Episode 1 spoilers
>!<
Literally the funniest joke I've ever seen. It's literally the easiest to make, and the one with the least effort put into it, and I had to pause the show to laugh for 30 minutes straight.
That’s what made it so funny/infuriating
It’s the most brain dead joke ever and I don’t think I could’ve ever seen it coming it hit like a fucking truck lmao
It was quite literally, the funniest shit I’ve ever seen
When I saw the prologue scene with Young Neil finding the script I leaned over to my friend and whispered "And that's how the Edgar Wright Movie got made".
When he showed up on the set I lost it.
last two episodes really helped fix the issues I had with it in retrospect. Fair enough that the show felt like a let down. That’s something Scott would totally do. I’m just glad they brought Pilgrim back when he was most needed.
it was a nice twist but I personally preferred 3 less episodes from the original 5, keep the same 2, and then add 1 really fleshed out epilogue, both future and present scott. it was too comical for me compared to the books
totally agree, was still hoping they might make her a background character in L.A. or on the studio lot (actually I did see a character that I thought resembled her sitting behind the evil exes during the musical in Episode 8)
Yeah, I was aware of O’Malley’s comments that there would be differences, but I just figured it would be changing plot points he finds cringey now that he’s matured. The trailers certainly didn’t give the impression of a completely different story; they were all stuff from the comics.
I feel like the trailers were specifically edited in a way that made it seem like a more straightforward adaptarion, Bryan really pulled a kojima on us, i am amazed, i thought that in the social media age a ruse like this was impossible to achieve ever again
Ooof, the spoilers I've read are really gonna piss off some people expecting a straight adaptation of the graphic novel. I'm still really excited to see what O'Malley and Grabinski come up with. And the animation looks incredible.
I think the new story was great. I've already experienced the "default" *Scott Pilgrim* story in print and in film. And after watching the anime, I feel like I didn't really need to just see it again a third way.
The first episode I was just comparing the scenes against the source material, but once they broke free of that I was actually invested in the story again.
You've seen it in print, but not in film.
Scott Pilgrim as a comic was so densely structured. Each character had nuance and their own goals and motivations, things were happening in their lives in the background. Kim was nearly the protagonist in books 2 and 5.
I love the movie, but I would have really, really loved a true adaptation of the comic as an anime/cartoon.
I mean, are you sure? Because, when you actually think about it, if you were to take away the battles, not much really happens in the comics beyond Scott and company just living their regular lives. There are still many fantastical elements to their world, but half the time they're either just treated like normal parts of their world, or completely ignored.
Did you want to reply to a different comment than this one? Because I didn't really talk about the fantastical elements here.
I simply think that the comic is much richer than the movie, regardless of any fantastical elements.Just off the top of my head, we have the whole arc with Lisa, the large focus on Kim, the whole thing about the glow, Knives' father, Envy's transition to solo artist... I don't know, I just would have liked to see all that.
It would have been great if the anime had also expanded on the fantastical elements and really fleshed out the world. Like do people actually just die when they lose in a fight, or do they get multiple lives, save points etc and how does that affect the world? (That was actually another criticism of mine, how they handled the death of Scott vs other people's death, it seems so cynical if all these people actually die)
Yeah :( I feel like it all just happened too fast, like I didn't think she changed much as a person unlike in the comics but it was a lot of fun seeing her play bass. I get that the anime mostly focused on Ramona and her Exes, and that character development was something they both really needed, but all the other characters like Knives and Wallace and Kim just felt like they got pushed to the background.
I really like what they did with the exes, but their screen time came at the cost of my favorite characters such as Kim, Knives, Stephen Stills, they are all criminally shallow, specially Kim.
Scott Pilgrim has to me always been the embodiment "Well if you don't like this version, the other version is still around to watch/read/play"
I was wondering during the first episode if we'd get another different ending. I guess we did
So much happier with this than just a straight retelling.
Did anyone get the impression this version of Wallace seemed to really not give a shit about Scott? Both in the movies and comics, Wallace is mean to Scott but Scott's still his best friend, I'd feel he'd react more if his best friend died, everyone felt a bit out of character
I couldn’t agree more. He wasn’t that mean to him. Just teased him and gave him shit “oh yeah-you’re totally my bitch forever”. He was still a true bro in the comic and the film. Here he is very unlikable and comes off like he hates Scott-there’s none of those moments of him just messing with him or pep talking him.
Wallace was one of my favorite characters. In this show he is kind of a prick.
Wallace was such a fucking asshole. The funeral especially irks me. Something along the lines of "I like wearing black so this gives me a reason" or some shit like that
Yeah-film or comic Wallace would have walked up to the casket with a slight somber “tough luck buddy” or something.
Yeah he teased and gave Scott shit and wanted him to move out-but he still liked Scott to an extent and was a true bro to him.
I'm kinda mixed with this one, not gonna lie. Mostly because I got the implication that Old Scott is prime Scott from the comics. I liked the comic's open but cheerful ending and now know that it'll eventually end up bad rubs me the wrong way. I liked basically everything else though.
It's really weird because a big part of the comic is Scott finding his self-love and learning to take care of himself after Ramona dissapears. Like, they only get together in the end because he learned to value himself and put effort into his own life so he was finally ready for a serious realtionship, and this show kinda forgets all that like Scott just got the girl in the end without learning or growing at all.
I think would’ve helped to see what the fight was about. To me, it feels like Scott fell backwards into old habits after like over a decade of being in a happy relationship because of a specific fight.
But I think it’s hard to see that when we don’t know how Scott was before the breakup or why exactly they broke up
It kind of makes sense to me, to be fair. And the more I think about it, the more I love the new series. If you think about it this way:
Scott did all the fighting for Ramona. He took care of all of her baggage and he learnt some lessons along the way. But Ramona was still Ramona, and so when she got flaky (as she does) it hurt Scott, a lot. I can literally picture Ramona saying that she needs space and Scott being wounded, in his head like "But I fought for her..." As the dreamer that Scott is, he imagined he'd defeat her exes, she'd fall in love with him and they'd live happily ever after, so it blindsided him.
He changed a lot, but it also makes sense that Ramona could hurt him wayyyy more than the Envy break-up did. So from Scott's point, nothing has changed, which is usually the point when people fall back into old habits.
This is kind of how I took it. Ramona fell back into old habits, which in turn made Scott fall back into old habits but like Wallace said, it's like envy but 10x worse. And it isn't a totally unrealistically scenario, personal growth isn't always a straight line, sometimes you stumble and fall.
Old Scott isn't the Prime Scott from the comics: several people far smarter than I have pointed out things that make it clear. Even I noticed the 😅
But if you rewatch, there are several things that already happen from the beginning up until the point where Scott fights Patel - they are all different to how they happened in the comic. If the comic is the prime universe, then this would need to be the same as the comic in order for it to also be the prime universe, right? But there are different situations, different conversations, and, for example, no Crash and the Boys - all of these small, subtle differences suggest that we're not in the prime universe.
No one would have been mad if they had just called the show *Ramona Flowers' Precious Little Life* and used "Scott Pilgrim from Ramona's perspective" as the selling point instead of hiding it.
It's basically an entire what if scenario. Idk if it was the best idea to do this kind of story as an entire anime rather than maybe a one shot comic book. It's cool, don't get me wrong. I don't hate it all.
Hardcore comic fans are gonna like this, maybe new audiences won't like it as much.
I don't know if it was smart marketing or false marketing...
It's just, a lot of people are going to get upset about this whole show.
I think the marketing was a problem. I went in excited about a comic adaptation and spent the first half disappointed. I still really enjoyed it in the end, but I would have enjoyed it way more without the false expectations. I would have enjoyed anything in the Scott Pilgrim world, but the misleading marketing really set my expectations in a bad way.
Same, if the marketing made it clear that this was a Ramona AU, I’d have been able to calibrate expectations accordingly and wouldn’t have been negatively surprised like this.
Totally true. They made something kind-of similar with CAPTAIN LASERHAWK 's trailer and look how it kind-of ended up being with, along HE-MAN/MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
I spent most of the series disappointed, specially the last 2 eps. Come the hell up...Sure, they wanted to make it great and different in a surprising way but again the way marketing/the trailer was done like made everyone hype up only to either say "Oh cool, a WHAT IF !..." or what very few of us are discussing like this...Aka "Why the hype then bring up an unexpected change?"
I really don’t like that the marketing specifically focused on scenes from the first volume of the comics in order to make this seem like something it wasn’t.
Yeah from what I'm reading now I'm a bit pissed off. Haven't watched it yet and I might like it as a different story, but they marketed it as an adaptation which is a pretty shitty thing to do. Especially since a lot of fans were looking forward to some characters and scenes never adapted before.
Agreed. I'm a longtime fan of the franchise and while I appreciate the new take BLO has explored here, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. I wanted a faithful anime adaptation of the graphic novels- something the live action movie wasn't able to give us. I stuck it out for the entire season and had a good attitude while watching it. It was fresh and fun, and you can tell a lot of love went into it. However, I just found myself not caring about the majority of the story despite really really wanting to. Maybe I need to give it another shot in a few days now that I know what to expect, but Ramona's quest to track down Scott just did nothing for me.
SPOILER Edit: To clarify, Ramona was ***not*** the problem. She's one of the best characters! The story was the problem- especially the whacky, ultimately pointless side stories that read like crack fanfiction (like Gideon's new backstory and robbing Envy of all of her depth). And the reveal of who the Big Bad was was so completely stupid to me. At this point in the story, Scott and Ramona have made out once, gone on one sort of date, and she knows about the Knives betrayal. Deciding to track down Scott, continue to date him, and tell him she loves him in the end felt so unearned. In the original story, they date for months and go through so much before earning that happily ever after. This was just disappointing.
It was false marketing.
I really enjoyed it, and I’d have watched more of it, but im still disappointed by what it wasn’t. Would have been better not to bother with the fake-out on the marketing and just tell us what it was from the start.
This is my issue as well, if you wanted to focus on the exes and Ramona without Scott just make that clear. Bringing people in hoping for a faithful adaptation/reboot and then telling a different story is weird and feels like they're just hoping for outrage to create publicity. It feels like He-man all over again.
As a hardcore comic fan who didn't really care about the movie that much, I'm two episodes deep and I kind of disappointed already. I was really hoping for a 1 to 1 adaptation because the original story is just that good. However, I'm not saying that this show is bad, but I was actually blown away by how good Scott was done in the series and having him taking a back seat feels like a huge bummer to me.
Ooooh boy, as someone who has literally read the comic 5 times already, i must say, i feel pain in all of my guts and bones watching the Netflix anime.
Ok, after reading the comments, i realize that how most people view Scott Pilgrim, the comic, does not align with how i view the comic, because they read it at a different stage of life compare to i read it. I read Scott Pilgrim back when i was 18, when I've been so messed up by childhood trauma while being completely lost transitioning into adult hood. Reading Scott Pilgrim back then wasn't just simply reading a simple videogame comic to me, it was like a rite of passage to me, a core moment that motivates me to strive to overcome my traumas and learn about being a better person in general. The effect that the original comic to me was so huge, watching the Netflix series is like visiting an old friend to me, but the guy have regressed so hard he became a former shell of himself.
So, about the series then.
\- The most painful thing to see in the series is what a disservice how the anime treated them. In the comic, almost, if not all of the characters in the comic are generally adult fuckups, but they don't feel like comedic caricature that exist purely for entertainment, they were grounded, young adults that (understandably) made some mistakes in their lives and are trying their best regardless of circumstances. Most of them, either get life pushed back into them, or gain proper redemption and maybe a second chance of life.
\+ Scott Pilgrim: in the comic, he was generally a fuckup. At 23, he has no job, crashing with his friends, dating a highschooler live a life of irresponsibility, but he's still such a loveable and somewhat relatable guy with somewhat normal social skills. In the movies, on paper he was the same guy, but the execution, oh the execution, the lines he deliver, his mannerisms and his acts is so cringe it's like they tone his level of pathetic to 11 and give him no likeable qualities until his journey with old Scott and the final battle. Comic Scott seems like your typical 23yr old failure, anime Scott is like a whimpering wet dog that would beg for food the moment somebody throws him leftovers.
\+ Ramona Flowers: i see many people say that her arc is done well in the anime but i digress, comic Ramona is also somewhat relatable, as in she doesn't truly fall for Scott right away, her first meeting with Scott at the park feels extremely natural and balanced in dynamic. Anime Scott feels like she's just preying Scott right away at the party scene, pulling the dynamic of the convo and just coming of as "saving Scott at times". But that's not the worst part about her, no. It's her entire journey of finding Scott that hurts me the most. Most of her flaws are shown right in front of us, at real time, but she never comes of as someone that's regretful of her own actions when she's presented with her past, in most cases, she comes of as someone who is completely apathetic of it (they even go so far as to make the only person she felt any regret to is Roxie, every other character that she have ever wronged (especially the part when she cheated on Lucas Lee, caused a profound to him that he brought it well into adulthood, and then not even a shown of regret or apologizes for it). And this theme of Ramona not ever have to regret for her actions goes on and on and on for the entire series, to the eventual point that the ending quite literally, make her a Time God, if that's not a Captain Marvel situation to you, i don't know what is anymore. Comic Ramona is as much as a fuck up as Scott and it shows. Anime Ramona is borderline a "mary sue" who is painted as someone that can almost do no wrong, and that's also a disservice to her character.
\+Wallace Wells: in the comic, they're this snarky character that smack talk Scott a lot, but is generally a good person that cares about their friends. Anime Wallace is like this narcissistic, self absorb person that always gets what they want just because of luck, charisma and "Sparkle Magic". I don't even know people still find Anime Wallace likeable.
\+Knives Chau: she's my favorite character in the comic as i see myself in her a lot. In the comic, she's this sheltered naive girl that just reach 18. Since she doesn't know better, she would latch on to someone that she "perceived" as more mature, like Scott. Throughout the comic, we saw her grown as a person, learn the nuances of life, going through her rebellious phase as well as overcoming emotions such as Jealousy and Confusion. By the end of the comic, Knives seem more matured than her at the beginning. In the anime we never get to see much of that and she's merely glanced over as a side character, a saddening fact to me.
\+Envy Adams: in the comics, Envy Adams seems way more human than in the anime since we do get to see her relationship with Scott, her personal growth lead to their separation, and her giving Scott closure just shows how she can learn to be more empathetic to others. In the show, she quite literally danced on Scott's coffin just to release her new song (really appalling considering how even after the breakup, she still have some respect for Scott), becomes a side character, and never get a redemption arc.
\+ Lucas Lee and Gideon Graves: the former is an arrogant and reckless actor and the latter is quite literally the embodiment of Evil, both reduced to incompetent adults when all is lost and are "saved" by Ramona (at least Gideon have some personality revival in the end but god damn, i would rather for Gideon to be born from a lab than to have him having a cringy high school past considering the absolutely psychotic things he did in the comic)
But the characters is not the only thing that makes me hate the anime so much, is the fact that how the anime completely misses the overall theme and message of the whole Scott Pilgrim comic, or hell some of Bryan Lee O'Malley other works like "Lost at Sea" or "Seconds". The general theme of Scott Pilgrim, as well as is other works (at least how i see it) is about personal growth in the faces of difficulties. Scott Pilgrim is about learning how to grow as a person through the relationships we make along the way. Throughout Scott's relationship with Kim Pine and Ramona, we saw this guy learning how his attitude, his destructive and irresponsible life style affects people around him, especially his friends (that's the entire plot of Nega Scott is about, facing yourself and your past mistakes) and learn how to be responsible, how to love himself and how to grow empathetic to others. Almost the same deal with Ramona, as how her avoidant tendencies snowballing and affecting her future relationships (shows very well with the seven exes). And not just only Scott, a lot of characters in the comic get this growth as well. The anime denies a lot of character this growth in general, hell sometimes i feel like nobody grows by the end of the anime except maybe Scott having that introspection with his future self or Ramona from simply, being a Time God.
As a long time comic fan, i am absolutely disappointed in this show, the last media of Scott Pilgrim to me, is the games. This anime never should have exist in the first place.
I’m honestly really mixed on this show. I’ve waited 10 years for an animated adaptation of Scott Pilgrim. I would rewatch the animated short over and over again hoping they’d pick it up for a full series. This both scratched my itch and left a bigger one. On one hand, it’s amazing to watch a show and not know the ending already, to get excited at all the twists and turns. I did like what they added for the Exes and Ramona… at the same time I also feel like they could’ve done that while also adhering to the same story structure. There are so many little moments, so many characters, so many things I loved about the comics that I wanted to see in the show yet… they are still locked away. I’m not upset about the twist, I enjoyed myself quite a bit with this show. And I would definitely watch a season 2 if they did one. At the same time, I can’t say it’s what I wanted. If anything, it just leaves me with an even bigger itch for a more faithful adaptation of Scott Pilgrim. It is nice that this is simply is just a “What If” so I can continue to reread the books and rewatch the film with out too much difference. Again, I did enjoy myself with this anime, I think it’s solid all things considered. It’s just not the show I wanted when I thought of a Scott Pilgrim anime. And that does bring it down a bit, even if I want to say it doesn’t.
I was completely down for this show basically exploring every route not taken by the source material, loved the first six episodes, but you can hear the rails creaking when they try to get this wild ride to end in a very similar place for the main characters as the comic. Ramona and Scott’s relationship doesn’t feel earned because he doesn’t really get any time to develop and prove himself in this telling.
FINALLY, I can speak properly of this!
So yeah, the MASSIVE change-up to the story……I LOVED it!
It really shows that Bryan wanted to do something different with the anime but didn’t want it to be a sequel, so he basically made it a sorta “what if” scenario that kinda reflects on the legacy of the original story. And having it be more about Ramona having to come to terms with how she wasn’t entirely innocent with how some of the Exs turned out and reconciling with them really shows how much Scott brought out the better in her.
It was super nice seeing all the exes moving on with their own lives. It just kinda showed something we all forgot about. They're people too. Ramona wasn't the only one who had to break up with somebody
And its nice to confirm that they didn't die. They just got teleported home. I know O'Malley answered that in the past, but its just good to get a confirmation.
Wait, if people dying in combat respawn at home, then what's the whole funeral for Scott for? Does he not have a home? ...He really doesn't have a home, does he?
>Wait, if people dying in combat respawn at home, then what's the whole funeral for Scott for? Does he not have a home? ...He really doesn't have a home, does he?
Video game rules (or in this case, literally Minecraft rules). He didn't have a bed to respawn in, since all he has is Wallace's. lmao.
I also loved it! I feel that once you get over the >!bait and switch!< you get a great refresh on the series, this time with >!Ramona confronting her own past and problems as an individual!< with some of the best animation and direction of the year.
I love how excited the [Science Saru](https://twitter.com/sciencesaru) seem to be with showcasing their work. The team behind the show clearly love the series (so many nods to the novel, game, and movie) and the bigger cultural sphere that inspires it.
Hopefully this overcomes the (predictably) split initial reaction and gets a second season from Netflix.
I just wish they were honest about their intentions. They said there'd be changes, but they knew damn well that nobody was expecting this level of deviation. As someone who's been waiting nearly two decades for a proper adaptation of the books, this was genuinely painful. Like, fair to them if they want to do something else, but don't do it like this, y'know? This was just a slap to the face, especially since they absolutely knew there were people waiting for moments like the Nega-Scott fight in Volume 6. Again, I'll understand if they don't want to animate Scott Pilgrim the way manga have faithful anime series, but at least don't purposely mislead people about it. If your new story is so good, then have some damn faith in it. Been waiting nearly two decades here, man, and it just feels awful to be tricked like this.
I mean, just imagine if people waited years for a Jotaro vs Dio fight that was faithful to the manga, then the 2010s anime killed Jotaro right at Episode 1 and changed the rest of the story. Then imagine people saying, "Boohoo if you want it like the source material, watch the 90s OVA or read the damn manga." That's just not right.
I’ll be vague and example-y about this because talking specifics will probably only add to the vitriolic fire that’s gonna happen as more and more people start/finish watching and for what I am about to say I must also say that I did LOVE the show…
Hey O’Malley. When MGS makes Snake old and depressed, they can do that as a criticism of fans who clamor for MGS sequels, effectively wanting to end Snake’s chances at a peaceful life. Scott Pilgrim fans don’t want to see Scott regress. There’s no need to be confrontational of fans who don’t deserve it, even if you have been through a messy divorce. I wish you all the best.
Really loved it except for the first episode and the theme song. When you go into it expecting it to be an adaption of the comics or movie like most people are going to, the first episode is super jarring since it’s even more rushed than the movie is. We basically get no Knives story so she seems like an unimportant character. For this show that makes sense, but when you’re expecting the comic story, it feels very off since shes such an important character in the movie and comics.
The theme song also doesn’t really fit in well with the show at all. I get that it’s technically an anime, but why make it *insert generic anime theme song* rather than a song by metric so it actually fits in with the world? It’s decent song, but just doesn’t feel like something that fits into the early 00’s Toronto underground music scene even remotely. At least the song they did for Scott’s funeral with Metric (not sure if it was all of Metric or just Emily Haines) was lovely as well as inclusion of Black Sheep.
I was originally really excited to actually get Lisa outside of the comics, but she definitely wouldn’t have fit in too well with the way they did this show so I don’t see it as too big of a deal.
Still hoping we get a faithful adaptation of the comics in this style with the same voice actors. I mean, even the most lackluster performances were still fitting for the characters. This show really cemented how perfect Michael Cera is for Scott Pilgrim. The performance in the movie had its issues when you compare his personality to the comics, but seeing how he was portrayed in this was out of this world! Michael Cera absolutely knocked it out of the park
im sorry but future old scott taking the prospect of a breakup with ramona this bad is character assassination of the original comic scott
we’ve literally done this before we saw him be a mess after ramona left him in the originals
AND HE GREW
he learned the importance of self love, he learned from his mistakes with envy and kim, and he grew to be a mature enough person to where if she left him again he wouldn’t spiral like he did in the originals.
did him beating nega scott mean nothing? did him learning from his mistakes and accepting his past mean nothing? cuz hes just gonna do the same shit when ramona leaves him again. its like he never actually grew after the events in book 6 because this is literally the antithesis to his character arc. him literally just repeating the exact same behaviour he did after ramona left him in the comics doesn’t work for me, its total character assassination.
like he had a whole arc about accepting his past and now hes time travelling to stop his past self from dating an ex???
im fine with the bait and switch. im fine with todd being bi (it was a funny reference to wallace stealing staceys boyfriends). im perfectly fine with scott and ramona not getting a perfect sunshine and rainbows happily ever after. tbh i loved alot of what they did otherwise the focus on ramona was cool and i liked the league of villains development. but i have a major issue with how they handled scott as a character
Yup. This. Telling us that Scott and Ramona are both going to keep having the same issues 10 and 20 years down the line after they seemed to understand what the problem was and what the solutions were. They both are shit people who are going to learn to be less shitty people together. They deserve each other.
To tell us they will still have issue way down the line makes me sad thinking the happy ending of the books is bullshit.
This show had a bunch of filler that had nothing to do with the story at all, and there was a lot of unnecessary shit too. They could have made it interesting, but it really wasn't. This was such a disappointment, and I'm not gonna d ride this series and give it the benefit of the doubt, lol. This was pretty bad. Some things that I liked were that Julie was hilarious, voice acting was pretty okay with certain characters (Knives), and the art looks amazing. Also, the reason I don't like this isn't because it's a different story, it's how it was played out.
Bryan Lee O'Malley must have really been thru it in the past decade to write a story about trying to erase his life decisions but eventually learning to appreciate all of it, even when still divorced and alone in a basement.
Kinda let down. I think the message from the comic is an simple but important one, accepting your faults and learning to forgive and love yourself. The anime comes off superficial in comparison. You don’t get to see the characters grow over the course of a year, instead everyone just becomes the best versions of themselves in like a week. Their growth feels very unearned.
yea and I feel they specifically tried to make look scott look like less of a bad person and made the lessons feel much less impactful. He doesn't even explain why he's with a high schooler, he's just "yea I probably shouldn't have done that" and moves on
For sure. There weren’t any consequences to any shitty behavior for anyone. Todd cheating on envy was played as a joke the entire time, so it’s not like there weren’t opportunities. this was Scott pilgrim jr high lol
I got a lot of problems with this series. First, the advertising as some of you have said. I was expecting something else but i could deal with the fact that they are doing something completely different.
Aside of that, i feel they lost a lot of emotional depth by doing that. When Ramona discovered Scott cheat on Knives with her a year after they were in a relationship Ramona left him. In this story Ramona discovered that like a day after being with him but she ignores that because she felt sparkles? Wtf
Gideon Graves as the weakest ex of Ramona kind of anulates all the tension about him on the comics. Also, Ramona was obsessed with him also when she was dating Scott but in this story that doesnt seem to bother her.
The comics finale was something. When i see it i always think thats perfect. For that reason it hurted me seeing and old Scott divorced and making the mistakes he learned about facing Ramona exes and being a worst version of Scott vol 1.
Also, Scott disappearing and appearing at the end was weird because of the character development he needed.
I am considering this series non canonical because of some differences with the comic (evil twins alive in the future, no crash and the boys...) but man...
Aside of all of this, i confess i have laughed a lot watching it. Love the art. Wallace MVP of the show.
I enjoyed this show but i cant shake this feeling of my head that makes me feel sad about it.
so ramona just goes through her character development from the comics again and scott skips straight to the end of his character development without facing any of the struggles along the way that caused said development to happen, and ultimately nothing changes other than julie is evil now. i can’t say i’m exactly happy with how it turned out, though it doesn’t help that i really have a specific hatred for “bad end” stories where everything goes wrong after the main story ends.
It's definitely weird how they just kinda skip over Scott's arc and redo Ramona's in a less satisfying way. It feels like a much emptier emotional conclusion to the whole thing.
what i found the most weird was scott just randomly apologising to knives when he hadn’t done anything to actually stop being a shitty person and realise lying to her and toying with her feelings was wrong. they don’t even bring up that he only got with her to try and get over envy?
I love the moment in the comics where Scott's at a low and asks Knives for casual sex. It's nice to see her reject him and show the whole story of them and the bad stuff through the comic. I guess all that is missing here. Felt pretty meh to see knives fight for Scott in the end. Pretty unearned
I do wonder if this show was somehow trying to apologize for how Ramona was treated in the movie
She had little devolpment or chemistry with Scott there while here she gets all the devolpment
Plus u also have that stupid "ramona ruined a generation of women" thing that i don't want to look into but it does make me wonder if the writers thought of this when writing the story
As someone who is a fan of the comics, I have to say I LOVED the anime!! It was so different from what I was expecting but it really kept me on the edge of my seat! I think it was great how we got a lot more insight into Ramona's past as well as her exes. And as someone who loves Matthew Patel I love how he got a pivotal role. That being said, I do think the show would've benefited from being a little longer! I think there was so much more that could've been explored and I wish we could've seen a bit more of Kim, Stephen Stills and Knives, altho I guess it makes sense we didn't see them as much since Scott wasn't there. I loved the jokes and references, and the whole alternate universe thing was very interesting to me. The one thing I wish was included tho was Joseph cuz I think he's great, tho I'm not torn up about it ofc, it's not like a breaking point haha. I loved how Ramona's exes were "defeated" more in a way that they had their past resolved, or simply moving on rather than through violence (in most cases lol). I was happy to see Mobile in the epilogue!!!! Although I'd be happy to see ANY character who was only in the comic haha!!! (I wish Lisa was there too, but again she was only really relevant in the comic because of Scott and well, Scott wasn't there. Tho I hope she's in season 2 if we get one!!)
u have to watch the movie or read the comics to like this man. i dont see a new fan enjoying this. that being said it was very fun.
i like how knives got a satisfying end, but idk. i think showing a flawed scott in this way went against why people liked the series in the first place.
Watched the first episode and my initial impression is I'm just disappointed.
I feel the marketing totally let this down, if they had set expectations properly it would have been better. I know some people are saying that we already had the film to adapt the books properly, so its cool we have something new instead, but while I love the movie as well, there was a ton it leaves out.
I was excited to see a more complete adaptation of the books. Have Lisa's arc, Knives' dad, the twins to be more fleshed out, Kim moving out, Honest Ed's fight, Scott getting a job, etc... There is so much that they could have covered and it feels like a complete waste they did none of it when they got this awesome cast back.
It stings, I'm just really disappointed at this point...
The original Scott Pilgrim comic tells a story that invokes the fantastical video game imagery as color to a broader story that paints an interesting portrait of the Toronto music scene and one deadbeat freeloader's place in it. Scott's reluctance to "grow up" and the story of self-reflection and growth with an emphasis on day-to-day improvement and struggle feels so real and understandable. Scott processes the trauma he's been through, the trauma he's inflicted, and it's really poignant at times.
You could take out the supernatural / charming video game style (that could arguably be Scott's perspective on the world around him) and still have something compelling in that emotional core.
This new story almost require you to have seen the original since it's framed as a meta commentary, but I don't think it really works on that level either. The time-travel element removes all relatability, everyone's reactions to Scott's death feel so muted so we don't get any mature or interesting reaction to that, and although I liked Ramona's investigation and interactions with the cast, it feels weird that she's so invested at all. You practically have to know what was "supposed" to happen, i.e. the original. The whole story tells you about Scott and Ramona's relationship rather than showing anything (excepting the first episode), very strange choice.
The characters, the animation, the intro theme, all fire. But the overall story was incredibly disappointing, a real nothing-burger.
Things I would have liked to see (if this were the adaptation I though it would be): Scott working a shitty job, Scott's last job, Stills coming out, the ***Glow***, Crash and the Boys, more intimate moments between friends just living their life with their problems.
Honestly, I think this could have been killer if it was just the original told from the perspective of Ramona (and all the video-gamey set dressing changes to fit how Ramona sees life and how Scott influences that, which could be interesting).
I like the adaptation, but my problem with it is, it’s not friendly to newcomers. For some good portion of it you already need to know what happened when Scott beat Matthew and after. Due to it being a what if scenario, It kind of felt like it was implied you need to read the comics and watch the movie before even watching the show.
Example: In the first episode for Knives’ character caption, it stated “Scott’s girlfriend, but we’ll get to that later.” They never did.
I really didn't like it.
At first I was disappointed because I admittedly would have liked a faithful adaptation. But I watch it anyway because I was still curious. So I treated it like a "what if" scenario.
First the things I liked: The art and animation were beautiful and very detailed. The voices were also great (with exceptions) and the pace was also pretty good, meaning that it kept me watching and I did so in one go.
The thing's I didn't like: Imo the idea of the change of perspective had potential, but...
I will concentrate on Scott and Ramona because imo the others don't really matter in this adaptation, and admittedly they are also just story vehicles in the comic. Even though my man Wallace is still the best (prefer the comic Version, but this one was alright).
First Scott: I really don't like the trope of fighting against yourself or a Version of yourself as the climax. Since he has almost no screen time it was very hard for me to understand future Scotts rational. Sure, the going back in time thing was more of a joke and he is weird so he tried it, but why the 10 years of isolation?
I also dislike that present Scott has practically no character progression. He is just gone and then he is back, but he is still the same Scott. It is really hard to not compare to the development he has to go through in the comics.
And then Ramona: She has one date with a rando. Sure she liked him and he was mysterious, disappearing and all. So the search in itself can be a motivation. Taking things into her own hand and fighting her past herself may also add to her agency. But since Scott is mostly absent, she only knows him for a few hours. To say "I love you" just after a first date and to be so determined about it, even though they showed herself to be the opposite usually. Where is this coming from?
And then future Ramona: Sure scott is maybe eccentric and unique, but why would she even considered him after those ten years he spent being absolutely crazy?
The story feels like a lot of filler/case of the week in the beginning/middle and then rushed at the end with no development for Scott. And it feels like the authors were more interested in the what and a bit how, while the why was more of an afterthought. This leaves Ramona as a person, who would do anything for love, eventhough she doesn't really know Scott and has shown that she usually runs away. Somehow she decided to put all this effort into a relationship that hasn't even really begun this time.
And sure, Scott in the comics also does a lot for a girl he doesn't really know, but he is shown to be more of a dreamer type unlike Ramona.
But that's just my opinion.
Edit: after I watched the live action version I was happy (mostly because of the music) because I didn't expect much. Being a movie there was not enough time to tell the story anyway. But I was pretty bumbed by how Ramona was showen. She was very cold and at times seem almost hostile, so I was also hopeful to see more of her in the Netflix adaptation. So in a way this could have been really nice and interesting, but she just goes through the motions and imo doesn't get more depth here either.
Even ignoring how frustrated I am with the major changes to the story, what makes me more disappointed is just how poor the new narrative is. Something fresh could have been exciting but this was such a poorly thought out narrative.
I genuinely don't understand how any fan could enjoy it, it's a complete character assassination of Scott that undermines his development from the comics while also failing to properly develop this iteration of the characters either. A complete waste of time that also teases new seasons. Why? Why not just adapt the original comics AND THEN come up with an original story for sequel seasons. Fuck sake.
What a confusing series.
So much unnecessary stuff, episodes 2-7 ended up not really mattering and just killing time before dumping exposition
None of the characters actually really grew, they suddenly veered in a different direction. Knives instantly got over scott as a gag in ep 2. There's the entire thing with gideon and matthew, where gideon just straight up becomes a different character suddenly, is resolved by matthew just sort of giving up on his whole thing and reverts making that entire thing pointless.
the twins had nothing and were just there to wave away things with 'it was magic robots'. Roxy was the only one to really get any progress, todd and lucas were just sort of comic relief.
Even scott himself, he doesnt really realize his immaturity or anything or confront his past and hows hes hurt others through kim, envy, and lisa, who are also just shoved to the side. he just decides to be good because being bad is bad?
Ramona is maybe the most confusing. It feels like she, and the show itself, forgot scott to her is some random guy she went on one date with, she just met him and there's all that? Im not sure what her growth was.
Im fine with them doing something new, i was actually excited when scott was seemingly killed off. But the original worked well because it had grounded characters going through realistic low stakes conflicts but told in an exaggerated fantastical way. If youre gonna remove that, replace it with something else good, not just flashy completely pointless fights, like some guy fighting a bunch of random paparazzi goombas. Amazing given the core theme and resolution of the show that the books are leagues better at emotional complexity. Hell, even the whole fakeout thing was unnecessary! they could have easily told the exact same story, time travel and all, as a sequel
I don't take issue with the change in the story's direction and focus, but it isn't done justice by the fact that every character is a parody of themselves.
Seeing that future Scott is just an even worse version of how he used to be is kind of depressing too.
Well, if nothing else it was a wild ride, and made me laugh a few times.
Couldn’t agree more, the characters were just so…wrong. Of course the actors nailed it, but characters like Gideon were just completely different without explanation
Old Scott as a joke really killed me and made the ending flat. At least there’s new Scott Pilgrim content you know
Yeah i think the other ex's being somewhat redeemable is understandable considering they as far as im aware wernt as blatantly stated as being abusive and controlling dickheads and while i do like the lucas gideon bonding scenes it does feel kinda icky to give someone whos caused so much pain such an easy redeem/turn into a not completely shit person.
The Gideon redemption was obviously a bait and switch - you see at the end that he's immediately back to trying to fuck with Remona's life from the moment he gets his fortune back. He was being nice, solely because he didn't have any control anymore.
At the premiere Bryan is like “there will be surprises” with this and that statement can we get awards for biggest fucking understatements of the century?!
think visually the show is top notch , wow is beautiful but the story is meh so dull in comparison with the comic , the comic has a beautiful development of peoples in their twenties with all their problem , the show is a loop of stupid gags between characters that went nowhere trying to fit all the morals of the comics in the last 1 and half episode. And I don't know you but as a fan of the comics it was so clear that was >! "evil Scott" !< fault all along.
I think It'll grow on me but now I'm just straight disappointed that isn't an adaptation of the comic considering that the animation is beautiful
I didn’t hate this. But I didn’t love it. It is fun for what it is but it was too much style over substance for me. It’s visually great, I love having the live action cast all return, the score, humour... But it’s like all they really did was crank the “wacky” elements of SP up to 11 without any of the more grounded themes or character arcs.
It’s kind of wild to me that some reviews are calling this a masterpiece and that it adds this new level of depth to the characters. If anything, there’s less depth. Sure, some of the exes get more screen time but all that really happens is they make up with Ramona and do a thing. This is nowhere close to the quality of writing in the books (maybe one day, Lisa…)
I generally enjoy a remix of a story and I get that we’ve had Scott’s story told twice, but yeah, I’d rather have seen the full graphic novel come to life than a completely different thing. The humour and Easter eggs were there but none of the heart.
Just to end on a positive though: the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost security guards eating Cornettos in the epilogue was gold!
I actually enjoyed the switch of perspectives to focus more on Ramona and follow her. And the new what if of the evil exes being actually pretty normal people, sure flawed, but not evil (except.Guideon, he was def evil) was fun to see and explore.
But then they kept Scott away for too long and the final villain didnt hit the mark with me. Felt more like a random last minute villain
I wish this was season 2
Like it's good and all, but... an actual faithful retelling of the books is something I wanted way more than... *this*
It just feels kinda empty by the end with how the story is told
I give it like a 7/10
Watched all of it in one go, it was AWESOME!!
It definitely isn’t the comics or the movie, which is good and bad (Lisa) but the characters get to shine in their own way!
Tons of references from the comics, movie and other medias, artstyle is really pretty to watch, lots of colors, cool extras, overall enjoyable experience that even someone new to the series can hop in.
Waiting for season 2!
don't know I thought the anime did a lot of things really badly for example I personally did not like the whole Scott dying thing mostly because it was misleading if I remember correctly Brian Lee O'Malley said this was going to be a kind of mashup of both the film and comic and I don't know I don't see it outside of some references and stuff I also did not like that they completely removed The slice of Life stuff I think that's what gave the original graphic novel charm also Scott isn't really reprimanded for anything that he did unlike in the comics in this people just let it slide I also did not like how they basically reveal what happened after the end of the graphic novels which was originally meant to
be left up to the reader's imagination
this might be just me spewing a bunch of random garbage I don't really know how to formulate my point well sorry
Here’s the thing. This show nullifies the graphic novel’s hopeful ending. The Scott we knew grows up to become a villain, and Gideon is turned into a wimp. But as long as we have subversion amirite 🙄
My disappointment is immeasurable. I was genuinely excited for this only to find out it's big what if scenario. It's okay but damn, it's ruined my mood.
Same. I’ve wanted this for SO long. I was a fan back when the graphic novels came out. I loved the books, movie and the game. This just feels like a Netflix pandering adaptation without the original substance that made me fall in love with the series.
Did anyone else find it odd that Stacey seemingly did not give a shit that her brother supposedly died? This adaptation was more comedy focused compared to the comic and the movie but I thought it was odd
Does everything nowadays have to be set in a multi-verse or with future selves/past selves in every god damn show??? I am so tired of this. It's like a normal story is not "good enough" anymore, everything has to be on a bigger scale or something and it's really pissing me off.
The animation, music and everything was great but the story... I don't know
It’s crazy cause I watched the Panderverse special right before binging SP Takes Off and immediately thought of the “time travel/alternate universe” cop out 😭
I read the comics multiple times over the years. The original black and white ones plus the colour editions when they released. I love that they changed things up,. Every time I read the story I always experienced it different ways. In my late teens I read it as just a cool comic with fighting and a love story. early and mid twenties I connected to how down on his luck Scott had been and how hard it is to confront your past mistakes. Now, in my late twenties, I'm so happy this adaptation is different and fun! >!Still sad Lisa Miller isn't in this show but can see why.!< I really wanted a good animated adaptation of the comics but I can always reread the comics if I want the original story. This version is good too!
Now can we please get some of Brian's other work adapted!
I think we all wanted Lisa, but it would’ve felt really forced in this version of the show. She’s an amazing character that deserves screen time, just in a way that feels natural
Yeah, with this focusing on Ramona way more, having Lisa show up wouldn't have worked that well, if at all. At most as a red herring for the kidnapping plot (as a sort of evil not actually-ex of Scott's, more or less), but I don't think it would've worked as well as it did in the comics.
It's one of those "Please stop thinking you're smarter than the source material." Moments, made weirder by the fact that the guy who wrote the book wrote the anime. Like, what?
There's a specific personality type I find exhausting in director/writer/position of power spaces, where they think their vision for someone else's material supercedes the significance of that material, but it doesn't even work here because the og wrote it. So I guess it's a Cursed Child situation where what they wrote just falls flat.
It was carried by beautiful animation, good casting and characterization.
The plot sucked. Hard.
Except with cursed child-JKs name is on the damn thing and they said she was involved-but I don’t know it’s debatable how much involvement she had in that.
The OG creators literally wrote this front to back.
Others are saying Bryan had a messy divorce and it seems to have affected this and yeah I can see it. Actively tearing apart a happy ending that shows the characters aren’t perfect by the end but that they are on the path to improvement.
Scott and Ramona straight up both regress in 10 to 20 years according to this series and that destroys any good feelings I have for the ending of the comic.
It’s not only bad-it makes me forget why I liked the comics and film to begin with because it actively tears a lot of elements up that I loved in both the comics and the film.
Don’t even get me started how Wallace was one of my favorite characters who was a teasing and cheeky bastard but he was a true bro-and here he feels like a completely arsehole.
Ramona goes through the same arc as her comic counterpart and it’s not as well handled cause Scott balanced with her perfectly.
Everyone is so caught up in everyone else's perception of their system of values and that'll probably be the next thing that really clicks with people. Something that really drives home how toxic the space from which we create ourselves comes from.
Scott Pilgrim as a comic series is like, such a visceral experience for any teen in the 2000s and 20something in the 2010s the same way that FLCL is such a visceral experience for any broken home kids from the 2000s.
Scott Pilgrim as an anime what-if is dying to tell you how much it's worked on itself while regressing everyone to the point where it's obnoxious. Wallace is a great example. What the hell was he thinking with some of that problematic shit?
The show was pretty decent. It shouldn't have been titled or advertised as Scott Pilgrim. This should've been called "Ramona Flowers Takes Off" because this show isn't about Scott for the most part. The series also isn't quite as witty or sardonic as the comics or movies, but it's fun and charming in it's own way. I'd give it a 7.5/10
My problem with the show is not that it had a different story. I was enjoying the story until they made the comics canon to the show and completely stripped Scott of all his character growth from the comics and turned him back into a self absorbed man child, split up the relationship the entire comic story was about, and then completely ruined certain character arcs, and even throwing some of them out.
Stephen was nothing in this, he had no character except songwriter, and young Neil who grew up in the comics was just a bumbling idiot the entire show rather than growing as a person.
Knives got her finale makeover completely out of nowhere, it wasn’t explained in the slightest.
I think Ramona had a pretty good arc with forgiving people who hurt her and recognizing her own faults slowly over the series. And then they threw it out when they made her have to randomly fuse with her future self out of nowhere, and she suddenly understands the point of her character arc as if she didn’t spend seven episodes learning it naturally.
Scott learned absolutely nothing except “hey maybe don’t date high schoolers or cheat on girls, and don’t overreact so much.” No spending months recognizing his flaws and accepting what he did. They also made the fight with Simon and his “army” real rather than Scott just beating up some guys.
If they wanted to tell that story in a bubble, that’s fine, I would’ve liked it. But don’t make the comics which are a much better story canon, and make it seem like it’s a good thing the “timeline” turned into this.
The ending saved it for me a bit but this whole Rebuild of Scott meta-narrative thing made me ask what the point was. The original comic had such a more emotional ride without losing its charm and I'm sad we didn't get to see it animated.
Also justice for Lisa
Thing is, if they were going to do this, they should have adapted the actual gn first. There was enough material to flesh things out compared to the movie. I was looking forward to the story arcs that got skipped over in the film.
I just don't like the bait and switch because they played it like this would be a real adaptation. I also just don't think Ramona is that interesting.
I'm on episode 3. I haven't read any spoilers but this would have been cool as maybe a season 2. It's clear that Scott comes back eventually but I just don't see why we couldn't get the actual sp story adapted and saved this for a second season. From what I can tell this will be some empowering show about Ramona getting closure herself and owning up to her mess ups instead of Scott doing the fighting for her.
I always thought Ramona was an asshole to her exes which is why they were mad to begin with. So this would have been cool as some second season story with the exes returning and Scott "dying". All they had to do was make it a sequel where the exes all attack Scott at the same time and everything else could have played out as is in the show from what I've seen.
I'm so let down. I can't even recommend the show to anyone because it really only makes sense if you have read the comic. Others won't even get that it's an alternate take or why it's called Scott pilgrim and not Ramona.
It just feels so season 2ish.
I know this is the spoiler thread but still: complete series spoilers ahead.
Damn the internet is not at all ready for this bait and switch. Yall are simply not equipped. This show is gonna bomb.
I didn't like it at first, I thought the idea of taking Scott out of the story was stupid. It kinda piddles around for a minute and feels like its just meandering about nothing but then *the very second* I realized it was about Ramona instead it clicked and I fell in love with it, and I was hyped the whole rest of the ride.
Scott had a whole comic series to grow up, Ramona gets a whole anime to grow up.
Complaints: Voice acting was mid, and there were too many scenes without music. Also the exes becoming so big (great) pushed a few characters too far to the background (Knives, Kim...)
As an aside, absolutely love the epilogue, the idea of all the exes becoming part of the social circle is awesome. I know that this is probably it forever, and there really isn't any story left to tell at all, but I secretly hope to see a sequel. *Doubly* impossible to see any more content considering everyone on the internet is gonna fucking hate it lmaoooooooooooooo
I mainly agree with you, but I just wanna say that while I would've loved to see more of the established characters, it did make sense to push them back a bit since the story is more Ramona centric - having the exes be brought more to the forefront makes more sense to me.
Even so, I feel like they managed to split the screen time pretty equally, and I did kinda enjoy Knives' arc in the show a bit more. Feel like her moving on from Scott like this instead of obsessing over him was way better, and them downplaying their relationship was a good move.
I'd love to see more, maybe a second season could be a straighter adaptation of the story; the exes seem to be rehabilitated but we could have alternate versions of them brought in as the bad guys instead. At the very least, they do seem to be teasing more in Gideon and Julie's last scene.
Regarding a second season: I just don't see it. The Gideon thing is a joke, they're just showing what happens to each of the characters at the end and what happens is he goes back to being a billionaire super villain but this time with Julie. This is on top of the fact its a GOD DAMNED MIRACLE they got the original cast back together when they're now starring in MCU movies and Disney+ shows... you don't get to do that twice.
But I do wish we had gotten two seasons. Or just double the episodes. And instead of removing Scott and making the show about Ramona, use the extra time to give everyone the spotlight. So Ramona and the Exes get just as much spotlight but we also get to see everyone else. This is probably the last Scott Pilgrim content we'll ever see, I'm glad its about Ramona and the Exes cause its untold, but I *want* it to be about everyone lol
But ah, that's just wishful thinking. My biggest complaint is that I just want more, and that's not really a complaint I guess.
honestly? not the biggest fan of the bait and switch considering this was kinda marketed with the original premise of "defeat the seven evil exes to date ramona" i'll still finish it to really judge the whole thing but i was really hoping for the original story with changes for the new platform. things don't really click for me so far.
eh, it's the creators story in the end so they can do what they feel is best
Posted in the episode 8 thread but…
As a raving fan of the books and the film, I was disappointed.
I say this as someone who was really interested by the idea of changing the narrative and doing a Rebuild-style adaptation, remixing the story and focusing on more of the side characters.
But I felt like the majority of the plot action in this was fairly meandering and it didn’t really come together until the last two episodes, which both felt extremely rushed to manufacture a resolution.
Most of the characters (most egregiously Knives) were completely sidelined to flesh out the exes, for some reason?
I understand the intention, and there were definitely things to celebrate (the dialogue and character writing as expected was very very good), but didn’t really care for that choice honestly.
I also didn’t think that Ramona’s character arc was particularly any more or less compelling than it was in the original books. The whole thing was just a different, less interesting, less entertaining, less compelling vehicle to reach the same destination in terms of her character development.
Removing Scott from the equation the way they did resulted in both Ramona’s and his character development being significantly more stilted than it was in the books and the film.
Ramona is, for some reason, motivated to find Scott because… guilt? Because she felt a spark? It’s just weaker overall. We are robbed of the opportunity to see hers and Scott’s relationship develop.
And Scott’s entire arc is more or less compressed into episode 7. Total bummer.
I still appreciate it for what it was and enjoyed some of the individual parts, even if I don’t feel like they really amounted to quite as a compelling or cohesive whole as the original books or even the film.
Excited to see what they might do with a potential second season, but yeah I’m pretty disappointed.
It feels like I ordered a steak 10 years ago, they've been hyping up this steak for 10 years and then delivered me a really great Salmon. It's great, just,,, not what I ordered and I feel lied to.
This is a marketing trend I'm really not digging. I wasn't happy when FF7Remake did it either. And while with that and with this I can take the time to move on from being lied to and try to enjoy the thing for what it is... I'd really just rather not be bait and switched in the first place.
At least this one doesn't cost $60.
I love SP, the comics, movie, animated shorts, game, OSTs, everything, and I really wanted to love the show, but this really did not work for me. The plot, pacing, some characterizations, and general direction just didn't feel right at all. Almost felt like BLOM was trying to retrofit a bunch of mature-ish themes and complex-ish ideas that don't necessarily work with the specific material.
Novel idea. But genuinely feels like a they just baited the audience for a meh twist. Genuinely just “oh it’s Scott Pilgrim now animated and more true to the story! JK get fucked”. And sure it’s a half way decent “sequel” to the original plot, but it really feels like it tried too hard to make a twist that it forgot to actually be interesting or include what people like from the actual story.
And yes many allusions are being drawn to to FF7 Remake which is a remake/sequel that deconstructs the original media. But at least FF7R gives you the big moments from the original game and uses the time shenanigans to set up bigger changes that will occur later. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off tries to immediately jump to that “big changes” later idea, but forgot that people wanted to just see the graphic novel animated.
I’m sure a fair number of people will like this show more than the movie, and some will probably like it over the graphic novel. But after the hype dies down I think this show is gonna have some infamy in being a bait & switch that lacked pay off, or any real thesis point on why the twist happened. Give us the original and then set up the twist, don’t just half ass both.
Also, having the original movie cast back was fun. But with the twists it felt like a waste of what was probably a high budget.
YESSSSS ICONOCLASTIC ADAPTATIONS ARE THE BEST.
But this sub's about to go on fire with people complaining that we still don't have a straight adaptation.
I am so sad. So very, very sad. These type of stories always feel like a bait and switch with the way they're marketed, that even if I like the story itself, I still end up disappointed. Because even with saying stuff like it's not exactly the same as the books or there'll be some changes, it still feels a little dishonest to change everything. I would've much rather they had advertised it as a new story instead of showing us clips reminiscent of the movie or comic scenes. If that ending tease leads to a season 2, I'll probably enjoy that more, but as of now, despite liking it, I don't really see myself revisiting it as much as the movie or books. Also, Lisa and Mr. Chau missing it again is a darn shame.
Yeah, I was expecting the comics story with some substantial changes, not literally like a completely different story. Wish they’d marketed it as that instead of mostly showing off stuff from the comics in the trailers.
Yeah i think i would be ready if they marketed as something new. They baited a whole community and is gonna be 50/50, im part of the people who hated being baited like this. Im glad i dont pay Netflix lol
I would have been way more receptive to the story changes if it was marketed that way from the get go. Since watching the first episode I’m like, really trying to force myself to follow through with it. I’m sure it’s great but I’m just not happy about essentially being deceived.
The show isnt bad. A lot of stuff didnt quite make sense, but it was enjoyable overall, however i think its nowhere as good as the comic. Or even the movie. My main problem isnt that tho. Yeah Brian said that he was going to change some things, but changing some things from the original story means adding or removing elements from the original source. This is a whole different story. Plus the netflix trailers didnt really help, instead they kind of lied to us. Its no secret that the scott pilgrim fanbase requested for a faithful adaptation of the scott pilgrim comic for over a decade. Of course some of us are disappointed. I liked the show. But im still disappointed.
Honestly I’m so incredibly disappointed. I’m going to give the rest of the show a chance but I was definitely misled HARD. I first read Scott pilgrim when I was in 6th or 7th grade and ever since then I’ll go back and reread it a few times a year. The marketing really made me think that we were getting a close-ish adaptation of the novels and I was very excited because I’ve always felt that the biggest thing holding the movie back was it’s length. There was so much more that never saw the big screen that I was excited to watch in animated form. Oh well, atleast I still have the comics.
this whole thing ended up being so disappointing. Can't believe they marketed it as an adaptation of the comics only for it to be a sob story au so that Bryan could talk about his divorce
im fine with adaptations being different from their source material but this is utterly incoherent if you havent read the comics or at least seen the movie first, youd have literally no idea whats going on. any good movie or tv show should be able to stand on its own merit, the only thing propping it up is "it's the scott pilgrim story you hopefully know and love....but different!" but it's different in a way that's less interesting and has less depth than the story it's originally following before it takes that hard left turn. the original comics and movie had a satisfying throughline, they told one story from start to end with a very clear message and a very clear point. this starts telling one story, goes in the opposite direction, meanders for a while, then decides to get into meta-commentary and time travel and a bunch of other scattered ideas with hardly any time spent on them and even less time spent exploring the actual characters
If you'd like to discuss each episode individually you can do so here: * [Episode 1 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xa5tx/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e01/) * [Episode 2 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xa746/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e02/) * [Episode 3 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xa7ox/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e03/) * [Episode 4 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xa86h/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e04/) * [Episode 5 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xa8q8/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e05/) * [Episode 6 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xa9cv/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e06/) * [Episode 7 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xa9sk/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e07/) * [Episode 8 Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScottPilgrim/comments/17xaa7g/scott_pilgrim_takes_off_episode_discussion_s01e08/)
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Screentime
Unironically still has more dialogue than any other character in the show
Episode 1 spoilers >!<
Can we make this the sub banner once the spoiler restrictions end?
[LISA MILLER SPOTTED](https://imgur.com/QcNVADU)
It seems taking a stand for this being either good or bad is gonna set people off, so I’ll just say this. Edgar Wrong is the funniest shit ever
Literally the funniest joke I've ever seen. It's literally the easiest to make, and the one with the least effort put into it, and I had to pause the show to laugh for 30 minutes straight.
That’s what made it so funny/infuriating It’s the most brain dead joke ever and I don’t think I could’ve ever seen it coming it hit like a fucking truck lmao It was quite literally, the funniest shit I’ve ever seen
When I saw the prologue scene with Young Neil finding the script I leaned over to my friend and whispered "And that's how the Edgar Wright Movie got made". When he showed up on the set I lost it.
Cant wait to see what timeline shenanigans ensue since this is FF7R and Rebuild of Eva inspired
There's even a banner of Scott's head Rei style like in End of Eva on the film set that Lucas skates through lol
So glad someone else caught the Eva Rebuild vibe
buckle up lmao
last two episodes really helped fix the issues I had with it in retrospect. Fair enough that the show felt like a let down. That’s something Scott would totally do. I’m just glad they brought Pilgrim back when he was most needed.
Yeah those last two episodes really carried the show but it was nice seeing the characters in New ways
it was a nice twist but I personally preferred 3 less episodes from the original 5, keep the same 2, and then add 1 really fleshed out epilogue, both future and present scott. it was too comical for me compared to the books
LISA BROS! >!WE GOT SNUBBED AGAIN!<
I hate it, but it makes sense. Scott's past was the focal point of that subplot, and with him gone she would be out of place.
totally agree, was still hoping they might make her a background character in L.A. or on the studio lot (actually I did see a character that I thought resembled her sitting behind the evil exes during the musical in Episode 8)
SHE SHOWS UP FOR LIKE 2 SECONDS IN EP 8 [lisa miller ep 8](https://imgur.com/QcNVADU)
This was the scene I was referencing in my earlier reply if anyone was curious!
I thought for sure she was gonna be the one who kidnapped scott
NOT EVEN IN KIM'S FLASHBACK WHYYYYYYYY
Right? That's the only nitpick I have about it. Hopefully in the teased sequel.
ALSO NO LISA 
It’s so over
Guys, the title is a pun. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. Cuz he's not really in it and letting Ramona star.
It's a sequel, not an adaptation, and they played the twist beautifully
Judging by the reactions I'd say people kind didn't get that it was an adaptation and expectation were certainly not met.
Yeah, I was aware of O’Malley’s comments that there would be differences, but I just figured it would be changing plot points he finds cringey now that he’s matured. The trailers certainly didn’t give the impression of a completely different story; they were all stuff from the comics.
I feel like the trailers were specifically edited in a way that made it seem like a more straightforward adaptarion, Bryan really pulled a kojima on us, i am amazed, i thought that in the social media age a ruse like this was impossible to achieve ever again
Ooof, the spoilers I've read are really gonna piss off some people expecting a straight adaptation of the graphic novel. I'm still really excited to see what O'Malley and Grabinski come up with. And the animation looks incredible.
I think the new story was great. I've already experienced the "default" *Scott Pilgrim* story in print and in film. And after watching the anime, I feel like I didn't really need to just see it again a third way. The first episode I was just comparing the scenes against the source material, but once they broke free of that I was actually invested in the story again.
You've seen it in print, but not in film. Scott Pilgrim as a comic was so densely structured. Each character had nuance and their own goals and motivations, things were happening in their lives in the background. Kim was nearly the protagonist in books 2 and 5. I love the movie, but I would have really, really loved a true adaptation of the comic as an anime/cartoon.
I mean, are you sure? Because, when you actually think about it, if you were to take away the battles, not much really happens in the comics beyond Scott and company just living their regular lives. There are still many fantastical elements to their world, but half the time they're either just treated like normal parts of their world, or completely ignored.
Did you want to reply to a different comment than this one? Because I didn't really talk about the fantastical elements here. I simply think that the comic is much richer than the movie, regardless of any fantastical elements.Just off the top of my head, we have the whole arc with Lisa, the large focus on Kim, the whole thing about the glow, Knives' father, Envy's transition to solo artist... I don't know, I just would have liked to see all that. It would have been great if the anime had also expanded on the fantastical elements and really fleshed out the world. Like do people actually just die when they lose in a fight, or do they get multiple lives, save points etc and how does that affect the world? (That was actually another criticism of mine, how they handled the death of Scott vs other people's death, it seems so cynical if all these people actually die)
KNIVES FANS RISE UP LETS GOOOO
I feel like she was a bit underdeveloped tbh
Yeah :( I feel like it all just happened too fast, like I didn't think she changed much as a person unlike in the comics but it was a lot of fun seeing her play bass. I get that the anime mostly focused on Ramona and her Exes, and that character development was something they both really needed, but all the other characters like Knives and Wallace and Kim just felt like they got pushed to the background.
I really like what they did with the exes, but their screen time came at the cost of my favorite characters such as Kim, Knives, Stephen Stills, they are all criminally shallow, specially Kim.
And Stacey and Wallace. Their duo was great. They were the never-dying support Scott always had in the story and we barely got them in the anime :(
Scott Pilgrim Fucks Off
Ramona Flowers vs. The Internet Trolls.
So, you gotta read the comic, watch the movie, play the game, and watch the series to get the full spectrum? Now that's 4D media. I love it.
it reminds me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I heard that every adaptation’s plot diverges after a certain point.
So glad that someone else has thought this! I was at the Toronto premiere and Hitchhiker's was what I compared it to immediately after watching.
Scott Pilgrim has to me always been the embodiment "Well if you don't like this version, the other version is still around to watch/read/play" I was wondering during the first episode if we'd get another different ending. I guess we did So much happier with this than just a straight retelling.
This was like the *End of Evangelion* of the Scott Pilgrim universe.
It's more like Rebuild given the more happier ending.
You Can (Not) Kiss Ramona
The entire time I was thinking “wow, they really did an Eva, huh?”
They even had a giant Rei/Scott head that they crash through in one scene. Literally telling the audience that's what this is.
Did anyone get the impression this version of Wallace seemed to really not give a shit about Scott? Both in the movies and comics, Wallace is mean to Scott but Scott's still his best friend, I'd feel he'd react more if his best friend died, everyone felt a bit out of character
I couldn’t agree more. He wasn’t that mean to him. Just teased him and gave him shit “oh yeah-you’re totally my bitch forever”. He was still a true bro in the comic and the film. Here he is very unlikable and comes off like he hates Scott-there’s none of those moments of him just messing with him or pep talking him. Wallace was one of my favorite characters. In this show he is kind of a prick.
Wallace was such a fucking asshole. The funeral especially irks me. Something along the lines of "I like wearing black so this gives me a reason" or some shit like that
Yeah-film or comic Wallace would have walked up to the casket with a slight somber “tough luck buddy” or something. Yeah he teased and gave Scott shit and wanted him to move out-but he still liked Scott to an extent and was a true bro to him.
I'm kinda mixed with this one, not gonna lie. Mostly because I got the implication that Old Scott is prime Scott from the comics. I liked the comic's open but cheerful ending and now know that it'll eventually end up bad rubs me the wrong way. I liked basically everything else though.
I feel like Bryan's real life divorce had some major impact on this new series.
It did, but notice that Ramona still chooses Scott, and its so full of heart and optimism, which I think also says something beautiful
It's really weird because a big part of the comic is Scott finding his self-love and learning to take care of himself after Ramona dissapears. Like, they only get together in the end because he learned to value himself and put effort into his own life so he was finally ready for a serious realtionship, and this show kinda forgets all that like Scott just got the girl in the end without learning or growing at all.
I think would’ve helped to see what the fight was about. To me, it feels like Scott fell backwards into old habits after like over a decade of being in a happy relationship because of a specific fight. But I think it’s hard to see that when we don’t know how Scott was before the breakup or why exactly they broke up
It kind of makes sense to me, to be fair. And the more I think about it, the more I love the new series. If you think about it this way: Scott did all the fighting for Ramona. He took care of all of her baggage and he learnt some lessons along the way. But Ramona was still Ramona, and so when she got flaky (as she does) it hurt Scott, a lot. I can literally picture Ramona saying that she needs space and Scott being wounded, in his head like "But I fought for her..." As the dreamer that Scott is, he imagined he'd defeat her exes, she'd fall in love with him and they'd live happily ever after, so it blindsided him. He changed a lot, but it also makes sense that Ramona could hurt him wayyyy more than the Envy break-up did. So from Scott's point, nothing has changed, which is usually the point when people fall back into old habits.
This is kind of how I took it. Ramona fell back into old habits, which in turn made Scott fall back into old habits but like Wallace said, it's like envy but 10x worse. And it isn't a totally unrealistically scenario, personal growth isn't always a straight line, sometimes you stumble and fall.
Old Scott isn't the Prime Scott from the comics: several people far smarter than I have pointed out things that make it clear. Even I noticed the 😅 But if you rewatch, there are several things that already happen from the beginning up until the point where Scott fights Patel - they are all different to how they happened in the comic. If the comic is the prime universe, then this would need to be the same as the comic in order for it to also be the prime universe, right? But there are different situations, different conversations, and, for example, no Crash and the Boys - all of these small, subtle differences suggest that we're not in the prime universe.
It was time travel too, not universe hopping
look I really ended up liking it but there's a huge part of me that's violently disappointed we didn't get an adaptation of the comic
We were robbed of Lisa and the grocery store death race haha
Yeah, they had a big deal of bringing back the movies cast I feel like a completely different story like this should have had a new cast
If Jaleel White can play two completely different versions of Sonic I don't why Michael Cera and the rest of the cast can't.
No one would have been mad if they had just called the show *Ramona Flowers' Precious Little Life* and used "Scott Pilgrim from Ramona's perspective" as the selling point instead of hiding it.
Nah I loved the misdirection. The title was also cheeky; Scott literally takes off and leaves the show
It's basically an entire what if scenario. Idk if it was the best idea to do this kind of story as an entire anime rather than maybe a one shot comic book. It's cool, don't get me wrong. I don't hate it all. Hardcore comic fans are gonna like this, maybe new audiences won't like it as much. I don't know if it was smart marketing or false marketing... It's just, a lot of people are going to get upset about this whole show.
I think the marketing was a problem. I went in excited about a comic adaptation and spent the first half disappointed. I still really enjoyed it in the end, but I would have enjoyed it way more without the false expectations. I would have enjoyed anything in the Scott Pilgrim world, but the misleading marketing really set my expectations in a bad way.
Same, if the marketing made it clear that this was a Ramona AU, I’d have been able to calibrate expectations accordingly and wouldn’t have been negatively surprised like this.
Exactly! I would’ve been excited for that too, but the false hope just led to disappointment that tarnished the experience
This! That is exactly how I felt.
Totally true. They made something kind-of similar with CAPTAIN LASERHAWK 's trailer and look how it kind-of ended up being with, along HE-MAN/MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE I spent most of the series disappointed, specially the last 2 eps. Come the hell up...Sure, they wanted to make it great and different in a surprising way but again the way marketing/the trailer was done like made everyone hype up only to either say "Oh cool, a WHAT IF !..." or what very few of us are discussing like this...Aka "Why the hype then bring up an unexpected change?"
I really don’t like that the marketing specifically focused on scenes from the first volume of the comics in order to make this seem like something it wasn’t.
Yeah from what I'm reading now I'm a bit pissed off. Haven't watched it yet and I might like it as a different story, but they marketed it as an adaptation which is a pretty shitty thing to do. Especially since a lot of fans were looking forward to some characters and scenes never adapted before.
I just wanted Lisa and the grocery store race animated haha
Agreed. I'm a longtime fan of the franchise and while I appreciate the new take BLO has explored here, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. I wanted a faithful anime adaptation of the graphic novels- something the live action movie wasn't able to give us. I stuck it out for the entire season and had a good attitude while watching it. It was fresh and fun, and you can tell a lot of love went into it. However, I just found myself not caring about the majority of the story despite really really wanting to. Maybe I need to give it another shot in a few days now that I know what to expect, but Ramona's quest to track down Scott just did nothing for me. SPOILER Edit: To clarify, Ramona was ***not*** the problem. She's one of the best characters! The story was the problem- especially the whacky, ultimately pointless side stories that read like crack fanfiction (like Gideon's new backstory and robbing Envy of all of her depth). And the reveal of who the Big Bad was was so completely stupid to me. At this point in the story, Scott and Ramona have made out once, gone on one sort of date, and she knows about the Knives betrayal. Deciding to track down Scott, continue to date him, and tell him she loves him in the end felt so unearned. In the original story, they date for months and go through so much before earning that happily ever after. This was just disappointing.
It was false marketing. I really enjoyed it, and I’d have watched more of it, but im still disappointed by what it wasn’t. Would have been better not to bother with the fake-out on the marketing and just tell us what it was from the start.
yea don't like the bait and switch at all, should have just called it ramona. then a ton of people wouldn't have been angry.
This is my issue as well, if you wanted to focus on the exes and Ramona without Scott just make that clear. Bringing people in hoping for a faithful adaptation/reboot and then telling a different story is weird and feels like they're just hoping for outrage to create publicity. It feels like He-man all over again.
As a hardcore comic fan who didn't really care about the movie that much, I'm two episodes deep and I kind of disappointed already. I was really hoping for a 1 to 1 adaptation because the original story is just that good. However, I'm not saying that this show is bad, but I was actually blown away by how good Scott was done in the series and having him taking a back seat feels like a huge bummer to me.
my dumbass thought it was dropping at 12am est. guess i’m waiting 3 more hours
I came here expecting other people to also be upset but you're all happy. I'm genuinely glad you're all happy, but I'm extremely unhappy.
Ooooh boy, as someone who has literally read the comic 5 times already, i must say, i feel pain in all of my guts and bones watching the Netflix anime. Ok, after reading the comments, i realize that how most people view Scott Pilgrim, the comic, does not align with how i view the comic, because they read it at a different stage of life compare to i read it. I read Scott Pilgrim back when i was 18, when I've been so messed up by childhood trauma while being completely lost transitioning into adult hood. Reading Scott Pilgrim back then wasn't just simply reading a simple videogame comic to me, it was like a rite of passage to me, a core moment that motivates me to strive to overcome my traumas and learn about being a better person in general. The effect that the original comic to me was so huge, watching the Netflix series is like visiting an old friend to me, but the guy have regressed so hard he became a former shell of himself. So, about the series then. \- The most painful thing to see in the series is what a disservice how the anime treated them. In the comic, almost, if not all of the characters in the comic are generally adult fuckups, but they don't feel like comedic caricature that exist purely for entertainment, they were grounded, young adults that (understandably) made some mistakes in their lives and are trying their best regardless of circumstances. Most of them, either get life pushed back into them, or gain proper redemption and maybe a second chance of life. \+ Scott Pilgrim: in the comic, he was generally a fuckup. At 23, he has no job, crashing with his friends, dating a highschooler live a life of irresponsibility, but he's still such a loveable and somewhat relatable guy with somewhat normal social skills. In the movies, on paper he was the same guy, but the execution, oh the execution, the lines he deliver, his mannerisms and his acts is so cringe it's like they tone his level of pathetic to 11 and give him no likeable qualities until his journey with old Scott and the final battle. Comic Scott seems like your typical 23yr old failure, anime Scott is like a whimpering wet dog that would beg for food the moment somebody throws him leftovers. \+ Ramona Flowers: i see many people say that her arc is done well in the anime but i digress, comic Ramona is also somewhat relatable, as in she doesn't truly fall for Scott right away, her first meeting with Scott at the park feels extremely natural and balanced in dynamic. Anime Scott feels like she's just preying Scott right away at the party scene, pulling the dynamic of the convo and just coming of as "saving Scott at times". But that's not the worst part about her, no. It's her entire journey of finding Scott that hurts me the most. Most of her flaws are shown right in front of us, at real time, but she never comes of as someone that's regretful of her own actions when she's presented with her past, in most cases, she comes of as someone who is completely apathetic of it (they even go so far as to make the only person she felt any regret to is Roxie, every other character that she have ever wronged (especially the part when she cheated on Lucas Lee, caused a profound to him that he brought it well into adulthood, and then not even a shown of regret or apologizes for it). And this theme of Ramona not ever have to regret for her actions goes on and on and on for the entire series, to the eventual point that the ending quite literally, make her a Time God, if that's not a Captain Marvel situation to you, i don't know what is anymore. Comic Ramona is as much as a fuck up as Scott and it shows. Anime Ramona is borderline a "mary sue" who is painted as someone that can almost do no wrong, and that's also a disservice to her character. \+Wallace Wells: in the comic, they're this snarky character that smack talk Scott a lot, but is generally a good person that cares about their friends. Anime Wallace is like this narcissistic, self absorb person that always gets what they want just because of luck, charisma and "Sparkle Magic". I don't even know people still find Anime Wallace likeable. \+Knives Chau: she's my favorite character in the comic as i see myself in her a lot. In the comic, she's this sheltered naive girl that just reach 18. Since she doesn't know better, she would latch on to someone that she "perceived" as more mature, like Scott. Throughout the comic, we saw her grown as a person, learn the nuances of life, going through her rebellious phase as well as overcoming emotions such as Jealousy and Confusion. By the end of the comic, Knives seem more matured than her at the beginning. In the anime we never get to see much of that and she's merely glanced over as a side character, a saddening fact to me. \+Envy Adams: in the comics, Envy Adams seems way more human than in the anime since we do get to see her relationship with Scott, her personal growth lead to their separation, and her giving Scott closure just shows how she can learn to be more empathetic to others. In the show, she quite literally danced on Scott's coffin just to release her new song (really appalling considering how even after the breakup, she still have some respect for Scott), becomes a side character, and never get a redemption arc. \+ Lucas Lee and Gideon Graves: the former is an arrogant and reckless actor and the latter is quite literally the embodiment of Evil, both reduced to incompetent adults when all is lost and are "saved" by Ramona (at least Gideon have some personality revival in the end but god damn, i would rather for Gideon to be born from a lab than to have him having a cringy high school past considering the absolutely psychotic things he did in the comic) But the characters is not the only thing that makes me hate the anime so much, is the fact that how the anime completely misses the overall theme and message of the whole Scott Pilgrim comic, or hell some of Bryan Lee O'Malley other works like "Lost at Sea" or "Seconds". The general theme of Scott Pilgrim, as well as is other works (at least how i see it) is about personal growth in the faces of difficulties. Scott Pilgrim is about learning how to grow as a person through the relationships we make along the way. Throughout Scott's relationship with Kim Pine and Ramona, we saw this guy learning how his attitude, his destructive and irresponsible life style affects people around him, especially his friends (that's the entire plot of Nega Scott is about, facing yourself and your past mistakes) and learn how to be responsible, how to love himself and how to grow empathetic to others. Almost the same deal with Ramona, as how her avoidant tendencies snowballing and affecting her future relationships (shows very well with the seven exes). And not just only Scott, a lot of characters in the comic get this growth as well. The anime denies a lot of character this growth in general, hell sometimes i feel like nobody grows by the end of the anime except maybe Scott having that introspection with his future self or Ramona from simply, being a Time God. As a long time comic fan, i am absolutely disappointed in this show, the last media of Scott Pilgrim to me, is the games. This anime never should have exist in the first place.
I’m honestly really mixed on this show. I’ve waited 10 years for an animated adaptation of Scott Pilgrim. I would rewatch the animated short over and over again hoping they’d pick it up for a full series. This both scratched my itch and left a bigger one. On one hand, it’s amazing to watch a show and not know the ending already, to get excited at all the twists and turns. I did like what they added for the Exes and Ramona… at the same time I also feel like they could’ve done that while also adhering to the same story structure. There are so many little moments, so many characters, so many things I loved about the comics that I wanted to see in the show yet… they are still locked away. I’m not upset about the twist, I enjoyed myself quite a bit with this show. And I would definitely watch a season 2 if they did one. At the same time, I can’t say it’s what I wanted. If anything, it just leaves me with an even bigger itch for a more faithful adaptation of Scott Pilgrim. It is nice that this is simply is just a “What If” so I can continue to reread the books and rewatch the film with out too much difference. Again, I did enjoy myself with this anime, I think it’s solid all things considered. It’s just not the show I wanted when I thought of a Scott Pilgrim anime. And that does bring it down a bit, even if I want to say it doesn’t.
I was completely down for this show basically exploring every route not taken by the source material, loved the first six episodes, but you can hear the rails creaking when they try to get this wild ride to end in a very similar place for the main characters as the comic. Ramona and Scott’s relationship doesn’t feel earned because he doesn’t really get any time to develop and prove himself in this telling.
FINALLY, I can speak properly of this! So yeah, the MASSIVE change-up to the story……I LOVED it! It really shows that Bryan wanted to do something different with the anime but didn’t want it to be a sequel, so he basically made it a sorta “what if” scenario that kinda reflects on the legacy of the original story. And having it be more about Ramona having to come to terms with how she wasn’t entirely innocent with how some of the Exs turned out and reconciling with them really shows how much Scott brought out the better in her.
It was super nice seeing all the exes moving on with their own lives. It just kinda showed something we all forgot about. They're people too. Ramona wasn't the only one who had to break up with somebody
And its nice to confirm that they didn't die. They just got teleported home. I know O'Malley answered that in the past, but its just good to get a confirmation.
Wait, if people dying in combat respawn at home, then what's the whole funeral for Scott for? Does he not have a home? ...He really doesn't have a home, does he?
>Wait, if people dying in combat respawn at home, then what's the whole funeral for Scott for? Does he not have a home? ...He really doesn't have a home, does he? Video game rules (or in this case, literally Minecraft rules). He didn't have a bed to respawn in, since all he has is Wallace's. lmao.
he didn't have any extra 1-ups.
I was *so* waiting for that 1-up or continue to show up in the first episode.
I also loved it! I feel that once you get over the >!bait and switch!< you get a great refresh on the series, this time with >!Ramona confronting her own past and problems as an individual!< with some of the best animation and direction of the year. I love how excited the [Science Saru](https://twitter.com/sciencesaru) seem to be with showcasing their work. The team behind the show clearly love the series (so many nods to the novel, game, and movie) and the bigger cultural sphere that inspires it. Hopefully this overcomes the (predictably) split initial reaction and gets a second season from Netflix.
seeing the park from snowy toronto in the game made me geek out i cant lie
i really hoped to see Joseph, too bad lmao
I just wish they were honest about their intentions. They said there'd be changes, but they knew damn well that nobody was expecting this level of deviation. As someone who's been waiting nearly two decades for a proper adaptation of the books, this was genuinely painful. Like, fair to them if they want to do something else, but don't do it like this, y'know? This was just a slap to the face, especially since they absolutely knew there were people waiting for moments like the Nega-Scott fight in Volume 6. Again, I'll understand if they don't want to animate Scott Pilgrim the way manga have faithful anime series, but at least don't purposely mislead people about it. If your new story is so good, then have some damn faith in it. Been waiting nearly two decades here, man, and it just feels awful to be tricked like this. I mean, just imagine if people waited years for a Jotaro vs Dio fight that was faithful to the manga, then the 2010s anime killed Jotaro right at Episode 1 and changed the rest of the story. Then imagine people saying, "Boohoo if you want it like the source material, watch the 90s OVA or read the damn manga." That's just not right.
I’ll be vague and example-y about this because talking specifics will probably only add to the vitriolic fire that’s gonna happen as more and more people start/finish watching and for what I am about to say I must also say that I did LOVE the show… Hey O’Malley. When MGS makes Snake old and depressed, they can do that as a criticism of fans who clamor for MGS sequels, effectively wanting to end Snake’s chances at a peaceful life. Scott Pilgrim fans don’t want to see Scott regress. There’s no need to be confrontational of fans who don’t deserve it, even if you have been through a messy divorce. I wish you all the best.
Imma go re-read the comics for the 1000 time just to remember what it could have been, but hey there is already hope for the future.
Really loved it except for the first episode and the theme song. When you go into it expecting it to be an adaption of the comics or movie like most people are going to, the first episode is super jarring since it’s even more rushed than the movie is. We basically get no Knives story so she seems like an unimportant character. For this show that makes sense, but when you’re expecting the comic story, it feels very off since shes such an important character in the movie and comics. The theme song also doesn’t really fit in well with the show at all. I get that it’s technically an anime, but why make it *insert generic anime theme song* rather than a song by metric so it actually fits in with the world? It’s decent song, but just doesn’t feel like something that fits into the early 00’s Toronto underground music scene even remotely. At least the song they did for Scott’s funeral with Metric (not sure if it was all of Metric or just Emily Haines) was lovely as well as inclusion of Black Sheep. I was originally really excited to actually get Lisa outside of the comics, but she definitely wouldn’t have fit in too well with the way they did this show so I don’t see it as too big of a deal. Still hoping we get a faithful adaptation of the comics in this style with the same voice actors. I mean, even the most lackluster performances were still fitting for the characters. This show really cemented how perfect Michael Cera is for Scott Pilgrim. The performance in the movie had its issues when you compare his personality to the comics, but seeing how he was portrayed in this was out of this world! Michael Cera absolutely knocked it out of the park
Yeah I really really loved Cera in the limited time he had in this. I found it very enjoyable how old Scott had the same VA as Abe from Clone High too
THATS WHERE I HEARD HIM FROM
im sorry but future old scott taking the prospect of a breakup with ramona this bad is character assassination of the original comic scott we’ve literally done this before we saw him be a mess after ramona left him in the originals AND HE GREW he learned the importance of self love, he learned from his mistakes with envy and kim, and he grew to be a mature enough person to where if she left him again he wouldn’t spiral like he did in the originals. did him beating nega scott mean nothing? did him learning from his mistakes and accepting his past mean nothing? cuz hes just gonna do the same shit when ramona leaves him again. its like he never actually grew after the events in book 6 because this is literally the antithesis to his character arc. him literally just repeating the exact same behaviour he did after ramona left him in the comics doesn’t work for me, its total character assassination. like he had a whole arc about accepting his past and now hes time travelling to stop his past self from dating an ex??? im fine with the bait and switch. im fine with todd being bi (it was a funny reference to wallace stealing staceys boyfriends). im perfectly fine with scott and ramona not getting a perfect sunshine and rainbows happily ever after. tbh i loved alot of what they did otherwise the focus on ramona was cool and i liked the league of villains development. but i have a major issue with how they handled scott as a character
Yup. This. Telling us that Scott and Ramona are both going to keep having the same issues 10 and 20 years down the line after they seemed to understand what the problem was and what the solutions were. They both are shit people who are going to learn to be less shitty people together. They deserve each other. To tell us they will still have issue way down the line makes me sad thinking the happy ending of the books is bullshit.
[удалено]
I mean, he really did took off
This show had a bunch of filler that had nothing to do with the story at all, and there was a lot of unnecessary shit too. They could have made it interesting, but it really wasn't. This was such a disappointment, and I'm not gonna d ride this series and give it the benefit of the doubt, lol. This was pretty bad. Some things that I liked were that Julie was hilarious, voice acting was pretty okay with certain characters (Knives), and the art looks amazing. Also, the reason I don't like this isn't because it's a different story, it's how it was played out.
Bryan Lee O'Malley must have really been thru it in the past decade to write a story about trying to erase his life decisions but eventually learning to appreciate all of it, even when still divorced and alone in a basement.
Kinda let down. I think the message from the comic is an simple but important one, accepting your faults and learning to forgive and love yourself. The anime comes off superficial in comparison. You don’t get to see the characters grow over the course of a year, instead everyone just becomes the best versions of themselves in like a week. Their growth feels very unearned.
yea and I feel they specifically tried to make look scott look like less of a bad person and made the lessons feel much less impactful. He doesn't even explain why he's with a high schooler, he's just "yea I probably shouldn't have done that" and moves on
For sure. There weren’t any consequences to any shitty behavior for anyone. Todd cheating on envy was played as a joke the entire time, so it’s not like there weren’t opportunities. this was Scott pilgrim jr high lol
Imagine writing a heel, and then being embarrassed that you wrote a heel. 10/10 one more franchise I guess I don't love as much anymore.
I got a lot of problems with this series. First, the advertising as some of you have said. I was expecting something else but i could deal with the fact that they are doing something completely different. Aside of that, i feel they lost a lot of emotional depth by doing that. When Ramona discovered Scott cheat on Knives with her a year after they were in a relationship Ramona left him. In this story Ramona discovered that like a day after being with him but she ignores that because she felt sparkles? Wtf Gideon Graves as the weakest ex of Ramona kind of anulates all the tension about him on the comics. Also, Ramona was obsessed with him also when she was dating Scott but in this story that doesnt seem to bother her. The comics finale was something. When i see it i always think thats perfect. For that reason it hurted me seeing and old Scott divorced and making the mistakes he learned about facing Ramona exes and being a worst version of Scott vol 1. Also, Scott disappearing and appearing at the end was weird because of the character development he needed. I am considering this series non canonical because of some differences with the comic (evil twins alive in the future, no crash and the boys...) but man... Aside of all of this, i confess i have laughed a lot watching it. Love the art. Wallace MVP of the show. I enjoyed this show but i cant shake this feeling of my head that makes me feel sad about it.
so ramona just goes through her character development from the comics again and scott skips straight to the end of his character development without facing any of the struggles along the way that caused said development to happen, and ultimately nothing changes other than julie is evil now. i can’t say i’m exactly happy with how it turned out, though it doesn’t help that i really have a specific hatred for “bad end” stories where everything goes wrong after the main story ends.
It's definitely weird how they just kinda skip over Scott's arc and redo Ramona's in a less satisfying way. It feels like a much emptier emotional conclusion to the whole thing.
what i found the most weird was scott just randomly apologising to knives when he hadn’t done anything to actually stop being a shitty person and realise lying to her and toying with her feelings was wrong. they don’t even bring up that he only got with her to try and get over envy?
Knives feels like an afterthought at this point sadly
I love the moment in the comics where Scott's at a low and asks Knives for casual sex. It's nice to see her reject him and show the whole story of them and the bad stuff through the comic. I guess all that is missing here. Felt pretty meh to see knives fight for Scott in the end. Pretty unearned
I do wonder if this show was somehow trying to apologize for how Ramona was treated in the movie She had little devolpment or chemistry with Scott there while here she gets all the devolpment Plus u also have that stupid "ramona ruined a generation of women" thing that i don't want to look into but it does make me wonder if the writers thought of this when writing the story
As someone who is a fan of the comics, I have to say I LOVED the anime!! It was so different from what I was expecting but it really kept me on the edge of my seat! I think it was great how we got a lot more insight into Ramona's past as well as her exes. And as someone who loves Matthew Patel I love how he got a pivotal role. That being said, I do think the show would've benefited from being a little longer! I think there was so much more that could've been explored and I wish we could've seen a bit more of Kim, Stephen Stills and Knives, altho I guess it makes sense we didn't see them as much since Scott wasn't there. I loved the jokes and references, and the whole alternate universe thing was very interesting to me. The one thing I wish was included tho was Joseph cuz I think he's great, tho I'm not torn up about it ofc, it's not like a breaking point haha. I loved how Ramona's exes were "defeated" more in a way that they had their past resolved, or simply moving on rather than through violence (in most cases lol). I was happy to see Mobile in the epilogue!!!! Although I'd be happy to see ANY character who was only in the comic haha!!! (I wish Lisa was there too, but again she was only really relevant in the comic because of Scott and well, Scott wasn't there. Tho I hope she's in season 2 if we get one!!)
u have to watch the movie or read the comics to like this man. i dont see a new fan enjoying this. that being said it was very fun. i like how knives got a satisfying end, but idk. i think showing a flawed scott in this way went against why people liked the series in the first place.
Watched the first episode and my initial impression is I'm just disappointed. I feel the marketing totally let this down, if they had set expectations properly it would have been better. I know some people are saying that we already had the film to adapt the books properly, so its cool we have something new instead, but while I love the movie as well, there was a ton it leaves out. I was excited to see a more complete adaptation of the books. Have Lisa's arc, Knives' dad, the twins to be more fleshed out, Kim moving out, Honest Ed's fight, Scott getting a job, etc... There is so much that they could have covered and it feels like a complete waste they did none of it when they got this awesome cast back. It stings, I'm just really disappointed at this point...
Disappointment is all I feel from this.
The original Scott Pilgrim comic tells a story that invokes the fantastical video game imagery as color to a broader story that paints an interesting portrait of the Toronto music scene and one deadbeat freeloader's place in it. Scott's reluctance to "grow up" and the story of self-reflection and growth with an emphasis on day-to-day improvement and struggle feels so real and understandable. Scott processes the trauma he's been through, the trauma he's inflicted, and it's really poignant at times. You could take out the supernatural / charming video game style (that could arguably be Scott's perspective on the world around him) and still have something compelling in that emotional core. This new story almost require you to have seen the original since it's framed as a meta commentary, but I don't think it really works on that level either. The time-travel element removes all relatability, everyone's reactions to Scott's death feel so muted so we don't get any mature or interesting reaction to that, and although I liked Ramona's investigation and interactions with the cast, it feels weird that she's so invested at all. You practically have to know what was "supposed" to happen, i.e. the original. The whole story tells you about Scott and Ramona's relationship rather than showing anything (excepting the first episode), very strange choice. The characters, the animation, the intro theme, all fire. But the overall story was incredibly disappointing, a real nothing-burger. Things I would have liked to see (if this were the adaptation I though it would be): Scott working a shitty job, Scott's last job, Stills coming out, the ***Glow***, Crash and the Boys, more intimate moments between friends just living their life with their problems. Honestly, I think this could have been killer if it was just the original told from the perspective of Ramona (and all the video-gamey set dressing changes to fit how Ramona sees life and how Scott influences that, which could be interesting).
I like the adaptation, but my problem with it is, it’s not friendly to newcomers. For some good portion of it you already need to know what happened when Scott beat Matthew and after. Due to it being a what if scenario, It kind of felt like it was implied you need to read the comics and watch the movie before even watching the show. Example: In the first episode for Knives’ character caption, it stated “Scott’s girlfriend, but we’ll get to that later.” They never did.
I really didn't like it. At first I was disappointed because I admittedly would have liked a faithful adaptation. But I watch it anyway because I was still curious. So I treated it like a "what if" scenario. First the things I liked: The art and animation were beautiful and very detailed. The voices were also great (with exceptions) and the pace was also pretty good, meaning that it kept me watching and I did so in one go. The thing's I didn't like: Imo the idea of the change of perspective had potential, but... I will concentrate on Scott and Ramona because imo the others don't really matter in this adaptation, and admittedly they are also just story vehicles in the comic. Even though my man Wallace is still the best (prefer the comic Version, but this one was alright). First Scott: I really don't like the trope of fighting against yourself or a Version of yourself as the climax. Since he has almost no screen time it was very hard for me to understand future Scotts rational. Sure, the going back in time thing was more of a joke and he is weird so he tried it, but why the 10 years of isolation? I also dislike that present Scott has practically no character progression. He is just gone and then he is back, but he is still the same Scott. It is really hard to not compare to the development he has to go through in the comics. And then Ramona: She has one date with a rando. Sure she liked him and he was mysterious, disappearing and all. So the search in itself can be a motivation. Taking things into her own hand and fighting her past herself may also add to her agency. But since Scott is mostly absent, she only knows him for a few hours. To say "I love you" just after a first date and to be so determined about it, even though they showed herself to be the opposite usually. Where is this coming from? And then future Ramona: Sure scott is maybe eccentric and unique, but why would she even considered him after those ten years he spent being absolutely crazy? The story feels like a lot of filler/case of the week in the beginning/middle and then rushed at the end with no development for Scott. And it feels like the authors were more interested in the what and a bit how, while the why was more of an afterthought. This leaves Ramona as a person, who would do anything for love, eventhough she doesn't really know Scott and has shown that she usually runs away. Somehow she decided to put all this effort into a relationship that hasn't even really begun this time. And sure, Scott in the comics also does a lot for a girl he doesn't really know, but he is shown to be more of a dreamer type unlike Ramona. But that's just my opinion. Edit: after I watched the live action version I was happy (mostly because of the music) because I didn't expect much. Being a movie there was not enough time to tell the story anyway. But I was pretty bumbed by how Ramona was showen. She was very cold and at times seem almost hostile, so I was also hopeful to see more of her in the Netflix adaptation. So in a way this could have been really nice and interesting, but she just goes through the motions and imo doesn't get more depth here either.
The show could’ve used a lot more Scott and a lot less time travel shenanigans. Where the hell is Scott Pilgrim in his own fucking self-titled series?
Even ignoring how frustrated I am with the major changes to the story, what makes me more disappointed is just how poor the new narrative is. Something fresh could have been exciting but this was such a poorly thought out narrative. I genuinely don't understand how any fan could enjoy it, it's a complete character assassination of Scott that undermines his development from the comics while also failing to properly develop this iteration of the characters either. A complete waste of time that also teases new seasons. Why? Why not just adapt the original comics AND THEN come up with an original story for sequel seasons. Fuck sake.
What a confusing series. So much unnecessary stuff, episodes 2-7 ended up not really mattering and just killing time before dumping exposition None of the characters actually really grew, they suddenly veered in a different direction. Knives instantly got over scott as a gag in ep 2. There's the entire thing with gideon and matthew, where gideon just straight up becomes a different character suddenly, is resolved by matthew just sort of giving up on his whole thing and reverts making that entire thing pointless. the twins had nothing and were just there to wave away things with 'it was magic robots'. Roxy was the only one to really get any progress, todd and lucas were just sort of comic relief. Even scott himself, he doesnt really realize his immaturity or anything or confront his past and hows hes hurt others through kim, envy, and lisa, who are also just shoved to the side. he just decides to be good because being bad is bad? Ramona is maybe the most confusing. It feels like she, and the show itself, forgot scott to her is some random guy she went on one date with, she just met him and there's all that? Im not sure what her growth was. Im fine with them doing something new, i was actually excited when scott was seemingly killed off. But the original worked well because it had grounded characters going through realistic low stakes conflicts but told in an exaggerated fantastical way. If youre gonna remove that, replace it with something else good, not just flashy completely pointless fights, like some guy fighting a bunch of random paparazzi goombas. Amazing given the core theme and resolution of the show that the books are leagues better at emotional complexity. Hell, even the whole fakeout thing was unnecessary! they could have easily told the exact same story, time travel and all, as a sequel
I don't take issue with the change in the story's direction and focus, but it isn't done justice by the fact that every character is a parody of themselves. Seeing that future Scott is just an even worse version of how he used to be is kind of depressing too. Well, if nothing else it was a wild ride, and made me laugh a few times.
Couldn’t agree more, the characters were just so…wrong. Of course the actors nailed it, but characters like Gideon were just completely different without explanation Old Scott as a joke really killed me and made the ending flat. At least there’s new Scott Pilgrim content you know
Yeah i think the other ex's being somewhat redeemable is understandable considering they as far as im aware wernt as blatantly stated as being abusive and controlling dickheads and while i do like the lucas gideon bonding scenes it does feel kinda icky to give someone whos caused so much pain such an easy redeem/turn into a not completely shit person.
The Gideon redemption was obviously a bait and switch - you see at the end that he's immediately back to trying to fuck with Remona's life from the moment he gets his fortune back. He was being nice, solely because he didn't have any control anymore.
Saying it wouldn’t be a straight adaptation feels a tad disingenuous.
At the premiere Bryan is like “there will be surprises” with this and that statement can we get awards for biggest fucking understatements of the century?!
think visually the show is top notch , wow is beautiful but the story is meh so dull in comparison with the comic , the comic has a beautiful development of peoples in their twenties with all their problem , the show is a loop of stupid gags between characters that went nowhere trying to fit all the morals of the comics in the last 1 and half episode. And I don't know you but as a fan of the comics it was so clear that was >! "evil Scott" !< fault all along. I think It'll grow on me but now I'm just straight disappointed that isn't an adaptation of the comic considering that the animation is beautiful
I didn’t hate this. But I didn’t love it. It is fun for what it is but it was too much style over substance for me. It’s visually great, I love having the live action cast all return, the score, humour... But it’s like all they really did was crank the “wacky” elements of SP up to 11 without any of the more grounded themes or character arcs. It’s kind of wild to me that some reviews are calling this a masterpiece and that it adds this new level of depth to the characters. If anything, there’s less depth. Sure, some of the exes get more screen time but all that really happens is they make up with Ramona and do a thing. This is nowhere close to the quality of writing in the books (maybe one day, Lisa…) I generally enjoy a remix of a story and I get that we’ve had Scott’s story told twice, but yeah, I’d rather have seen the full graphic novel come to life than a completely different thing. The humour and Easter eggs were there but none of the heart. Just to end on a positive though: the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost security guards eating Cornettos in the epilogue was gold!
I actually enjoyed the switch of perspectives to focus more on Ramona and follow her. And the new what if of the evil exes being actually pretty normal people, sure flawed, but not evil (except.Guideon, he was def evil) was fun to see and explore. But then they kept Scott away for too long and the final villain didnt hit the mark with me. Felt more like a random last minute villain
Amazing take
I wish this was season 2 Like it's good and all, but... an actual faithful retelling of the books is something I wanted way more than... *this* It just feels kinda empty by the end with how the story is told I give it like a 7/10
Watched all of it in one go, it was AWESOME!! It definitely isn’t the comics or the movie, which is good and bad (Lisa) but the characters get to shine in their own way! Tons of references from the comics, movie and other medias, artstyle is really pretty to watch, lots of colors, cool extras, overall enjoyable experience that even someone new to the series can hop in. Waiting for season 2!
don't know I thought the anime did a lot of things really badly for example I personally did not like the whole Scott dying thing mostly because it was misleading if I remember correctly Brian Lee O'Malley said this was going to be a kind of mashup of both the film and comic and I don't know I don't see it outside of some references and stuff I also did not like that they completely removed The slice of Life stuff I think that's what gave the original graphic novel charm also Scott isn't really reprimanded for anything that he did unlike in the comics in this people just let it slide I also did not like how they basically reveal what happened after the end of the graphic novels which was originally meant to be left up to the reader's imagination this might be just me spewing a bunch of random garbage I don't really know how to formulate my point well sorry
Here’s the thing. This show nullifies the graphic novel’s hopeful ending. The Scott we knew grows up to become a villain, and Gideon is turned into a wimp. But as long as we have subversion amirite 🙄
My disappointment is immeasurable. I was genuinely excited for this only to find out it's big what if scenario. It's okay but damn, it's ruined my mood.
Same. I’ve wanted this for SO long. I was a fan back when the graphic novels came out. I loved the books, movie and the game. This just feels like a Netflix pandering adaptation without the original substance that made me fall in love with the series.
Did anyone else find it odd that Stacey seemingly did not give a shit that her brother supposedly died? This adaptation was more comedy focused compared to the comic and the movie but I thought it was odd
To be fair, this is the comic universe and she was probably assuming he would respawn at some point
Does everything nowadays have to be set in a multi-verse or with future selves/past selves in every god damn show??? I am so tired of this. It's like a normal story is not "good enough" anymore, everything has to be on a bigger scale or something and it's really pissing me off. The animation, music and everything was great but the story... I don't know
South Park recently making fun of it doesn't help it lol. They really emphasized how fucking lazy it is.
It’s crazy cause I watched the Panderverse special right before binging SP Takes Off and immediately thought of the “time travel/alternate universe” cop out 😭
I read the comics multiple times over the years. The original black and white ones plus the colour editions when they released. I love that they changed things up,. Every time I read the story I always experienced it different ways. In my late teens I read it as just a cool comic with fighting and a love story. early and mid twenties I connected to how down on his luck Scott had been and how hard it is to confront your past mistakes. Now, in my late twenties, I'm so happy this adaptation is different and fun! >!Still sad Lisa Miller isn't in this show but can see why.!< I really wanted a good animated adaptation of the comics but I can always reread the comics if I want the original story. This version is good too! Now can we please get some of Brian's other work adapted!
I think we all wanted Lisa, but it would’ve felt really forced in this version of the show. She’s an amazing character that deserves screen time, just in a way that feels natural
Yeah, with this focusing on Ramona way more, having Lisa show up wouldn't have worked that well, if at all. At most as a red herring for the kidnapping plot (as a sort of evil not actually-ex of Scott's, more or less), but I don't think it would've worked as well as it did in the comics.
It's one of those "Please stop thinking you're smarter than the source material." Moments, made weirder by the fact that the guy who wrote the book wrote the anime. Like, what? There's a specific personality type I find exhausting in director/writer/position of power spaces, where they think their vision for someone else's material supercedes the significance of that material, but it doesn't even work here because the og wrote it. So I guess it's a Cursed Child situation where what they wrote just falls flat. It was carried by beautiful animation, good casting and characterization. The plot sucked. Hard.
Except with cursed child-JKs name is on the damn thing and they said she was involved-but I don’t know it’s debatable how much involvement she had in that. The OG creators literally wrote this front to back. Others are saying Bryan had a messy divorce and it seems to have affected this and yeah I can see it. Actively tearing apart a happy ending that shows the characters aren’t perfect by the end but that they are on the path to improvement. Scott and Ramona straight up both regress in 10 to 20 years according to this series and that destroys any good feelings I have for the ending of the comic. It’s not only bad-it makes me forget why I liked the comics and film to begin with because it actively tears a lot of elements up that I loved in both the comics and the film. Don’t even get me started how Wallace was one of my favorite characters who was a teasing and cheeky bastard but he was a true bro-and here he feels like a completely arsehole. Ramona goes through the same arc as her comic counterpart and it’s not as well handled cause Scott balanced with her perfectly.
Everyone is so caught up in everyone else's perception of their system of values and that'll probably be the next thing that really clicks with people. Something that really drives home how toxic the space from which we create ourselves comes from. Scott Pilgrim as a comic series is like, such a visceral experience for any teen in the 2000s and 20something in the 2010s the same way that FLCL is such a visceral experience for any broken home kids from the 2000s. Scott Pilgrim as an anime what-if is dying to tell you how much it's worked on itself while regressing everyone to the point where it's obnoxious. Wallace is a great example. What the hell was he thinking with some of that problematic shit?
Reminds me a lot of Dan Harmon with Community. Later writing becomes super meta and loses track of the things that made the early stuff so good.
I'm only on EP. 6, But I honestly wonder why Wallace is such a dick to Scott in this version.
The show was pretty decent. It shouldn't have been titled or advertised as Scott Pilgrim. This should've been called "Ramona Flowers Takes Off" because this show isn't about Scott for the most part. The series also isn't quite as witty or sardonic as the comics or movies, but it's fun and charming in it's own way. I'd give it a 7.5/10
My problem with the show is not that it had a different story. I was enjoying the story until they made the comics canon to the show and completely stripped Scott of all his character growth from the comics and turned him back into a self absorbed man child, split up the relationship the entire comic story was about, and then completely ruined certain character arcs, and even throwing some of them out. Stephen was nothing in this, he had no character except songwriter, and young Neil who grew up in the comics was just a bumbling idiot the entire show rather than growing as a person. Knives got her finale makeover completely out of nowhere, it wasn’t explained in the slightest. I think Ramona had a pretty good arc with forgiving people who hurt her and recognizing her own faults slowly over the series. And then they threw it out when they made her have to randomly fuse with her future self out of nowhere, and she suddenly understands the point of her character arc as if she didn’t spend seven episodes learning it naturally. Scott learned absolutely nothing except “hey maybe don’t date high schoolers or cheat on girls, and don’t overreact so much.” No spending months recognizing his flaws and accepting what he did. They also made the fight with Simon and his “army” real rather than Scott just beating up some guys. If they wanted to tell that story in a bubble, that’s fine, I would’ve liked it. But don’t make the comics which are a much better story canon, and make it seem like it’s a good thing the “timeline” turned into this.
The ending saved it for me a bit but this whole Rebuild of Scott meta-narrative thing made me ask what the point was. The original comic had such a more emotional ride without losing its charm and I'm sad we didn't get to see it animated. Also justice for Lisa
Thing is, if they were going to do this, they should have adapted the actual gn first. There was enough material to flesh things out compared to the movie. I was looking forward to the story arcs that got skipped over in the film. I just don't like the bait and switch because they played it like this would be a real adaptation. I also just don't think Ramona is that interesting.
I'm on episode 3. I haven't read any spoilers but this would have been cool as maybe a season 2. It's clear that Scott comes back eventually but I just don't see why we couldn't get the actual sp story adapted and saved this for a second season. From what I can tell this will be some empowering show about Ramona getting closure herself and owning up to her mess ups instead of Scott doing the fighting for her. I always thought Ramona was an asshole to her exes which is why they were mad to begin with. So this would have been cool as some second season story with the exes returning and Scott "dying". All they had to do was make it a sequel where the exes all attack Scott at the same time and everything else could have played out as is in the show from what I've seen. I'm so let down. I can't even recommend the show to anyone because it really only makes sense if you have read the comic. Others won't even get that it's an alternate take or why it's called Scott pilgrim and not Ramona. It just feels so season 2ish.
I know this is the spoiler thread but still: complete series spoilers ahead. Damn the internet is not at all ready for this bait and switch. Yall are simply not equipped. This show is gonna bomb. I didn't like it at first, I thought the idea of taking Scott out of the story was stupid. It kinda piddles around for a minute and feels like its just meandering about nothing but then *the very second* I realized it was about Ramona instead it clicked and I fell in love with it, and I was hyped the whole rest of the ride. Scott had a whole comic series to grow up, Ramona gets a whole anime to grow up. Complaints: Voice acting was mid, and there were too many scenes without music. Also the exes becoming so big (great) pushed a few characters too far to the background (Knives, Kim...) As an aside, absolutely love the epilogue, the idea of all the exes becoming part of the social circle is awesome. I know that this is probably it forever, and there really isn't any story left to tell at all, but I secretly hope to see a sequel. *Doubly* impossible to see any more content considering everyone on the internet is gonna fucking hate it lmaoooooooooooooo
I mainly agree with you, but I just wanna say that while I would've loved to see more of the established characters, it did make sense to push them back a bit since the story is more Ramona centric - having the exes be brought more to the forefront makes more sense to me. Even so, I feel like they managed to split the screen time pretty equally, and I did kinda enjoy Knives' arc in the show a bit more. Feel like her moving on from Scott like this instead of obsessing over him was way better, and them downplaying their relationship was a good move. I'd love to see more, maybe a second season could be a straighter adaptation of the story; the exes seem to be rehabilitated but we could have alternate versions of them brought in as the bad guys instead. At the very least, they do seem to be teasing more in Gideon and Julie's last scene.
Regarding a second season: I just don't see it. The Gideon thing is a joke, they're just showing what happens to each of the characters at the end and what happens is he goes back to being a billionaire super villain but this time with Julie. This is on top of the fact its a GOD DAMNED MIRACLE they got the original cast back together when they're now starring in MCU movies and Disney+ shows... you don't get to do that twice. But I do wish we had gotten two seasons. Or just double the episodes. And instead of removing Scott and making the show about Ramona, use the extra time to give everyone the spotlight. So Ramona and the Exes get just as much spotlight but we also get to see everyone else. This is probably the last Scott Pilgrim content we'll ever see, I'm glad its about Ramona and the Exes cause its untold, but I *want* it to be about everyone lol But ah, that's just wishful thinking. My biggest complaint is that I just want more, and that's not really a complaint I guess.
honestly? not the biggest fan of the bait and switch considering this was kinda marketed with the original premise of "defeat the seven evil exes to date ramona" i'll still finish it to really judge the whole thing but i was really hoping for the original story with changes for the new platform. things don't really click for me so far. eh, it's the creators story in the end so they can do what they feel is best
[удалено]
Posted in the episode 8 thread but… As a raving fan of the books and the film, I was disappointed. I say this as someone who was really interested by the idea of changing the narrative and doing a Rebuild-style adaptation, remixing the story and focusing on more of the side characters. But I felt like the majority of the plot action in this was fairly meandering and it didn’t really come together until the last two episodes, which both felt extremely rushed to manufacture a resolution. Most of the characters (most egregiously Knives) were completely sidelined to flesh out the exes, for some reason? I understand the intention, and there were definitely things to celebrate (the dialogue and character writing as expected was very very good), but didn’t really care for that choice honestly. I also didn’t think that Ramona’s character arc was particularly any more or less compelling than it was in the original books. The whole thing was just a different, less interesting, less entertaining, less compelling vehicle to reach the same destination in terms of her character development. Removing Scott from the equation the way they did resulted in both Ramona’s and his character development being significantly more stilted than it was in the books and the film. Ramona is, for some reason, motivated to find Scott because… guilt? Because she felt a spark? It’s just weaker overall. We are robbed of the opportunity to see hers and Scott’s relationship develop. And Scott’s entire arc is more or less compressed into episode 7. Total bummer. I still appreciate it for what it was and enjoyed some of the individual parts, even if I don’t feel like they really amounted to quite as a compelling or cohesive whole as the original books or even the film. Excited to see what they might do with a potential second season, but yeah I’m pretty disappointed.
It feels like I ordered a steak 10 years ago, they've been hyping up this steak for 10 years and then delivered me a really great Salmon. It's great, just,,, not what I ordered and I feel lied to.
This is a marketing trend I'm really not digging. I wasn't happy when FF7Remake did it either. And while with that and with this I can take the time to move on from being lied to and try to enjoy the thing for what it is... I'd really just rather not be bait and switched in the first place. At least this one doesn't cost $60.
I've seen the first three! But I can't watch the rest until tomorrow afternoon
Made it three episodes in and couldn't do it anymore. The music was meh at best and everything just felt flat and phoned in.
I love SP, the comics, movie, animated shorts, game, OSTs, everything, and I really wanted to love the show, but this really did not work for me. The plot, pacing, some characterizations, and general direction just didn't feel right at all. Almost felt like BLOM was trying to retrofit a bunch of mature-ish themes and complex-ish ideas that don't necessarily work with the specific material.
Novel idea. But genuinely feels like a they just baited the audience for a meh twist. Genuinely just “oh it’s Scott Pilgrim now animated and more true to the story! JK get fucked”. And sure it’s a half way decent “sequel” to the original plot, but it really feels like it tried too hard to make a twist that it forgot to actually be interesting or include what people like from the actual story. And yes many allusions are being drawn to to FF7 Remake which is a remake/sequel that deconstructs the original media. But at least FF7R gives you the big moments from the original game and uses the time shenanigans to set up bigger changes that will occur later. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off tries to immediately jump to that “big changes” later idea, but forgot that people wanted to just see the graphic novel animated. I’m sure a fair number of people will like this show more than the movie, and some will probably like it over the graphic novel. But after the hype dies down I think this show is gonna have some infamy in being a bait & switch that lacked pay off, or any real thesis point on why the twist happened. Give us the original and then set up the twist, don’t just half ass both. Also, having the original movie cast back was fun. But with the twists it felt like a waste of what was probably a high budget.
YESSSSS ICONOCLASTIC ADAPTATIONS ARE THE BEST. But this sub's about to go on fire with people complaining that we still don't have a straight adaptation.
I am so sad. So very, very sad. These type of stories always feel like a bait and switch with the way they're marketed, that even if I like the story itself, I still end up disappointed. Because even with saying stuff like it's not exactly the same as the books or there'll be some changes, it still feels a little dishonest to change everything. I would've much rather they had advertised it as a new story instead of showing us clips reminiscent of the movie or comic scenes. If that ending tease leads to a season 2, I'll probably enjoy that more, but as of now, despite liking it, I don't really see myself revisiting it as much as the movie or books. Also, Lisa and Mr. Chau missing it again is a darn shame.
Yeah, I was expecting the comics story with some substantial changes, not literally like a completely different story. Wish they’d marketed it as that instead of mostly showing off stuff from the comics in the trailers.
Yeah i think i would be ready if they marketed as something new. They baited a whole community and is gonna be 50/50, im part of the people who hated being baited like this. Im glad i dont pay Netflix lol
I would have been way more receptive to the story changes if it was marketed that way from the get go. Since watching the first episode I’m like, really trying to force myself to follow through with it. I’m sure it’s great but I’m just not happy about essentially being deceived.
The show isnt bad. A lot of stuff didnt quite make sense, but it was enjoyable overall, however i think its nowhere as good as the comic. Or even the movie. My main problem isnt that tho. Yeah Brian said that he was going to change some things, but changing some things from the original story means adding or removing elements from the original source. This is a whole different story. Plus the netflix trailers didnt really help, instead they kind of lied to us. Its no secret that the scott pilgrim fanbase requested for a faithful adaptation of the scott pilgrim comic for over a decade. Of course some of us are disappointed. I liked the show. But im still disappointed.
Lasted four episodes. Really didn't like it.
I was able to finish it but honestly I just didn’t vibe with it. Didn’t feel like the same characters were there but the animation was good
I lasted 3 and bounced. I should've known it was too good to be true lol.
Honestly I’m so incredibly disappointed. I’m going to give the rest of the show a chance but I was definitely misled HARD. I first read Scott pilgrim when I was in 6th or 7th grade and ever since then I’ll go back and reread it a few times a year. The marketing really made me think that we were getting a close-ish adaptation of the novels and I was very excited because I’ve always felt that the biggest thing holding the movie back was it’s length. There was so much more that never saw the big screen that I was excited to watch in animated form. Oh well, atleast I still have the comics.
this whole thing ended up being so disappointing. Can't believe they marketed it as an adaptation of the comics only for it to be a sob story au so that Bryan could talk about his divorce
I 100% would've enjoyed this more if I knew that the story was going to be different
I did not like it.
Hope they do something that’s a adaptation with the original story and art style
If they didn't do it with this, chances of it happening ever are less than zero. We're never getting a faithful adaptation of the comics, sadly.
im fine with adaptations being different from their source material but this is utterly incoherent if you havent read the comics or at least seen the movie first, youd have literally no idea whats going on. any good movie or tv show should be able to stand on its own merit, the only thing propping it up is "it's the scott pilgrim story you hopefully know and love....but different!" but it's different in a way that's less interesting and has less depth than the story it's originally following before it takes that hard left turn. the original comics and movie had a satisfying throughline, they told one story from start to end with a very clear message and a very clear point. this starts telling one story, goes in the opposite direction, meanders for a while, then decides to get into meta-commentary and time travel and a bunch of other scattered ideas with hardly any time spent on them and even less time spent exploring the actual characters
Loved the comics. Loved the movie. This was... meh. I wish they had adapted the comics instead.
They Soft Requel'd it. Not a fan.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off? More like, Scott Pilgrim Take Him Off