Scott Pilgrim Takes Off... and in the best way possible.
Running Time:
26-29 minutes
Country:
US
Release Date:
November 17th, 2023
Network(s):
Netflix
Created by:
BenDavid Grabinski Bryan Lee O'Malley
Distributed by:
Netflix
Starring:
Michael Cera Mary Elizabeth Winstead Satya Bhaba Kieran Culkin Chris Evans Anna Kendrick Brie Larson Alison Pill Aubrey Plaza Brandon Routh Jason Schwartzman Johnny Simmons Mark Webber Mae Whitman Ellen Wong Julian Cihi Will Forte
Seasons:
1
Episodes:
8
"Nothing — not the marketing material, the disarmingly familiar opening episode, even the much-publicised decision to get each cast member from the live-action movie to return — can prepare you for the sheer burst of originality that you’re in for."
— Rohan Naahar, The Indian Express
"You better believe our show is going to rock ultimate!"
— Scott Pilgrim
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is an animated television series developed by Bryan Lee O'Malley and BenDavid Grabinski for Netflix. The series is based on the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels written and drawn by O'Malley, with the entire main cast from the 2010 film adaptation, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, reprising their roles. The series was released on November 17, 2023, to universal acclaim from critics and fans.
The series, set in Toronto, Canada, serves as an alternate retelling of the original Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series and movie. Like in the original series, Scott Pilgrim, a bassist in an indie band, falls in love with Ramona Flowers, a mysterious delivery girl, attracting the attention of Ramona's seven evil exes. Things take an unexpected turn when Scott loses his battle against Ramona's first evil ex Matthew Patel and is seemingly killed. As the trajectory of everyone's lives, including those of Ramona's evil exes, changes drastically as a result, Ramona learns that Scott may still be alive and investigates his disappearance.
Why It Takes Off (In A Great Way)
The idea of adapting Scott Pilgrim into anime format was very well done, as the visual style of the comics and movie translates nicely into the anime format. Science SARU definitely did a great job with the animation, having previously tackled the Star Wars franchise with an episode of the similarly acclaimed Star Wars Visions. It's also worth mentioning that the characters look amazing in anime format.
The concept: You don't need to have read the comics or seen the movie, as the show is set in an alternate universe outside of the canon universe, thus everything that happens following the end of the first episode doesn't happen in the comics and movie.
As with the comics and movie, the show has plenty of fun references to classic videogames, songs and movies, such as:
All the title cards use the font from at least one classic videogame or movie. E.g. the first episode's title card uses the font from Super Mario Bros and the sixth episode uses the font from Pac-Man.
Roxie humming the "Hamster Dance" tune.
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's cameos as security guards references their Cornetto trilogy, with the two even being seen eating Cornettoes at end of the show.
Future Ramona's time-travelling rollerskates is a fun nod to the Back to the Future franchise.
Super-Ramona is a clear reference to Super-Sonic.
The characterization:
Ramona has more to do, now that she is the main character. Throughout the show, Ramona appears more nicer than her comic incarnation, and manages to fix her mistakes with her Evil Exes. By the end of the show, Ramona acknowledges how she treated her Exes and accepts this as part of her. She also has some great moments, such as: fighting Wallace's stunt doubles, her fight with Even Older Scott, fusing with her future self and becoming Super-Ramona, all the scenes where she dyes her hair, etc.
In addition, her future self, Future Ramona, has grown a lot, understanding the full weight of her actions and being more wiser, caring, selfless and responsible.
The Evil Exes: it's nice to see that most of them get their redemption, to the point of not even wanting to fight Scott at the end of the show. One scene that shows how much they've grown is when it is revealed that Older Scott has formed a band with the Twins, Pop'n TwinBee, in the future. Matthew Patel's characterization was easily the best, as he goes from being the lowest-ranked evil Ex to the head of G-Man Studios, and a successful Broadway theatre actor. Todd's sexual identity crisis was also quite funny. The show also gives backstory to Roxie and Ramona's relationship.
Knives Chau also has good characterization. She initially holds Ramona accountable for Scott's "death", but eventually they make peace and Knives goes on to join Sex Bob-omb as their keyboardist.
The first episode is a near flawless adaptation of the first book, until Scott's defeat.
Older Scott proved to be a good villain, in place of Gideon Graves. Despite happening in a universe separate from the comics, it tells what happened to him and Ramona after Gideon's defeat. The two get married for 13 years, and it's really heartbreaking to see that they separated. It's because of this that he kidnaps Scott and promises to send him back on the grounds that he breaks off his relationship with Ramona. Also, Will Forte was an awesome choice for the role!
As expected, Wallace Wells steals every scene he's in. He also has several funny moments, such as his "sugar-daddy" situation with Scott, repeatedly telling Todd that their relationship was just an on-set fling, and the fact that Scott still lives with him in the future.
The voice cast nails their roles again, with highlights being Mary Elizabeth Winstead, newcomer Will Forte, Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Brandon Routh, Brie Larson and Alison Pill.
Plenty of fun references to the comics and movie, such as:
The first episode has a scene that mirrors Scott's "Pac-Man" conversation Ramona in the movie, but this time Scott talks about Sonic.
Ramona pouring Scott some "Sleepytime" tea, the same tea she pours for him in the comics and movie on their first date.
Knives wearing her Sex Bob-omb t-shirt from the movie.
Adapting Kim's past with Scott, minus the scenes with Lisa Miller.
The Clash at Demonhead performing Black Sheep.
Ramona having to fight Wallace's stunt doubles is similar to Scott having to fight Lucas' stunt doubles in the movie.
It wouldn't be Scott Pilgrim without the iconic "Bread Makes You Fat" line. The line is incorporated into a song written by Knives and Stephen.
The show ends with Plumtree's song Scott Pilgrim playing over the final scene.
The action sequences, as expected, are amazing. These include: Scott Pilgrim vs. Matthew Patel, Matthew Patel vs. Gideon Graves, Roxie Richter vs. Ramona Flowers, Lucas Lee vs. the Paparazzi, "Wallace Wells" vs. "Envy Adams", and Even Older Scott vs. Everyone.
Several funny moments such as:
Scott's funeral, particularly Knives lashing out at Ramona and Envy Adams' performance.
The subplot where Young Neil tries to make a movie adaptation of Scott's life.
Ramona's smile in Episode 5, which since has become an iconic image within the Scott Pilgrim community.
Pretty much any scene that has Wallace in it.
Todd coming out as gay to Envy.
Gideon's downward spiral after Matthew Patel claims his fortune.
Great lines like:
"You! What are you doing here?! YOU KILLED SCOTT PILGRIM!!!"
"I figured the only thing better than being me was getting paid to be me. Why be Wallace Wells for free?"
"Envy! I can't be with you anymore! I'm in love with Wallace Wells!"
"Wallace Wells! You broke my boyfriend! Prepare to DIE!!!"
"You immediately assume I messed up! But I’m a good husband! I do the dishes, I walk the cats, I make the spaghettis. And I won’t take you back to the past until I know for a fact that you won’t date Ramona Flowers. Because she is the one who’s bad news! NOT US!
"Hey, because I'll have a lot of trouble saying it later, let me say it now: I love you, Scott. And I run away from the things that I love. But what I've done in the past doesn't have to define me."
Kim's iconic "We are Sex Bob-omb! ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!!!"
"I don't care which one of you did it, YOU'RE BOTH GOING TO PAY!!!"
"Whatever."
"Gonna run away? Like you did back then?"
"Your Ramona sounds pretty cool."
It's a nice touch that Lisa Miller, Joseph and Michael Comeau all cameo at the very end of the last episode.
Anamanaguchi's Techno Syndrome cover is quite impressive and it even has a Scott Pilgrim-esque twist in which the names of the Mortal Kombat characters are replaced with the names of Scott Pilgrim characters.
Quite a few of the songs, written by Joseph Trapanese and Anamanaguchi, are not bad. The show's opening theme, Bloom, by Necry Talkie, is also quite nice, even being dubbed in Japanese for the intro and "I Feel Fine" is also a nice one, too!
Bad Qualities
Not everyone had great characterization, in particular, Gideon Graves. It upset some fans that the evil billionaire who emotionally manipulated Ramona in the comics was actually just a misunderstood geek who had a bad day at high school. Also, the reveal that his actual name is "Gordon Goose" was also quite disappointing. Gideon somewhat subverted this part at the final episode, where plans to bomb Matthew's play on it's opening night, and the end credits scene implies he is planning something evil.
Also, as with the movie, The Glow, a crucial part of the comics, is nowhere to be seen, aside from a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo at the end of the final episode.
False advertising: When the trailers arrived, most people expected it would be a faithful adaptation of the comics. Instead, the show serves as a sort of alternate universe retelling. Scott, the title protagonist, only appears in four of the eight total episodes and the real villain is Older Scott.
Some fans were a little critical of the fact that Scott and Ramona's relationship didn't get as much development as it did in the comics, most notably Ramona deciding to find Scott, despite only knowing him for one day.
The show will most likely end with it's cliffhanger as Bryan Lee O'Malley and BenDavid Grabinski have no plans for a second season, although the former did state that Season 2 wasn't out of the picture.
Trivia
Technically, this is the second animated adaptation of Scott Pilgrim, the first was the promotional short for the movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The Animation, which adapted the flashback sequence, including Lisa Miller's scenes, at the start of the second volume of the original comicbooks.
Not all of the cast from the movie returned: Keita and Shota Saito, who played Kyle and Ken Katayanagi, didn't as they don't speak English. The team tried to get them to return for the Japanese dub, but they were unsuccessful. They were replaced by Julian Cihi.
This the fourth Scott Pilgrim adaptation, following the movie, the mobile game and the animated short.
Julian Cihi and Will Forte are the only main cast members to not have been in the original movie.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 48 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Retaining the heart and wit of the original movie while also carving out a fresh path for itself, Scott Pilgrim takes off in the animated medium and soars." On Metacritic, the series has a score of 82 out of 100, based on 20 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Rendy Jones of RogerEbert.com praised the show saying it "shatters expectations" and "cleverly reexamines its entire story with a profound twist without sacrificing any pieces of its identity." Alison Herman of Variety magazine said it "successfully combines the innovative style and comic charm of its predecessors with a new spin that corrects for the tropes we can now see with hindsight" and notes that the show is not for kids but "is meant for former kids revisiting an old favorite through more grown-up eyes."
Maya Phillips from The New York Times expressed dissatisfaction with the work, specifically targeting its narrative and humor. Phillips described the storylines as "bland" and the jokes as "lackluster".
