Bryan Lee O'Malley vs The Beta Male Fantasy

Scott Pilgrim was a graphic novel series written and drawn by Bryan Lee O'Malley which ran from 2004 to 2010. It was adapted to film by Edgar Wright, being released shortly after the final book in 2010. The movie's title is Scott Pilgrim vs The World, and the books are titled as follows:

Volume 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
Volume 2: Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Volume 3: Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness
Volume 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe
Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour

To avoid confusion, I'll simply refer to the movie as 'the movie' or 'the film', and the books by their volume number.

In this essay I will...

The plot does differ, but the basic premise is the same. In Toronto, Canada, Scott Pilgrim is a slacker who plays bass in his friends' band and, after falling for local American delivery girl Ramona Flowers, must defeat her Seven Evil Exes, a league organised by her seventh Evil Ex, Gideon, to win her heart. In the book this intertwines with subplots involving the relationships of various characters, most notably Knives, who Scott dates at the same time as Ramona during Volume 1, and her family, as well as the other members of Sex Bob-Omb, Stephen and Kim. Stephen has various relationship issues before realising he's gay, and Scott's obliviousness to this strains their friendship. Kim is slightly more fleshed out; we are shown her home life and her job, but only see her past through Scott's flashbacks, later revealed to be inaccurate. Having dated him in high school, Kim is cold towards Scott, and is generally sulking for most of the story. At the end of Volume 5 she moves away, and her resolution with Scott in Volume 6 is one of the more emotional moments in the story, as well as being the most critical thematic moment, which I'll get into later.

The movie is, by necessity, much simpler and more condensed. The A plot is Scott's relationship with Ramona and his fight against the League of Evil Exes, which also contains the subplot with him dating Knives and Ramona at the same time (given much more weight in the movie; while Book!Scott breaks up with Knives at the beginning of Volume 2, Movie!Scott does not do so until more than a third of the way through the film); the B plot is Sex Bob-Omb competing in the Toronto International Battle of the Bands for a record deal with legendary indie producer G-Man, and it is through this that Stephen, Kim, and Young Neil are given their minimal development. These plots cross over several times, culminating in the reveal that G-Man is Gideon, Scott quitting the band, and his apology to his friends before the final showdown with Gideon.

Lucas Lee drops his mithril skateboard

Stylistically, both the graphic novels and film draw heavily from anime and video games; casual fights are commonplace, random superpowers are accepted, Scott receives a 1UP and uses it to comes back from the dead, and Evil Exes burst into piles of coins when defeated (if you fear for your favourite characters or are concerned about the morality of this world, worry not; O'Malley has confirmed that they simply respawn back in their houses in the US and can't be bothered travelling back to Canada). In the book, they even drop items.

Why the books get it right

The point of the Scott Pilgrim books is to take your typical tough-but-awkward Shōnen protagonist, combine him with your American jock archetype, and see how he fares in a world with magical powers and very grounded relationships. Do not be fooled by its goofy comedy and cartoonish art; Brian Lee O'Malley has created something genuinely very clever.

The majority of Book!Scott's character development is as a result of his changing relationships with Ramona and Kim, as well as his tangles with Negascott, a personification of his spite, selfishness and anger.

Despite Ramona's hard exterior, there are several times where she acts exactly like Scott does in his goofier moments, like at the very end of the books when she said she tried to go on a wilderness sabbatical but ended up just watching the X-Files. There are other points of comparison between them; she dated Lucas while she was dating Todd, like Scott dating Knives while dating her. She also has a long speech in Volume 6, upon her return, about how she's selfish and was a bad girlfriend by not making herself vulnerable to Scott, mirroring his own conversation with Kim about how he only thought about himself in their relationship.

Volume 2 opens with a flashback of how Scott and Kim got together; a rival school kidnapped her and Scott battled through their ranks until defeating their leader, Simon Lee. This is very similar to a scene in a Lucas Lee movie Scott and Ramona watch later in the book, and in Volume 3 Scott tells Ramona the story, but greatly exaggerated; Simon Lee is now seven feet tall and possesses several magical powers, and Scott allegedly kicked him so far he saw the curvature of the Earth. In Volume 6, when Scott visits Kim, she tells him that Simon Lee was just a kid she was dating, who Scott beat up when he saw him hug Kim. Immediately after this, Negascott appears and Scott tries to fight him off. 

Scott's true personality is shown not to be predominantly arrogant, or selfish, or spiteful, or any of the things Negascott represent in him; Scott, more than anything, is scared. Scared of what he could become, of the prospect of being just another Evil Ex.

Scott is also ashamed of the things he has done; while he himself may not be, his actions certainly are mean and selfish and all the rest of it. What makes Negascott so dangerous to Scott is that it's just something else to blame, just another thing to pin his flaws on.

But he doesn't. Scott accidentally merges with Negascott and accepts his own flaws, and responsibility for his actions. He stops running from his mistakes, and it's this which allows him to go back to Toronto and take on Gideon. During the fight, Scott has his final realisation; that, had things gone differently, had he continued running from his mistakes, he could have ended up just like Gideon. For this, he earns the sword The Power of Understanding. When Ramona picks up his old sword, The Power of Love, they are able to defeat Gideon together. They resolve to help each other change, to hold on to each other. When Ramona says she's never been good at holding on, Scott repeats what Kim said to him when he admitted he wasn't ready to be an adult: it just takes practice.

How the movie gets it wrong

Movie!Scott, on the other hand, has the barest, laziest hint of development. He spends almost the entire movie being a burden to everyone around him, ditching his band on the verge of their big break, leaching off Wallace, snapping at Ramona and being callous to Knives (Book!Scott does do all this, but it's settled separately; Ramona and Knives reconcile as well as they can in Volume 5, and Ramona realises it's hypocritical of her to judge Scott for cheating when she's done it before; Sex Bob-Omb, after recording an EP, break up, and Stephen Stills forms a new band without Scott; and Scott gets his own apartment). His first "good" choice is to put his all into Sex Bob-Omb's battle with the Katayanagi twins, although this is definitely for selfish reasons; either he wants Ramona back, or he wants some success after the embarrassment of the Roxy Richter fight (likely both). It certainly isn't to help out Sex Bob-Omb, because he ditches them immediately after, letting Young Neil take his place.

"You're pretentious. This club sucks. I've got beef. Let's do this."

The second good decision - the first genuinely good decision - is fighting Gideon the first time, when he does it for Ramona. Given the context of the movie so far, this is far more powerful than what follows; Scott walks right into the Chaos Theater. Stephen, playing with Sex Bob-Omb, tells Scott to let it go, to not give Gideon the satisfaction. Scott quips back that maybe he wants the satisfaction, then awkwardly confronts Gideon. In the middle of his challenge, he realises that he isn't fighting Gideon for himself, he's fighting him because he loves Ramona, earning him The Power of Love sword. He fights Gideon, Knives interrupts and starts attacking Ramona, Scott breaks up their fight and admits that he cheated on them, and Gideon kills him. And here, sadly, Scott returns to form.

After seeing a vision of Ramona, Scott uses his 1UP to return to the Chaos Theater, tells Stephen the band sounds better without him, dubs Young Neil 'Neil', and apologises to Kim. He confronts Gideon, more confidently, and tells him he's fighting for himself, gaining The Power of Understanding sword. He fights Gideon, tells Knives and Ramona the truth with no pretence, then defeats Gideon with Knives. Skipping some stuff that doesn't matter because no character other than Scott is fleshed out enough to be thematically relevant, Scott and Ramona get back together and leave Knives.

Hearts and exes

Edgar Wright is a master of detail and subtlety - search the web for 'Cornetto Trilogy easter eggs' if you need proof. Or hell, search 'Scott Pilgrim easter eggs', because god knows there's a lot of them; the various appearances of numbers around the Evil Exes and X's and zeroes around Scott, or details like Lucas Lee being on the cover of a newspaper long before being mentioned, the enormous crater in the moon Todd punches in his backstory being visible a couple of times, the 'Lame Brand' and 'Cool Brand' amps, and so on and so on. And then you have the comic book elements translated to screen, the sound effects appearing in midair and still being there when the shot changes, and the near-exact recreation of the entire first book, his trips around Toronto using O'Malley's notes to obsessively find the places each location is drawn after... It is insanely impressive detail in pre-production, special effects, and the construction of sets, props and costumes. But sadly, not so much for the story. Listen, I'm not delusional, I know that an exact recreation of the books wouldn't work for a film, and you can't include every element of every character's story in that short of a time. But, if even a fraction of the thought that went into all these things I mentioned was put into the script instead, focusing only on Scott would actually be a good thing, because you could have all this stuff happening in the background which Scott's too self-absorbed to notice. Scott and Kim's backstory, or a simplified version of it, could be unravelled in the background; Young Neil mimicking Scott could be shown more, maybe even a glimpse of the 'rebellious phase' he has in Volume 5 before taking Scott's place and realising he's his own person; Scott's strained friendship with Stephen Stills could be at least touched on. Here's a crazy idea; Ramona could be a character, instead of a trophy for Scott to win whose only semblance of depth is paid through vague lip service (through Scott, no less). All these things would make Scott's apology to the band and the first fight with Gideon far more meaningful.

I consider the casting of Michael Cera in the lead role one of the movie's worst blunders. While Cera easily captures Book!Scott's social awkwardness, the latter is also tough and cocky, possessing a great deal of bravado. No offence to the guy, but Michael Cera does not exactly radiate these qualities, yet the film retains Book!Scott's fighting prowess and the women lusting over him. This fatal mistake - combined with focusing only on Scott, and the total dismissal of the consequences of his actions - turns the story from one exploring the headspace of the oft-parodied typical jock figure to one constantly justifying and celebrating the mistakes of an implausibly successful loser. This, framed by the anime and retro video games references, plunges the film into the dangerous territory of 'beta male fantasy'.

This dangerous idea that you can wave all your past misdeeds away with an "I'm sorry", coupled with unearned self-respect trumping selfless love is so antithetical to what Scott learns in the books. And I know why.

Yes, disregard everything written above (please don't), I know the definitive reason the movie doesn't come close to the books; because Edgar Wright didn't want it to.

It's that simple. Edgar Wright is great at making ideas come to life. What if we set genre flicks in small English towns to make fun of them? Boom, done, Cornetto Trilogy, three of the best genre satires out there. What if we did an action movie, and had everything be driven by music? Great, Baby Driver, executes that idea perfectly and tonnes of fun to boot. And he's faced with a hyper-exaggerated video game inspired action movie, coupled with the daunting task of adapting a graphic novel to the screen when so much of the books' humour relies on the medium...it's easy to see how he focused on that aspect of it. And in all honesty, I'm okay with it. Edgar Wright's films are some of the most impressive and interesting pieces of direction out there at the moment, even if their scripts don't have much depth. What makes Scott Pilgrim vs The World a unique case among his five big movies is O'Malley's books for comparison. It gives us a fixed point to measure against, a tool to view Wright somewhat objectively instead of looking at him and his films in a vaccum.

We can only appreciate what Edgar Wright is by examining what he cannot be. At least, I reckon, without losing his charm.