script and the not yet selected director. A good director can pull out exactly what's needed from Keanu Reeves, something we saw in Matrix I.
If you see that in the Joker, my guess is that you're wrong.
The whole point of the Joker (as portrayed by Ledger) was to prove that everyone, especially those with the holyer-than-though attitude, can be turned into what everyone claims he is: An egoistic, uncaring maniac. When faced with the theat for his own life. His point wasn't cheap and easy havoc. That would have been much easier. Instead, he wanted to break people. His goal was to show people that they, too, will kill someone else when facing the choice of killing or dying. He failed at the ferry scene.
Which, btw, I think would have succeeded without a flaw in real life.
If you look at the way he staged his attacks, you'll notice that his goal wasn't just taking as many with him on his way into the death pit. He wanted to break people. He wanted to make people kill innocent people to save their own hide.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.