Thoughts on the Scott Pilgrim movie

[ximen]

-Was Scott Pilgrim this whiny in the comics? I seem to recall him grinning a lot more, and whining a lot less.
-Did they have to make Matthew Patel's attack power all Bollywood-ized? And the Japanese twins had dragons?* Oh yes, let's play up how exotic the Asian guys were.
-What's up with all the "Ramona you're such a slut" stuff when he's drunk and, well, whiny. Again, maybe it was also in the comics, but seriously? She's dated seven people, and that's counting boys she held hands with for two weeks in middle school. Was that in the comic? I don't remember it. In the comic, Scott's main problems are that he's flaky and clueless and has trouble reading other people's feelings, and he messes things up because of that. In the movie, he spends a lot of time being whiny and bitter, which makes him a lot less sympathetic.
-Did he seriously kill the (bi/lesbian) ninja chick by poking her in the back of the knee and giving her an orgasm? Seriously?

So yeah. It was fun and all, but I was disappointed.

*It's possible that both of these were in the comic and I've just forgotten, since it's been two or three years since I read the first few volumes. But it's still annoying.

Comments

[eptified.livejournal.com]

Totally with you on the Patel thing, also on the ninja thing; thought the slut-shaming was an example of negative behavior on his part which the movie corrects him for; didn't find him whiny so much as ironic, but we have different senses of humor.

[vaeran.livejournal.com]

Having blitzed all the comics in the last week so that I would be prepared for the movie, I am superbly qualified to answer your queries!

- No, Scott is not that whiny in the books. What you are observing is what the nation's top whinologists are terming The Michael Cera Effect, which casts a sheen of moist, timid, baby-deer-standing-up-for-the-first-time awkwardness over every part he plays. Scott in the comics has a sort of spacey, moronic certainty to everything he does, which ties into his central character flaw: he is convinced, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that he is totally awesome.

- Matthew Patel always had his Bollywood assault, but in the comics all of Scott's friends lined up behind him to counter with a tightly choreographed dance of their own. Omitted from the movie, Scott just punches his lights out instead. And there's no MYSTIC ORIENTAL DRAGONS in the comics, either -- the Katayanagi Twins weren't even musicians. Instead they uh. They build anime robots to send after Scott. So, yeah.

- In the books it's Ramona who calls Scott out on being kind of a dick, and there's no implication anywhere that she's easy or sleeps around. To be fair, though, she's just about as messed up and immature as Scott -- she just hides it better. By the end of the books the two of them have worked through most of their issues and become better people for it, ready to give it another try as adults. The movie shortcuts this by making the Negascott affably nerdy and putting a chip on the back of Ramona's neck. So... yeah!

- Like the twins, the Roxy fight plays out very differently in the books - it ends with her and Scott leaping at each other for a single decisive slash in midair, which is a frame-for-frame tribute to the opening to Ninja Gaiden on the NES. The movie actually steals Envy's weakness and gives it to Roxy -- Ramona and Envy fight each other to a standstill (with Wallace being a total drunken catty bitch in the background), and ultimately Scott has to break it up by taking advantage of Envy's sensitive Knee-Spot, which leaves her (less obviously orgasmically) aaahn'ing and wibbling on the floor. The whole Envy storyline was one of my favorite parts of the comics, but unfortunately most of it got glossed over in the movie.

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear you were disappointed. The movie does take a lot of shortcuts and cuts out a ton of character development, but at its breakneck pace it would have gotten kind of exhausting if it had gone much further beyond two hours. I think they did an admirable job adapting it, and I had a blast. Just be glad they didn't try to break it into a two- or even three-film series, because this one made about $22.50 all told at the box office and will be out on DVD by Tuesday.