Scott Pilgrim vs “The Book Was Better!”
Over the weekend Christina and I, like all of you SHOULD have done, attended the midnight premiere of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I’ve written about how awesome Scott Pilgrim is several times so I’ll refrain from repeating myself and just talk about the movie.
It was fantastic. It far exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were higher than they’ve been for any other movie. They absolutely NAILED it. Director Edgar Wright really had a vision for bringing the comic to life and he didn’t let the ball drop once.
The best thing about the movie is that it didn’t try to be the comic. It’s hard to take a book or graphic novel and make a 100% accurate transition into a movie. It just doesn’t work. The mediums are too different and what works in one won’t work in the other. They took the basic framework of the Scott Pilgrim saga, along with the majority of the characters, and told their story as a movie.
It really worked, too. When I go see a movie based on a book I’ve liked, I try not to compare the two or complain about things that were left out. Usually I just think “well, they made it into the best movie it could be, but the book told the story better.” With Scott Pilgrim, there were things that I think the MOVIE actually did better. The fight between Scott and Lucas Lee was a lot more exciting in the movie, and I actually liked Lucas as a character better in the movie as well, but that’s probably just because Chris Evans is awesome.
Speaking of casting, I cannot think of a single character who wasn’t cast perfectly. Well, except Kim. Alison Pill did a fine job ACTING as Kim, but c’mon, Kim should be way better looking than that. Anyway, when I first heard about the movie starting production, I was very skeptical about the casting of Michael Cera as Scott. Now, I’m certainly not a hater of Michael Cera. Superbad is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. The thing with Michael Cera is he only really plays one type of character (which really isn’t his fault) and I didn’t think that his style would do the character justice. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he was actually perfect as Scott. He doesn’t look much like his comic counterpart, but he’s able to convey that “I’m such a loser that everyone likes me” that defines Scott. He also doesn’t really seem that uncomfortable with the fight scenes, which was nice.
My favorite character from the comics is Scott’s roommate Wallace, and Keiran Culkin was phenomenal. He stole every scene he was in. They gave him a lot more chances to be funny than in the comic and it was time well spent.
The whole point of the movie (and the comic, actually) was presenting this fantastic mish-mash of reality and a video game, and it worked amazingly well on screen. There are countless references to games, including Zelda music, the bass line from Final Fantasy II, and people bursting into a pile of coins when defeated. Your heart will swell with nostalgia at each scene change! Honestly though, the best reference they used wasn’t even from a video game, and it was so out of nowhere I couldn’t stop laughing for at least 30 seconds. I won’t spoil it!
If you’ve read the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels you really don’t need me to tell you to go see the movie. You’ve already seen it at least once. Christina and I have plans to go see it with a friend of mine from work this weekend, and Christina insists that it’s too long to wait and we need to see it sometime during the week as well. Honestly, it may even eclipse Star Wars as my favorite movie of all time. Seriously.
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I’m serious, man. I won’t not see the movie because of Cera, but there is no such thing as a role that he’s been good in.
I still need to read the comics… I think I’ll wait for the DVD to see the movie though. Not that I don’t WANT to. It’s just that I have no money.
Just on time. I came back from seeing it just now and was hoping your post would be up.
I’ve read the first 4 Scott Pilgrims recently due to the movie coming out. There is something movies do that I really REALLY hate when they take adaptations of books… focus on action instead of storytelling. I can understand how this pulls in more people to see movies, when District 9 came out I saw it with two friends who complained it was boring while I thought it was amazing due to the story.
I have to admit, however, the way they changed the Lucas part was a riot. I still wish they’d kept his references to selling out in, however.
The pacing of the movie felt really iffy to me… It kind of jumped from one place to another… in a bad way. I really wish they had kept the original Ramona Vs. Knives and Knives’ dad in the movie. I was also upset Crash and the Boys! (or The Boys! and Crash!!) didn’t show up with their instrument-less-music, also. I kind of like that reference a lot due to it being one of my first NES games.
All and all, however, my capacity to be amused is fairly above average. Hardly any movie comes out that interest me enough to see it in theaters. Call it blasphemy, but to be honest, I don’t really think the Scott Pilgrim books are ‘exceptional’ and I can never like a movie more then it’s source content(Except for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – it’s the exception that proves the rule.)
However, in the end, the movie didn’t bore me due to it’s pretty stunning visuals, so I can’t bad mouth it. I give it 3 out of 5.
Oh, yeah, also no matter how much I like a movie, I’ve never been able to like it so much that I would see it twice (or particularly thrice!) in it’s theater run. I really do wish I was more easily amused…
This song is dedicated to the guy in the back who keeps yelling at us. It’s called “We hate you, please go die”.
Woo! I love this one!
Wallace is awesome.
Hmm, I still need to read the comics. And I may or may not be able to see the movie because I know my parents wouldn’t be interested, as they wouldn’t get the references and my mom hates action. Ah, the constraints of youth. *sigh* But at least I’m fairly confident that I’ll be able to read the comics… if I can find them at Barnes & Noble! Very annoying. Ah well.
Barnes should have them.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129150813
I saw that article. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Highlight over the picture and you’ll read my favorite quote from the comics, which unfortunately didn’t make it into the movie =( Seriously, Wallace made the whole movie.
But oh my God. The whole thing was amazing. Hilarious! Exciting! I loved it. I kept the movie ticket (it’s sacred) lol I can easily say that it’s the best movie I’ve seen in my entire life.
I concur