Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World Mini-Review

 

After months and months and months and months and MONTHS of hype, I finally saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World yesterday. HOORAY! It's very likely that if you're reading this right now, you know exactly what Scott Pilgrim's about, so I will refrain from saying anything more than 1. the graphic novels set expectations at exceedingly high levels and 2. this movie definitely appeals to a certain "type."

But was this the type of movie for me? The answer is YES YES YES.

Here we go with bullet points:

• The casting was nearly perfect. Knives, STEPHEN STILLS (!!!), YOUNG NEIL (!!!), Stacey, and even Wallace, who I was worried the most about, were all perfect. Guess who else was awesome? Michael Cera as Scott. Haters gonna hate, but I thought he was...I'm trying not to say great because that rhymes excellent. He did not play "himself" (although if you've ever watched this kid in an interview you would know that he's not quite as awkward as you think), he played SCOTT. 
• More on that: Scott was a bit "toned down" from the comics. However, he was still the most enjoyable character to watch for me; maybe this was because he was the one who received the most characterization.
• More on THAT: Okay, so obviously this movie tried to adapt six volumes into one two-hour movie, which is a hard thing to do perfectly. And while I think a lot of the plot changes that were made helped to make it more cohesive and fit better into the allotted time, certain choices were made at the expense of character development. Biggest offenders: Kim, Ramona, Envy. Envy isn't as important, so it's okay, but up until the fight against Todd we keep hearing about how Scott dated Envy and she broke his heart and blah blah blah. But we never delve into their back story, which is the most interesting part, and when Envy shows up you think, "What? How the heck did Scott ever date this girl?" Also, she's just bland as heck and she and Scott don't have any closure or anything. She's just never mentioned again. We got an idea of who Ramona was: mysterious and distant. But that was it. You never really understand why Scott is in love with her and fighting for her. It's like he's just going with the motions. They don't have too much nice alone time, which was too bad, because the scenes where they did were amongst my favorite (their second (?) date, the Seinfeld-esque scene although Ramona technically isn't in that one). Basically, Ramona is flat. 
• The most egregious offense OR more on that AGAIN: KIM. I HATED KIM IN THIS MOVIE. Kim is one of everyone's favorite characters. She's a cynical, misanthropic jerk, but she really does care about Scott and everyone else. In the comics, she has depth. However, in this movie, Kim hates everything and everyone, especially Scott. She is never happy and she is never not being sarcastic. When she sees Scott her eye starts throbbing and that scary, dramatic music even plays. (Those screechy violins, you know.) She HATES him because he dumped her in high school, but the real Kim didn't care about that THAT much. Also, the real Kim was interesting, and that was what made me the most upset. This Kim was boring and I can't remember almost anything she said.
• I missed Joseph. He's one of my favorite characters. Thankfully, they had the guy that Wallace stole from Stacey in a number of scenes, kind of as a replacement. Although he was nowhere as awesome as Joseph.
• Let's talk about stuff I liked again, though. I LOVED the music. Sex Bob-omb were, for being self-loathing and "terrible," really good. I really liked their "Garbage Truck" song. Stephen Stills was a good singer, and Scott was a surprisingly competent bassist. I liked his "Ramona" song, too, although Ramona kind of blew it off. THAT GURL, WAI SHE GOTTA BE LIKE THAT
• The opening credits. The opening credits made my heart race. (I'm a little over-dramatic like that.) The visuals were just very, very cool. I loved the opening scene, too. I don't know, I just found it perfect. 
• The fight scenes were pretty awesome, although I think some of them went on for too long. (Most notably the first one, against Matthew Patel.) I did love that Ramona talked about her relationships with most of them via black-and-white cutscenes. I think my favorite fights were Scott vs. Lucas and maybe Scott vs. Todd. That one was hilarious, mainly because of how it ended. (I loved the Vegan police high-fiving in slow motion.) 
• More hilarity: The Ninja Revolution game, that aforementioned Seinfeld scene, Young Neil's idiocy, Knives' stalkerish tendencies, Scott and Ramona's date, etc. etc. There's a lot. (Oh, also, but this comes towards the end: "Do you know how long it took me to collect all of the Evil Exes' contact information? TWO HOURS!"
• I'm just going to mention it again: Wallace ruled.

ENDING SPOILERS HERE:

• The ending was weird and not wholly satisfying. That last fight went on forever, and what are they trying to say -- they're basically suggesting that Self-Respect > Love, which is kind of stupid and kind of a bad message. I guess they were trying to set up an ending where Scott and Ramona DON'T end up together. Instead, Scott would end up with Knives (word is that that's an alternate ending). I actually kind of like the idea of that, because I really liked Knives, as creepy as she was at times. She was a sweet girl and Scott actually had a rapport with her. However, Knives basically says, "Dude, we just spent nearly 2 hours murdering people so you could make out with this chick for a little bit. Seriously? LYK GO GET HER LOL" so then Scott has to go get her. It was pretty stupid that Ramona STILL hadn't "found what she was looking for" or whatever, instead keen on leaving behind yet another ex. Sister sure is flighty. Which ending do you like better, Scott and Ramona or Scott and Knives? (Look at me, trying in vain to initiate conversation between commentators and myself.)
• Either way, I like the ending that Bryan Lee O'Malley chose for volume 6 instead. That was more meaningful.

ENDING SPOILERS, OVER

The movie's not perfect, but it's about as good as a live action Scott Pilgrim could ever be. I really liked it. Really liked it. I think your mileage may vary, and I don't see many "older people" enjoying this as much although you never know, but it's a sort of ADD-addled film that could possibly define my generation. Although I really hope not. I hate my generation. We don't deserve a movie this fun.

I give Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World 4 Slutty Wallace's Sleeping Next to Various Guys and Scott's out of 5.

P.S. Even though I gave Inception a better score, I think I enjoyed this more than that. It's being a comedy certainly helps. But they're both great so see them!

For the other movies I saw this summer, you can read my Inception Mini-Review here and my quick post about Toy Story 3 here.

Today In Looking For Something To Write About

San Diego Comic-Con was this past weekend. It's the biggest convention around. Like all conventions, it has a TON of dedicated fans who go to buy merchandise and dress up and meet other fans. And, I assume, it's a perfect place for doing those things.

But this article from the AV Club discusses whether or not it should be covered by the media as it has increasingly been over the last five years or so.

I'm not trying to argue myself out of a job or anything, but I do wonder if the amount of ink spilled on Comic-Con is truly necessary. This is an event created to specifically keep people from saying, "Oh, hey, maybe this won't be good, huh?" Aside from all of the big, obvious problems - the long lines, the inability to stop thinking like a small convention when this is one of the biggest conventions out there, the ridiculously overpriced concessions, the fact that the whole thing may move to Anaheim, LA, or Vegas - no one really talks about whether news organizations should even be sending people like me to cover this stuff. Comic-Con started out for the fans, and then Hollywood got involved and tried to make all of the attendees fans of everything it could possibly get them to consume. And now, the event is such a big deal within the entertainment media that it sometimes seems as though the studios are using it to sneak a virus out to the public at large, just another bit of marketing in the long march toward a big opening weekend, but a form of marketing that we haven't yet built up a resistance to, like billboards or TV commercials.

Conventions are supposed to be for fans first and foremost, but also give them a way to meet their idols. An anime convention might have a voice actor come speak, for example. But this writer argues that the big companies go to Comic-Con with the purpose of promotion, and their influence is becoming so huge that we're starting to forget that this is for the fans. Of course, a fan should love seeing the actors there, and sneak previews of movies/shows are undeniably cool. But are they still as cool when you know that you're just being shown this sneak preview for marketing purposes?

Something to think about...Read the rest of the article, which includes a little coverage of panels, here.

"More like one Yosuke and one awesome Yosuke."

What are some of the best ways to procrastinate on your AP American essay?  "Video games." "Reading comics."

Well, a comic based on Persona 4, a game with which I procrastinated so contently for hours upon hours over the last few days, combines those two methods into one extremely funny one.

"What's Persona 4 about?" you ask as you chew on your disgusting pencil, laden with bite marks, its point surprisingly sharp as the pencil waves up and down in the air while you bite. I suppose I should humor you and tell you. The Persona series is an off-shoot of the Shin Megami Tensei series.

"Um, that doesn't help," you say in a mocking way, exploding into laughter so obnoxious that it takes every ounce of self-restraint in my wee body to keep myself from punching you (lightly) in your face. Fine then. The SMT series is, as a whole, a dungeon-crawling RPG where you play as teenage characters (usually) and try and convince demons to work with you so that you can destroy other demons. The Persona series is only marginally like that. The first one was, but no one likes it.

The 3rd and 4th ones are probably the most popular; they're at least the most accessible. Both are for the PS2, which means that millions of people have access to playing them. So Persona 3 started the new trend where you play as a silent high school protagonist who has the unique ability to awaken several different Personas (as a Latin student, or as I call us, Latineer, I'm trying not to correct this and write "Personae" but I digress). Then you meet other people who also can awaken a Persona (but not more than one like you can! Losers) and you can become friends with them. Befriending people, in your party or otherwise, helps you advance your social links, which in turn helps you make better Personas.

Get it now? Good.

The comic is by someone named Peachi, who posts it on her livejournal, which is called hiimdaisy. Most people refer to her as hiimdaisy, as such, because most people thought that other most people named their LJ accounts after what they like to be called on the Internet, but apparently not! Click the link now, please, for Part 1. And make sure you open it in a new tab because I'm not done talking yet!

Basically Peachi is a huge fan of Persona and other games that I love, because who isn't? She makes fun of the game while also celebrating its sheer hilarity. While the game is mostly serious, it does have a ton of really funny moments that she sends up so well. The characters are really well-defined in the Persona games, and so it makes it really easy for her to completely parody them.

Because Peachi's work is so well-done -- well-written, well-drawn -- it's made its way around the Internet to people who have played and loved the game as well as people who haven't played it, but have played their fair share of RPGs to get the humor.

The comic is pretty spoilerific, so I must admit that I've only read as far as I've gotten to in the game, which admittedly is only up to the summer vacation part. (That's about 15 hours into the game, heh.) Some of the foreshadowing is really hilarious though, like in the part to your left, after the guy goes away, Chie (the obligatory tomboyish character and possible love interest; best friend of the much lusted after Yuki, seen trying not to freak here) just says something like, "Good thing we'll never see him again!" Of course, that means we will see him again. I'm really dreading that part. Look at him. LOOK AT HIM. He's so creepy.

Yeah. Well, in a very awkward transition, this comic has gotten so big that there are even very funny dubs of it on Youtube. The voice acting is unbelievably good, as is the editing. Check it out, it really conveys the comics well:

And that's just Part 1, kiddies!

I hope you enjoy the comic/dubs of the comic, because if you do, you get a really shiny gold star. And you can continue to be my friend. Because you're ALL my friends! Even you, obnoxious laughing one. Your obnoxious laughing is an endearing character trait. (Haha, that's a reference, guys! You totally get it, right? ...Guys?)

You know, on a side note, it's very hard for me to eloquently and humorously gush about the things I enjoy. It's a problem. If anyone can help me through this troubling issue that I must live with every day, it would be much appreciated. TEACH ME HOW TO BE FUNNY WHILE ALSO POSITIVE. D: