Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

By Sidd Rao

Scott defeating Todd, the 3rd Evil Ex

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a movie directed by Edgar Wright released in 2010. Although it is an adaptation of the graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley the film separates itself in ways only film as a medium can do. Wright does a good job of including specific features to make the movie unique while still being true to form in regards to the graphic novels. A few distinctions to make when looking at the movie are the differences between the video game features and the graphic novel features. The sound effect words shown on screen are much more of a graphic novel kind of style since it is easier to show the sounds of the book through words employing onomatopoeia. The point values for doing certain things is much more characteristic of a video game since, in most cases, success in a video game is determined by the points accrued. For the purposes of this blog post, we will only be looking at the video game aspects.

The World of Scott Pilgrim

Scott earning the power of Self Respect

One of the only ways the world in Scott Pilgrim differs from our world is the inclusion of points, magical weapons, and other fantastical things. These are all an integral part of the world, not simply a piece of technology to be used. One way to see that it is not just Scott being able to access these video game features but also with Ramona’s bag, Todd’s vegan powers, and the Katayanagi twins’ dragons during their performance. In this way, it is a realistic technology how it is a part of everyday life and doe not really change much between our world and the world of Scott Pilgrim. The main way of showing the difference between “regular” life and the fantastical additions in the film is the inclusion of pixels around the object (i.e. Scott’s swords) or having some other computer-generated effects that look more realistic (i.e. Matthew and Todd’s powers). There are usually very few indicators when showing the difference between the two since they share the same world.

Who is the Audience?

Although the film has an obvious audience of young adults who play video games, the older gamer demographic is still there especially since there are a lot of retro kind of features such as pixelation and specific points for defeating an enemy. With this in mind, the audience would either be more open to the retro kind of style offered, the older generation, or still appreciate the style but not really be able to connect with it, the newer generation. One main difference from other movies that have video game features would be that the whole movie is based on these features instead of just having a piece of technology that is based more in video games than reality. 

Scott getting ready to fight!


Photo Citation

LukeMan133. “Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010) Movie Clip – Scott Pilgrim vs Matthew Patel .” YouTube, YouTube, 29 Dec. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-zFPRaVvsI.

Wright, Edgar, director. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Universal, 2010.

Sadick1993, director. Scott Pilgrim vs the WorldYouTube, YouTube, 10 June 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSrI42XuvaE.

Tom. “Todd Ingram Costume.” Carbon Costume, 14 Sept. 2017, carboncostume.com/todd-ingram/.

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