Thoughts: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

MAJOR spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned!

Art is forever. Well, to a certain extent— we live in an era where it is commonplace for an artist to rethink and re-assess their work when they’re older and wiser. We see it in every modern form of media, from Taylor Swift’s minorly revisionist Taylor’s Versions, Square-Enix’s timeline-bending Final Fantasy VII: Remake series, and the meta-commentary The Matrix: Resurrections, just to name a few. So many of us would love to build a time machine and re-do aspects of our lives, and the current media landscape, obsessed with nostalgia and parallel universes, allows artists to do so. But what are we truly doing when we revise the past? Are we erasing the original? Enhancing it? Fixing past mistakes? Taking away its novelty?

The Scott Pilgrim series, both the original graphic novels written by Bryan Lee O’Malley and the 2010 Edgar Wright film adaptation, are special to me. I read the books in my impressionable late teens and saw the film on release day at age twenty. I was the exact age for a coming of age story like Scott’s, and saw myself in him— for better and for worse. Like Scott, I made a lot of mistakes. Also like Scott, by the end of the story, I had learned some important lessons about those mistakes. Unlike Scott, though, I continued living. Now, in my thirties, many of those mistakes haunt me, and I do have that aforementioned urge to call a mulligan and try it all again. I know it can’t be done, but the Scott Pilgrim in the new Netflix anime series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off figures out a way. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for fans of the series, it doesn’t work out like he expects it to.

The most important thing about Takes Off is not that it’s a time-travelling, alternate universe take on the original Scott Pilgrim story. The biggest change is one of perspective; we quickly learn that Ramona Flowers, not Scott, is our central protagonist. Most of the character growth happens to her. In fact, the show takes Scott away from his own universe for most of the eight episodes, leaving us with Ramona in a quest to find out where he’s gone. This change has major implications for every one of the ensemble cast (all voiced by the returning film cast). We get to learn a bit more about everyone. Some characters learn the same lessons they did before, others have startling new realizations. Ramona’s arc has a similar trajectory to her original one, but the newfound focus strengthens what felt kind of like a second thought before (See the postscript for more about this).

As a result of this thematic shift, the series is able to take advantage of lessons learned from both the novels and the film. It plays around with the world in fun, creative ways that will surprise and delight longtime fans. Science Saru’s beautiful animation is a wonder to watch, and amplifies the action in a way that only anime can. I loved seeing elements of the comic panels and film effects mesh throughout. Some may find issue with the pacing, but the methodical feel of the episodes reminded me of how O’Malley’s novels (including his debut Lost at Sea and Scott Pilgrim follow-up Seconds) have pages of quiet slice-of-life moments that balance out the action. Not letting the world and characters breathe was my biggest issue with the movie, so it’s cool to see the series correct that.

By the end of the series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off felt like a new, separate take on an established story that can co-exist with the previous versions. The books, film, and anime all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and their reason for existing. They are all in conversation with each other, just like every artist’s bodies of work. The closest analog I can think of is actually the Rebuild of Evangelion films, which also re-told and remixed an existing story to reclaim it. Just like those films, I don’t believe anything has been “ruined” here, just commented and expanded upon. Though revisionist works can often feel cynical and contrived, this feels reverent and meaningful. Just like Scott, we should be able to hold the old versions of ourself alongside the current version of ourself and not look back in regret, but instead understand and appreciate what brought us where we are now.

P.S. Since this is my Thoughts post and I can go on as long as I want about this, I will. (Maniacal laugh.) The original Scott Pilgrim story is largely about Scott Pilgrim. The books do a pretty good job of pointing out the character’s flaws (for the time), and he does feel like a changed person by the end. The movie… well, does less work. Written before O’Malley’s final draft of the sixth and final graphic novel, Scott’s ending in the adaptation is a little more rushed and feels a bit un-earned. Sure, he learns the “power of self-respect,” but beyond fighting a bunch of people, he doesn’t do much actual work to get there. There’s a reason why a lot of the film’s detractors say that Scott is the worst part of the movie (a quick gag in Takes Off references this, and it’s great); despite the focus being on him, his general vibe of awfulness doesn’t make Ramona’s love for him feel real. As legend has it, the original film script had Scott ending up with Knives instead, a much worse ending, for obvious reasons, but one that at least acknowledges Ramona would have decided she could do better.

In Takes Off, Ramona both chooses herself and falls in love with Scott at the same time. I know there will be people who are baffled by this choice. I’ve already read a few fans’ angry diatribes about how this move is unrealistic compared to the slow burn of the books. Sure, Ramona has just one date with him, yet is somehow drawn to create an entire investigation to find him (this Ramona loves Columbo, just like a lot of millennials in 2023 — though this seems to take place in the early 2000’s timeline of the original). The series already deals in video-gamey concepts of subspace highways, so it’s not too far of a leap to say that she is attracted to him via some magic, destiny-adjacent spark that transcends time and space. Think Taylor’s “Invisible String.”

Her arc, just like before, centers around her being the dumper and not the dumpee in her past relationships, and once she realizes this, she feels more like herself. Here, that transformation is treated literally, Current Ramona merging with Future Ramona, creating a otherworldly Super Ramona. Only here is where she is able to tell Scott that she loves him. This is important, because I believe this is what makes her decision feel more valid. This Super Ramona is the combined Ramona “before she dated Scott and after she dated Scott,” as the show says, a version of herself that has seen every possible version of Scott. In real life, we can never do this. We cannot fly above a relationship and see it ten-thousand feet above. But this is the point of the series, to me— despite their mistakes, despite the imperfections, and perhaps even because of them, Ramona wouldn’t change a thing. She still chooses Scott. This does not erase or forgive Scott’s mistakes, but knowing that there is a version of Scott who can see them and own up to them confirms what she saw in him in the first place.

Ultimately, both Scott and Ramona see all the choices they made come to their logical conclusion, and their re-do allows them to try them again. But crucially, there’s a chance that they will mess up again. There’s always a chance. Ramona chooses to remain optimistic. As Olivia Rodrigo said this year on Guts, love is never logical. The spark we have with someone else is real and shouldn’t be dismissed, but relationships are also about work and communication. As long as the partners are willing to learn and improve, and not just give up before they truly understand the emotional context, the sparks can continue to fly.