Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
By Matthew Allair
Can a known fan property be reexamined and still move forward? The last ten years have been a little precarious in the entertainment field for sequels, revivals, and reboots. Often the need to do something ‘new’ with fan favorites can lead to mixed results and diminishing returns, new characters can be introduced that can intermittently diminish the integrity of the original, and beloved characters. One of the problems for the Jame Bond franchise, due to the need for formula, the character arc for Bond seemed pretty fixed and static for years, for example the Roger Moore era. Growth comes with risk, but it can make for entertaining material when done well. Fortunately Netflix has wisely struck a balance with their new sequel, alternative take on Scott Pilgrim, and it’s a delight, a series that has a narrative sleight of hand in its telling that is refreshing. It stays true to the source material, while remaining self-aware, and metatextual, and adding something new. The youth trend towards Metamodernism – a way of viewing the world that emphasizes a kind of integrated pluralism – has already affected entertainment, for good and ill, and places the viewer with challenges. When done well like in “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” 2022, it can reveal truths about the human condition, when not, it can be off putting.
Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series from the early two thousands managed to be both groundbreaking and incisive in its comments about growing up, maturing, and taking stock of your interactions with others. The new series is Executive Produced by Edgar Wright, the director of “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” 2010, with the majority of the eight episodes co written by Bryan Lee O’Malley. It brings back the feature film cast and retains a continuity between the film and graphic novel. The other key ingredient is the animation team at Science Saru whose work on this series is seamless, and beautifully executed. There’s some evident craftmanship in the animation between director Abel Gongora, and animation cinematographers Hikari Itou, and Yoshihiro Yanagi. Yet they also retain the look of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s character drawings. The series is full of references to other films, anime, and games from the nineties.
For those unfamiliar with the book and film, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), twenty-three, a ‘between jobs’ Bass player for a band, is dating a high schooler, after a brutal breakup of a former flame turned into megastar, when he meets the girl of his dreams at a party named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The only problem is, he will have to fight her seven deadly evil exes to win her over while navigating the awkward breakup of his underage flame Knives Chau. The league of exes were organized by the seventh ex-boyfriend, Tycoon Gideon Graves (Jasson Schwartzman).
But this new series manages some new surprises while initially following the early part of the known tale before taking an abrupt shift, thus making it difficult to not engage in spoilers. It is best to probably go in with the element of surprise, but each episode is packed with so many revelations and information you might want to take in two passes of the series to fully absorb.
The show is a rolodex of pop culture references. The episode ‘Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life’ pretty much tracks with the known tale of the books and film. We are introduced to his friends, His gay roommate Wallace Welles (Kieran Culkin), his semi girlfriend Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), his band mates Kim Pine (Allison Pill) and Stephen Stills (Mark Webber), the hapless friend and roadie Young Neil (Johnny Simmons), his sister Stacey Pilgrim (Anna Kendrick), and rival Julie Powers (Aubrey Plaza), and while plot points are straight forward, that example of narrative slight of hand is seen in the revealing title for one, as well as the scene when Scott first meets Ramona, his pick up line differs from the feature, his trivial comment is about Sonic The Hedgehog in the early nineties using the same actor for two different versions, and she comments about watching older reruns like Columbo as a kid. Without it being evident, this telegraphs how the series is going to play out.
Scott receives a letter stating an intended fight to the death, which Scott ignores. Scott’s band Sex Bob Bomb plays a club soon after the warning and evil ex number one Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) appears to fight Scott, yet there’s a reversal of fortune as Matthew wins, and allegedly kills Scott.
“A League of Their Own” deals with the fall out and Scott’s funeral. Yet Scott’s former ex Envy Adams (Bree Larson) hijacks the funeral with an elaborate performance with Ninja Paparazzi in tow. Meanwhile invites are sent, and the league are assembled to Graves’s lair. We are reintroduced to the league, Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), Lesbian Roxie Richter (Mae Whitman), Super vegan Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh) and that Katayanagi Twins, Ken, and Kyle, with their new creation in tow, Robot-01. Matthew’s win has left him full of hubris as he organizes the meeting, learns that Gideon was merely going to use all the Exes as pawns to get Ramona back. Matthew challenges Gideon for control of the league, under certain terms, and after an elaborate fight, Matthew wins and forces Gideon to sign away his vast fortune to him.
All the fight sequences are highly inventive and fun throughout the series. Ramona’s dream connection to Scott, and their interdimensional highway, makes her realize that he is still alive. In this episode Ramona takes agency of her life. There is a phenomenon known as the ‘dream pixie girl’, where men pine for some idealized women. In the original, men fight to take ownership of Ramona, but this is reversed here. At this point, there is a thematic hint towards “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946) where people explore what life would be like without Scott.
In “Ramona Rents A Video” she takes matters into her own hand, after visiting the club and checking the surveillance videos, she visit’s Julie at the video store, get’s a breakdown of all of Scott’s friends to find motives, and details about those she knows all too well, her evil exes. We also shift to the home of Young Neil, who is inspired to write a screenplay, but after suffering from his paralysis demon one night, he awakes to find a full screen play fully written. The episode brings about the first emotional resolution at Julie’s video store, when Roxie Richter appears and attacks Ramona, the fight leading them into jumping into various movie settings with some dazzling sequences. The emotional exchanges between Ramona and Roxie are some of the highlights of the series.
Ramona’s next mission leads into the backstory for Lucas Lee with the episode “Whatever”, In Hollywood, Lucas’s agent is warning him that his skater boy antics could get him out of the business if he doesn’t behave as he is sent to Toronto. Young Neil’s script, “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life” is being financed by a major studio, in very much a send up of the Hollywood industry and Edgar Wrigth’s film. There’s also some fun ribbing about Edgar Wright in the episode. Ramona get’s past security posing as a stunt person, Wallace visits the set, and hijacks the actor cast to play him, and ends up getting cast as himself. Lucas is cast as Scott, after a visit from Ramona, he fights Ninja Paparazzi and his fired from the project. The studio lot is filled with pop culture props including King Ghidorah.
Todd Ingram is brought in to play the role of Scott with Envy playing Ramona, which leads to a strange series of seductions by Wallace towards Todd, which also has the most cartoonish fun. “Lights, Camera, Sparks?” pretty much depicts the feature project shutting down, while the real Ramona tries to get near Todd, Wallace and Todd’s fling leads to Todd’s ruin, with Envy in a rage and having Ramona fight Walaces stunt doubles. Eventually Ramona learns that Todd wasn’t put up to using his vegan powers and create the portal that snatched Scott away.
It is also around this point that Knives Chau is allowed some real character development. She discovers she’s adept at bass guitar, jams with drummer Kim in a liberating moment. Which leads to Steven discovering her abilities as she is adept at Piano as well. She takes on her own agency, she just doesn’t pine for Scott, and no longer just a superfan for Sex Bob Bomb, she grows. It is also endearing that Steven doesn’t pine for her, but is interested in her talent, they become a creative team that plays a major role going forward. Matthew shuts down the film, but not before Knives and Stephen makes a proposal to Matthew. Ramona learns through Matthew - after her reveal that Scott is still alive - she learns about Gideon / Gordon and Julie Powers.
In “WHODIDIT”, we get the back story of the down and out Gideon and his new ally Lucas Lee, After Ramona learns that Gideon was not behind the portal, she assumes it would have to be the Katayanagi Twins and their mysterious robot companion who is seen throughout episodes. The gang of Stephen, Kim, Knives and Young Neil learn and reveal the “Precious Life” script was written by someone fourteen years into the future. While at Ramona’s place, just as this is all unfolding, there’s a knock at the door and Scott is alive.
His tale is told in “2 Scott 2 Pilgrim”, when the 37-year-old Scott had kidnapped him and brought him into the future of Ontario, where they meet an older Wallace who’s wealthy husband works for Nintendo. Scott is shown a Virtual Reality simulator where he learns about their lives, the events from ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs The World’, their future marriage and alleged divorce.
The older Scott is friends of Ken and Kyle and through their robot, they invent a time travel portal. But the motives become clear after Scott is served a social drink – that becomes important later- the older Scott has taken the twenty-three-year-old Scott to get him to end the relationship, that it wasn’t worth it. He tried to change events so that Ramona and Scott would never meet and break each other’s hearts. This reminds me, thematically of “Eternal Sunrise of The Spotless Mind” 2004, erasing the past to avoid pain. Of course, the intent is folly. The Robot 01 shares with Scott VR images of Ramona’s efforts to find him back in the present., which makes Scott realize the fight for them is worth it. Wallace takes Scott to the older Ramona who has time travel abilities where she learns of the older Scott’s plan. There’s a delightful ‘Back to the Future’ here.
The finale, “The World Vs Scott Pilgrim” pretty much plays out in what you expect, but when Scott and Ramona try to kiss, an anti-kiss field has been generated to stop them from kissing. They have to meet with all of the evil exes to find out who is behind this AK field, and the opportunity is there when Matthew Patel’s financed musical version of “Precious Little Life” is debuting with Matthew playing the role of Scott. Gideon and Julie plan to bomb the stage with a remote, but near the climax of the show, a strange energy bubble envelops the whole gang into a dream like world, and it is learned that an even older Scott was behind the AK field to stop them from dating, and he has to battle the entire circle to make certain the future never happens, even after Ramona gives the evil exes and friends powers, The older Scott sends them all back to the present as Scott and Ramona faces him alone.
An even older Ramona saves them and confronts the Older Scott, where it’s learned Scott assumes it was a divorce when it wasn’t, just a break. Both Ramona’s fuse together and everyone is sent back to their proper time and space. Scott and Ramona commit to not repeating the mistakes of the future. The epilogue features developments for all of the characters. There is a lack of character development for Envy Adams, and the arc for Gideon Graves, after losing everything and regaling it back, seems to revert to old his self, this may have to do with the brevity of the series over eight episodes.
Animators Science Saru has used mixed various visual techniques to give the series vitality. Aside from staying to faithful to O’Malley’s graphic look, the team also borrows from other anime styles, and a few of the fight sequences briefly uses a pixilated style that nods to the original Scott Pilgrim game. There is also a good use changing frame ratios and depth of field focus between characters. Music has always been an important element with this property. Nineties Canadian underground band Plumtree’s song inspired the name of the title character, and Edgar Wright was faithful to the punk aesthetic in his 2010 film. In their new series, Anamanaguchi, and the Japanese act Necry Talkie provide the most interesting material.
Even Bryan Lee O’Malley has admitted that the new series was a commentary of his relationship problems in his forties with his wife, much in the same way that the original comic reflected his experiences in his 20s. Yet the series doesn’t manage to be preachy or sermonizing, but real in it’s depiction about young, selfish, and flawed characters, yet the sleight of hand of the story telling never loses it’s fun or energy. This series has rewards for the viewer that make it worth the visit. Tne concerns of the nineties and two thousands were not any different than what we are facing today, and just a reminder of the commonality of our flawed humanity.
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