Scott Pilgrim sees the girl of his dreams! // Sparking conversation with Ramona Flowers, Scott Pilgrim is unsure if he’s just dreaming or not. In the series, Scott sparks a conversation with Ramona for the first time by sharing video game facts that he randomly knows. (art by Talia Medina)
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: kickoff to the new adaptation on Netflix
by: Talia Medina
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was released on Netflix on November 17th of this year and has received an immense amount of praise from older and newer fans of the series.
The animated adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic was first published in 2004 with Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life. It later gathered a huge fanbase from the release of the 2010 film adaptation.
The adaptations of the series have always followed the adventures of a guy named Scott Pilgrim, who is part of a band with a few of his friends when he meets a mysterious woman named Ramona Flowers, whom he wants to date. He learns that Ramona has seven evil exes that he has to defeat in order to stay with her. It has several references to retro video games such as The Legend of Zelda and Street Fighter and isn’t afraid to show off its bold and loud music style made by the many bands in the series.
The Scott Pilgrim franchise first hit the big screen in 2010 with the film adaptation titled Scott Pilgrim Vs the World starring Michael Cera as Scott and Mary Elizabeth Taylor as Ramona alongside several other famous actors with them. The film follows the same plot as the novels. However, some minor characters are cut out of the film and many chapters of the story are shortened to be able to go over all of Ramona’s seven evil exes completely.
It isn’t widely known that during the filming of the 2010 adaptation, the actors had an email chain where they would talk to each other and keep in touch while the film was being released into theaters. Nine years after the film was released and the email chain died down, Michael Cera responded to a meme that someone had sent years prior. This sparked the original director, Edgar Wright, to ask the question: what if there was an animated adaptation of it? The entirety of the original cast and directors were on board with this idea and continued to work on this project alongside Science Saru, a Japanese animation company, to create the visuals for the film.
Many previews of the show have been released for the past few weeks to excite fans of the series with dazzling bold colors and a charming animation style that stays faithful to Bryan Lee O’Malley’s art style. Another thing the series makes an effort to pay attention to is Ramona Flowers’s consistency in dyeing her hair an assortment of different colors. With each new snippet or image that comes out, she is seen with either her signature bright pink hair or the other many colors that can be seen throughout the series.
Many fans have shown their love for the show by changing their profile picture to one of their favorite characters or drawing fanart of the series and while the series currently doesn’t have an official announcement for a second season, the show opens an opportunity to further exploration into the characters’ life and give fans more content of their favorite series.