I’m still not entirely sold on Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, but this instills me with more confidence. Oh, Edgar Wright, how could I doubt you?
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43 users responded in this post
Yeah, i’m hoping this is good in spite of Cera (or maybe he ends up being a little bit energetic for once, but I’m not holding my breath) Because the art direction looks fantastic.
Yeah, I’m with you on not sure about Cera.
But Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers? Nails it.
And the general sensibility of the whole thing is perfect.
That’s it–I’m sold.
Omigodomigodomigodomigod.
I’ve been wary of how the film will turn out, even though the behind-the-scenes snippets were promising. But seeing it with the effects and editing in place, I’m freaking out at how awesome this looks.
ok ive been saying that thing about cera for a year now but shit this traILER SHIT THIS THING IS GONNA BE SO OHMYGODOHMYAAAAAAAA
Its Edgar Wright, thats all I need to know to be honest. I’m meh about michael cera in anything other than arrested development, but I have confidence in edgar wright!
What’s wrong with you people? Michael Cera is always fantastic.
Is this based on a comic-book or something? I’ve never heard of Scott Pilgrim, but you all seem to imply you know of this story.
Was one of her exes a girl?
I love her hair! (The main girl.)
Oh, does this keep freezing up for everyone, or just me?
Yeah, not to beat a dead horse, but I wasn’t sold on Cera either – until right now. They just got my $10.
Mary: Yes, it’s based on a comic book–the Scott Pilgrim series by Bryan Lee O’Malley.
Yes, one of her exes is a girl. Note that Ramona (the main girl whose hair you like) always says “exes.” Other people say “ex-boyfriends,” but she always says “exes.”
Yes, her hair is awesome.
Ok, so it’s Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist meets Mortal Kombat in Mangalopolis. I absolutely trust Edgar Wright with this concept.
They’ve got Anne (Her?) as one of the Exes! Oh hells yes!
I couldn’t stop laughing once the action started. This looks like a seriously fun film.
Wow. None of my friends had ever managed to explain it to me in a compelling way. This actually looks entertaining. I may have to read it now.
Yeah, I never quite got why half the internet is obsessed with this comic. But this looks like a really awesome movie.
[…] [Via Mightygodking] […]
As a former gamer/comic fan turned gig guy this comic appeals to me
seriously this trailer is insanely awesome
The problem I had with getting into Scott Pilgrim is that beneath all the manga and video game trappings, it strikes me that O’Malley has something very serious and earnest he wants to say about the relationship ups and downs of people in their mid-20s, and I just don’t care. The only way that could be less my thing would be if it used sports as a theme instead of indie music.
However, Edgar Wright makes things I enjoy, and I’d probably want to see this even if it was based on something I hate. Which it isn’t.
Cool trailer, but this looks like a complete ripoff of Kick-Ass. Doubt I’ll be watching it.
Ripoff of Kick-Ass? In what way. Please expand, as i am genuinely curious where you see that.
Getting Scott Pilgrim confused with Scott Free makes headache.
This looks good. Really good. Better than Kick-Ass. My only doubt was Michael Cera. But I loved Spaced/Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz so I am a bit biased.
OH FUCK YES ON A MULTITUDE OF LEVELS
Ripoff of “Kick-Ass”? Where’s my Staff of Wounding?
Well, (from the trailer) it’s a heavily stylised pastiche of superhero/comic conventions, featuring a quirky and slightly awkward main lead, as in KA, and it’s coming out a few months afterwards. The ‘seven evil exes’ thing is different, but since they seem to have lifted the presentation of that straight out of the Mortal Kombat games, it doesn’t help much.
I haven’t read the comics (?) either are based upon, so this might be a little unfair. But coming in cold to both of them, and only knowing what that trailers for both tell me, it looks like this film is, well, ripping of KA.
Well, Scott Pilgrim, the comic, is about a million times better than Kick-Ass, the comic, though I’ve been hearing good things about KA the movie. But other than being comic books the two have virtually nothing in common. Kick-Ass is supposedly grounded in “the real world” (Spoiler: it isn’t) and is more about what happens when regular people try to be superheroes. Scott Pilgrim is virtually the opposite: it’s about people trying to live regular lives, who happen to live in an insane comic-book/video game universe.
Like everyone, I’ve had my doubts about Cera, but the trailer seems to indicate that the filmmakers know what you’re expecting from him and are deliberately trying to push him in a new direction. I totally predicted that they’d do the “start as a drippy romcom and then morph into complete insanity” when the trailer came out, but presumably that’s what happens in the movie, too: just as it’s about Scott Pilgrim getting it together, it’ll also be about Michael Cera leaving his drippy persona behind and evolving into something new. Hopefully.
No one’s gonna convince you if you don’t want to see it, but these: http://www.radiomaru.com/comics/short/scott_pilgrim_promo_comic.jpg and http://www.deadlantern.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/kickass04hitgirl.jpg might give you some idea of just how different the source materials are. And believe me, they could not be more tonally different – SP is a magical realism romance that draws on 80s nostalgia for its themes to make a very funny, occasionally depressing story about growing up, while KA is a satire based around how ineffective its creator thinks comic fans would be at being superheroes (and thus, by his reckoning, at doing much of anything).
Also, at the risk of being THAT guy, some google-age tells us that Scott Pilgrim began in 2004 and is Canadian, while Kick-Ass debuted in ’08 and is not. You may also want to consider which trailer MGK linked to on his blogamagog when making your final choice (assuming you only go to the cinema once a year).
Go on…
Even though Scott Pilgrim is about four years older?
Holy God, that looks awesome. Well! Color me cautiously enthusiastic.
Feelings. So. Mixed.
I won’t lie. Once I heard about the casting I assumed the worst. Now that I’ve actually seen the trailer it looks like they’re spot on with the comic and video game nods.
Michael Cera still comes off as too much of a whiny bitch to convincingly play the lovably oblivious Scott Pilgrim though.
(As a sidenote: Why do I get the feeling Knives won’t be in this?)
http://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/knivesfirstlook.jpg
There is a Knives, she has an iMDb page, rest easy. You can see her (uncredited?!) in this shot: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm4262694400/tt0446029
Wow, that’s kind of impressive in terms of loyalty to the source material. I assumed that executive meddling would remove “underage ex girlfriend” right before “shares bed with gay roommate”.
Wow, it’s like Maximus got on the express train to wrongville
My only worry is that it will be faithful to the source material. Because I can’t lie, I read about ten pages of Scott Pilgrim and said, “Why should I care about whether this enormous douchebag successfully manages to cheat on his underage girlfriend?” The answers I’ve gotten from the fans of the comic always seem to be, “Because it uses video game tropes and is OMGAWESOME!”
Unsurprisingly, this fails to sell me. 🙂 So I would like the film to be a little bit less about an utter douchebag, so that I might be able to like it.
He’s not a douchebag so much as he is clueless to what’s going on around him, and the story is about him growing the hell up (that’s WHY he’s “dating” an underage girl–it’s, like, a metaphor). And he is told repeatedly that he’s being a jerk, and has to suffer to redeem himself. But he remains a flawed protagonist, so if you just can’t get past that…
Plus, he admits that he’s just dating her because it’s simple. A bad breakup the previous year had left him emotionally devastated, and dating a high school girl with high school issues was easy. They never even kissed when the story starts and he likes it that way. So it’s not like he’s sleazy, just… oblivious.
He’s a little sleazy, but lovably so.
Unless the underage girl understands that he has no actual interest in her and she’s okay with that, he’s still a pretty big douchebag. Just not a pedophile.
Scott definitely behaves wrongly in respect to Knives, but not unforgivably. And literally half the first book is people (mostly Wallace and Kim) beating him over the head with the fact that he’s being a jerk. Even Scott realizes he’s shooting himself in the foot pretty quickly, he just doesn’t have the guts to cut her loose.
Given that the whole book is about him redeeming himself and getting it together, I think he’s allowed to make mistakes at the beginning without instantly being branded an unlikeable protagonist.
When I was in college, I ran into one of the guys who’d made my life hell all the way up through high school. I fully intended to pass by as if I didn’t even recognize him, but he made that impossible by stepping directly into my path. And then he apologized for everything he’d done.
Douchebag redeemed.
But that didn’t make him any less of a douchebag when he was doing all the stuff he had to apologize for
.
My point being, if the book is about him growing the hell up and becoming a decent guy, it’s disingenuous to insist he’s not a douchebag. At the start of his journey, he is. And if someone can’t care about him enough to keep reading until he isn’t, then for that person, he is indeed an unlikeable protagonist. Variable mileage, and all that.
(Sorry for the cut-off. I was going to blame my cat, or Windows, but instead I’ll own up and admit I’m an idiot.)
I think that part of it is the length. Asking me to put up with a douchebag as he comes of age for one novel (as in, say, ‘The Caine Mutiny’) is one thing; asking me to spend seventy-two bucks on six graphic novels before you get to the same basic point (main character says, “Wow! I’ve been a tremendous douchebag! I better stop that!”) is quite another.
I’d say he comes to that realization significantly before the end of the first book. And no, I don’t think he’s a douchebag, he’s just clueless to the potential harm he’s doing to others–he needs to grow up, basically. He comes around on that really quickly and is made to suffer repeatedly for it and work hard to redeem himself for the rest of the series. But even at his worst he’s completely without malice.
And I’m pretty sure you can find the whole series for less than $72. I think Amazon has discounts. Or there’s always the library.