Listening to Paul Chapman's "Greatest Movie Ever" Podcast a week ago introduced the idea that Scott Pilgrim is a fundamentally flawed movie that got a lot of praise for executing the style of the comics right, but failed to make Scott a fundamentally solid character. Chapman was under the impression that Scott was an idiot man-child whose quirkiness covered up for the complete lack of any sort of meaningful character growth. I don't fully agree, but neither is this a point worth dismissing.
Scott Pilgrim is a movie I like, but it comes with a very qualified like. While most critics fell over themselves with praise, I couldn't help notice that the movie had some real flaws. Specifically, the movie acts as a solid adaption of at least the first two books of the series, and goes wobbly when trying to cram in the rest. Adapting a six volume comic book series to one movie is going to be a challenge---specifically when two of the books have not been written yet. Timing the movie to be released at the same time of the conclusion of the comic series resulted in an experience confusing to fans of the book and underwhelming to newcomers.
The result is a movie that trips over itself. Confining the series to a single movie (while it may have made sense to do so, especially given the movie's dismal performance at the box office) resulted in a jammed, bloated epic that struggled to keep up with it's own frantic pace.
The ending of the movie is completely unbalanced: it was written with the intention of Scott remaining with Knives, and when I saw the movie for the first time I was incredibly confused when it turned out that he was sticking with Ramona. Yes, it would have made sense for the movie to end in a way that was different to how the books turned out. If it would result in a more coherent movie, so be it. Bryan Lee O'Malley admitted that the (in progress) ending of the final volume was still up in the air when the script was being written.
The secondary characters remained criminally underdeveloped, especially given how talented the actors who portrayed them. I loved Alison Pill's Kim Pine, and her previous relationship with Scott was only lightly touched upon. This presented an opportunity to add depth to Scott's character as much as hers, to help show why Scott was such a dolt when it came to women. Kim herself is a fascinating character in the books who deserved more screen time. Similarly, Scott's relationship with Envy Adams deserves more attention, since it informed his relationship with Kim.
In hindsight, casting Michael Cera as Scott was a bad move. He didn't play the part wrong, don't misunderstand me, but at the time the movie was being made the public was tiring of Cera and his presence was more of a liability than a help. This is more of a marketing problem, one that neither aids nor harms the film as a whole. If audiences were uncertain before whether to give this movie a chance, Cera cemented opinions.
Edgar Wright is the only movie maker of his generation that can capture the style and the spirit of the books, but the depth of the story remained elusive. In twenty years, when we (for some reason) are nostalgic for this period in history, Scott Pilgrim is going to be reexamined. People who will complain about the reception about this movie, and it would not surprise me if someone made an attempt at a reboot. Purists will be up in arms, but let's face it: as good as Scott Pilgrim was, it had potential that it simply did not achieve. An attempt to improve upon what came before is anything but a horrible fate.
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