Welcome all to Multiversity’s definitive and factual evaluation of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off everything you see below is not a matter of opinion, but the simple truth, and I just cannot wait to share it with you all, we’re in for a treatment. Spoilers and such.
1. Scrapbooks and collage-punk
Bryan Lee O’Malley art is a precious resource, and there’s never enough of it in the world. So coming into this series, it was just nice to see a blend of something using his style. I think before I really dig into scrutiny of this show it’s worth just being thankful it got made. It doesn’t always work, but it really is a blessing to have a faithful adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s work that also lovingly builds on the 2010 film.
This loyal passion for the source material feels most clear in the episode’s rendering of Toronto. It’s been meticulously cartooned, distilling rather than reproducing the city of that time. The tram tracks feel like massive leylines, and 00’s crowds line the storefronts. There’s a fish-eye feel to these settings that makes it feel like everything is being crammed in and your screen can barely contain it. When Knives first walks into the Rockit you can best feel this, especially because she herself can barely contain the feeling.
The influences that were clear almost two decades ago still feel noticeable. There’s swathes of “Astro Boy” in the title sequence, and it wears its X-Men references on its shoulder (sorry, that was low hanging fruit).
2. evilX.zip
When I talk about the show’s loving and faithful recreation of its source and era, that does mean tying itself to a bit of baggage. It means remembering what the internet looked like from 2003 to 2010, what a strange and alien world. Seeing the little intro text for Wallace say “gay roommate” using a Triforce for the A just about obliterated me, and the intro theme sounding far too close to Nyan Cat laid down the final nail in the coffin. I just don’t think I’m ready to feel like the early 2000s are a period for a period piece yet.
There are points where that kitschy early internet feel works, for example the arcade fighting game intro to the Matthew Patel fight is a great visual. It elevates the moment while putting it in simple terms, and it’s ripped straight from the style of the media catalog it drives the viewer’s sentimentality towards. By setting up this library of easy cut-aways, it also makes the show more cleanly able to transition into new visual styles, like the hand-drawn vibe of Ramona and Pattel’s middle school flashback. I don’t think it does enough to prepare you for just how weird it looks when two cartoon bone are about to bone though, that really took me a second to ingest properly.
I should say as well, there’s nothing inherently wrong about having nostalgia for this period of the internet, I watched Bee and Puppycat recently, which employs the same kind of Millennial mentality in its outlook, references and aesthetics. The problem becomes when the time capsule starts to try and peak at its modern contemporaries a little too often, and you feel like you’re caught listening to an anniversary tour, not the initial performance that made you fall in love.
3. Getting the band back together
While we’re making band references…Having the whole cast of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World returning in this show feels like some kind of miracle or demonic bargain. Even at the time it was an incredible pinãta of talent, and since then the majority have only gotten more busy and more famous. It’s hard to imagine what the Roman Roy heads will do when they discover anime Kieran Culkin.
The problem though, is that a lot of these people aren’t voice actors. There isn’t a lot of chemistry between these cartoon versions of Scott and Ramona, despite the live action pair being incredibly charming. At the end of the day, this first episode makes it seems like the film actors brought the best adaptation of the vibe of a larger than life comic down to the real world. So when you actually animate them, and bring that boisterous comic scale back, they feel like small, shy voices in a bellowing form. It also might be why Satya Bhabha and Anna Kendrick work so much better than the rest here, they’re just quite loud and shouty already.
Continued below4. Second life
There are some points where it feels it’s trying so hard to reproduce the film, rather than digging deeper into the comic it comes from, despite obviously having to move past that film inspiration. Maybe this is just pilot ep syndrome, but you can kind of feel it hitting every plotpoint in deliberate sequence, there’s no improv or verve to it. This also means some of the film’s jokes are re-used and have their timing mutilated, like the letter from Patel. If it stays this rigid to its source, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is going to flounder.
5. Oh so quickly it becomes nostalgia
While reverence to the film can be a chain on this episode, god is it nostalgic. I adore that film, and when I saw the Sex-Bob-Omb intro I was so charmed. In fact, I went to see a local aussie rock band after watching the episode, which really helped it feel like a 4D production. So much of that film’s charisma and character still shines through here and gets elevated by the flourishes of animation, like the melodramatic zoom out into Gideon’s evil lair, or Patel’s Sailor Moon style intro.
There’s no way I make it through this whole show without craving a Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World rewatch by the end.
See you all next week for something that hopefully takes a few more risks? If not, I’m sure it will remain charming regardless, and maybe by then I’ll be brave enough to dip a toe into the toxic whirlpool of “Scott Pilgrim is dating a highschooler” discourse.
