Cowboy Bebop: Making The Netflix Series E-Book

Jeff Bond

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 141

Beschreibung

Official companion book to the Netflix TV series featuring concept art, sketches, behind-the-scenes photography and interviews with cast and crew.Based on the worldwide phenomenon from Sunrise Inc., Cowboy Bebop is the jazz-inspired, genre-bending story of a rag-tag crew of bounty hunters on the run from their pasts as they hunt down the solar system's most dangerous criminals. They'll even save the world…for the right price.Take a trip behind the scenes of Netflix's live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation! This official companion book is packed full of beautiful concept art and revealing behind-the-scenes photography, as the cast and crew tell the story of how one of the most influential anime series of all time was translated over to live action in this much-anticipated series.

Leseprobe

MAKING THE NETFLIX SERIES

jeff bond

WITH

gene kozicki

MAKING THE NETFLIX SERIES

ISBN: 9781789097764

e-book ISBN: 9781803360799

Published byTitan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark StLondonSE1 0UP

First edition: June 2022

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Cowboy Bebop © Netflix and Tomorrow Studios. Used with permission.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior writtenpermission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form ofbinding or cover other than that in which it is published and without asimilar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Photography by Geoffrey Short, Kirsty Griffin, Nicola Dove and Kerry Brown.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD

05

THE ULTIMATE BOUNTY

06

Welcome Back, Cowboy

07

The Bebop Feel

20

CHARACTERS

24

Spike Spiegel

25

Jet Black

30

Faye Valentine

36

Vicious

40

Julia

42

BEBOP SWEET RIDES

44

The Bebop

45

Inside the Bebop

54

Swordfish II

68

Faye’s Burner Ship

84

The Red Tail

94

ISSP Ships

106

Space Freighter

108

Ecoterrorist Ship

112

Ecoterrorist Pollen Grenades

116

TOUR OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

118

Astral Gate

119

The Colonies

128

Venus

134

Earth

138

Mars: Ana’s Bar

140

Mars: Vicious’ Penthouse

144

Mars: Virtual Reality Londes Center

146

Mars: Lefou Medical Facility

148

Pierre Le Fou

152

Mars: Tharsis City Fish Factory

154

Mars: Cathedral

156

Elders’ Temple

160

New Tijuana and Other Colonies

162

Earthland

172

FOREWORD

It’s a western.No, it’s a noir.Or maybe it’s a buddy cop show with its roots in 80s action movies.But then there’s that strong sci-fi helix twisting in its DNA.Wait, it’s a tone poem oozing with ennui.Though that music, that delicious, delicious music.It’s an opera.It’s a SPACE OPERA!I don’t know… is it a space opera?

How can it be all those things and still be one thing?What is that one definable thing?A North Star by which to guide us.All questions I asked myself when embarking on the journey of craftingthe live-action telling of a culty anime from the late 1990s.

But over the course of this labor of love—— Contemplating and adapting the characters and the worlds theyinhabit, the tech that surrounds them, the bad guys they chase and arechased by, the fights they engage in... Every fine detail that exists in everyfine frame—— it became clear to me.It’s all of these things.Rolled into a single unique jazzy piece of pulpy entertainment.Because…It’s Cowboy Bebop!

André Nemec, showrunner

Foreword

5

THE ULTIMATE BOUNTY

Cowboy Bebop is one of the most renowned and belovedJapanese anime series ever broadcast—so reviving the showwith flesh-and-blood actors, elaborate sets and locationphotography became a high-stakes challenge in casting,production design and visual effects.

WELCOME BACK, COWBOY

It’s been a couple of decades of Earth time since the originalCowboy Bebop anime scooped up awards and won overaudiences in Japan and the United States. Set in 2071, the series,created by the Sunrise Inc animation studio, originally broadcastjust half a dozen ‘sessions’ (riffing off its wild jazz-action title musicby Yoko Kanno) as a number of its adult-themed stories provedtoo hardcore for Japanese television (the full set would air later inJapan and overseas).

In the show’s speculative future the solar system has beencolonized, and many of its planets and moons, including Mars, Venus,Ganymede and others, have been terraformed or populated withenvironmentally sealed urban centers, with fast travel to individual

planets and colonies made possible by astral jump gates that propelspacecraft to near luminal speeds.

The only planet that doesn’t benefit much from thisinterplanetary action is Earth—it fell victim to a gateway accidentthat has rendered most of the surface uninhabitable, leavingwhatever population lucky enough to survive as refugees scatteredthroughout the colonies. The various colonies are a bit like theWild West, with crime, drugs and violence rampant, and the InterSolar System Police (ISSP) stretched thin enough in resources toresort to registering bounty hunters as contract workers, legallyable to enforce arrest warrants and turn in criminals to the ISSPfor rewards. These bounty hunter ‘cowboys’ form a vital part of the

c Faye in Ana’s Bar.

c c Episode 105 deals with Jet’sdays with the ISSP, and was theproduction’s homage to film noir.

. Katerina’s zipcraft, which shesteals from a spaceport on NewTijuana, was based on a helicopterthat could no longer fly. Conceptdesigner Henry Fong added wings,jet engine exhausts, and intakegrills to disguise the origins.

The Ultimate Bounty

7

solar system’s economy—and cause almost as much trouble as thecriminals they pursue.

Laconic cowboy Spike Spiegel is running from his past in theSyndicate, a crime family where he once operated as a hit mancalled Fearless alongside an unpredictable fellow assassin namedVicious. Now he travels the solar system in the spaceship Bebop withjaded former ISSP officer Jet Black and (eventually) independentcontractor Faye Valentine, a refugee from Earth whose stint insuspended animation has left her clueless about her own past.

With its sprawling science-fiction space-scapes, eye-catchingspacecraft and hardware from mechanical designer KimitoshiYamane, comical ‘Big Shot’ video commercials advertising upcomingbounties and their enticing opportunity to earn a cargo hold fullof woolongs—the solar system’s prevailing currency—and vividcharacters, the original Cowboy Bebop put tropes from westerns,

Hong Kong action movies, film noir and cyberpunk in a blender,and created one of the most popular and iconic animes ever made,a gateway drug—just like a vial of Red-Eye—to the entire world ofanime for viewers all over the globe.

So how do you translate that into flesh and blood? The ideaoccurred to executive producers Becky Clements and MartyAdelstein of Tomorrow Studios and studio vice president Nic Louie,who were searching for iconic properties and characters to draw inwriters and other talent for the company’s production slate.

Japanese anime seemed the perfect, unexplored territory forthe kind of eye-grabbing programming Tomorrow Studios waslooking to launch. “I’ve always been a really big anime fan,” Louiesays. “But I think anime has been looked down upon as somethingweird or niche—people that like anime in the past were almostembarrassed. It’s so strange to me, especially when we’re having

m The team wanted to make surethe Big Shot set maintained thejanky, cheaply put together vibe ofthe anime.

mc Whether set on a planet or inspace, Cowboy Bebop was to have arich color palette.

8

COWBOY BEBOP

MAKING THE NETFLIX SERIES

this moment with comic books in the mainstream post-Marvel andKevin Feige. There’s no reason why anime can’t be the same thing.It’s just another medium.”

Anime and manga (Japanese comic books or graphic novels)first reached Western and US audiences in the 1960s with titleslike Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion. Since then, Dragon BallZ, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Akira, Ghost in the Shell andothers have all found popularity, with a few making the transitioninto American live-action adaptations. But cultural and productionchallenges have kept many familiar anime titles from making alasting impression on Western audiences.

That’s where Cowboy Bebop stood out. The title alone spoke toWestern sensibilities—there are few things more uniquely Americanthan the Wild West and jazz. The show’s powerful influences—fromgangster crime sagas and film noir to Western shootouts, spacemonster stories and buddy cop movies—presented something thatseemed already designed for American audiences. “Cowboy Bebopseemed like the best place to start and a dream project honestly,”Louie says. “Because it has a lot of Western influences and a lot ofWestern themes in it. That makes it more translatable. It’s a classicthat everyone considers a gateway piece to the [anime] medium.That makes it also a great property for adaptation compared to ananime that tends to have more of the classic anime tropes.”

“Cowboy Bebop was really my entry to anime, because my kids,growing up, watched it,” says Adelstein.

For Becky Clements, the Bebop anime was unexplored territory.“Nic Louie said, ‘What do you guys know about manga and anime?’And we’re over 30, so, we know Batman and Superman,” she says.Tomorrow Studios hired consultants to look at potential animeand manga subjects in Japan and Korea, turning up a number ofpossibilities for adaptation. “And so one day Nic walked up to meand said, ‘What do you know about Cowboy Bebop?’ And I said,‘Nothing. But that is the best title I’ve ever heard in my life.’ And soI immediately pulled it up on my computer and started watchingthese episodes, and it’s just perhaps the most perfect constructionof a TV show that could exist.”

For the Tomorrow Studios staff, Cowboy Bebop presentedimmediate potential for physical production because while itsstory spanned a fully colonized solar system with action in spaceand on other planets, the urban setting of most episodes involvedrecognizable environments—bars, restaurants, apartments, andcity streets with automobiles and motorcycles not dissimilar towhat we see outside our windows every day. “What attracted meto it and why it was a good entry point for me was because itlives in the near future,” Adelstein says. “It doesn’t live in a worldthat’s completely foreign to me, that seems completely made up.It’s grounded in a way that there’s recognizable elements in that,and that just made it more appealing to me. Having 20% beinga world you recognize I think helps to differentiate it from StarWars or anything like that, that was totally foreign.” And Adelsteinnotes that some of the technology intended as futuristic even in1998 now comes across as commonplace. “I used to rememberwhen I was a child, I’d watch The Jetsons and they’d have thesephones that you could see people and talk to and I was like,‘Oh, my god, that’ll never happen.’ Now, three times a day I’msitting here looking at a computer screen talking to people andseeing them.”

Louie too says that the lived-in look of Cowboy Bebop’s futuremakes it more relatable. “It’s not as shiny. You’re not runningthrough a very hardcore sci-fi environment.”

m Executive producerMarty Adelstein.

b Left to right: ShowrunnerAndré Nemec; executiveproducer Becky Clements;executive producer/directorMichael Katleman.

c Like the anime, the graphicsteam modified existing logosand brands to lend an air offamiliarity to the show.

10

COWBOY BEBOP

MAKING THE NETFLIX SERIES

The Ultimate Bounty

11

m Spike and Jet on the hunt fortheir next bounty.

c Spike meets Katerina for thefirst time.

cc John Cho (left) andMustafa Shakir share a lightermoment on set.

14

COWBOY BEBOP

MAKING THE NETFLIX SERIES

. Director Alex Garcia-Lopezlines up a shot with Katerina(Lydia Peckham).

“It’s producible for the most part,” Clements adds. “Every episodeyou’re on the same spaceships with the same people. You just haveto decide who your antagonists are. So right away it was like, ‘Wehave to do this live action.’”

Nic Louie points out that another aspect of Cowboy Bebop thatmakes it more relatable is the age and maturity of the characters.“From a character point of view, and looking at a lot of popularanime, Cowboy Bebop is different. A lot of the popular shows areoften shonen and so tend to have that fiery, enthusiastic, teenagedprotagonist that’s often associated with that genre. And the thing Ilike, and why people recommend Cowboy Bebop as a gateway show,is because it’s an older protagonist. It’s a little bit more grounded incharacter and emotion and backstory.”

The Tomorrow Studios trio took Bebop to Midnight Radio, aproduction company founded and run by seasoned writer-producersAndré Nemec, Jeff Pinkner, Josh Applebaum, and Scott Rosenberg.

Nemec’s first exposure to the anime had been years earlier, whenhe’d questioned his brother one day about the “funky, groovy”music playing in his car. It turned out to be Yoko Kanno’s eclecticsoundtrack from the anime series. Nemec’s brother quickly made adetour to his house to introduce Nemec to the show. “I rememberthinking, ‘Wow, this show is a pretty snappy, pretty cool, kind ofeclectic bit of anime poetry.’ I was into it.”

While he was up to speed on the series when the Tomorrow Studioscrew pitched it, Nemec also knew enough to be a little intimidated.“Bebop is crazy,” Nemec says. “And it’s cool. It’s terrifying because itis so beloved. But nothing better than being a little terrified whenyou start a job. And when you’re in the middle of a job, I think thata little bit of that terror goes a long way to nurture the material.We began the process of figuring the show out; we brought in ChrisYost to write the pilot. Together, we worked on crafting the storyand script details. And Cowboy Bebop was born.”

The Ultimate Bounty

15

b Filming a scene in Ana's Bar withactor Mason Alexander Park (Gren).

. On location setting up a shotfor Earthland.

c Director Michael Katleman (withmask) prepares Daniella Pineda fora fight scene.

Original Cowboy Bebop creators Sunrise signed off on the idea.“The original creators of the anime granted us license to make ourversion of Cowboy Bebop,” Nemec says. “We talked a little bit aboutinspirations, where things came from, what they were. They werevery generous in letting us play freely in their sandbox. They werealso very generous in sharing as much material as they had to sharewith us: piles and piles of original sketches and drawings, conceptart that they had done when they created the anime. Variations oncharacters, planets, props and the such. How they made the choicesthat ended up in the anime. As well, we talked a lot about theirinspirations. And for us that was hugely valuable because we liketo say around here, ‘If it ain’t broke in the anime, we shouldn’t tryto fix it.’”

Nemec pushed the idea that they were not necessarily remakingthe Cowboy Bebop from the 1990s. “We want to live in the spiritof Cowboy Bebop. So we asked ourselves: What was the spirit ofthe anime? The spirit of this character? The spirit of that ship?What was the spirit of this episode’s story? And from that we drewinspiration. This is not my first adaptation of something, and I thinkit’s important when you make an adaptation that you live in thematerial. You honor it. But you also need to craft a story that peoplehaven’t seen before so you can serve them a new meal. Inherently,that’s a double-edged sword. Some people are thrilled to be getting

16

COWBOY BEBOP

MAKING THE NETFLIX SERIES

The Ultimate Bounty

17

“CowboyBebop is sospecial to so manypeople, and hasbecome this massivecultural phenomenon.”

ALEX HASSELL (VICIOUS)

mc The cathedral setting from theanime was painstakingly recreatedfor the live-action series.

18

COWBOY BEBOP

MAKING THE NETFLIX SERIES

new tastes. An expanded story. And some people will always besomewhat agitated by the treading on the hallowed ground of thestory that came before. But I think that that’s okay—we are craftinga story that we love and that we are thrilled to be telling.”

For Nemec the biggest challenge and driving idea wasto broaden and deepen the story behind the anime and itscharacters, recognizing that animation brought a level ofstylization that spoke for itself, while live action would requiremore in terms of dialogue and background to support it. “Thetruth is, you’re never going to be able to cast real people to fillthe roles of the exact characters from this anime. So we neededto fill them out in order to really know what we were lookingfor [in terms of casting them]. But once we did know what wewere looking for, I can’t say the casting process got easier. Wemet with and auditioned lots and lots of people. And it was atrip seeing the characters start to come to life through differentactors’ embodiments.”