Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim is a miraculous property. What started as a modest independent graphic novel about a 23-year-old slacker became a best-selling series, a feature film starring actors who would become some of the biggest names of their generation, and even the kind of retro side-scrolling beat-’em-up video game that its titular character would play obsessively. Now, 13 years after the film’s release, O’Malley is co-writing and executive-producing a Netflix animated series (with BenDavid Grabinski), and the entire main cast of the movie is back to reprise their characters, amping up their performances for a cartoon world that exquisitely replicates the look of the comics.
I discovered the Scott Pilgrim series in 2006, just before the release of the third graphic novel. As a college freshman obsessed with superhero comics, I was primed to love the series’ fusion of slice-of-life young-adult drama with the over-the-top fantasy action of comics and video games, and Scott Pilgrim became the gateway comic I would give to people throughout undergrad. It’s a property that speaks to a huge audience thanks to a very fun and relatable central conceit — dealing with people from your past (and the past of the people you care about) — executed with storytelling devices and visual language pulled from a variety of media to make it a unique and unpredictable read. That multimedia angle makes it especially ripe for adaptation, and each new version gets to play with this mash-up of influences in different ways.
I went through the entire Scott Pilgrim series with Bryan Lee O’Malley back in 2015, and our conversation revealed how spontaneous his process was when creating the graphic novels, as well as some of his regrets about things he couldn’t do or would have done in hindsight. It’s a big reason why I was so excited to hear that he would be revisiting the story as an animated series, which frankly feels like the ultimate medium for Scott Pilgrim. Would this be a more faithful adaptation of the comics, which diverge heavily from the movie in the back half? Would it be a revised version that gives O’Malley the opportunity to change what he doesn’t like in the original work? Or would it be something else altogether?
The vibrant, high-energy 90-second opening sequence immediately indicates that Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is in good hands with Science SARU, the animation studio responsible for bringing O’Malley’s imagery to life. With its bold colors, dramatic action shots, and contrast of psychedelic compositions with grounded shots of the characters eating at a restaurant or rocking out on the porch, the opening sequence is firmly rooted in anime aesthetics and tone, which is heightened by the explosive energy of Necry Talkie’s song “Bloom.” It’s 90 seconds that I will never skip, perfectly setting the stage for the action that follows.
“Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life” begins with Scott (Michael Cera) wandering the subspace highway of his dreams, lamenting his loneliness as Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) skates by and tells him to wake up. Starting with Scott and Ramona rather than the conversation around Scott dating a high-schooler (like the movie and comic) takes us into revision territory, immediately rooting the story in its central romance rather than drawing attention to the icky relationship Scott has with Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). The cosmic atmosphere and dynamic shots of Ramona skating make the scene feel like a continuation of the opening sequence, intensifying the contrast when Scott wakes up in the ordinary Toronto apartment fully furnished by Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin), his cool gay roommate.
The majority of this first episode is a straightforward adaptation of the first graphic novel: Scott rehearses with his band, Sex Bob-Omb, then goes to a party at the home of Julie Powers (Aubrey Plaza), where he meets Ramona for the first time in person. He hatches a plan to see Ramona again by having her deliver a Netflix DVD to him (instead of an Amazon package like in the comics), and then they go on a sweet first date where she’s cagey about her past and drawn to Scott’s simple earnestness. He goes back to her place for tea, they end up sleeping together but not having sex, and then he invites her to a Sex Bob-Omb show, forgetting that his 17-year-old not-really-girlfriend will also be there.
If the series was going to go the straight adaptation route the entire time, it would be totally fine. There’s enough charm in the story, voice cast, and visual design to support telling the same story for a fourth time, and the animation team is clearly dedicated to capturing the look and feel of the comic. There’s a slight coarseness to the linework that gives the animation a more organic, hand-drawn quality, and the subtle grain in the coloring adds texture while making the show look older than it actually is. It looks like the best version of O’Malley’s artwork. When you combine that with the impeccable cast, you get this incredible collaborative effort that bears the fruit of nearly 20 years of developing this property across different media. And that fruit is something new.
The first big diversion from the original story comes while Ramona and Scott are on their first date and the action shifts to Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman), the leader of the League of Evil Exes, composed of Ramona’s seven former lovers. Gideon calls upon Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha), Ramona’s first ex, and sends him off to fight Scott. This is a new addition, continuing to suggest that we are in revision mode. But then Crash and the Boys don’t show up as the opener before Sex Bob-Omb. Making a point of their absence indicates that we aren’t on the same track as the other stories anymore, and the end of this episode delivers a big twist.
Matthew Patel crashes Sex Bob-Omb’s set and announces his showdown with Scott, sending the episode into extreme action mode for about 20 seconds. It looks cool, but it’s also short because Matthew Patel lands his first hit and KOs Scott, evaporating him into $2.10 (CA) of loose change. Wait … what? Suddenly, the Scott Pilgrim TV show has no lead, pulling the rug out from under the audience to loudly proclaim that this is not the story they thought it would be. It turns out that Takes Off doesn’t mean launch, it means absence, and now it’s time to see how this world and these characters change without Scott.
Precious Little Thoughts
• I love the build of the music just before the cast list starts in the opening sequence. I watch it eagerly, waiting for Michael Cera’s name to pop up and Scott and Ramona to grab hands.
• The best part of this show is spending more time with the actors playing these characters. Casting directors Robin D. Cook, Jennifer Euston, and Allison Jones struck gold when they cast the movie, and voice director Tony Oliver gets even bigger performances out of everyone for the cartoon.
• Switching Ramona’s job from Amazon delivery person to Netflix DVD delivery person is a smart way of reinforcing the mid-’00s time period while not referencing a direct competitor, but it’s also hilarious because that means Netflix had a dedicated delivery staff for lightweight DVDs that could just go in the mail.
• Drawing Street Fighter–style fights was the entire impetus for the Scott Pilgrim series, so it’s fitting that Matthew and Scott’s fight begins by mimicking the look of a 2-D fighting game.
• “Oh, that was sarcasm.” Amazing line delivery from Michael Cera here.
“Is it … Sonic? No … it isn’t.” I love that they got the Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters joke in here, which doesn’t make it into the movie.
• “Like, a bad kind of crushing?” Lines like this and Ellen Wong’s performance make Knives feel like the right match for Scott, if not for the whole “she’s 17 and still in high school” thing.
• “You can’t call a band Crash. Crash is a cult-classic car-crash sex film shot right here in Toronto.”
