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Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
Blu-ray ALL - Australia - Umbrella Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (24th January 2017). |
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The Film
 “Cowboy Bebop: The Movie”「カウボーイ・ビバップ 天国の扉」 (2001) “Cowboy Bebop” was an animated 30-minute episodic TV series of 26 episodes created by director Shinichiro Watanabe for Sunrise productions. Originally broadcast from TV Tokyo from April 3rd 1998, but was prematurely cancelled after only a few episodes aired on June 26th 1998. Negotiations were made with cable TV network WOWOW to continue to broadcast the remaining episodes, which ran both the first 12 episodes and the remaining 14 to close off the story. While ratings remained low, the fanbase continued to grow by word of mouth, rentals of videos, and sales of the series on Laserdisc and later DVD. An intelligent mix of science fiction, film noir, and westerns, it sprinkled in humor, action, and weirdness that separated itself from any other TV series at the time. It had the clunkered used technology of the future from the world of the Alien” movie series. It had gun violence, and silent heroes and villains like a Sergio Leone western. There were femme fatales from any film noir you could think of. It had a comical ragtag group of bounty hunter misfits out for money like the main characters of “Lupin the Third”. Each episode of “Cowboy Bebop” had a story of its own with very unpredictable elements for the next episode. In one episode the crew might be out for a bounty, in the following they are battling the side effects of taking a hallucinogenic drug, and then an episode of a character recalling memories of the past. Set in the year 2071, the group features Spike Spiegel (played by Koichi Yamadera in Japanese and Steve Blum in English), the lanky and careless yet very agile and capable bounty hunter flies around the galaxy with his partner Jet (played by Usho Ishizuka in Japanese, Beau Billingslea in English>), the muscular, older, and wise man of the group. Along their adventure they encounter Faye Valentine (played by Megumi Hayashibara in Japanese, Wendee Lee in English), a bossy bounty hunter who has memory loss, Ed (played by Aoi Tada in Japanese, Melissa Fahn in English), a child with incredible hacking and tech skills, and Ein, a genetically-engineered Pembroke Welsh Corgi that is quite smart with intuition and just plain adorable. The series finished its 26 episode run on April 24th 1999 with a full closure to the series with no look or lead into a second season. The series was later broadcast around Asia and during the next year started to gain a cult fan base in Japan leading to something unprecedented: a theatrical feature film. The film was completed with the original team including the animators and the voice cast reprising their roles, and opened theatrically in Japan on September 1st 2001. Elsewhere, the TV series received its English language dub debut in the United States in September 2nd 2001, premiering on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim - becoming the first anime series to be broadcast in the block. The English versions were later licensed to the UK and Australia where the English version took off a lot quicker than the Japanese market where it continued to grow in popularity gradually. The English dubbed version of the TV series continued to be rerun frequently, followed by DVD sales of the series also becoming top sellers. It took nearly a year and a half but the theatrical film with the English dub was finally released to American cinemas on April 4, 2003 in limited screenings. “Cowboy Bebop: The Movie” made a respectable 3 million dollars in theatrical ticket sales in the United States in an era when anime films rarely got a screening at all. “Cowboy Bebop: The Movie” or its literal Japanese title was “Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” named after the Bob Dylan song. The TV episodes were frequently named after famous English songs such as “Sympathy for the Devil”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and “Toys in the Attic”, so having the theatrical film named after a song made sense, especially since the film was not a continuation of the series - it was treated as an episode of the TV series that was previously not made. While it is never said exactly, it has been said the movie comes in between episodes 22 and 23 though it is not necessary to view either of the episodes before or after watching the film. For the production, Watanabe wanted to make a story that was pleasing to the fans who were eager to see one more story with the characters but knew that he could not start the movie as a sequel like “season 2 episode ”. But for newcomers to the world of Bebop, suddenly placed in the world of the unusual team of five including the dog might be unsettling without seeing the TV series first. Themes such as Faye’s amnesia was not mentioned. Ed’s search for her father was not either. Nor was Spike’s rival Vicious. The standalone movie “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” centers around a bioterror attack that leaves infected people with deadly symptoms that doctors had not seen previously. As Faye witnessed the attack and the man behind it, the crew of Bebop are out to find him to claim the 300 million reward for his capture. While the crew investigate more on the subject and receive a capsule which includes the so called virus, they discover that the virus is unlike anything out there, and the man behind the attack, Vincent is immune to it making him unstoppable. The film sets itself apart from the TV series by some simple differences - it is longer and it is in widescreen. That’s basically about it. The animation style is close to the original TV series that if the aspect ratio was not a giveaway, it would be hard to tell. There are some other minor differences such as pacing and editing for the length and a few scenes with a faux handheld style camera shots in the fights and action scenes not usually present in the TV series. Sometimes movie spinoffs of TV shows looks and feel completely different from the original, but “Cowboy Bebop” is aesthetically on par, pleasing the fans completely. “Cowboy Bebop: The Movie” succeeds in style and as a movie on its own, but as for story and execution within the Bebop universe goes, this is not the best episode (or should I say Session?) by far. Some of the 30 minute episodes were much better such as the touching “Waltz for Venus”, the claustrophobic horror in “Toys in the Attic” and the absolutely hilarious “Mushroom Samba”. It’s possibly that the film could have been cut down into a 2-part TV episode rather than dragging it out to its 2 hour runtime, but for Bebop fans it was a delight to see the characters again in a new adventure seemingly “missing” from the original series. The film’s storyline or subcharacters of Vincent (played by Tsutomu Isobe in Japanese, Daran Norris in English) or Electra (played by Ai Kobayashi in Japanese, Jennifer Hale in English) never appear or are mentioned in the series so there really aren’t unanswered easter eggs or revealed secrets within the film. For people who have never seen “Cowboy Bebop”, the above mentioned episodes are great gateways, but the movie is also a very good option as well. Note this is a region ALL Blu-ray which can be played back on any Blu-ray player worldwide
Video
Umbrella Entertainment presents the film in 1080p in the AVC MPEG-4 codec in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The high definition source is very good as stated having the color scheme of Bebop with the dirty and used looks of the cities and mechanics coming to life in dull unappealing colors, while brighter colors such as Ed’s hair and Faye’s clothes are not too bright keeping with the color palate of the TV series. It is correctly framed in the theatrical aspect ratio with thin black bars on the top and bottom, and as this was a traditionally cell animated film, there are minor issues of dust from the original cells visible which gives it a little handmade flavor that newer CG animated works lack. There are no issues with artificial sharpening or digital manipulation involved, giving a good non-digital look. The film starts with the Columbia logo and English language credits, but surprisingly the end credits are the original Japanese credits. The older non-Japanese DVDs had English credits for the opening and ending of the film. The film runs uncut with a runtime of 115:14
Audio
Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 English Dolby Digital 5.1 The Blu-ray includes both the original Japanese language track and the English dubbed track in Dolby Digital 5.1. Sadly there isn’t lossless audio and this repeats the audio options available on the older Columbia Tristar DVDs. As stated the original Japanese cast were assembled for the theatrical film and the English dub cast for the TV series also reprised their roles. The music was scored by Yoko Kanno who also composed for the TV series in which she incorporated soul, funk, jazz, blues, and folk to create a truly memorable soundtrack. For the movie, there are some music cuts that are arguably not as good as the TV series, playing it safe with more pop oriented tunes. There are some standouts such as the funk track when Spike is being chased by the army, and the metal guitars during the raid on the pharmaceutical company. The music and the effects use the surround channels very frequently, while dialogue also uses the panning effects, with characters on the left coming from the left speaker and vice versa. It’s a very active track and it’s a shame that a lossless 5.1 track could not be used. There are optional English subtitles in a white font for the film. This seems to be identical in translation with the Columbia Tristar DVD from 2002, so it is well timed and easy to read. This is a translation track and not a caption track for the English dub. By playing the English dub and the English subtitles together, you will see quite a few differences between the dub and the sub version.
Extras
"Behind the Scenes" featurettes - "From the Small Screen to the Big Screen" (5:44) - "International Appeal: What's Not to Like?" (7:02) - "Spike: A Complex Soul" (7:20) - "Faye: Intellectual Vixen" (6:38) - "Ed: Resident Eccentric" (6:48) - "Jet: No Ordinary Dad" (5:04) These featurettes include interviews with various people from both the original Japanese production team and the English dub team. The first featurette is focused on making a theatrical episode of “Cowboy Bebop” and making sure it didn’t alienate prior fans and to make the story accessible to newcomers. The second featurette is about the aesthetic design of the series and the music of Yoko Kanno being a crucial element to the show and the film. The following four featurettes are reserved for each of the Bebop crew - Spike, Faye, Ed, and Jet. Talked about are the inspirations of the characters, the mannerisms, and the uniqueness each character displays. These featurettes were previously available on the 2002 Columbia Tristar DVDs. in 480i MPEG-2, in 1.78:1, in English and Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 with burned-in English subtitles for the Japanese portions Storyboard Comparisons - Scene 3 - The Virus (2:35) - Scene 6 - The Moroccan Bazaar (4:21) - Scene 15 - Ed Finds Lee (2:29) - Scene 17 - Spike Confronts Vincent (5:49) Four scenes are presented in side by side comparisons with the black and white storyboards on the left and the completed film on the right, along with the English dub track for the audio. In addition, the menus misspell “Ed Finds Lee” as “Ed Finds Love”. These storyboards were previously available on the 2002 Columbia Tristar DVDs. in 480i MPEG-2, in 1.78:1, in English Dolby Digital 2.0 with no subtitles Conceptual Art Galleries - Characters (40 stills) (10:00) - Aircrafts (39 stills) (9:44) - Automobiles (20 stills) (4:59) - Monorail (4 stills) (1:00) - Accessories (9 stills) (2:14) Extensive art galleries of conceptual art is presented, which plays automatically or with the ability to scroll with the arrow keys. These galleries were previously available on the 2002 Columbia Tristar DVDs. 1080p AVC MPEG-4, in 1.78:1 Theatrical Trailer (2:05) The red-band US R-rated theatrical trailer is presented. Starting off with a very cheesy and misleading narration of “You are about to experience… the cultural phenomenon” (Really?), and with clips from the dubbed version, it barely qualifies as a red-band restricted trailer. Most likely for the inclusion of the quick cut of the scene that Vincent cuts open Faye’s shirt from the front, though we never see any nudity. in 480i MPEG-2, in windowboxed 1.78:1, in English Dolby Digital 2.0 with no subtitles The film has previously been released on Blu-ray in Japan and the United States. The Japanese release has lossless 5.1 audio making it a clear winner in the audio department over the Australian release, but it only includes the Japanese trailer as the sole extra. The US Blu-ray has lossless sound but only in LPCM 2.0 audio format with no extras. The Australian release is the clear winner in the extras department porting over almost all the extras from the Columbia Tristar DVD extras from 2002. Almost all… The extras that were not ported over were the text character biographies and the music videos. While not big losses, it’s a shame that the Australian release did not include any new extras.
Packaging
The Blu-ray is housed in a standard keep case with reversible artwork. On the reverse the only thing that is different is the “M” rating on the cover is removed. Also, the rear claims the disc to be “region B” but this is in fact a region ALL release.
Overall
“Cowboy Bebop” is a good movie but it is a little weaker in story compared to some of the TV episodes. For newcomers to the universe of Bebop, the movie is a good entry point to test the waters, while for prior fans, the movie does not mess with the continuity which is quite important. The Umbrella Entertainment Blu-ray gives great video and a good amount of extras, though it’s unfortunate that it only has lossy 5.1 audio. Still comes as recommended. See you, space cowboy…
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