We're dividing this review into several specific topic areas and individual responses will be identified underneath those headings; just an FYI.

Reactions to the Original Comic

Rubber Justice: There are plenty of comics that I appreciated more than Scott Pilgrim. The first volume was odd; It appealed to my fanboy, but not to my tastes. Artistically, the little sketches infuriated me, reminding me, perhaps unfairly, of quick linework that paid no attention to what the illustrations were saying. Storywise, I felt like it was transmitting a beat I wasn't picking up: An evil ex crashing a performance from seemingly out of nowhere, a main character who was a bumbling fool I couldn't relate to. I thought it was a book that pandered to cultural callbacks, all style and no substance, so I never picked up the series again. Then Edgar Wright's film managed to completely subvert these thoughts.

Klarion: I just don't "get" something about the book. I like almost everything about Scott Pilgrim except for... Scott Pilgrim. I just hate the main character. I liked all of the supporting cast and I liked Ramona and I normally like the "meet cute" story just fine but I made it through the first two volumes of the comic and have never bothered to crack open the third even though it's been sitting in my car for six months. Something about it really didn't connect for me.

Practical Analysis - Storytelling & Character

Rubber Justice: I think one glaringly obvious feature in the movie is the way it so comfortably inhabits its own universe. You never get a reason for why Scott can protect himself from mile-high tosses or brutal beatings, but you don't ever need a reason. Ramona uses Scott's mind as a highway and you get one sentence to state it and another to make a joke of it, then it's over. In the book, I took all the info boxes and captions as humorous asides. With the film, they're tools for a deeper reading into an entire universe that exists within a less-than-two hour timeframe.

Most of all, I appreciated the varied characters presented throughout the story. Ramona, with all her ethereal quirks is still a real woman, a hipster-chick who's alienated the people around her in a concentrated effort to be so different. Then there's Roxy, who's less ashamed about her bifuriousness than her former lover, and seems to embody all indecisive qualities. It's hard to judge if her rampant self-doubt is a complementary characteristic of her sexuality, as that would make her a little one-note, but the general impression left by her character is an interesting one for the limited screentime she has.

Klarion: I also came away from it thinking, wow, I still love everything about Scott Pilgrim except for Scott Pilgrim. I love most of the supporting cast, I love the villainous cabal as metaphor for someone's emotional past, I encourage stories that recognize that being a grown-up enough to have a big-boy relationship includes accepting the past that made the person, etc., etc., but Scott Pilgrim himself is just this mewling kitten of a character. If he had any less agency he would dissolve into protoplasm. Ramona has to constantly warn, apologize, defend and fight to recover herself from her past but all Scott has to do is realize he was kind of a dick and boom, everything is fixed? Lame. My boyfriend calls that sort of movie "the tale of a man who felt an emotion".

LGB Observations

Rubber Justice: Wallace Wells. Billed as the "cool gay roommate". His comedic support was appreciated, he was sassy and smart, but he came off often as the amalgamation of so many stereotypes. Both a whore and dramatic foil whenever the script demanded, I went through phases of praising him and raising my eyebrows. At first I'd thought Culkin's character was an extreme version of every bland gay character to limp their wrist through a bad TV drama, but looking at how the other friends from the movie possess this quality of 'other'-ness, I can reconcile the continuance of a stereotype if it's what makes the character a vital piece of the narrative. In fact, I have my own evil ex that matched all of Wallace's negative qualities, and took no foul from the prejudices that certainly could be read.

Klarion: Yes, Christ but Wallace is stuck in the angel/whore dichotomy. This is very much a textbook-straight, male movie. Wallace is the
closest thing Scott has to a mother, the only one with a sense of detached objectivity about things, the moral compass and the relationship-destroying cock-rocket that steals his sister's boyfriend in the first scene. (Confession: I found that totally hot.) Maybe O'Malley had a hot gay roommate who fit all those roles, I wouldn't know, but it seemed to me like either O'Malley wanted to include a direct reproduction of a real and exceptionally over-the-top person he knows or he felt like it needed a gay character and he didn't know what to do with one so he made Wallace do everything. (Also, to be fair, O'Malley did not write the screenplay; it might be different in the book.)

On the other hand, Wallace got most of the good lines.

On the other other hand, "I don't want you gaying up the place?" Total rage blackout.

The portrayal of Roxy (whose appearance in the comic, assuming that happens, I haven't reached in my reading) also really bothered me. Much as I loved the phrase "bi-furious" - my boyfriend is bi and I tend to be a little militantly opposed to some people's backwards notion that bisexuals somehow aren't queer enough or that it's not acceptable for sexuality to be fluid and playful and ambiguous; we do not march in the street so that we can be limited by their labels for us, y'know - I was really bothered by Ramona's kneejerk "it was just a phase" comment and the way Scott literally physically destroys Roxy using her own sexual nature. Some external G spot is her weakness? Seriously? Death by orgasm? Seriously?

Overall Impression & Concluding Thoughts

Rubber Justice: Scott Pilgrim has an explicit message about what it means to love someone, and allows for a few observations on the pathos behind hipster culture, but outside of this, there wasn't too much to take away; It's an over-the-top action movie polished in a nerdy lacquer, and I fail to see how it can have that degree of permanence that others claim it will hold. I wouldn't have minded waiting for the DVD, though I still recommend watching it sometime, because the two hours it lasts for are thoroughly entertaining.

Klarion: I seem to have a lot to gripe about, yes, and yet I really enjoyed it and I want to see it again; the next day I gave it a four-stars-out-of-five rating in conversation with a friend. It is just absurdly entertaining and fun. I have to recognize that when I was 22 I did a lot of stupid whinging and hiding from the world, too. It could very well be that the character of Scott Pilgrim grates on me for no reason other than that I'm 35. Everything I didn't like, when I talk about it, inevitably circles back to talking about how much I did like the movie overall.

If You Started a New Romance, What Aggressive Form Would Your Past Baggage Take?

Rubber Justice: Let's see, if I were the cause of a league of evil exes... There would be a boyfriend who was the avatar of gluttony, capable of shooting down any attempt at compassion. After winning a sloppy, greasy sumo fight, you'd have to face off against a trio of prom dates, a triple Hecate of miserable wenches who were lied to and used as cover stories that need a sappy apology speech before they can concede the Bo staff of Self Acceptance, neccesary to defeat the final demon of Lust. He's the bastard that's caused a million drunken conversations, that stares and judges every passerby in the street. No idea how you could beat that guy, the battle rages to this day.

Klarion: I'm pretty sure my malcontent past would achieve malevolent sentience as a sequence of brands of bourbon who soften you up before the obsessive crushes on straight guys arrive to finish the job; oh, and one remarkably callous foreign grad student. One wins by not blacking out or by lasting until the end of the academic calendar. Not a good scene.