Cool little detail here a lot of people miss out on. The biplane the old guys are flying is a Swordfish Torpedo Bomber. Spike's zipcraft is the Swordfish-II.
I love how when they show the scenes of the antiques taking off, they include planes that are in our future but in their past. Nice detail and attention to the world.
2:10 Very cool attention to detail on animators part. The military pilot ejected his last 2 missiles so he didn't collapse the highway and kill civilians.
nice touch but modern missiles are not armed all the time for safety reasons. So even the destruction of the missile won't cause detonation of the warhead. The warhead is armed only when missile is launched and it reached certain time of flight and acceleration.
Those appear to be the vehicle's two main propulsion units ("jet engines," or whatever the 2071 Martian equivalent is), not missiles. The missiles are stored internally, as depicted at 1:10. At 1:23, you can see the engines light up in afterburner. 1:45 provides another shot of the engine array - one large unit directly behind the cockpit, another large unit farther back and higher up at the tail, flanked by two smaller units on either side. (Here you also see two doors open up to fire the twin guns as well.) At 2:10, if you go frame by frame (pause, then press the Period key to advance a frame), it looks like the rear engine ejects first, followed by the front engine.
You can almost feel the frustration of those military pilots trying to shoot down the spaceship equivalent of a souped up muscle car in their bleeding edge fighters and getting absolutely fucked on in the process. The last guy even loses his cool and starts taking shots that hit buildings in his desperation to try to shoot Spike down.
And also the fact that its a racing plane with weapons sticky taped to it and it will actively kill who is piloting it. I think this speaks words on spike's piloting skills.
@@sai-gammarell the plane the three old dudes are flying in is the Fairey Swordfish, a british carrier based bomber from WWII that became famous for being extremely effective despite it's technological obsolecence.
Always loved how it's a physical challenge to fly the Swordfish. Like it looks like Spike is just barely hanging on inside the cockpit, meanwhile he outflies everyone and does it with style.
Makes sense (as much as an anime set in space in the future can make sense) given that it's an already unstable racing craft with a massive plasma cannon it wasn't built for strapped to the bottom. It's things like that which really set this series apart.
@@arob5sf32 Not only that, it would do well in atmosphere as well as it does in a weightless vacuum. In space that motorcycle like seating arrangement works perfectly. In atmosphere, im sure its a hell of a strain on the body to be piloting in that position.
I love how the dogfight has the most tenuous connection possible with the plot, but it would have been wrong for the Cowboy Bebop movie to not have a dogfight otherwise.
I mean, there have been terrorist attacks by Vincent and it's some random bounty hunter dude with an armed fighter entering what I assume is restricted air space during a great festivity, so it does make sense that Spike would be intercepted.
I love how everything in the Cowboy Bebop movie seems designed to push Spike to his absolute limits. Vincent does it in a physical capacity. This dogfight is definitely the greatest challenge that we see Spike undertake as a pilot and the greatest showcase of his skill.
ALSO! He's never been made so vulnerable as to talk to a new person about his past or his time in the syndacite as quickly as with Electra. I know that partially it's convenience but regardless it fits nicely with the thought that every other character was pushing spike to his limits in nearly all regards of his life
Well, it's his last real piece of action before facing Vicious. The only time when he might have felt alive before facing vicious one last time (and dying probably, I mean for me he is dead at the serie's end). He even was afraid of dying against Vincent. When did that rrally happen during the serie. He wasn't fighting because he feared death or wanted to live. He just wanted to see Julia one last time, that's what really motivated him (and keep the bebop out of trouble). But in the movie, he confess that he felt afraid. That's very rare for him.
I also love how the music plays into this element of the movie. It's such an intense and demanding song, and really feels like it's straining to keep going, just like spike in this scene.
A detail I never noticed is the difference between how the Swordfish and the military jets execute the turnaround manuever above the tower, and how minutes before the autocannon slugs trailed behind the swordfish just before going under the highway. The swordfish is an antiquated and tricked-out racing jet, while the fighters are modern state of the art craft. What the latter has going for it is absolute speed and the skill of its pilot. Spike has to be full ahead to turn around at the top, while the braking system of the fighters allows them to do a quick 180 - the thought and animation that went into this scene shows what Spike's working with and how he utilizes the Swordfish to outmanuever modern craft with skill and familiarity.
This entire scene is just a giant flex of the bebop animation and music crew . “Look what we can do if you give us a solid budget and time”……and it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen …. Outstanding !!
Spike calling his fighter a “piece of junk” after absolutely thrashing it around the way he did, like bro that thing is incredible for holding together lol
I can't even begin to imagine how they planned this scene out or even animated it. If it were animated today this would be cg. Someone sat down and drew this frame by frame. Blows my mind.
Most people won't realize but it's amazing how well the martian atmosphere is represented, specially when the sky turns black when the camera points to the sun above, you can even see some stars. This can also happen on earth if you fly really high where the atmosphere is as thin as in mars. Of course within the Alva City "dome" (its not really enclosed) the atmosphere is earth-like so the sky is blue. Nice details.
You can even see Spike's trail being some residual dust while the military jet trailing him turns just at the point of most tension making a sonic boom when he turns! 3:29
Love how Spike has to improvise with the use of his surroundings to take on multiple ships at once. Some animation sequences of these dogfights look real.
Something I like, the military craft aren't completely outclassed. The swordfish II is not some Gundam level super jet. It's a high performance racer. It makes sense that they could keep up, and the pilots are not incompetent, just not as good as our hero. That's how you make tension; high stakes, level playing fields.
This is a masterpiece of aviation and cinematic art. If you can suspend belief that these “fighter jet” designs are sensible, the actual fighting sequence is phenomenal, and much of it seems to draw on modern day dogfighting clips. Nice touch with the outdated aircraft too. Nearly made me shed a tear when they started falling apart midair… …nearly… it’s only anime.
This is bar none one of the best if not the best chase scene in anime history… Every element breathtaking in its build up with a slice of genre blending and timescaping… …all neatly concluded with the smirk-inducing reality that a piece of junk starship did all that… Right before Spike fires his blaster in between those two tankers, time stops and for a flash of a moment you cant help but realize, this is anime 😌…
Fun fact if you didn’t know, every so miles on the interstate is supposed to have like a mile or so of straight road just in case for emergency landings. Thank Eisenhower for that.
I'm betting "What Planet is This?" is one of the songs The Seatbelts wrote before the animation was done. The director was known for designing scenes around some of the music.
Spike takes out all the enemy fighters but never fires directly at them like Hollywood plots would require. He uses the environment to outfly them and let them crash. Smooth
All that gorgeous dogfight sci fi action - and NOT ONE SINGLE FRAME of it has even the slightest HINT of computer graphics! This is quite possibly the last hurrah of traditional acetate cel painted anime action! So beautiful!!
The bit at 3:55 is mostly CGI, except for the Swordfish's animation. The smoke at 4:13 as well. The suspension bridge towards the end is CGI as well. This is not to discount the phenomenal art direction on the film but it's a little disingenuous to claim that "not one single frame" has CGI in it.
I think the better way to say it here is where there's CGI it's polished. I feel like a lot of modern anime - and animation in general - either don't understand how or don't get the time to mask the parts cgi is needed for (intense direction changes, keeping a large rapidly moving object consistent, etc) to mesh with the traditional cel animation or digitally painted stuff. It's a real treat to see a place where it was used sparingly as it should be and used remarkably well
Dear god do I love when a work of fiction elevates a vehicle into a character, can practically hear Sowrdfish II screaming you havent changed my damn fuel filter in years! But it doesnt give up till the first moment it safely can and Still gets its pilot on the ground safely. All while leaving the military saying what in the holy hell was that thing that has fighter performance while having a damn artiller cannon strapped to it.
I've seen this movie countless times since it came out and I still to this day am amazed at how great this scene and the entire series is. Bebop will always be the greatest of all time in my eyes. Please ffs I hope Netflix doesn't screw up the live action 😳
The transition to Spike’s roaring Swordfish at around 2:50 is simply beautiful and never gets old. Countless things to say about this 7 and half minutes of animation mastercraft that others have pointed out. Still a piece I revisit time to time.
@@mookiestewart3776 I’ve heard! I watched the show a year ago, but moved on to evangelion before I even knew there was a movie so I never got around to it. The music is fire so I have to at least for that
I first saw this almost twenty years ago when it played at an indie theatre in my city. I hadn't even seen the full series yet, just a handful of episodes from Adult Swim. My jaw hit the floor and stayed there the entire time seeing how beautiful the animation was in this scene, especially the sequence at 3:22.
I like how even though it's a dog fight, Spike uses his surroundings and let the enemy essentially take themselves out. They couldn't maneuver out of thr way of debris, or flew into objects.
Can you imagine those 3 pilots coming back to base, having to admit they got taken out by a guy in vintage aircraft, where as they had and lost the latest billion dollar fighter jets
why is this movie so underrated?? i mean everyone i ask whether theyve seen it, they don't even know it exists. and the ones that do haven't even seen it or just thought it was "okay".
Thank You, +Zeltzamer, For That Awesome Anime "CowBoy BeBop" RU-vid Video of Yours! Because I Happen To Like Anime DogFight Scenes The Most Too, Friend. :-D
