Scott Pilgrim: Round 2!

How do you follow from seeing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World? You see it again, that’s how. I could have seen Salt or Grown Ups, but I would have sat through either of them thinking “I could be watching Scott Pilgrim again“, and that would pretty much ruin my week, let alone seeing a film with David Spade in it.
It also appears that I have to follow a post about Scott Pilgrim with another post about Scott Pilgrim. While I could write endlessly about the books and film, there are in fact two mediums I haven’t yet written about. I intended to write about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game in the last post, and would have had it not been for a fear of writing a post the length of War and Peace (hey I know classic literature exists!) and winning the title of Scott Pilgrim fan boy 2010. Since then I’ve procured a copy of the soundtrack, and am probably only a fancy dress costume away from being Scott Pilgrim fan boy 2010.
I was quite surprised when I heard they were making a Scott Pilgrim game, despite the series being heavily influenced by video games and featuring action, I always saw it more as a love story, and love stories don’t make great games (or could they?). I was kind of relieved when it was announced it would be a download only game, because if it was a full release, I would no doubt have spent £40 on it and been dismally disappointed. That sort of disappointment when you watch a beloved childhood TV show when you grow up and it turns out it was shit all along.
Fortunately, the game is not shit, it’s just not very good, but it has enough style and charm to get by. Developed by Ubisoft, SPVTW:TG (it’s even long abbreviating it) is a beat em’ up. You don’t see many beat em’ ups these days, mainly because they don’t really work anymore. Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, and Golden Axe were part of the golden age of beat em’ ups way back when, but since then interest in this genre has dwindled, mainly because they only really work in 2D, and we’ve pretty much been over 2D since the mid nineties.
It’s a shame because Nintendo have shown that there is still life left in 2D platformers, so maybe the beat em’ up can be resurrected. SPVTW:TG is a start at least, and like the latest 2D Mario games have done, has incorporated newer elements to create a much more immersive gaming experience than the 8-bit era gave.
SPVTW:TG looks and sounds the part, in fact it’s the best thing about the game, and remains reasonably faithful to the source material while bringing its own style. The artwork is well done, if a little repetitive, but the cutesy playable characters will surely please most fans. Most homage’s and references are to the Mario series, but it’s still a nice touch. The game’s soundtrack has rightly received universal praise, and chiptune band Anamanaguchi have created something really special that is nostalgic of my early childhood. I didn’t know there was such a thing as chiptune a week ago. See, the things you learn.
The gameplay really lets the whole thing down by not being very good. It is pretty much unplayable until you unlock the counter move, and even then it’s still pretty hard to play. There is a slight RPG element that gives a little more purpose to the proceedings. The extra moves make it more exciting, but after a few level ups it becomes much easier. Perhaps it’s just a beat em’ up thing, but the game is either too easy or too hard, it never seems to be a fair or fun challenge.
The levels are quite inconsistent, with the bosses sometimes being underwhelming and easier than the rest of the level, and this can be quite frustrating. The bosses should be more significant to the plot of the game as they are in the books, but instead feel irrelevant. I know they are going for a retro feel and most people who will play the game know the plot anyway, but a little exposition would have made SPVT:TG much better. Monkey Island was notorious for its funny dialogue, it really feels like a waste that no dialogue was put in this game, it’s not like they are short of it.
Maybe time and money stunted this game, but it’s such a wasted opportunity, and it’s highly unlikely that another will be released. At a glance it looks a perfect companion to the film and books, but hardcore fans will be disappointed once they get past the style and sound. It would have been cooler to have more unlockable content, especially in terms of characters, or even have them appear in the game. Wallace Wells could have been like Toad, offering extra lives, they’re both gay so it would have worked. It’s a little sad that this is the only Scott Pilgrim game we will get, but hey, at least the soundtrack rocks.
Speaking of soundtracks…onto the film’s original soundtrack. So yeah, this rocks too. Music is integral to Scott Pilgrim (Bryan Lee O’Malley even published his own playlists in the back of the books), so it is natural that a lot of work was put into making the film sound right.
To their credit, the film sounds like I imagined the books would have. I know Sex Bob-Omb are supposed to be terrible, but I really like their songs, especially Garbage Truck and it’s a shame that they’re not a real band. In fact even Crash and the Boys and Clash at Demonhead are pretty good, Metric’s Black Sheep (performed by Brie Larson as Envy Adams in the film) being the standout track on the album.
Other contemporary bands like Broken Social Scene, Blood Red Shoes, and Black Lips appear, but there are a lot of older artists like The Rolling Stones and T-Rex as well, creating a good mix that never feels out of place. Just a minor criticism though, removing the fictional bands, this does just sound like any other indie soundtrack for an indie film. Garden State, 500 Days of Summer, and Juno all have these unique indie soundtracks, but as a collective they are starting to get repetitive. It’s only a minor criticism though, and the fictional bands haven’t been removed and thus the soundtrack is a joy to the ears.
I don’t write about music much and now I know why, it’s not that interesting to write about. No wonder the writers at NME are bitter angry pricks. There is still the score of the film to buy, which I will eventually, but I won’t write about it, we can just assume I like it, maybe two blogs ago we could have just assumed I like Scott Pilgrim and everything about it and saved everyone the hassle. Next week, Scott Pilgrim: The T-Shirt reviewed!

Scott Pilgrim vs. My Precious Little Life

A couple of years ago I was looking for some comics to purchase. I think I went for a Batman one in the end (jumping on the bandwagon) but I remember reading about Scott Pilgrim. Scott Pilgrim is in a band called Sex Bob-Omb, and to date this girl he has to defeat her seven evil exes. It sounded great, but I was in a frugal mood and completely forgot about it until I heard that it was Edgar Wright’s next project. About a second later I had ordered volume one. Friday night, I finally saw the film. It kind of feels like the end of a long, very geeky, journey (I will avoid saying pilgrimage).
Scott Pilgrim is probably my favourite comic. It’s not written that well, the drawing isn’t brilliant, but in a strange sort of way this gives it a charm that’s hard not to fall in love with, and you could kind of define Scott Pilgrim the character like this. He hasn’t got much going for him, he hasn’t got a job and he cheats on his girlfriend. If this was a real person you’d hate him, but you love him. He is a clueless idiot who just has too much love to give. He is relentlessly optimistic, he shares a bed with his gay best friend, he gets excited about almost holding a girl’s hand, and he’s incredibly insecure about his hair, how can you hate someone like that?
The imperfect styling of the books goes perfectly with the imperfect Pilgrim, and I don’t know if Bryan Lee O’Malley intended this, but it really works. Take away all the fights and the subspace highways, and you still have a great love story at heart, with some fun and engaging characters to boot. O’Malley has spent as much time on Ramona as he has on Scott and this makes the romance more believable, even if it does take a while to figure out why anyone would like Scott.
Other characters like Wallace Wells, Kim Pine, Knives Chau, and Envy Adams all create a diverse universe that never gets old or boring, it’s just sad to see the series end so quickly. It would have been cool to see more background stories as to how Scott and Wallace met, or how Sex Bob-Omb formed, or even how Ramona met all of her seven exes. Volume 6 was a bit of a disappointment as it felt more like a rushed tie up than a complete ending, it would have certainly been interesting to delve into Gideon’s past a little deeper, but hey, that’s just my opinion.
It’s not often that I find a piece of fiction this cool though, and any criticism has ten plaudits in return. It never takes itself seriously, and because of this I don’t think anyone should break it down in too much detail, it was a very cool experience and my only gripe with it is that I wanted more. It may seem like the end of a long journey for O’Malley as well, but this is the start of a very promising career for him, and there will be a lot of people (including me) anticipating his next project. Unfortunately this means there is a lot of pressure for him to deliver the goods.
So that’s the books done, they will stay on my bookshelf and I will read them again every year or so…now on to the film. This doesn’t happen often, but every time I see a film where I have read the book beforehand, I just sit there and compare the two, like a massive nerd pointing out how the hat he is wearing looks exactly like it does in the book, or how that line at the beginning of the film was actually in volume five. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is now the first film I have ever seen twice at the cinema, and with the book - film comparisons done with on the first viewing, I could really sit and enjoy it the second time round.
I am wary to use the term “massive Edgar Wright fan boy” because after all, this is only his third film, and I see a lot of people, including Empire Magazine and that other blog The Incredible Suit, getting very carried away with the Edgar Wright fangasm. Try as I might to touch down on Earth, Wright does make it very hard to maintain any nonchalance when speaking about him. I love Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz to the point I watch them every few months or so, and no doubt will do with Pilgrim when it‘s released on DVD, but I think it’s somewhat premature to give him this god like status. Don’t get me wrong I love Wright, but I don’t want to be part of this group idolising him and praising everything he does, I’m trying to be that cool guy in the corner who doesn’t give a shit (but clearly is the biggest doting dork in the room).
Unfortunately for my coolness, Wright has made another great film. Despite the great source material it could have been very easy to ruin it and make a terrible film. Everything from the screenplay, to the casting, to the soundtrack, to the special effects, to the sound effects, to the fight choreography, just about everything is near perfect.
When the screenplay was written, O’Malley had not finished the series, so Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright had to write their own ending. The first half of the film is very similar to the books, with some scenes almost identical. Bacall and Wright are faithful to the source material, but to see the books copied frame for frame would be boring, so it works that they go their own way in the second half.
Where the books sometimes lose focus, the film never strays, maintaining a bursting energy right to the end. Wright has put his own ideas into the film which gives existing fans a new experience, and nothing ever feels out of place to what O’Malley has already created.
Music and fight scenes were featured heavily in the books, but were obviously hard to convey on paper, so it would have been a wasted opportunity if the film did not focus on bringing these to life. Wright said in an interview that he wanted it to be impossible to distinguish if Sex Bob-Omb were brilliant or terrible, and it really is impossible to tell. A lot of work has been put into creating an authentic soundtrack, and it adds a dimension that you didn’t have when reading the books. As for the fights, they are brilliant, but they never seem actually violent due to the video game tone of the film.
This may be the first great video game movie without actually being adapted from a video game. Save for a few Zelda sound effects and theme, there aren’t any references exclusive to the hardcore gamer, but even if you don’t play games, it won’t take anything away from the experience, it’s just a nice little touch for geeks.
For hardcore Pilgrim fans, Cera’s take on the title character may take a while to get used to, but you do get used to it, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ellen Wong steal the show with their portrayals of Ramona Flowers and Knives Chau. Winstead is as cool as Ramona is in the books and exactly how I pictured her, and Wong’s endlessly energetic Knives is a lesson to every woman trying to play a kooky chick with bundles of energy. The evil exes bring a whole spectrum of colour, and we have another reason why Chris Evans is on course to take over Hollywood, and why Brandon Routh should still be Superman.
If any criticism should be made it’s that a lot of source material was left out, and the film does seem a little rushed. There is still a lot of content, and it’s not often you get to see a film under two hours these days though, so it’s not all bad, in fact it really is very hard to fault this film. It baffles me though that both times I have seen the film, a Friday and Sunday night, that the screens have been pretty much empty. Why is no one watching this film?
I talked about this in my previous post, and it saddens me that this film will probably be branded a flop despite that fact it’s the best film I’ve seen all year, yeah, I said it, the best film I’ve seen all year. Perhaps it’s too ahead of its time, or the casual movie goer has no idea who any of the cast are, but Superman is in it! That skinny kid from Superbad! That girl from Die Hard 4! The Human Torch! It even has a fucking Culkin in it! So these aren’t massive names, but they will be, and if people only watch films with Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie in them then they are missing the whole point of film. Films are about telling good stories in an exciting way, it’s not all about Brangefuckinglina, and their films aren’t that good anyway.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World can’t go down as a failure, it’s too good for that, but like many other great films that have flopped, this will no doubt spawn a massive cult following and will gain notoriety in due time. I would like to think that Edgar Wright’s reputation won’t be tarnished by the box office takings (or anyone else’s involved for that matters) and that he will be given the freedom to continue making films like this. As much as I enjoy them, I hope Michael Cera stars in a film in which he doesn’t play an awkward teenager/young adult who gets the girl. I’d like to see Brandon Routh in the next Superman film. I’d like to see Chris Evans in a Captain America film that’s actually good. I’d like to think I have a chance with Mary Elizabeth Winstead should our paths ever meet. I’d also like to think I’m not deluded. Other people just want to see Avatar again…Morons.

You stay classy, San Diego

FANGASM! The past weekend has seen San Diego host the 41st Comic-Con, a mecca for hundreds of thousands of geeks to all perpetually jizz in their pants for four straight days. Not living anywhere near San Diego, I have not been jizzing in my pants, and have been jealously following any news I can find on twitter and IGN.

To be honest, I don’t know what goes down in San Diego other than a platform to promote upcoming comic book films. This year the main focus has been on Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America, and every fanboy/girl’s wet dream, The Avengers.

Reviews of the upcoming Scott Pilgrim film all point to a win, but I suspect that anyone who has a firm grasp of reality will hate it and onlookers will point and laugh at me while I try and justify why I like it - Mary Elizabeth Winstead is hot, a good enough reason for liking anything.

I don’t know anything about Green Lantern other than what has been referenced in The Big Bang Theory, but it looks like it’s shaping up to be pretty awesome. Ryan Reynolds has the trust of every geek by reciting the oath at the con (and we know he can do action), green is my favourite colour (I‘m sure that makes or breaks a film‘s quality), and Blake Lively is pretty hot.

Also coming to a screen near you…next year, are Thor and Captain America: The American Avenging Avenger of America, or whatever they decide to call it. Like Green Lantern I don’t know much about Thor. I know he’s a Norse god, and as such he has a hammer, and he speaks all old like. Kenneth Branagh is directing, which means it will be boring, and I am as excited about Thor as I am of being raped. Natalie Portman is hot though.

I stayed until the end of the very long Iron Man 2 credits, and I all I got was Thor’s hammer in a desert. I will still see it of course, and stay until the end of the very long credits just to see Captain America frozen in carbonite or something like that.

I’m looking forward to Captain America simply because I like Chris Evans, who has bagged just about every
action role Ryan Reynolds hasn’t, and for good reason, he’s awesome. He was the best thing about the disappointing Fantastic Four movies, and was pretty good in Sunshine, Push, and The Losers. Rumour has it that he will be playing all of the X-Men, in X-Men: First Class.

This is all leading to The Avengers movie, and in a massive hurrah at Comic-Con, the entire cast came out, and even here in England we could hear the simultaneous ejaculation of thousands of geeks. We were unveiled two things that we kind of knew anyway. First up is that Mark Ruffalo will be the Hulk. Just to repeat, Mark Ruffalo. I want Edward Norton back. It’s hard to get worked up though, because it’s so difficult to make the Hulk work on screen, and he will probably have a fairly small part in The Avengers, with the big CGI Hulk likely to have more screen time.

The other “surprise” was that Joss Whedon will be writing and directing, and this has gone down a storm. I loved Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, but he has only directed one film, Serenity, so it would be premature to put so much faith into Whedon. The Avengers is the most high profile comic book film in history and they cannot mess it up. It is a very high risk project, and when you put all those heroes together it could end in disaster, remember Spider-Man 3? 3 villains and it all went wrong. It could turn out to be as much as fun as being stabbed in they eye with a pen. Still, Scarlett Johansson is hot.

I forgot about the new Tron film! I don’t care about the new Tron Film.

So that’s Comic-Con in a nutshell, essentially a extravagant piece of marketing to get you to watch Marvel films when they’re released in 2 years time. Stay tuned for the upcoming report on next month’s Rom-com-con, where we will be getting all the hype on the latest J-Lo film, due for release in 2014, where she is a successful single female lawyer, who falls in love with a pumpkin voiced by Patrick Dempsey.

***Note***
I was wrong about Green Lantern and I eventually got excited about Thor.