Cowboy Bebop: The Movie 720p - (2001 Lang: English)

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, known in Japan as Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Japanese: カウボーイビバップ 天国の扉 Hepburn: Kaubōi Bibappu: Tengoku no Tobira?, lit. Cowboy Bebop: Heaven's Door), is a 2001 Japanese animated space Western action film based on the 1998 anime series Cowboy Bebop created by Hajime Yatate. Multiple staff from the original series worked on the film, including director Shinichirō Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto, character designer/animation director Toshihiro Kawamoto, and composer Yoko Kanno. The original Japanese and English voice cast also reprised their roles.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is set between episodes 22 and 23 of the original series. The plot centers on a mysterious terrorist planning to destroy the human population on Mars using an unknown pathogen. The bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop work to find the terrorist and discover the source of the pathogen before the attack can take place.

The film was conceived by Watanabe as an extension of his work on the television series, which he treated as a series of miniature films. So as not to alienate fans of the series, a large amount of aesthetic material was incorporated, while also adjusting it to make it accessible to newcomers. Increased budget and production facilities enabled the use of filming styles associated with live-action films and a higher animation quality than the series. Arabic thematic elements were incorporated to contrast against the series, which entailed Watanabe traveling to Morocco for research. The Arabic atmosphere was also used in Kanno's music.

The film was produced by studios Sunrise, which had previously developed the original series, Bones, a later studio founded by former Sunrise staff, and Bandai Visual. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie was released to theaters in Japan on September 1, 2001 and in the United States on August 11, 2002. It went on to gross over $3 million worldwide, and when released on DVD, it ranked high on Japanese and US charts. The film received generally positive reviews from mainstream and anime critics and was nominated for the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Animated Film.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is set on Mars in 2071, 49 years after Earth was mostly abandoned after a catastrophe. Humanity has settled on other planets and moons in the solar system. The film's protagonists are legalized bounty hunters who travel together on the spaceship Bebop. They are Spike Spiegel, a former associate of the Red Dragon crime syndicate; Jet Black, a former police officer and owner of the Bebop; Faye Valentine, a woman who was once a fugitive from bounty hunters; Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV (Ed for short), a girl with genius computer skills; and Ein, an artificially enhanced "data dog" with human-level intelligence.

Days before Halloween, a man explodes a truck in Mars' capital city, spreading what is assumed to be a new pathogen that kills or sickens over three hundred people. In response, the Mars government issues a record bounty of 300 million woolong for the culprit's capture. Faye, who was pursuing Lee Sampson, a hacker that was apparently driving the truck, sees the terrorist and the Bebop crew decide to take on the bounty. Each follows different lines of inquiry. Ed, using a tattoo on the attacker's wrist, manages to identify him as Vincent Volaju, a former member of a military squad apparently killed in the Titan War. In reality, Vincent was the only survivor of a test involving the pathogen, having been immunized with a test vaccine: made an amnesic, he suffers from hallucinations, and his inability to tell dreams from reality eventually drove him insane.

Jet learns that the truck was the property of Cherious Medical Pharmaceutical Company, who illegally manufactured the pathogen as a biological weapon. Looking for information on the pathogen, Spike is given a sample by a man named Rashid, who was the former lead on its development. Spike also encounters Elektra Ovirowa, an agent of Cherious Medical. Upon examination, the "pathogen" proves to be a type of protein-based nanomachine that mimics human lymphocytes then breaks down into protein after death, making it undetectable. Attempting to infiltrate Cherious Medical, Spike fights with Elektra, planting a listening device on her. Elektra, who is sent by Cherious Medical to kill Vincent, is tailed by Spike, who attempts to take down Vincent on a train. Vincent easily defeats Spike, severely wounding him and throwing him from the train before releasing another cloud of the nanomachines: everyone in the train dies except Elektra, who was unknowingly immunized when she had been in a relationship with Vincent prior to the test on Titan. She secretly gives a friend in the company a sample of her blood to prepare a stock of vaccine. During this time, Faye relocates Sampson, who has been working with Vincent, but fails to catch him. Ein and Ed manage to find him again, but the two run off before Faye can get there. She arrives just as Vincent breaks one of the nanomachine containers with him, killing Sampson. Although Faye is also infected, Vincent gives her some of his blood through a kiss, immunizing her.

After Spike recovers and has a final talk with Rashid, he and Elektra are captured by Cherious Medical, who want to suppress all knowledge of the nanomachines' existence. The two escape from Cherious Medical, grabbing the newly produced vaccine on the way. In turn, Faye escapes after Vincent goes to trigger an attack on the city that will eventually kill everyone on Mars. After the group reunites, it is determined that Vincent will spread the nanomachines by exploding the giant jack-o'-lantern balloons used in the Halloween parade: Jet has a troop of old aircraft spread the antibodies over the city while Faye heads for the weather control center and causes it to rain on the city, aiding the spread of the vaccine. Spike and Elektra separately head to confront Vincent. Spike arrives first and the two battle to a standstill, then the nanomachines are released and Spike is temporarily weakened by them. As Vincent prepares to kill him, Elektra arrives and shoots Vincent. Having wanted to die since Titan, Vincent does not defend himself and thanks Elektra for their time together before dying.

Sure to at least please fans of anime or good movies in general. The Greatest Anime Movie Ever for the Greatest Anime Series Ever.

I'll start off by saying that I'm a huge fan of Cowboy Bebop. No other anime has characters that are as real and deep, yet fantastic and archetypical as this series. Every episode in the series manages to be visually stunning and/or humorous and uplifting while at the ame time being beautiful and poetic all in a twenty-minute timeframe. So its hard not to judge Coboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door under the same light or along the same lines as the series. That said, the movie is very cool and very enjoyable, and from the fansub that I watched, I know I'll be snagging this as soon as (or if ever) it is released on DVD.

After the initial five minute attention grabber and wonderfully cheesey rotoscoped-looking opening credits, Spike and the gang set off on the trail of a bearded bioterrorist worth 300,000,000 woolongs who plans to do some bad stuff to whatever planet it is they're on (I think its Mars, but I'm pretty sure they never actually say in the movie). Along the way, we get action, not-so-much action, Maracans, we get to hear some more awesome Yoko Kanno music, Spike reaffirms his position as the most badass character ever in animation, and we almost get to see Faye's boobies. The action scenes are superb, especially two in particular. Spike's first fight with the woefully underdeveloped Electra is easily some of the best martial arts animation ever. Also, the monorail scene is probably one of the coolest and definitely the goriest thing ever seen in Cowboy Bebop.

The movie does, however, slow down at parts, especially when the focus is lifted from the main characters. A lot of times I just felt like I was waiting for the movie to pick itself up and get going again, something that never happens in the show, but, then again, this film is nearly two hours long (awesome for an anime). One reason the film seems so slow in comparison to the series is that there are a lot more establishing shots and the like. It makes you wonder whether Shinichiro Watanabe was trying to be theatrical or just padding the film. Its almost as though they got too good at pacing their own show, which, I suppose is a testament to the original series. Every storyline moved so fluidly and was paced so well that the movie seems sluggish in comparison.

The movie's supporting characters aren't all that great, either. Electra is pretty bland, as is the antagonist, Vincent. That's kind of disappointing, since the Bebop crew was able to give so much personality to other lesser characters who had a lot less screen time in the original series (like Indian dude and the card-playing old guys, who both, thankfully, show up in the movie and play pretty cool roles in some scenes). Most of the other supporting cast is just fodder for Vincent to off to make him seem less likable. One thing that's sure to annoy a lot of people is Vincent's pseudo-religious rants and vague creepy-talk. The way that he talks and the way that others talk about him is a bit indicative of Shinji Ikari and Evangelion, but really not as good or interesting. If you look hard enough, you might be able to find some meaning in the symbolism they're trying to impose, but most of the time it will just come off as BS. At least he looks cool, and in the end, that's all that really matters in a villain.

Electra, on the other hand, is just your average sterotypical good-lookin' hard-ass female cop-type person that shares a mysterious past with Vincent that really isn't all that mysterious or interesting. But the film is really about Spike and the gang, and none of the principal cast go neglected. Each character has some pretty cool/funny scenes, even Ein and Ed (who I'm sure annoys the hell out of some people). The sad thing is that there's none of the ass-slapping hilariousness of "Mushroom Samba," nor is there any of the frenetic and fast-paced shooting action of "Pierot Le Fou." But we do get to see Spike use his 'leet jeet kun do fighting skillz to kick a fair share of ass. In terms of pacing and character development, the movie comes off as an extended version of "Jupiter Jazz" parts one and two, probably my least favorite episodes, sans any cool character revelations. I guess you can't really expect to learn anything new about the characters since the series tied itself up so nicely.

In the end, though, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" is freaking awesome. It may sound like I've been ragging on it, but that's just because the series is so awesome its hard for anything to hold a candle to it. So does the movie do the series justice? Absolutely, if you're a fan, definitely check it out, but you'd probably have to be a fan to really enjoy it. If the movie were a regular thirty-minute episode, it would be pretty forgettable. Even still, chances are that that's ten times better than most other anime out there.

This movie was so perfect that it was almost too good to be true. If you are a fan of the Anime, you will LOVE this series. The Anime is without a doubt, the greatest animated series of all time. Everything else is far inferior compared to the greatness that is Cowboy BeBop. So I remember seeing this movie months ago and I set my expectations low because I didn't want to be that disappointed. Boy was I amazed at what I saw! I loved every bit, every aspect of this film. Once again, the Great Watanabe ,Nobumoto and co. have amazed the world of Otaku lovers with this work of sheer brilliance. Amazing production, amazing quality and I just love these people! Oh and I love Bandai, Sotsu, Sunrise. The music in this was astounding, as expected from the super-talented Yoko Kanno. She is in her own domain of musical excellence. The tracks were amazing, and contrary to what a previous reviewer has stated, the opener to this movie is so hip, funky and jazzy that you will want a copy of it and all the other amazing tracks featured in this film. The entire crew did an amazing job! The main characters that we all love, were treated with grace, dignity and were all handled beautifully. We were even treated to new characters that revealed themselves to be very deep and realistic. The script was amazing, so humane and real and yet often at times gush of sheer 'poetry'. The action sequences were a treat and are unforgettable. The animation in this is far superior to that of the series and are so groundbreaking that I feel that no hand-to-hand combat scenes or arial fight scenes have EVER been animated with this sort of amazing quality and sheer realism. They are sight to behold. Again, the crew responsible in this did an amazing job! I can't praise the creators of this enough! As far as the plot, everything seems to flow together smoothly and just as the series, at times, is almost 'artsy' in terms of momentum shifts and 'high and low periods' where everything just seems to fit in perfectly and make perfect sense. Folks, this film is a product that far surpasses anything Hollywood has given us in terms of this genre (non-animated even) for the passed 20 years.

This far exceeds anything in terms of entertainment for that time period, IMHO. Granted, the characters and source material was so good that nobody could have ultimately 'messed up' a Cowboy BeBop movie. But still, this movie far exceeded mine and others expectations. When you read all these reviews you must realize that they are not all completely wrong. This movie is very very good, at the very least. Now, I see that some of the later reviewers were more critical of this then they were praising of it. Now, that is just silly, IMHO. I think these reviewers were so overanalyzed this thing to death, that they were only looking for what may be the slightest 'wrong thing' in this movie and decided to expound on them in their reviews. Don't take the very critical critics in here too seriously. These people probably have seen this thing 5 times straight and then after the 6th viewing decided one morning that this movie was not as good as they originally thought it was. This movie is so close to perfect that it would take the most anal of critics or the most yuppy of coffee drinking critics to find something even slightly wrong with this work of art. So, in other words, the critical ones on here are reading too into this and think that this is some sort of arthouse project that must contain some sort of hidden message that reveals the 'secret of life' or something.

In conclusion, if you are true BeBop fan, you will absolutely LOVE this movie to no end! If you are not a BeBop fan (as if those even exist) but love anime, you will still find this movie to be utterly amazing. If you do not appreciate any animated films whatsoever, you will still find this movie to be the 'exception' for it will be far superior to anything you have ever seen in years (non-animated wise). This movie was excellent in every aspect and is truly memorable in every way.

Bottom line, see this movie and prepare to be entertained.