Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Well guys me and the AI girls are in the process of tearing down the bar setting and preparing for our next foray into the Summer of Watanabe. But we can take a short break and take one final look at the space cowboy and his friends in the Cowboy Bebop movie. Also known as Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, the movie was released in 2001 under the production of Sunrise, Bones, and Bandai Visual. The movie is a midquel said to take place between episodes 22 and 23 of the original series and they got the whole cast to work on this movie. From the voice actors to music composer to character designer to animation director to director anybody involved in the anime was involved in this movie. The movie was conceived by Watanabe himself who treated the movie as a miniature series so as not to alienate fans of the series and make it accessible to first time watchers. In other words Watanabe had a story arc idea for the show but just didn’t get the chance to work it into the show because of time. Let’s see what kind of trouble everyone’s favorite space cowboy gets into this time and take a look at Cowboy Bebop the movie.
So the movie starts off on a high note by an opening action scene which looks like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s also here that we see that the budget was pretty big for this movie. First off the animation is of higher quality, the characters are more fluid with their motions, and the buildings and backgrounds are resembling that of a 90s New York which the anime was going for (scene here: //youtu.be/owgu_DxlwVU, we also get some good comedy in this movie as well). After that scene we get the opening credits and song Ask DNA which once again pays homage to the 90s New York (I’m very curious as to what song and imagery Watanabe would use to pay homage to New York today. Scene here: //youtu.be/ofSLCFxJ8Jo, if we ever decide to make a movie about New York I say we get Watanabe and his crew to direct it. I know he’s not from here but he captures it so well and accurately that it feels like we’re seeing New York from the eyes of an actual New Yorker). After the opening we the Bebop heading to a big city on Mars to meet up with Faye who is looking for this guy named Lee (he is annoying) a young amateur hacker who has a bounty of 5 million woolongs. Faye finds his signal on a truck tanker on the highway but it stops and a man who isn’t Lee comes out of it (you’re annoying side character is in a later scene thankfully). This is our main antagonist of the movie Vincent voiced by Daran Norris (Cosmos from the Fairly Oddparents) who sets the tanker to explode, jumps off the bridge and disappears on us. We find out that the tanker released a hazardous virus which has infected a number of people and doctors are stumped on what’s going on (all this future technology and you can’t even solve a bio attack? Shame). A 300 million woolong bounty is placed on the person responsible and the Bebop gang decides to go after Vincent. Spike tries to find information on the virus and winds in the Arabic district (which once again is represented well here. From what I heard Watanabe traveled to Morocco for research when doing this movie to get ideas) where he gets con into buying a big vase (well not buying it more or less just having it given to him). Jet gets information from an old friend in the ISSP who tells them that the tanker belonged to a pharmaceutical company and Faye and Ed find out that Vincent used to belong to the military and that he’s actually dead. Speaking of Vincent we see him and Lee go to a warehouse where we find out that Vincent has created more of that virus and plans on releasing it on Halloween’s night.
Spike brings the vase back to the Bebop where Ed discovers the marble virus in the bottom and examines it. Faye finds Lee in the arcade but he escapes quickly losing her. Now you’re probably wondering why I don’t like Lee in this movie, well the answer is quite simple he doesn’t do jack shit in this movie. It seems like his only purpose in this movie is to play videogames and whine. We never see him do any cool hacker stuff. I was really hoping he and Ed would have a showdown of the hackers in a videogame like setting. But no it never happens, just a lot of wasted potential with this character. We go to the pharmaceutical company Jet talked about with his friend and see that the pharmaceutical company knows who Vincent is and knows he’s behind this incident but they refuse to tell the authorities (because they’re assholes and dumbasses). Instead, they decide to send Elektra one of their agents who has a history with Vincent out to find him and kill him along with the virus. She’s voiced by Jennifer Hale (Killer Frost from Assault on Arkham). Spike manages to sneak into the company under the disguised of the waste disposal man but gets discovered very quickly by Elektra (sharp eyes) and a fight breaks out (scene here: //youtu.be/g_MsszLruro, I love Spike’s antics throughout this scene). He makes it back to the Bebop where Jet tells him and Faye that the virus isn’t a virus at all but instead nanomachines made out of protein who eat away the body’s bone marrow and then disappears leaving no traces behind (the perfect crime). While that’s going on Ed and Ein search the city looking for Lee using the hat Faye got from him (their search doesn’t go all that well. Scene here: //youtu.be/K1RNQxMx_QE). After finding him they contact Faye where she arrives onto the scene but Ed and Ein are nowhere to be seen (that girl is like the energizer bunny. She just keeps going and going never stopping). Vincent kills Lee (thank you) using one of nano marbles on him which seems to have no effect on Vincent. Faye hears the commotion and goes to investigate where she finds a dead Lee on the floor. When she enters the room the nanomachines begin to take their effect on her but Vincent is there, grabs her, and kisses her with his own blood to save her life. After that she gets captured and tied up (you have a serious fetish issue Watanabe. Why do I get the feeling he’s a fan of 50 Shades of Gray?). Thanks to a bug planted on Elektra, Spike finds out that she and her men have cornered Vincent and are moving in on him (scene here: //youtu.be/1vEeQ-vGrgY, shake it off Spike shake it off). After that Vincent escapes and Spike survives (scene here: //youtu.be/FNGmr5qPso0, this was a moving scene. It’s pretty rare to see the main characters admit that they’re in over their heads. Also, was that a shot of the Twin Towers?).
Elektra gets suspended for acting selflessly on the job (and for getting a train full of people killed) and we finally learn the truth about Vincent. Vincent was a test subject for some government project and has counter nanomachines in his body which is why the nanomachines don’t affect him. This somehow makes the guy pretty much cursed with a body that refuses to die so now he’s just hoping to one day die but before he dies he wants to expose the government secrets to the world because the nanomachines were developed by the government which violates a lot of treaties set up to prevent this sort of thing from happening (well shit happens). Spike gets captured by the government and Elektra gets arrested as well because the vaccine for the nanomachines is now inside her and the government wants to erase all traces of this project (all of it. Scene here: //youtu.be/5XTXIWE7dIE). As we near the climax of the movie Spike and Elektra escape their holding cells and get the vaccine. Faye manages to escape from the room where there are now two dead bodies lying around (the view is still nice) and contacts Jet to tell him about Vincent’s plan just as Spike and Elektra come in with the vaccine. Vincent’s plan involves using the jack-o-lanterns all over the city to spread the nanomachines. Once they hit the air it’ll keep spreading from person to person until all of Mars is dead (*everyone stops to look at Pyro Jack* (Pyro Jack): What are you looking at me for!? You’re all a bunch of lunatics! I- *a check written by Vincent falls out of his pocket for everyone to see*. Okay. Here’s what I think happened *picks up the check and runs out the door*). Luckily Spike has a plan which involves airplanes, manipulating the climate, and taking on Vincent himself. As Spike flies off to face Vincent he gets into a dog fight with the army (scene here: //youtu.be/ed9g87Rs9qk). Faye takes over the climate control center (like a boss) and makes it rain in the city (//youtu.be/x_shN4xmkdQ?t=8s). As the city has a parade celebrating Halloween (man Mars loves Halloween doesn’t it? Usually it’s just Thanksgiving and Christmas that gets this kind of treatment) Spike goes to face Vincent one last time (scene here: //youtu.be/wGjqU03ZmsA). After that fight the movie pretty much wraps up with no one dying and the movie asking us a question at the end of the credits (scene here: //youtu.be/Dlqq1Wdnclk, yes and there’s not enough fanservice in it).
Final Thoughts
And that was Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. The movie is a good midquel to the series as it does have a pretty good story with the introduction of some new and interesting characters. Everyone maintains their original characters from the show which is good and the new characters are good as well but they have a few flaws. Vincent is a convincing villain with a good backstory but we never really get a chance to know him all that well such as what was he like before the experiments and his motivation for wanting to destroy all of Mars can be a little weak and cliché. “Oh the government is evil and performed experiments on me and now I’m going to exposed them for the monsters they are” stuff like has been done a number of times in past. He presents a very deep and meaningful philosophy but he tries to answer it in a cliché fashion. Electra was also a good addition to the movie. While not as strong a character as Vincent I found her enjoyable. Her relationship with Vincent obviously hints that the two had a special relationship in the past and I like her relationship with Spike as he was able to open up to her more than Jet and Faye. Possibly hinting that Electra might have been Spike’s answer to forgetting about Julia and finally closing the door on his past. This brief moment also makes his actions in the last two episodes of the series more understanding. There a lot of great small moments as well such as Ed being Ed and going trick or treating one day early to look for Lee or that moment where Jet expresses his feelings about everyone taking advantage of the Bebop or just a hub showing us how much the crew means to Jet and how he tries desperately to keep this crew together. The animation in this movie is great. It’s a lot more fluent and the backgrounds beautiful to look at with a well representation to various cultures. Even the characters look better having a mature and realistic look to them to fit the serious atmosphere of the movie. Music is also great. The opening is good as is the ending and while they added in new songs which are a welcomed addition I was actually shocked to see a few scenes where there was no music at all playing in the background. In a show where one of their strong points is music you would think they would make that a strong presence.
Final Score
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door earns a strong 8/10. While not as good as the original series or a finale to the series the movie is still a good watch for both watchers and newcomers to the series and serves as a great midquel to the series. I recommend watching this movie somewhere around the middle of the anime or after episode 23. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next on Project Nitsuj where we take a look at Watanabe’s more recent animes. Which one will I do first, well that’s my little secret you’ll find out next week.
(Yin-Yang): Hey master, where should I put the Daft Punk helmets and the fake bomb?
(Nitsuj): Put the helmets to the right and left of my seat and put the bomb behind the seat.
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