We Liked: The Meta Twist
Okay, so here’s the thing: Scott Pilgrim’s first episode is a pretty faithful, brisk adaptation of the early parts of the comic series and the movie. Scott encounters mysterious delivery girl Ramona Flowers, becomes obsessed with her, and discovers that he has been challenged to mortal combat against her seven evil exes. Matthew Patel steps up at Sex Bo-bomb’s big concert, Scott and him battle…
And Matthew wins. Scott dies, leaving nothing but pocket change.
In a single moment after lulling you in with 20-odd minutes of faithful, pretty restrained adaptation, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off reveals its real intent. This isn’t a remake of the comic or an adaptation of the movie—it’s almost a sequel, a remixed riff on the beats of the tale that completely refreshes it and leaves space for a future that could go well beyond even the original comics. The mystery of what happens to Scott, and the audience’s expectation of what they thought the story would be, becomes central to making Takes Off work, and lets it update the source material in some really interesting ways while having a fascinating conversation with both the source material and the movie. (Shout out to Young Neil’s Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life: The Movie and its eventual musical adaptation, a very funny metacommentary on the comics’ own peculiar life beyond its source.)
