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Friday, January 16, 2009

Wailing, gnashing of teeth

Saw this news.

This is awful, awful news.

Who should play Spike Spiegel in the live action version?

First off, the character of Spike Spiegel is not in his late forties. He's in his late twenties. Second, Spike is amoral on a good day, and on the edge of evil most of the time. You know who I think would be all right as Spike? (Not great, just all right...) Spike is also very, very funny. Not intentionally, of course. But this show was a very light-hearted romp through some very dark places, and dark mindsets.

And, frankly, why the hell is Spike casting as a white guy? Whatever happened to color-blind casting?

My ideal Spike Spiegel? Tony Leung Chiu Wai. He's at least still in his thirties, capable of playing young. He does brooding anti-heroes really well. And, unlike Keanu Reeves, he can actually act.

The only director that I think has a chance of getting the energy and oddball, hipster pacing right is a Chungking Express-era Wong Kar Wai, or maybe Stephen Chow(?).

As for the writer, I think you need someone who can do madcap, anything-goes insanity extremely well, while balancing the very gritty, bleak edge of action and violence in the show. I would probably team up Noah Baumbach with Quentin Tarantino.

And, all that said, the movie would still suck. Cowboy Bebop is a series of very kinetic, in the moment, short stories. When you expand it to a movie length (as the original Anime Movie-ization of Cowboy Bebop would reveal to you) that magic, madcap energy dissipates into the very long story arcs.

To do this movie right, you'd need to do four half hour "episodes" - one featuring each main character - followed by something finalizing for Spike.

Imagine something like STRAY DOG STRUT (with Ed and Faye already present) followed by BALLAD OF FALLEN ANGELS followed by BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY followed by BOOGIE WOOGIE FENG SHUI followed by THE REAL FOLK BLUES.

Hollywood wouldn't do it that way, now would they?

Anyway, all around, this is terribly bad news for Anime fandom. And, I hope the whole project gets ripped out of Keanu's hands and given to folks who can do it right.

1 comment:

K.C. Shaw said...

Oh. my. gawd. I can't stand Keanu Reeves, and if there is one person in the world who would be WRONG for the part of Spike, it's him. He can't act and he has a waxy-looking face. And yeah, he's much too old for the part.

I love Cowboy Bebop. I can't believe they're going to turn it into yet another generic SF movie. And I have low standards--I actually liked the anime version of the movie. It's not perfect, but it has a lot of fun moments. I bet the live-action version won't have any humor at all. Because Keanu Reeves absorbs humor without reflecting anything back.