In an entertainment industry that is increasingly focused on recycling established IP for creative output, it’s so refreshing to see a property return with its original artist at the helm, steering the story in a new direction that corrects the flaws of the past while reflecting on how the concept (and its creator) has evolved over the years. With “Ramona Rents a Video,” Scott Pilgrim Takes Off exhibits artistic ambition and emotional maturity that surpasses the source material, turning a simple trip to the video store into a visual smorgasbord that builds to a turning point for the new central character: Ramona Flowers.
The first episode of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off settles viewers into the animated version of this world with an adaptation of events they already know if they’ve read the comics/seen the movie. After the big twist, the second episode functions as a transition chapter, establishing the new status quo. “Ramona Rents a Video” relaxes the pace considerably as Ramona starts investigating Scott’s disappearance, allowing us to spend more time with the supporting cast members who don’t get much screen time in the movie. This gives the show a stronger hangout atmosphere, which is where these supporting characters thrive. The people in Scott’s social circle aren’t all that involved in the action parts of the narrative, and because the movie has to fit six fights into two hours, it sacrifices the more casual scenes that help ground the narrative.
After her dream at the end of the last episode, Ramona returns to the Rockit and watches security footage of Matthew and Scott’s fight, discovering that he was pulled through a portal at the last second by a mystery figure that then tossed out the $2.18. To learn about potential suspects, Ramona has to familiarize herself with the people in Scott’s life, leading her to spend time with Julie Powers and Kim Pine in their respective workplaces. The last episode pushed the fantasy elements with Envy’s performance and all the drama with the League of Evil Exes, but we’re brought back to reality with the first half of this episode, which is all about reframing Scott’s relationships with people from their point of view, not his.
As much as I enjoy the cast in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Edgar Wright’s commitment to the cartoonish exaggeration of the characters makes some of the performances feel especially artificial. Side characters like Julie and Kim are reduced to the one-note gags of their personalities: Julie, the one who swears a lot, and Kim, the one who glares a lot. But attach these same voice performances to actual animated characters whose facial expressions have no limits and they sound so much more natural and lived-in. Aubrey Plaza gets a spotlight when Julie gives Ramona a hyperdismissive rundown of Scott’s closest friends, and the final scene of this episode indicates that Julie will have a much larger role as the season continues.
Kim Pine is still the most sullen, disillusioned character in the cast, but Alison Pill gets to show more of the softer side of the character that we see in the comics. This starts when we catch up with the surviving members of Sex Bob-Omb. While Stephen panics about Scott’s absence, Kim wants to get back to playing, even if it’s just jamming out with Knives, who is four hours into learning how to play bass guitar. When Knives worries about the notes, Kim makes her feel comfortable by creating a safe atmosphere with no stakes, and the result is a transformative jam session for the band. This kind of sequence is exactly what I want from this property: a musical interlude that creates bonds between characters through the joy and satisfaction of making art together.
Anamanaguchi and Joseph Trapanese compose a piece of music here that creates melodic depth with a limited range of sounds, and even though Knives only knows a few notes, that’s all Kim needs to build something more complex with her drum set. The visuals reinforce Knives and Kim’s musical connection, transporting them away from the dingy living room to an ethereal dimension where the sounds of their instruments are visualized in sparkles, waves, and colorful shapes that flow in and out of each other. Suddenly, synths start playing with them, taking them out of the jam session and into something more polished and produced. This is what Sex Bob-Omb could sound like with Knives’ instinctive musicality added to the mix, and when Stephen hears it, his panic is replaced by excitement as he asks Knives to collaborate.
I reviewed Science SARU’s very first project, the “Food Chain” episode of Adventure Time, where the studio immediately proved that it could work within an established aesthetic while making bold creative choices that show a property in a new light. The studio has grown in prestige over the past decade — you might know it from Netflix’s Devilman Crybaby series in 2018 or its two shorts for the Star Wars: Visions animated anthology — and it makes a big difference that Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is handled by a studio with an anime foundation rather than one that specializes in American cartoons.
There’s a ton of craft on display in this series, from the richness of the characters to the fluidity and intensity of the action, and Science SARU can go even further than Bryan Lee O’Malley in bringing the visual language of anime to this story. We see it in the musical sequence, and the scene in the coffee shop is a great example of how the anime flourishes energize the everyday interactions between characters, like Wallace Wells’s shoujo eyes when he stares at his latest crush through a haze of bishie sparkles, or Julie Powers’s wildly shifting facial expressions as she cusses out a customer.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off director Abel Góngora has been with Science SARU since serving as a lead animator on “Food Chain,” and he navigates the shifting rhythm and tone of O’Malley and Grabinski’s scripts with ease. This episode gives Góngora an extremely challenging sequence, pitting Roxy Richter against Ramona Flowers in a video-rental-store fight that sends them flying through different cinematic environments. What we get is a massive flex from Góngora and the Science SARU team, who show off how well they can replicate the look of different animation genres and eras.
I appreciate that this series plays with a new set of nostalgic references, and setting this episode’s big fight in a video-rental store is a blast from the past that also provides the opportunity for an inspired fight sequence. The close-quarters destruction at the start of the fight is a lot of fun — much care is put into the sound of DVD cases clacking on the ground — but the sequence makes a massive jump in scale once a shelf of videos falls on the combatants. Suddenly, Roxy and Ramona are brawling on a city street in a black-and-white movie, then clashing swords in a samurai film. There’s a shout-out to the silhouette-fight scene in Kill Bill Vol. 1 (swapping the blue background for red). Then, the action goes even further with the video conceit, making Kim a participant as she pauses and rewinds Roxy’s attack with her remote control.
The concept of this fight provides so many creative opportunities. When Ramona knocks Roxy through a wall, her flight path sends her through the backdrops of different films. For a series of close-up shots that visually indicate the growing emotional intensity of the fight, each hit takes us into a new setting. The action ends on a plane in the middle of a dogfight, and we get a wave of new textures and effects that evoke the look of traditional cel animation on weathered film stock. This entire sequence is a testament to the creative potential of animation, building to an emotional payoff that resolves a major issue in previous versions of this story.
Roxy and Ramona’s relationship gets little development in the comic or the movie, and while the flashes of their college romance in this episode aren’t much, they do bring some more specificity to this relationship. We see the two of them drinking at a party and cuddling together, and it’s extra cruel that Ramona ends it by moving out of their dorm room, which requires administrative steps that probably involved Ramona bad-talking (and likely outing) Roxy to get out of living together. Ramona can’t justify these actions, so she takes accountability for them. This is a big change, and by having Ramona show more empathy for Roxy, the audience gains more empathy for Ramona.
Mae Whitman is a prolific voice actor with a deep understanding of how to transform her voice to embody a specific character, and her Roxy performance seethes with petulant resentment. As the fight continues, the badass-ninja persona starts to drop, and we hear the genuine heartbreak Roxy feels, pain that makes Ramona realize how her actions impact other people. She can’t change what she did in the past, but she can change how she acts now and in the future. She apologizes and admits she was too scared to confront Roxy in the past, starting the conversation that should have happened in college. That’s ultimately all Roxy wants, and once she airs her grievances and hears Ramona acknowledge them, Roxy has no problem dropping her grudge.
I expected great things from Jason Schwartzman playing a pathetic, destitute Gideon Graves, and the final scene of this episode delivers in spades. It turns out that before he became a media mogul in the U.S., Gideon Graves was Gordon Goose of North Bay, Ontario, and he went to school with Julie Powers. It’s a new development that gives us a delightful villain pairing, and Gordon’s character capitalizes on Schwartzman’s talent for playing morally compromised, socially awkward underdogs. Having him join forces with the show’s least sympathetic figure doesn’t bode well for the rest of the cast, and while this episode ends with Gordon and Julie in a cloud of romantic anime sparkles, I’m looking forward to seeing how they raise hell.
Precious Little Thoughts
• This episode begins with Young Neil kicking off his screenwriting career in a wholly unproductive frenzy but then waking up and finding a complete screenplay written by his “sleep paralysis demon.” I applaud Johnny Simmons’s voicework, which is a very childish mix of dim-witted, earnest, and enthusiastic that makes me laugh at nearly every line.
• Ramona’s new hair colors are red on top and yellow on the bottom. I find this ritual very calming and a nice palette cleanser after the opening sequence.
• Another new Netflix connection outside of Ramona’s job: Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard is the voice of young Scott in this episode’s flashback.
• Continuing to distance Knives as a romantic figure in the narrative, this episode reimagines Kim’s same-sex-kiss moment by having her explore her sexuality with Roxy instead. It’s a smart change that allows the scene to be very tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at the fans who want to see the girls kiss by going way overboard (the little string of spit cracks me up). Some might see this as the show trying to have its cake and eat it, too, but I think it works.
• If you want to accentuate that a character is no longer a threat, have them sing Roger Miller’s “Whistle-Stop” (a.k.a. that song from Robin Hood and “The Hamster Dance”) as they exit the scene.
• “My mistake. Thought you were a garbage can. Sorry!” I love the build of this joke so much. The reveal of Robot-01, the banana hitting him, his annoyed reaction, and then the woman casually apologizing when she realizes it’s a robot.
• “What if I can die? And just when I found out I’m a cinephile.”
• “Whoa, I wrote a feature-length screenplay in my sleep. I’m a screenwriter!”
• “Don’t let that fool you. He’s an idiot.”
• Stephen: “He really added something to our sound, something undefinable.” Kim: “Bass. He added bass.”
• Kim: “No wonder you’re putting us out of business.” Ramona: “Canada?” Kim: “No. Video stores.”
• “I couldn’t even get a reservation at McDonald’s. They laughed at me when I called!” I think I’m going to love Gordon Goose.
