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.
Unless this is one of those 3D movies in which case he will just suck.
Keanu Reeves knows Japanese?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
...he would have made a better Edward!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Poorly animated with stilted dialog is the way I'd also describe Keanu Reeves.
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'm gonna go out on a limb here:
I think he can do it.
My first thought was definitely 'oh no'. But then I remembered that Spike is a little quirky anyhow... And very, very rarely do they manage to make a live-action with characters that really match the Anime's.
What I'm most scared of is that they'll try to match the voice acting of the English version, instead of trying to get the tone and attitude of the Japanese version. Voice acting makes a huge difference to the overall feel of the character.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Oh, wait, Dangerfield is dead, isn't he?
Perfect; they can just splice him in from other movies he's done.
Tonight's Special: Leg of Salmon
Hm, I'm pretty sure in the original that Ein was alive. Maybe my memory's fuzzy though...
Comment of the year
I'd cast Christian Bale as Spike... but that's just because I want to see him in every movie I watch now.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
If they have to redo the soundtrack, I hope they hire Bill Cosby.
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.
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 think Reeves could, actually, work for most of the scenes (Spike tended to be very melancholy and low key most of the time) but the directory will have to really push to get strong emotion out of him in certain scenes (such as fighting Vicious). As for Jet, I think a shaved Ron Pearlman could pull it off pretty well. Not sure who I'd pick for the rest of the parts.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
This is absolutely made for Scarlett Johansson. She could play the part well, she has experience playing a noirish character from something that was not originally live action thanks to The Spirit, and she has all of the requisite... y'know... "physical properties."
No, but you must be the only one that didn't just google it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I don't quite understand why people dislike Keanu Reeves so much. Well, I think he has a tendency to end up in these lame movies with roles that are easily mocked. I wouldn't call him a great actor, but he's certainly far from the worst. And he's not nearly as obnoxious as others.
My problem with this movie is the fact that it's yet another remake and it will probably be crap. They'll try to reinvent everything, completely missing the character of the original. I expect the end result to be crap much like Speed Racer.
Part of my problem, however, is the source material. Cowboy Bebop is decent, but like most other anime is very derivative and features convoluted storylines. Over the years I've found that anime fans tend to have low standards. As long as it's Japanese they love it. I can't count the times I've read glowing reviews for one thing or another only to find it's not very good. Even what is widely considering to be average anime gets overly positive reviews. And when something is actually pretty good, then it's really blown out of proportion.
My point is why bother remaking anime? The fans will never be happy with it. Few others will know enough about the source material to be interested which means the movie will have to stand on its own merits. At that point, they may as well have just come up with something unique and potentially more interesting. But then Hollywood and unique go together like oil and water.
Speaking of anime remakes, Battle Angel Alita is also coming in 2011, with James Cameron as the director. The manga's storyline has turned to crap, but I still have a fondness for the original story. Even though I'll probably be disappointed I am foolishly looking forward to the movie.
If they're going to yutz it up with Keanu, what else can they do wrong? Let's see:
Spike: Keanu Reeves
Jet: Samuel L. Jackson (not the cool one from pulp fiction but the lame one from Star Wars and b-movies)
Ein: Taco Bell dog
Ed: Rosie O'Donnell with CGI and optical effects like from Lord of the Rings to make her appear hobbit-sized
Vicious: the comedian Steven Wright with an albino wig, retains deadpan delivery.
Fae Valentine: the girl from Lazytown that all the pedos have the hots for
Coolie-yo: A brand new CGI character invented just for the movie who brings a fresh blast of hip-hop sass and in-your-face attitude, voiced by Chris Tucker
For every other character in the film, make it be Shia LaBeauf making like Eddie Murphy in the Professor movies, he plays every part. "Nononononononononononononononononononononononono!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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.
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.
Did Joss Whedon really need another blowjob today?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"