Cowboy Bebop anime was way ahead of its time. Cowboy Bebop the live action series had little chance of winning against this legacy.
Cowboy Bebop anime had perfected many things, including timeless music, fluid animation, immersive world view, and a genius script that ends every other episode with a twist. The live action series kept the music, replaced the animation with high budget cinematic and graphics, preserved the world view, but couldn't replicate the same twists. Perhaps the new creators did not want to reuse the same twists that the fans would be quite familiar with, but ultimately the live action script did not have the same punch compared to the anime series.
Instead of the loosely connected episodes with proper punchlines, the live action series opted for a more focused approach to building the backstories of each character, and then remixed some of the original episodes to fit on top. For some segments this actually worked out quite well, but honestly I was expecting the same spirited twists in this new series, and those were rather scarce.
The bits that did meet my expectations were recreation of various trivial details in live action, including all the ships and even the three old men. Although I might have still preferred to see them in animated form, as opposed to the live action version which seemed excessively violent and gory at times. And that's just the thing with this live action reboot: all the best parts are parts that reminds me of the original series. If there was any desire to watch any parts of these 10 episodes again, they were greatly dwarfed by the urge to watch the original series all over.
Cowboy Bebop live action wasn't exactly bad, but it only serves to remind us how far Cowboy Bebop anime was ahead of its time.
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