Fox hunts down ‘Cowboy Bebop’

01/16/200901/16/2009 | artofthecartoon

I’ll be doing a Cowboy Bebop post sometime next week, but in the meantime…

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Keanu Reeves set to star as Spike Spiegel

By Borys Kit

Jan 15, 2009, 05:45 PM ET

Getty Images photo

Twentieth Century Fox is bringing the Japanese anime TV series “Cowboy Bebop” to the big screen, with Keanu Reeves attached to star as a bounty hunter traveling through space in 2071.

One of the big titles in anime, “Bebop” is set in a time where “astral gates” make interstellar travel possible. Humanity, decimated by a lunar explosion resulting from a gate accident, spread out across the solar system, as did crime, which gave rise to the use of bounty hunters.

Reeves would play Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter and former member of a crime syndicate. Spiegel, along with Jet Black, a fellow bounty hunter and former cop, are the two pilots of the spaceship Bebop.

Peter Craig is writing the script.

The show, which first aired on Tokyo TV and satcaster Wowow during the late 1990s, was strongly influenced by American music, even featuring action sequences — both space battles and mano a mano — timed to U.S. melodies.

Reeves’ association with the project leaked in the summer when Fox and 3 Arts Entertainment began the process of acquiring the rights from Sunrise Studios.

Erwin Stoff, Reeves’ longtime manager, is producing through 3 Arts. Joshua Long will serve as executive producer.

Sunrise president Kenji Uchida, the TV series’ director of animation, Shinichiro Watanabe, and series writer Keiko Nobumoto will serve as associate producers. Series producer Masahiko Minami will serve as production consultant.

“Bebop” marks a return to Fox for the CAA-repped Reeves, who starred in the studio’s December release “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

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All I have to say is:

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Credit: Thanks to the homie, Angela Taniguchi, for the forward!

Transformers: “Generation 1”

01/11/200901/11/2009 | artofthecartoon

1984 – 1987

transformers

So many cartoons, so many memories, so many moments, so many inspirations that turned a tiny spark of creativity into the huge bon fire that has helped me choose the path that I am on today. How do I choose which one to kick off this blog?

Obviously, if you took a look at the title, you know exactly where I plan to start. But first here were some of the other contenders:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron, 90’s style X-Men (aka Jim Lee style), Bugs Bunny, Batman: The Animated Series, He-Man, Thundercats, Chuck Jones, Jack Kirby, Whilce Portacio, Super Mario Bros, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

This was just a small sampling. I have a good 10 pages of topics (movies, people, comics, tv, etc…) that I hope to write about in the future. But I chose to start off with the old school Transformers, the original, Generation 1 or G1 as some fans like to call it.

Looking back, the animation of this show was not the best, the stories were somewhat forgettable, the human characters were…bleh… Many critics called it a 30-minute commercial and you could really tell the toy came first. So why did I choose Transformers to begin this blog?

To answer that, I go to July of 2007. A group of over 50+ people (Mostly Seattle Southsiders, myself included) came together and filled up the entire back row and then some of Lincoln Square Cinemas, which is the most bourgeois theater I have been to, to watch the live action Transformers movie. This was all organized with an email chain that ran some 120+ messages.

transformersmovie2007

Nostalgia and memories of the original Transformers was the foundation of how this group of people came together. This same fondness is what has kept the Transformers franchise alive and thriving, with what seems like hundreds of Transformers spin-offs, toys, comics, and reboots, some 25 years after the original cartoon. It’s one of the few animated series I know of that has crossed generations. To this day, I know plenty of aunties and uncles, and parents that call any large toy or cartoon robot a “transformer”.

It’s easy to admit now, but yes, Transformers: Generation 1 really was a weekly 30-minute commercial for toys. I know I had my share of them and there are plenty of folks who collect them. But for many, Transformers: Generation 1 is like a time machine that takes them back in time to their childhood. It doesn’t matter that the animation wasn’t tight, or stories weren’t well told, or characters weren’t all that deep. All that mattered was that they were entertained, they were happy, and they were inspired.

That’s why 50+ people, some who hardly knew anyone in the group, organized via email to fill up the entire back row and then some of Lincoln Square Cinemas.

That is the true Art of Transformers: Generation 1

That and cars and planes turning into robots was pretty tight as well =)