So I Sat Down to Watch… Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023)

Ohhh, takes off. I get it.

The show definitely looks wonderful

So, I’m a big fan of Scott Pilgrm in general. I’ve watched the movie about a dozen times, I own the graphic novels (but can’t find them anymore, curses!) and I’ve played the videogame several times, but can’t beat that damn last boss no matter how many times I’ve tried.

But I also know there’s a limit to how many times you can tell the same story and still have it be impactful. Scott Pilgrim is beloved not because it’s full of 80s/90s nostalgia or because it’s cool and quirky. Okay, it’s not successful just because of that. In its core it’s a coming of age story, of a slacker becoming a decent human being, written by someone in his 20s, for people in their 20s, almost 20 years ago.

All this made me -justifiably, I’m sure you’d agre- a little worried when I read that Netflix of all places was going to release an animated series based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s original graphic novels. I had to wonder, did we really need another retelling of Scott Pilgrim fighting Ramona Flower’s seven evil exes again? Why not make something new?

Careful what you ask for I guess, because, you see, if your heart is pure and you ask for something nicely, the Universe provides.

Kind of.

I guess I should elaborate a little on what makes Scott Pilgrim such a unique piece of media. For me, it’s one of the few stories I’ve come across that really narrows down what a labyrinthine clusterfuck life in your early to mid 20s is. You’re not THAT much smarter or more mature than someone in their late teens, but suddenly people have expectations from you. You’re supposed to graduate college as soon as possible, then get your Masters degree, and then another Masters or better yet that and a PhD, and if you’re not close to a stable career by the time you’re 25 then well you’re just gonna fall behind because your friend’s friend has already gotten his 3rd promotion, and speaking of which, you’re supposed to keep up with as many old friends from High School as you can because otherwise you’ll lose touch like your parents warned you, but also make new ones because you’ll be inevitably be seeing them more often, and you have to find a stable relationship because who the Hell wants to be single in their 30s am I right, and… ugh.

Being in your 20s is exhausting, and you have to mature both mentally and emotionally more times than you might be prepared for, without anyone to guide you through it. You just have to keep trying, until it clicks.

Through 5 volumes, Scott Pilgrim the graphic novel masterfully illustrates just how messy life in your 20s is. Scott is a slacker’s slacker, he crashed his friend’s place one day and never left, has nothing going on in his life except for a decent-but-not-going-anywhere band, and he’s dating a high schooler. The dude’s 23.

But by the end of the series, he has matured enough to realize what a burden he is to everyone, be it in the physical sense or the emotional one. He thinks himself the victim, but through all the fights with Ramona’s exes, we see how he’s just as emotionally manipulative and conniving as everyone else, but better yet, we get to see Scott see that too. He realizes that he needs to grow, and that not being a slacker, even if it means having a simple job like washing dishes isn’t really that bad either. It’s this realization, when naive dreams are replaced by realistic but fulfilling goals, that’s one of the best things about being in your 20s. And in the fifth volume aptly named Scott Pilgrim Versus the World we get to see that as the comic ends with Scott being content, for the first time in a while. More importantly, perhaps, the book does this in such a relatable way, through the aforementioned nostalgia for all geeky things from decades past and by presenting us with a world which works under videogame rules. Because, let’s face it, wouldn’t life be just a little bit easier if it were a little more like a videogame, where people could punch holes in the moon and travel through hyperspace just by using rollerblades?

Or look like Mario in a racoon suit, which is pretty awesome in its own right.

Naturally, the movie can’t show all that in 90-something minutes of runtime, but it still does a pretty decent job at it -”I’m sorry for me” is a simple but so effective line. Plus, Edgar Wright’s direction is just incredible. That’s good enough for me.

Enough about the past, though. What’s up with Scott taking off, anyway?

I can’t talk about the animated series without any spoilers because, well… Just trust me. Don’t read if you want to watch it for yourself.

Last warning!

So the show starts and most things are fairly normal up until the end, aside from Scott’s first line to Ramona being different again and Ramona now working delivering DVDs for Netflix. A quaint joke, since the show looks like it’s taking place in the early 2000s, but also they couldn’t mention Amazon by name in a Netflix show, could they?

Then we get to what is commonly the first climax of the story, Scott’s fight against Matthew Patel and his demon hipster chicks. But this time, Scott… loses? And apparently dies, since he changes into a bunch of coins that Patel doesn’t even bother to pick up.

Uh…

Remember a couple of years ago when a new Masters of the Universe series came out and killed He-Man in the first episode, so a bunch of nerds got really upset over a show that was essentially a glorified ad for mid quality plastic action figures?

As soon as the first episode of SPTO (I’m keeping this) ended, I was afraid that we would have another Masters of the Universe situation in our hands. Thankfully, Scott Pilgrim fans are a little more classy.

Regardless, my first reaction was “HEY THIS IS STILL CALLED SCOTT PILGRIM NOT MASTERS OF TORONTO OR SOME SHIT, WHERE’S SCOTT?” but I dig a good plot twist so I got over it fast. I was in for the long run.

The good news is that SPTO doesn’t waste any time crafting an interesting tale, as it turns into a Whodidit (no, not a Whodunnit) with Ramona trying to figure out who killed Scott, and why.

The cast of Scott Pilgrim was always strong enough to carry a show on its own, and we get to see more character development from some of the B players than ever before, which is a welcome change. For the most part. Because we also get some side stories and some retcons that are just… there.

The payoff to this whole sequence is Ramona showing up and just giving them the solution like a rollerblading Hercule Poirot. Well, alrighty then.

Which is a major issue that I have with this new series. Oftentimes, it feels that things are just happening, the very definition of “and then” storytelling. The first egregious example I can think of is Wallace (Scott’s roommate) hooking up with Todd the Vegan and then unceremoniously dumping him. I know Wallace is a player and he’s always out to steal yo’ boi, but the tone here doesn’t really fit with the theme that the graphic novel taught us of how important emotional maturity is since Wallace just uses Todd for sex and then breaks his heart! It just feels so mean. But the worst thing is that this whole thing is they spend a significant amount of time on this story yet doesn’t really move the story in any interesting way, aside from making Todd a meat eater. Which, you know, hilarious.

Still, this is just a sidestory, and Scott is still gone. What’s up with that?

The first big plot twist comes when we learn that Scott isn’t really dead. Sure, I mean the show still is named after him so we kinda expected this. So he’s not dead, just kidnapped through a vegan portal (that looks suspiciously like a Rick Sanchez portal) and we learn that the guy responsible was older Scott, who is now 37 years old. Okay, I can roll with that. I was kind of expecting Nega Scott to be the culprit since we are always our own worst enemy and tend to self-sabotage, but I could definitely see Older Scott working, too. Scott in his older age got dumped by Ramona and was unable to deal with it, so he decided to go back in time and spare his younger self from all the heartache. But he seemingly realizes that this isn’t a good solution, and sends regular Scott back in his timeline.

You know what? I can dig it. One of the things you learn as you grow older is that no matter how many life lessons you learn, no matter how strong you get, life will just always throw another curve ball at you, something you hadn’t seen before or something you couldn’t prepare for . Sure, you learn to roll with the punches better, and you stop acting like it’s the end of the world when something goes awry, but go awry that something will go and we will not always be as mature as we would have hoped when dealing with said something. At this point I was starting to dig the whole concept, since I’m about the same age as O’ Malley and figured this is a cool twist on the Scott Pilgrim saga, not from a man figuring out how to navigate his 20s, but from a man in his 40s, learning to deal with who he was so he can figure out who he is right now.

I for one am glad we didn’t get too many fights in the show. Feels refreshing.

And then Even Older Scott shows up and looks like Akuma, and then just tries to fight everyone after training for 10 years (what did he eat? Why didn’t he get evicted? Why doesn’t he look more PALE if he didn’t leave that room for 10 years? Oh, right. Videogame logic) so we go back into “shit just happens’’ territory.

And then Even Older Ramona shows up and does the fusion dance (not literally, that would have been cooler) with her younger self and then they forgive their Scotts and then oh look, everyone is happy again -except Gideon, I mean Gordon Goose (remember the unnecessary retcons?) still has an evil plan to follow so we can have a season 2 or maybe have a dig at the low-hanging fruit that is making fun of modern-day Marvel.

I don’t like to say this, because it’s a slippery slope, but… what was the point of all this? And for whom was it created? Given the spin on things, it’s meant for existing fans of Scott Pilgrim, who are by now if not in their late 30s/early 40s, then definitely pushing 30. But it’s not a more mature take on the story, just a different and more random one, with some jokes that would feel more at home in TikTok.

Yet another thing that I hate saying but I have to is… what does one learn by watching SPTO? Things are just happening and at the end everyone is at about the same place they started at in their lives, like someone gave the deck a shuffle but you ended up with the same cards as last round anyway. Except Scott and Ramona fall in love anyway because starstruck lovers or some other tired tripe.

I guess it can be argued that Older and Even Older Scott learned not to be overly dramatic and that fights don’t solve everything, but didn’t they know this already? I dunno, the ending feels rushed to me so maybe things would be more clear with a rewatch but… This show doesn’t feel good enough to justify a rewatch, not right away anyway.

The worst thing, by far, for me with SPTO however is just how damn unrelatable the whole thing is. The original graphic novel really made you see why life as a cool, overthinking 20s slacker isn’t all it’s cracked out to be and did that through a series of clever and cute references to stuff nerds love. What SPTO has to offer some laugh out references interspersed with an unnecessarily convoluted storyline and general cringiness, that teaches us that… anger isn’t good? Fuck man, what is this, a PSA at the end of a G.I. Joe episode?

Today, in images you can hear.

I started thinking that maybe I’m out of touch with kids these days but as I said, I’m the same age as Scott Pilgrim’s creator, so I don’t think that is the case. Maybe going through our 30s and 40s taught us different lessons, and now we relate to different things than we did 10–20 years ago.

Which I guess is a lesson in itself, but a pretty accidental one to be honest. And kinda lame.

I dunno, maybe I’m overthinking it. Which, given the context of the original graphic novel, is pretty funny.

PS.

Forgot to say, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost cameos! Hard to hate something that has those guys in it, so SPTO rightfully earns the mark of “mid”.

PPS.

I guess the show calls 37-year old Scott “Old Scott”, but I’m 43 so there’s no way I’m calling someone who’s 37 “old”.