Two days ago, I watched for the first time "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie", the film entry in the hit anime about a crew of bounty hunters traveling through space. This anime had been recommended to me by a lot of people, and I found they were right the whole time. But that's not the only thing I got out of this....
In the final days of summer this year, I closed my summer movie season with two comedy films I hadn't seen before: Weekend at Bernie's (not going to see II, I guarantee that!), and the Abrahmms-Zucker Bros. cop-spoofer classic "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!". I went to bed laughing that night....
Anyway, fast-forward to the day after I saw Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, and all of a sudden, I get this funny idea in my head. Excuse me while I share said idea with the lot of you on comicbookmovie.com. Ladies and gentlemen, in the vein of the Family Guy Star Wars specials (and my first mash-up inspired by them, "The Simpsons Ghostbusters Parody"--found here http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=71289), it gives me great pleasure to present to you:
Just imagine it--all the usual hallmarks of a Zucker-Abrahms parody in anime form! And with characters from a sci-fi noir, no less. (Although to be an hour-long special, a few things might be cut, but hey, whaddaya gonna do?)
Our story would begins in Cowboy Bebop's time of 2071, on Mars. We enter a meeting room where a conference of mobsters is taking place. They're discussing how their next job is going to go down, all while a familiar-looking waiter is serving them coffee. When one of the mobsters makes a remark about the lengths they'll go to in order to get said job done, the "waiter" has had enough and pours hot coffee on the gangster's hand. The waiter then removes his disguise to reveal Spike Spiegel (out to collect the bounty on the mob), who begins beating the snot out of the assembled mobsters in the manner seen in this clip, complete with the same music:
One of the battered gangsters: "Who--Who are you??
Spike: "I'm Spike Spiegel." (He cuffs the mobsters and leaves a note for the ISSP. He then gets on the window ledge.) "And don't ever let me catch you guys in my neck of the woods."
Spike pushes the shutters on the windows, which then suddenly close back up, whack him in the face, and cause him to fall out the window, only for him to land in his jet, which he then drives back to the Bebop in a sequence based on this (complete with Ira Newborn's music):
The scenes he flies through come from a lot of famous anime shows, including:
-A dogfight from Robotech
-A fight scene from Voltron
-A fight scene from Gundam Wing
-A tree-leaping scene from Naruto
-Ash Ketchum and Pikachu flying on Ash's Charizard
-Gigantor flying through the sky
-Same as above, but with Astro Boy
-Speeding past two of the mechs from Neon Genesis Evangelion
-Speeding past the robot units from Patlabor: The Mobile Police
-A car race from Speed Racer
-A space battle from Star Blazers
He finally parks the ship on the landing bay of the Bebop as the music ends.
Once he gets inside, he starts talking with Jet, Faye and Ed, and then sits down to catch a movie on TV. In the middle of the movie, the vase that Spike ended up with in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie falls on his head, knocking him out. While out cold, he dreams about himself and friend and foe alike going through the motions of the movie he was watching, which happened to be "The Naked Gun"......
Our cast for our hero's concussion-induced dream includes:
"Spike Spiegel is a tall, lean, and slightly muscular 27-year-old bounty hunter born on Mars with a history of violent activity seen through flashbacks and dialogue with the Red Dragon Syndicate. He is often depicted with a cavalier attitude, but frequently shows signs of compassion when dealing with strangers."
If they actually made a special like this, complete with an English dub, I would laugh so hard at hearing Steven Blum, as Spike, channeling Leslie Nielsen.
"Faye Valentine is one of the members of the bounty hunting crew in the anime series Cowboy Bebop. She is often seen with a cigarette and in a revealing outfit complete with bright yellow hot pants and a matching, revealing top (and, on occasion, a bikini). She sports violet hair, green eyes, and a voluptuous body. Although appearing to be no more than 23 years old, Faye is actually around 77 years old, having been put into cryogenic freeze after a space shuttle accident, wherein she spent fifty-four years in suspended animation. During the course of the series (set in 2071), Faye manages to cross paths with Spike and Jet twice before she finally makes herself at home aboard their ship the second time around, much to the consternation and disapproval of the two men, both of whom have their own reservations about women in general. Faye herself is brash, egotistical, and quite lazy, despite taking plenty of time to pamper and care for her own appearance. Faye has been arrested several times in the series, and has spent time in handcuffs on the ship. She, at times, expects the boys to take care of bounties for her, while she sits by idly to reap the benefits and eat all their food, which is another source of conflict."
Bebop's creator did state in an interview that Spike, although he won't admit it, does like Faye, so it's close enough that I cast her as Drebin's love interest. (Who knew Priscilla Presley could act???)
"Vicious is ruthless, bloodthirsty, cunning and ambitious. Considered by some to be Spike's darker half, Vicious is willing to do anything in order to secure a position of power."
It's fitting enough--Vicious is the recurring bad guy for Cowboy Bebop, and Vincent is the main bad guy in the movie.
"Born December 3, 2035, and known on his home satellite as the "Black Dog" for his tenacity, Jet Black is a 36-year-old former cop from Ganymede (a Jovian satellite) and acts as Spike's foil during the series."
Jet's the straight man to Spike, as Hocken is to Drebin, so I put two-and-two together to come up with a very fitting casting.
"Julia is a beautiful and mysterious woman from both Spike and Vicious' pasts. Initially Vicious' girlfriend and a Syndicate member herself, she and Spike started a dangerous affair that led to Spike offering to abandon the Syndicate and elope with her, despite the fact that the Syndicate punishes desertion with death."
So yeah, Nordberg's a woman in this thing, but how else would I incorporate Julia into this? Although now that I think about it, with the stuff Nordberg goes through in the early part of the movie, I might get accused of putting a woman in a refrigerator on this one....
"Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivruski IV is the self-invented personal name of an elite hacker prodigy from Earth. Her birth name is Françoise Appledehli. "Radical Edward" is a very strange, somewhat androgynous, teenage girl claiming to be around 13 years of age. Her mannerisms include walking around in her bare feet, performing strange postures, and her gangling walk. Ed could be considered a "free spirit;" she is fond of silly exclamations and childish rhymes, is easily distracted, has the habit of "drifting off" from reality...sometimes in mid-sentence, and is the show's primary source of physical humor."
Funny thing I realized with this casting: Edward would be speaking in complete sentences AND with clarity in this role.
"Elektra Ovirowa is a veteran of the Titan War who first appears in Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door [Cowboy Bebop: The Movie]. Her love for Vincent caused them to have a short-term relationship, during which Vincent transferred the vaccine to Elektra. She is unaware of this until Vincent sets free the Nanomachines on the Monorail and she survives. She meets Spike by chance when he infiltrates a bio weapon lab fronting as a pharmaceutical company where she works. After a few more chance meetings, and witnessing his being shot and thrown from a monorail by Vincent, she teams up with the crew of the Bebop to put an end to Vincent's intent to destroy the population of Mars. The samples of her blood are used to make the vaccine that is spread over Alba city.
Elektra was all serious business in Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, so it was a good coincidence that she's the uber-serious business bureaucrat from The Naked Gun. Oh, to just picture her tearing into Spike's Drebin, I'd be in stitches.
When Spike wakes up, he says the usual "I had the weirdest dream. You were there, and you were there, and you..."
Jet Black: "Surely, you can't be serious?"
Spike: "I am serious--and don't call me 'Shirley'."
Hope this brightened up your day, CBM users! And now, I leave you with the sounds of Ira Newborn: