“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” is a delightfully over-the-top 2010 action comedy that takes heavy inspiration from classic video games and nerd culture. It bombed at the box office, but has found its niche as a cult classic.
“Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” retells the central story of the titular starving indie musician Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) fighting off the seven evil exes of Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the new girl in town, in order to win the right to go out with her. The show utilizes the art style of the comic the film is based on, but it tells a story uniquely its own through one major twist, which I will spoil in this review (you’ve been warned).
The show follows much the same beats of its predecessors until we get to the fight between Scott and Ramona’s first evil ex, Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha). Unlike in the comic and movie, Scott loses and Ramona refuses to go out with Matthew, leaving all parties involved — including the viewer — directionless and grappling with this sudden derailment of a story they’ve known for a decade on screen and decades in print.
Matthew, robbed of his purpose, then confronts Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman), head of the evil exes, and challenges him to a duel, which he wins. Gideon then takes on his birth name — Gordon Goose — and heads to Toronto where he pursues a relationship with Julie Powers (Aubrey Plaza), who is in Scott’s friend group but hates him.
Meanwhile, Ramona investigates Scott’s death and ends up confronting her evil exes herself, digging into each of her messy breakups and realizing where she was in the wrong. She’s a character that runs away from what she loves and the League of Evil Exes is something she’s responsible for, as she left each of them without closure.
You might be noticing some familiar names in the acting credits. That’s because the cast of the film have all reprised their roles as voice actors in this.
For the titular character, Scott isn’t in most of this show, being absent from the majority of five of the show’s eight episodes. He remains an important figure throughout, but Ramona is clearly the show’s protagonist.
Despite this, I think it mostly carves out a tale better than the original. Instead of treating each ex like disposable villains, they are all given an opportunity to grow and mature into more complete characters. All of them learn to get over Ramona and either find new purposes in hobbies or friendship — and we learn that each is connected by at least a few degrees of separation from Toronto and Scott’s friend group.
Nobody is left behind or left to die, unlike in the original source material. Almost everyone is given time to shine, with the exception of Scott’s sister, Stacey (Misato Matsuoka), whom the series forgets about.
The ending
Spoils ahead, so skip this section if you haven’t seen the show.
The show’s ending — and main conflict — revolve around the fact that sometime in the future, Scott and Ramona get divorced. This prompts an older version of Scott (Fumihiko Tachiki) to kidnap Scott during his fight with Matthew and make it appear that he lost. However, Scott thwarts his plan and falls in love with Ramona anyways.
Old Scott then trains for 10 years before facing them. He has also seemingly cut contact with Ramona and completely misconstrued their rough patch, getting to the point where it is no longer possible for them to get back together.
Even Older Scott (what the show calls him) is a menacing, unbeatable villain who makes for an entertaining climactic fight against. It’s a shame that the show resolves it in a lazy, ambiguous way.
Old Ramona merges with present-day Ramona, becoming “Super Ramona,” in which she agrees to stop running from her problems. Presumably, that means that she’ll work things out with Even Older Scott, but he is unceremoniously shooed away to his time by her and we don’t see that resolution.
The scene takes a few minutes and flies by before the viewer can process it. It’s like the show’s directors ran out of time and decided they had to wrap things up in one scene.
It’s disappointing, because most of the exes (the show does skip over the twins) are given more satisfying and complete arcs than Scott. This would have been an unequivocally stronger story than its predecessors, if it did not fumble on the 1 yard line.
Verdict
This show will impress fans of the comic and film, but do not come in expecting a verbatim adaptation of either. It tells an original story that subverts the expectations of its fans, and by doing so, tells a more complete and satisfying tale that could only be improved by a clearer, more direct ending.
If you haven’t seen either, I recommend doing so before watching this, as most of its enjoyment comes from understanding where it’s subverting its source material.
“Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” gets an 8/10
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