Since Halloween is coming up, and I’m dressing up as Ramona Flowers to play a Scott Pilgrim cover set with my band, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (probably my favorite comfort movie) has been on my mind. This weeks reading really made me aware how chaotic this movie is. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is probably one of the most obscurely thematic movies I have seen. This teenage romance comedy action thriller musical, encapsulates thematic elements of almost every genre into 1hr and 30 mins of screen play. If you scroll on IMDV, the “similar to this” selection is all over the place.
As this movie is based off the Scott Pilgrim comic series, this live action rendition still tries to incorporate some of these comic book effects into its production. For example, we see comic book-esque graphics pop up casually in this world, as punches in the various “fight” scenes or written sound effects during story development. As is based on a comic book that is written in the form of a video game, this film also incorporates video game elements as well. Since the story of Scott Pilgrim is him fighting off all of Ramona Flower’s evil exes before he can be with her, the plot follows one similar to an adventure video game. It even goes as far to add the detail that each time Scott defeats an evil ex, the exes turn into gold coins and Scott magically gains XP that apparently everyone can see in the corner of the screen. The sound effects are very video game inspired as well, like ones you would expect to hear in Mario. Below is a scene from when the Sex Bo-Bombs battle against the Katanayangi twins in a battle of the bands competition, a good example of the various special effects, and editing techniques that are used to make this live action film feel so animated. Aside from all of this we see CHRIS EVANS act as one of the evil Exes, adding more elements of a superhero movie as well with all the fighting. While these are the mixed stylistic themes, we get a very mixed plethora of conventional themes as well dressed in this comic book/ live action/ video game world.
Although we are supposed to be mainly following the plot of guy gets girl (making this a fairly conventional romance), the way which Scott goes about this in this story breaks conventions. The first time Scott lays eyes on Ramona Flowers in his dreams and then in real life, he is completely infatuated with her, but soon is told that he must defeat all her evil exes in battle until she is able to be with him (so yes, very much like the conventional mario and princess peach). Even though the context of this romance story is slightly obscure, we still follow the classic “boy tries to get girl” troupe, keeping us engaged as we know what to expect within these romance conventions (especially in terms of boy tries to get with manic pixie dream girl troupe…boo :() in the scenes where the Scott and Ramona relationship grows outside of his encounters with her Exes. Each step Scott makes towards this is usually followed by some kind of band show/his band performing somewhere, which brings us to debate whether this strange film is also a musical too? It is not quite a musical because Sex-Bobombs and the other bands that perform are performing, however due to the crazy amounts of action going on in and between the shows can make us question how accurate this performance is actually a performance. As you can see in the battle between the the Sex-Bobombs and the Katanayangi twins, this is not just a normal performance. It can be argued that Scott Pilgrim is not a musical, which I believe is accurate because I feel it leans more towards non-musical than musical, however it is undeniable that elements we feel within the world of musicals seep through in this movie through unrealistic musical performances (that also serve as fight scenes?). There is no doubt this movie is a comedy within its witty jokes, and punchy dialogue (and also Michael Cera is casted as the lead, no more said.)
If you haven’t seen this movie, I would highly recommend it. The chaos can really only be explained fully if you watch it.
SELF PROMO TIME!! If you want to see me and my buddies dressing up as Sex-Bo-Bombs (The main band in the movie) performing a 30 min set of only songs from the Scott Pilgrim score, come by the MLAO house (on Eagle Row) 7-9PM on October 31. There will be live music! There will be party food! There will be a costume party!
We are called Michael Mouse, but for this halloween we will Micheal Mouse dressed up as the Sex-BoBombs!!
