Books, History, Food, Politics, and Life

Books, History, Food, Politics, and Life
Things through a different light...

Friday, September 2, 2011

Live Action Cowboy and the curse of a remake

I worked in the music department at work tonight and while sometimes that specific task can be tedious, it does give me a chance to get familiar with what is out and popular.  I found myself, right before close...when all my tasks were done wandering the isles aimlessly.   Being the art snob that I am (lol not really), I ended up staring at the foreign film section that we have...while small, it does have some cool stuff in it and I happened upon a copy of the Cowboy Bebop movie.  Now, if you don't know what Cowboy Bebop is, its an anime and if you don't know what anime is...wow I have a lot to explain.
Now, I like some anime... I am not one of those pretentious people who ignores an entire genre of an art just because I think I am above it.  I watched my first anime around 1996 and while I wasn't immediately in love with the genre... years later, after a few failed attempts... I found Cowboy Bebop.  It is a classic sci-fi /action adventure anime series that has an amazingly beautiful dark ending and I don't care how pretentious you are, if you sat down and watched it all... you too would adore it.  Anime can be good, it can be serious and this one....while at times dramatic, has everything a classic epic should have.
The story, a former mafia man gone good basically daring himself to get killed every chance he gets because he cheated death and lost everything...in his journey creates his own rag tag group of outcasts but in the end...do gooders and nothing ever ends up quite right and Spike, your tragic hero is on the course to end the way he should...tragically but amazingly....
I don't give it enough credit.... and thanks to Cowboy Bebop being one of the first series I watched in full.... there is a reason I don't like much anime, because nothing is like Cowboy Bebop....
So, as I stared at the cover of the feature length film they did in 2000, I thought about a magazine article I read back in 2009 that talked about a Cowboy Bebop live action film in the works (staring Keanu Reeves) and I remembered how upset it made me.  The series Cowboy Bebop as perfect and it doesn't need a remake...and that got me to thinking about how we do so many remakes, so many covers and how I usually 9 times out of 10 hate covers.... and thats why.
When I hear a band do a cover of a song I love... I just want to be like, leave it alone... it was amazing the way it was.  Perhaps I am a purist, perhaps I am a bit unwilling to let go of the way something like that made me feel... but man after you have heard the 90000th electronic version of How Soon is Now when you really believe the Smiths did it best all those years ago.... something clicks inside of you and that is what clicks when I hear they are going to do a live action Cowboy Bebop.
So first off... please, if you haven't watched Cowboy Bebop, get over your inhibitions about anime, stop being a snob and sit down and watch a classic story unfold.  I dare you.  Secondly, please excuse the ramblings of someone who has been chewing on this topic all the way home and had to get it out.  Finally, root for originals.... hey maybe they do have better special effects now and mucho  money to pour into a project.... but sometimes the original is still the best, like playing the original zelda after all these years and still loving it even though link is like 20 really badly put together pixels and the most amazing graphic is something shooting some bad looking fire across a scroll screen.... 

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