Last weekend I saw Cowboy Bebop : The Movie and it was the best film I have seen all year.
The movie was first titled Cowboy Bebop : Knocking on Heaven's Door and came out in 2001 in Japan. But the US distributes shortened it to Cowboy Bebop : The Movie. Possibly to not imply that it was about religion and could be blasphemous.
The movie is accessible to those who have not seen the series and super enjoyable to fans of it..
The animation quality is much better on a bigger budget not to say that the animation was bad but the larger budget can make one hell of a visual treat.
Cowboy Bebop is a story of space bounty hunters who are very slick but a bit disfunctional and anti social. They work together but they don't exactly all get along. There is Faye the femme fatal, Spike the mod kung fu expert who just does not care, Jet the retired cop with a cybernetic arm and Ed the eccentric teenage female hacker. They get around on their space ship the Cowboy Bebop.
The movie takes place in 2071 A.D in Alba City on Mars. While it is Mars after being teraformed the design is un-mistakenly based on New York.
The plot is about the crew of the Bebop trying to stop a psychotic terrorist from killing all of Mars with a man made virus.
The Cowboy Bebop shows usually follow one film genre. This one has a classic detective story with action sequences. Nice. You can tell that this is made by film history buffs rather than just following what is the latest anime trend.
All the good re-occurring elements of the TV show are there : Jet cooking, Spike complaining about lack of beef, Faye blowing money at the horse races, and the old timers who sit around bitching about the world.
Ed is a bit weird in this movie and might not be understood by people who have not followed the show.
Usually Cowboy Bebop stories are around one particular character but this one branched and has stories about all of them.
I love the old-school video game playing hacker as who was minor bad guy.
Let me tell you one thing about average movie reviewers an anime. Reviewers don't like Anime that is not targeted at kids. Or they will go one about how it is eye candy and completely dismiss the plot and quality film making. Oh well at least things are getting better for US anime fans.
I wish this had a less limited release and I will pick up the DVD this summer for sure. I love Cowboy Bebop and I hope to see more made or the team who made them make something new that is just as cool.
Later Space Cowboy.
they probably renamed the movie because of the song "knockin on heavens door".
Man that is so wack. It is just a cartoon and everybody knows cartoons are for kids, dawg! I bet it doesn't even have Will Smith or Eminem in it. That blows! I'm gonna go play some Halo.
Is it just me, or do the sketches for Cowboy Bebop on Sony's page look awful? Spike seriously looks as if he's the recent recipient of a bad haircut, Vincent seems drawn from a little kid's nightmare, and Electra is trying to be a Bond covergirl...
I seriously doubt we'll see any more Cowboy Bebop. The series did not do particularly well in Japan, and the interest in the series here in the US is what actually drove the production of the movie.
On the other hand, the same production team has a series called "Wolf's Rain" that's currently on air in Japan, and widely available through fansub groups. I highly reccommend you check it out Jake.
Well I am glad that the movie and the show were made. I do love my Cowboy Bebop.
Wolf's Rain ( http://www.wolfs-rain.com/ ) looks interesting and I hope that we see DVDs of it here in the states soon. Can't imagine why not.
Sadly DVDs of Wolf's Rain will be a long ways off. :( Unfortunately U.S. releases generally don't happen until the show has finished airing in Japan, the show has been distributed on DVD in Japan, and then the localization process starts for international releases. There have been less than a dozen episodes released in Japan so far, so since most series are around 26 episodes it could be up to a 2 year wait. Be impatient, have a peek at a fansub.
As far as future Cowboy Beebop content, while there's been no official announcement, Shinichiro Watanabe has hinted that we may see more adventures of Spike and Jet. So you can't write it off yet, it may return in some form.
I found out via my practical filming tutor that this movie is being played as part of a film festival in a city 3 hours drive from me.
I love Cowboy Bebop and I think its pretty freakin sweet theres a movie, and possibly even more episodes. that rocks. If you ever confirm that new episodes or even better, a new movie. tell me via email. I would really appreciate it.