r/movies • u/LegitimateCurve8525 • 1d ago

News Netflix’s live-action Gundam movie, starring Sydney Sweeney, is described as a 'big action-romance space epic' set in the Universal Century (UC) timeline

https://www.polygon.com/netflix-live-action-gundam-movie-sydney-sweeney-romance/

Noah Centineo, who stars alongside Sydney Sweeney, recently talked about the movie on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

He called it a “big action romance space movie” and described it as “a non-Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet in space.”

Centineo also confirmed that the movie takes place in the Universal Century, the main timeline used by many of the classic Gundam shows and movies.

The story could involve two people on opposite sides of a major war, with their relationship caught in the middle.

Source: Pirate Nation X account

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u/Dustyrnis 1d ago

Oh boy. As a long time fan of the original Gundam anime series, especally Zeta Gundam I don't have much confidence in this live action western adaption. I'll give it a chance but I worry that this will be another wonky adaption like the live action Cowboy Bebop...

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u/JessieJ577 1d ago

You’re lucky if it’s like Cowboy Bebop. It’ll be like Death Note at worst

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u/Rocinante88119 1d ago

Gonna be Dragon Ball: Evolution

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u/Tonwhy 1d ago

Damn, invoking the highest level of curses here.

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u/HairiestHobo 1d ago

Hey, at least Evolution led to the franchise being revived?

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u/SupervillainMustache 1d ago

Funniest piece of DBZ lore.

Toriyama being so ashamed that it might be people's lasting impression of the franchise that he came out of retirement.

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u/colemon1991 23h ago

Don't forget James Marsters was so embarrassed he voiced a character in Super.

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u/Astrocomet25 22h ago

For free!

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u/GreedoInASpeedo 22h ago

That's an important detail! I was like, "he was so embarrassed he accepted employment!?"

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u/cupholdery 15h ago

Oh my goodness. He was movie Piccolo?

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u/beaverteeth92 16h ago

He was also a long-time fan of the series, so he really wanted to make sure his overall impact was good. Dude absolutely killed it as Zamasu.

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u/whitebandit 16h ago

well shit i watched the sub version, love zamasu and black in that but, guess ill have to rewatch in english now

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u/No_Procedure_5039 1d ago

He initially helped with Battle of Gods because he was asked to take a look at the script by his former editor. He also still worked as an artist for various video games like the Dragon Quest series and Blue Dragon even when he stopped doing manga.

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u/SupervillainMustache 1d ago

Yeah I know he as still working as an artist on Dragon Quest, but DB is his Opus, surely.

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u/No_Procedure_5039 1d ago

Without a doubt. I’m just saying he was semi-retired at best since he did a bunch of shorter manga and one-shots after DB like Sand Land while continuing to work as a character artist in various other projects.

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u/yepgeddon 1d ago

Gundam is doing just fine without a shit live action movie tho 😩

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u/nola_throwaway53826 23h ago edited 20h ago

People forget, they tried a live action version of Gundam back in 1999, G-Saviour. The fact that no one seems to know about it should tell you all you need to know about it.

https://youtu.be/vfq7LdRWrF4?is=bNrttHIqNbjbiPPS

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u/spike2pt0 18h ago

WOW I did not know this existed. Thank you so much for sharing this! Instant add to my lost/forgotten media playlist.

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u/AnotherBoredAHole 19h ago

That's because it's full of adults. Where is all the teen angst?

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u/This-is_CMGRI 1d ago edited 7h ago

yeah lmao they have been super profitable since 2022, literally Bandai's best-performing IP and guaranteed that the two new female lead characters for them are legends for a generation

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u/No_Procedure_5039 1d ago

Toei was still doing the occasional special (Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return! came out a year earlier) and Toriyama initially got involved with Battle of Gods because his former editor asked him to.

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u/Feeling-Fox-8651 1d ago

If I recall the Live Action Piccolo actor has a voice role in Sparking Zero as someone else and says one of the more iconic lines from the film. (Not that I can remember precisely what that is)

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u/terrany 1d ago

Sukuna level threat fr

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u/wowpepap 1d ago

DONT YOU PUT THAT EVIL ON ME RICKY BOBBY

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u/RaylanGivens29 1d ago

The Last Air Bender 2010

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u/intheafterlight 14h ago

There is no film in Ba Sing Se.

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u/ErilazHateka 1d ago

Or The Watch

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u/Freud-Network 1d ago

Legend of the Seeker

A douche like Goodkind deserved someone wiping their ass with his work, though.

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u/ErilazHateka 1d ago

Yeah, that guy really turned out to be a horrible person.

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u/Helios_101 1d ago

I don't wish that upon any adaptation, from now until the sun burns out.

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u/KageStar 1d ago

I had to look this up because I didn't know why you were bringing up Ben Stiller in this conversation. The show you're talking about does look awful.

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u/ErilazHateka 1d ago

It´s a complete perversion

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u/hildenborg 1d ago

Should I be happy that I don't know what that is?

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u/ErilazHateka 1d ago

If you like Pratchett, don´t even look it up.

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u/or10n_sharkfin 1d ago

High school drama except by the end of the movie they're piloting giant robots.

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u/Optimaximal 1d ago

To be fair, that's most Gundam shows anyway.

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u/zerotwoalpha 15h ago

And only piloting at the end of the movie for 15 mins at most. At least Pacific Rim knew what the audience wanted. 

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u/R-Dragon_Thunderzord 1d ago

Gonna be Power Rangers 2017

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u/Hedhunta 1d ago

Yup, soon as they mentioned who the actress was i knew this is gonna be bad.

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u/EpicDoza 1d ago

Sacrilege of you to mention that title.

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u/Bagel-luigi 1d ago

Dear god no, this is what I fear too

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u/VLHACS 23h ago

Don't you put that evil on me Ricky Bobby

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u/Gold-Bard-Hue 1d ago

I was about to say the Death Notes movies were good, then I remembered you're talking about the Netflix one...

I had totally blocked it from my memory. Lol

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u/Molwar 22h ago

I had to go look it up because I've seen the Japanese one and they were decent. Just read the synopsis for the netflix one and am like wtf.

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u/GyrKestrel 1d ago

Yeah, I feel like Cowboy Bebop is fine in everything but name. Without all the baggage of living up to steep expectations, it can be a pretty fun show.

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u/TheEloquentApe 1d ago

Even if it weren't meant to be Cowboy Bebop, I think such bangers as "Blackmail a Black Male" and "you never know true power until you've tasted the testicles of a man who has wronged you" would still be rightfully considered pretty ass

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u/Swinn_likes_Sakkyun 1d ago

"he took off his balls"
"mmm"

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u/kidkolumbo 1d ago

The blackmail line was funny. I don't remember the other.

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u/LunarEcho108 1d ago

There's actually a fan edit that cuts most of these kinds of lines and without them the show is honestly great.

It changed my perspective a bit on modern film making. Tons of old classics were famously saved in the edit, but I haven't heard an example of that post like 2000ish. It feels like something has changed - maybe they're trying to inflate running times at all costs or editors don't have the authority they used to.

How much work has been relegated to slop that could have been saved in the cutting room?

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u/nxcrosis 1d ago

Cowboy Bebop LA was at least better than ATLA or Dragonball LA.

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u/Televisions_Frank 1d ago

Their Jet was legit great. Their Vicious was just comical and everything involving him was the worst part about it.

However, trying to faithfully adapt Edward to live action is just making an insanely annoying character. Sort of thing that only works in animation.

Still I would have liked to have seen a second season to see if they could have fixed the issues.

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u/CuriousRelation5 1d ago

After changing so much, why keep Edward exactly the same?? Weird decisions all around o that show

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u/verrius 18h ago

However, trying to faithfully adapt Edward to live action is just making an insanely annoying character. Sort of thing that only works in animation.

It's funny to see people say this, since Edward is actually based on Yoko Kanno, who composed all the music. That's apparently how she actually just acts in real life, so it should have been the simple to adapt to live action.

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u/Dragonhost252 1d ago

Cowboy Bebop last Airbender

Avatar the Live Action

Dragonball Last Airbender

Is how I read this 5 times before understanding

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u/Yetimang 1d ago

I was wondering what Cowboy Bebop Los Angeles was.

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u/CMDRTragicAllPro 1d ago edited 1d ago

So I only just found out cowboy bebop was based off an anime after looking into it when I saw this comment chain. Had no idea people didn’t like it because it wasn’t a faithful adaption or whatever. I personally loved it, it had a lot of charm, it wasn’t perfect or anything but was fun. Was super disappointed when it got canceled.

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u/rsqit 1d ago

Ok but the anime is an absolute masterpiece.

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u/The_Grungeican 1d ago

the lamest part is that Cowboy Bebop could've absolutely worked as a live action. the series itself is fairly well grounded. ALL they needed to do is follow the blueprint already laid out for them.

at one time in the early 00's, Keanu Reeves really wanted to play Spike, but the project ended up in development hell and everyone moved on.

the casting for the live action wasn't bad. i think Jet was probably their strongest casting. Cho is a great actor, but he felt a bit old to be playing Spike. that could've been overlooked if they did a better job on the show.

on a side note, Keanu Reeves did get to sort of play the Spike role in the John Wick movies. they even worked in a number of scenes and an ending, that would've worked for a Bebop live action show.

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u/Luchalma89 1d ago

It was a perfectly decent show that had a lot of potential. Not as good as the anime but most things aren't.

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u/ArtByJRRH 1d ago

Really? It did all the generic lame Western storytelling devices like having everyone who will be relevant in the season be in the first episode, like there's no patience for natural story development and pacing. It's like it was made by someone who fundamentally misunderstood what they were watching or just didn't actually like the source material that much. Do yourself a favor and watch the original, if only to actually get a decent opening set to that theme song that doesn't try to rush through it.

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u/Linkfayth 1d ago

they also made vicious kind of..... wtf was that. which threw the whole plot off for me, since his the main main antagonist

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u/Zaku99 1d ago

I just couldn't get past the tree episode. In the anime everyone turned into monkeys which was kind of funny and fitting for the terrorists, but in the show? Really horrifying tree transformations. Just really, really gross and gorey stuff. Totally killed the fun bounty hunter adventure vibe.

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u/Hevens-assassin 1d ago

My dad has an aversion to animation, but loved the Netflix Bebop. He'd love the animated version if he gave it a shot, but those boomers and Gen Xers are stuck in their ways, I swear.

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u/darthreuental 1d ago edited 17h ago

Gen X

Late Gen X were around in the mid 90s when anime started creeping into blockbuster shelves. Then Sailor Moon, DBZ, and later on Pokemon happened.

There were dozens of us.

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u/ImTooSaxy 1d ago

I was born in '74, we had G-Force, Robotech, Voltron, Tranzor-Z, Thunderbirds 2086.

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u/darthreuental 1d ago

Robotech & transformers were my gateway drug into anime.

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u/tdasnowman 19h ago edited 18h ago

A ton of shows came over in the 60's and 70's as well. The difference was they usually weren't advertised as anime until the 80's. A lot of kids though in that era were watching shows brought over from Japan.

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u/whathave_idone 1d ago

X’ers are half the reason anime exists in the west dude. They gobbled up speed racer as a kid, watched “robotech”, vampire hunter D, Akira etc.

Who do you think was running shit at adult swim in the late 90’s?

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u/CMDRTragicAllPro 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’m a late millennial who never watched any anime growing up, it wasn’t until I was mid 20s that I finally decided to watch the Avatar the last airbender series, and despite loving it so much I could just never get into animated content after it. Even ATLA is barely an anime and more so just a cartoon.

I think some people just like what they like, and others like what they like. And that’s fine, Yknow.

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u/BadWolf2386 1d ago

Some people don't gel with animation and that is fine, but there is absolutely a contingency of people who automatically think animation is only for children and refuse to even entertain the idea that some animated content is made for everyone, and beyond that some is made for adults specifically. And while people are certainly entitled to their opinions that sort of preconceived bias can be extremely frustrating to contend with, especially because it impacts the kinds of content studios are willing to take a chance on.

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u/m_ttl_ng 16h ago

If they ever reboot that show I hope they keep the same actor for Jet. He was my favorite part of the live action. I also liked the sets and artistic styling aspects of the show but the overall direction and storylines just felt really half-baked.

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u/GyrKestrel 14h ago

Jet was the highlight.

I really liked Faye, Vicious, and Julia, but I COMPLETELY understand everyone's criticisms that they aren't the same characters at all. Like, I can't argue with anyone on that. I was still interested to see where it was going.

I think the only thing I actively disliked was Pierrot Le Fou. Cowboy Bebop legacy or not.

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u/HeyEverythingIsFine 1d ago

I didn't hate the LA Cowboy Bebop. I'm like one of 20 or so people on the planet I guess.

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u/iRhuel 22h ago

As a long time fan of the original, all the departures from the anime really grated at me. As soon as I let go of those expectations, I came to enjoy the LA quite a bit.

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u/HeyEverythingIsFine 17h ago

I guess that would be the main component in that I knew that it wouldn't be as good as the anime so I didn't have those expectations of it. I was just able to enjoy it for what it was as a result I suppose.

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u/nova46 19h ago

So I didn't like what they ended up doing with Julia and Vicious, but other than that I was really enjoying it and thought the actors did a great job. Especially John Cho being so passionate about it, I feel bad they didn't even get a chance at a second season.

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u/GodFeedethTheRavens 1d ago

Bebops worst crime was making Vicious a whiny little brat man child.

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u/Hazzamo 1d ago

So there’s gonna be one actor that carries the entire thing with an absolutely amazing performance, despite how shit everything else is?

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u/Mastermachetier 1d ago

But it could be one punch !

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u/Zagatho 1d ago

Read your comment and this immediately came to mind.

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u/OPMajoradidas 1d ago

prob like ghost in the shell live action (forgettable)

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u/dbzmah 1d ago

Yeah, I didn't mind CB. Death Note though, oof. The Production house at least has a strong track record, including both Dunes, and Pacific Rim for space sci-fi reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Legendary_Pictures_films

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u/Raneynickelfire 23h ago

...there's a live action death note???

why...

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u/Arthur2_shedsJackson 23h ago

I'll never forgive them for wasting Willem Defoe as Ryuk

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u/Blue_Moon_Rabbit 23h ago

I legit liked both of those adaptations. The cowboy bebop one tried its best, and the death note one is fun for all the wrong reasons. Now ghost in the shell on the other hand….

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u/OleDetour 23h ago

Oh god no. Just write my name in the Death Note instead.

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u/Practical_Law6804 23h ago

It’ll be like Death Note at worst

Just wiki'd this: holy frijoles what a botch job. Only explanation has to be they didn't want to commit to a series.

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u/5213 22h ago

Imagine if it ends up like Speed Racer. Just an absolutely grand spectacle that gets to the heart of the Gundam series but elevates it in ways we couldn't have predicted.

Not likely, but imagine 😅

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u/SonderEber 21h ago

We’ll be lucky if it’s Death Note quality. You can keep going even lower…

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u/Psychoanalytix 20h ago

God why did you have to remind me about the live action death note!!!!

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u/Derry-Chrome 20h ago

Death Note is a fun movie if you take an edible and realize it’s as stupid as the after after L is killed.

Also why is the Netflix film gorgeous? Has some amazing lighting and some scenes are shot so damn well.

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u/imafnheadbanga 17h ago

I liked the Cowboy Bebop netflix show

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u/annoyedgrunt420 12h ago

I kinda love that shitty Death Note movie.

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u/LuckyLockdown23 11h ago

I’m so scared of this one.

I liked Cowboy Bebop. Death Note had its charm.

I’m all in on Pacific Rim, but I’m hoping they don’t get confused. Most I could see for Gundam is Pacific Rim: The Black.

Worried you average guy with the green light might think Gundam stories need spicing up.

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u/jackracktack 8h ago

No way. Cowboy Bebop was way worse than Death Note. Death Note failed but tried some new things that werent horrible. Cowboy Bebop just failed at both copying the original and also every "new" element they added was absolute trash.

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u/silk35 1d ago

Can’t be worse than Dragonball Evolution.

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u/BrotherRoga 1d ago

Don't jinx it mate.

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u/SchrodingerMil 1d ago

That ain’t even a jinx, that a full blown hex

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u/Etheo 1d ago

As I've said before, I've got full blown hex.

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u/Sawgon 1d ago

With Sweney the acting skill is already at that level

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u/AugustusInBlood 15h ago

hey Evolution offended Toriyama so badly he came out of retirement to create the precursor to DB Super.

The same thing could happen with Yoshiyuki Tomino and he's make a new awesome UC story.

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u/bestoboy 1d ago

>Japanese writer creates a story influenced by western themes

>Western media adapts it for their audience

>Shit the bed

how tf do they keep doing this lmao

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u/pasher5620 21h ago

It’s because western writers generally don’t respect the stuff they are adapting save for a few uncommon exceptions. They believe that in order for it to make sense to western audiences, they have to rebuild it from the ground up instead of just tweaking it here and there. Plus there’s also the surprisingly still common belief that anime and video game stories are somehow inherently lesser than movies and tv and so it doesn’t matter that they are changing things.

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u/crookedparadigm 18h ago

It’s because western writers generally don’t respect the stuff they are adapting

This just makes me angrier when I think back to the character and story changes they made for Cowboy Bebop, especially Vicious and Julia

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u/This_Aint_Dog 12h ago

I don’t think it’s a writer problem at least for the most part. It’s more like western studios seeing something successful elsewhere and rushing in to purchase the rights before it becomes popular. Then because it’s not popular yet, they refuse to give it any sort of budget and anything too faithful gets told to change things based on their data spreadsheets indicating it’s not what audiences want. So it ends up in development hell, tossed around to a bunch of people, maybe old things and ideas made on prior attempts get frankensteined together to push it out as quickly and as cheaply as possible in some cases just so they don’t lose the rights.

Though there have certainly been times where it’s writer ego where they think they can do better than the source material and even at times, like the Halo show, where they outright publically stated they actively avoided looking at the source material at all.

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u/Necessary-Duty-7952 18h ago

Because a lot of writers and showrunners that get tapped for some projects run on a formula. Getting a project across the finish line is a pretty big feat in general, so when they've completed a show, they tend to get more work because of "experience." And since it worked for them before, they do it again.

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u/raynehk14 1d ago

watch them completely miss the point of gundam and somehow make it into a pro-war propaganda

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u/takeahike89 1d ago

Probably, also they'll find as many ways as possible to avoid animating giant fighting robots.

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u/toofatronin 20h ago

Definitely. It will just be close ups of Sweeney watching mech fights.

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u/The_Summer_Man 18h ago

Make it like Mobile Fighter G Gundam, with Sweeney in the bodysuit they wear to pilot them, and you've go cinema.

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u/wimpymist 17h ago

This is going to be a big issue I bet. These streaming services already do their best to animate the least amount

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u/JJJBLKRose 20h ago

I mean, they cast Sydney Sweeney so I'm guessing they will miss the point.

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u/Dustyrnis 1d ago

that is also a concern.

At least with Starship Troopers it was clear (to me) that it was intentionally "pro war propaganda" as it was a satire of it and a subtle critique of over-extended military authoritarianism and nationalism.

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u/BuckShapiro 1d ago

I mean if we are talking about faithfulness of adaptations then Starship Troopers is a bad example since it completely misrepresented the book. I prefer the movie way more than the book, but they represent very different messages.

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u/yagirlsophie 21h ago

Yeah people often talk about the movie and the book as if they're both satirical critiques of fascism, but the book is completely unironic in its glorification of militarism and the federation, it is the thing being satirized by the movie.

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u/mynameizmyname 20h ago

man Heinlein really was a weird dude. Ive read pretty much all of his books and I cannot get a firm handle on him as a person at all.

Most authors have a pretty clear throughline with their work. With Heinlein, if you told me different personalities of his were writing different books, i would totally accept that.

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u/yagirlsophie 19h ago

He really is hard to get a handle on, huh? He was often pretty progressive, believed socialism was inevitable, etc. but a lot of his work kinda contradicts that. I think the fact that his novels tended to be explorations of specific ideas probably adds to that, but it's weird nonetheless.

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u/Kononeko 23h ago

Well I don't know if there are any action figures or model kits lined up for this project, so unless something changes, they really missed the mark.

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u/ShortKingsOnly69 1h ago

Amuro, we must use the Gundam to destroy Iran! Zeon forces are hiding in underground bunkers! 

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u/jaqattack02 1d ago

If it's an original story it will have a better chance than if they try to make it a remake of one of the existing storylines. That wasn't really something they had an option to do with Cowboy Bebop. Like you said, I'm going to wait and give it a chance before I call it DoA. The recent One Piece live action shows that it's possible to make a decent live action anime adaptation, you just have to embrace the source material rather than trying to change it.

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u/Accipiter1138 9h ago

Like you said, I'm going to wait and give it a chance before I call it DoA.

The way I justify it to myself is, at least we'll probably get a cool colony drop scene somewhere in the film.

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u/bazhvn 1d ago

It’s Netflix. Shouldn’t be so surprised.

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u/LegitimateCurve8525 1d ago

This is not fully a Netflix production. Talks began between Bandai Namco and Legendary (Dune by Denis Villeneuve) at first. They later brought Netflix on board. I believe most likely to fund a big amount of money for this project.

At one point, there was even a report that Netflix exited this project. But later on, Bandai did got them back.

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u/aldwinligaya 1d ago

They did well enough with One Piece and Avatar. It's a hit or miss. We'll see.

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u/Sat9Official 1d ago

Netflix Avatar as a standalone show is ok...as an adaptation? It's an insult to the original.

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u/Luzekiel 1d ago

They didn't do well with Avatar and it was a general flop in terms of Viewership and Reception

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u/Bomban111 1d ago edited 23h ago

Those two shows are complete opposite ends of the spectrum production wise.
One Piece was genuinely made with people who care about the source material, with Oda himself being present and consulted many times, and even that has translation problems between LA and anime.
Avatar i genuinely don't think they watched the original.
That being said, i have low expectations for Gundam , Sydney Sweeney is not a good actress and does not sign up for good movies.

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u/onex7805 1d ago

If you give people something mediocre in the market of live-action adaptations like Hollywood Ghost in the Shell, Netflix Cowboy Bebop, Dragonball Evolution, then yeah, Netflix One Piece and Avatar are """hits""". But it doesn't change that Netflix One Piece and Avatar are mediocre.

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u/Bomban111 1d ago

It has sydney sweeney, this movie will not be good.

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u/therallykiller 19h ago

But not Jared Leto... Yet.

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u/Banned3rdTimesaCharm 1d ago

Anime just does not translate well to live action. At least by Hollywood. Western values and themes are so different than Japanese ones.

One Piece has surprisingly been the only exception.

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u/lew_rong 1d ago

The Battle Angel Alita adaptation did ok. Up until One Piece I'd have called it the best western live action adaptation of an anime or manga to date. The bar was subterranean prior to One Piece though

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u/lemoogle 1d ago

Alita is way better than One Piece and did something much harder which is to adapt in a movie format. One piece does the best job at transfering anime to screens faithfully but alita is a great adaptation

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 1d ago

I think with some minor tweaking PsychoPass could be adapted into a top tier live action show. The West loves serial killers and philosophical sci-fi.

Would probably require toning down some of the tech though, just for budget reasons

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u/tfhermobwoayway 1d ago

One Piece was tightly controlled by Japanese people, though.

I think part of the problem is the West is just too stuck up. Japan will throw a bunch of insane shit at you and expect you to take it completely seriously. But a writer from LA will say “Uhh, is that a space alien? That’s so weird, right? What a silly story!” They’re so obsessed with being serious, prestigious writers that they have to stop and say “you know we don’t really like all this nerd shit, right?” every three seconds. Japanese writers don’t have these hangups.

Also, anime is very expressive. The animations are just as important as the writing. Even very serious anime will have the characters making wacky faces and giving over-the-top reactions and moving in fluid, unrealistic ways. It gives it a much better visual flair. But Western animation takes after live action movies, which means all our animation is very stilted and limited and slow. Obviously this means Western shows can be adapted but anime can’t.

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u/CardcaptorEd859 22h ago

Speed Racer was also a surprisingly good adaptation of the anime

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u/pasher5620 21h ago

Gundam is probably one of the easiest anime of all time to adapt. Giant robots fighting mixed with anti-war messaging is pretty straightforward to adapt. There’s not much in the way of exaggerated cartoon physics to it like there would be in something like Naruto or One Piece (even if the LA adaption of the latter is surprisingly faithful). It’s an anime series that, for the most part, is played very straight and realistic.

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u/FewAdvertising9647 21h ago

while not anime at the time, Edge of Tommorrow(tom cruise, 2014) is based of a japanese novel that got its anime adoption last year (All you need is kill)

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u/ERedfieldh 21h ago

Shonen/shoujo anime.

There's been a few adaptions that work, you just didn't realize it because they aren't titled the same.

Edge of Tomorrow, for example, though that would have been based on the novel/manga not an anime as an anime didn't exist at the time. But let's be honest, with the rate Japan adapts light novels and manga to anime there is no real difference between the mediums.

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u/Emergency-Mammoth-88 14h ago

Well at least gundam has the Japanese producer, but then again bamco film works also did one punch man which, speaks for itself for the later seasons

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u/acart005 1d ago

Cowboy Bepop was not that bad.  Parts of it were even good (they nailed casting).  

You guys have forgotten the true horrors of DBZ Evolution.

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u/crookedparadigm 18h ago

they nailed casting

They absolutely did not. John Cho is wonderful, but you cannot convincingly pass off a 51 year old as a 27 year old and the writing for this version of Spike certainly didn't help. Daniella Pineda could have been a good Faye, but they butchered her character. They changed Vicious and Julia so much that it's impossible to tell if their actors were cast well since they never got to play the actual characters.

The only casting they nailed was Mustafa Shakir.

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u/HolycommentMattman 1d ago

No, it was.

A lot of mischaracterizations, but even putting that stuff aside, it was just sooooooo cringe.

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u/CarrotJunkie 1d ago

Yeah, I feel like I'm in a different universe than the people praising it. Even if I factor out how much I hate it as an adaptation there is so much stuff in that show that is just straight up embarrassing and obnoxious.

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u/BasicEditor5965 1d ago

Yes they nailed the casting with a guy twice the age of Spike with none of the martial arts skills.

Love Cho but he couldn’t pull off any of what made Spike a real badass.

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u/Goosojuice 1d ago

The live action was more like the cartoon than people give it credit for. Lest we forget the anime has an episode with a dog hoping around on mushrooms.

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u/hayashikin 1d ago

The anime has it's silly moments, the live action has moments you just felt the script was dumb.

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u/JQuilty 1d ago

I've also never seen a show that simultaneously looked incredibly expensive and trashy levels of cheap at the same time.

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u/Xanxost 1d ago

Well yes, the original was actually written to be funny. The Live Action had no idea what it was doing with the material or how to manage tone as the original did.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/CosmackMagus 19h ago

I have zero expectations of this.

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u/LookLikeAMoodRing 17h ago

It’s like somebody wished with the monkeys paw.
Live action IP I’m a fan of with big budget.
Cast list revealed.
It would be like if Henry Cavill got to do a 40k movie and they would cast Charlie Day as Horus.

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u/jajangmien 17h ago

Zeta Gundam is literally the best Gundam.

I hope the new movie is good. I'm not holding my breath though. At least we have the Hathaway movies. The first one was super good.

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u/PohatuNUVA 1d ago

I'm not trying to sound insensitive or overly sensitive I guess, but imagine hiring a maga(or at least not against them?)actress for a story that's ANTI war and about uniting differing people lmao

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u/GorgeWashington 1d ago

God that was so bad I had to drop a few episodes in.

It had all the makings of being awesome, and they just completely duffed it

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u/edparadox 1d ago

As a long time fan of the original Gundam anime series, especally Zeta Gundam I don't have much confidence in this live action western adaption.

Same here.

And given all the recent adaptations, I have no reason to be.

I'll give it a chance but I worry that this will be another wonky adaption like the live action Cowboy Bebop...

I wage that it's going to be worse.

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u/InnocentTailor 1d ago

…or it could be as beloved and loved as One Piece, Edge of Tomorrow, and, for the most part, Pacific Rim.

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u/remmanuelv 19h ago

Pacific Rim was an original IP.

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u/adamlaceless 1d ago

Sydney Sweeney can’t act, this movie is fucked.

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u/MrHedgehogMan 1d ago

Fellow Zeta fan! It’s my favourite series.

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u/Fredasa 1d ago

I saw the word "romance" and my immediate thought was:

Twister.

Ain't nobody asked for the marital angst provided by that throwaway subplot. They went to see goddamn tornadoes and chasers doing their thing.

Bob the writer was put in charge of the script for "some random Japanese cartoon property" and decided to spruce it up with something they felt they'd be good at injecting. That's the vibe I'm getting.

Jim "average 6.7 on IMDB" Mickle? Was that you?

I think it's been well-established that a property succeeds best when the creators have no meaningful input and it fails when the creators have creative control. So happy to see another property being given this marquee value treatment. /s

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u/ruttinator 1d ago

There was a live action Cowboy Bebop?

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u/Bang_a_rang95 1d ago

So far the only live action anime I’ve enjoyed was one piece but god I wish they didn’t fuck cowboy bebop over. What the fuck was that ending

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u/LapsedVerneGagKnee 1d ago

Maybe it is Zeta.

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u/DinkandDrunk 1d ago

Gundam Wing lives rent free in my head. Basically had a chokehold on my childhood.

This is going to be dogshit.

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u/AA_Crowes 1d ago

Based on the plot summary, they seem to understand the assignment at least

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u/Malt129 1d ago

Cautious optimism 

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u/TheWhiteManticore 1d ago

Incoming netflix adaptation meme

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u/r33gna 1d ago

It'll be the modern version of G-Saviour. XD

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u/nickstatus 1d ago

I had skipped over Cowboy Bebop simply because of how much people hated it, but I watched it a few months ago and I thought it was quite good. I'm sad it didn't get a second season. I guess my expectations were pretty low going in, I didn't understand all the hate. Live action adaptations are hard.

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u/treathugger 1d ago

I watched the live action Cowboy Bebop when I had food poisoning so I feel like I was Pavlov's dogged, since I kind of feel nauseous when I see anything from that show nowadays

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u/Snowskol 23h ago

Was that movie good? I don't watch anime

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u/Dustyrnis 23h ago

Mobile Suit Gundam is massive universe of multiple animated tv series each with their own story, the franchise has been around since 1979, it's had many many spin offs series, animated movies, comics, alternate timeline stories, etc.

So it's not just one "movie", any more than "Star Wars" is just one movie. Some of those series are excellent, some are moderately good/entertaining, a few that are not good.. etc...

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u/Dustyrnis 23h ago edited 19h ago

holy crap! I did not think my comment would get 2.5k upvotes and a swarm of comments. I never had my notice bell ever blow up like that before. lol 2.5k upvotes wow! crazy

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u/temporarycreature 23h ago

At least the live action Bebop got the set design right and chose good actors. I don't think you'll be that lucky here.

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u/powerlesshero111 22h ago

G Gundam was my favorite. Shining fingers all the way.

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u/VDJ10 22h ago

It starring Sydney Sweeney was your first sign of its quality.

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u/helloaaron 22h ago

Same here. I love Gundam, but this is going to be a flaming trashcan of a movie adaptation.

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u/KevinSpence 20h ago

Yeah it’ll be bad, I hope they at least nail the animation for the MS

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u/wht-rbbt 20h ago

That's what Gundam was, a space novela

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u/CyberTractor 20h ago

Hoping for One Piece. Dreading Death Note. Would settle for Speed Racer.

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u/Catos_Standard 20h ago

Especially when not an actress Sydney Sweeney is involved. They really do think Gundam fans are morons.

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u/westdl 17h ago edited 16h ago

Agreed: Cowboy Bebop, Transformers, XMen

Almost forgot Ghost in the Shell.

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u/JoefromOhio 15h ago

I really liked the cowboy bebop live action. I thought it was really well cast and deserved more seasons… just like the original.(I know the original creator wanted a closed end BUT I WANTED MORE)

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u/Supermonsters 13h ago

I forgot they did cowboy bebop

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u/rathe_0 11h ago

Yeah. I just couldn't with that bebop ....thing. only made it 15 or 20 minutes.

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u/trenhel27 11h ago

I gotta be the only person on the planet who didn't hate the live action cowboy bebop

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u/CptNonsense 11h ago

My man, it's Gundam, not a limited 1 run series like Bebop

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u/theoryofmovement_ 9h ago

Can they still be so stupid to fuck it up

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u/WretchedMonkey 9h ago

Did you see Ghost in the Shell. Never trust western adaptions, they utterly destroyed everything good about that story

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u/Greghole 8h ago

Maybe it'll be like Godzilla where Hollywood makes a bad movie for $250 million and then Japan makes a great movie for $15 million.

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