i could write a whole essay on why edgar wright’s scott pilgrim vs the world is insulting to the graphic novel. it’s so surface-level, and not only that, it’s so extremely misogynist and just kills off the personal growth of Every Single Character, in favor of being quirky and relatable to asshole dudebros who want to feel better about being assholes. michael cera’s portrayal of scott is awkward in a cute way, as opposed to book scott, who is a giant asshole until like, the last book, even then he’s not great and the ending is left open on purpose because of that.
ramona is the epitomical Manic Pixie Dream Girl because her portrayal in the film is a completely misunderstood version of her in the comics. i blame that on her writing - i think mary elizabeth winstead was doing what she could given the direction and script, which was inherently flawed because it was being directed by a GIANT misogynist who didn’t like ramona in the first place.
i’m really in this shit ok.
so let’s start with the characters who are first introduced.
scott pilgrim - the kinda cute nerdy guy who seems nice at first but turns out to be a giant asshole. i believe he was written to be relatable at first, but then o’malley changed and learned that this kind of a person is not a good person, and should not be portrayed as such. scott never gets much better - he stays an asshole and it really weighs on all his relationships, including with ramona. he’s left nearly alone at the end - wallace moves out, stephen is spending more time with joseph, neil no longer idolizes him and knives moves on. ramona is all he has left, and even she’s not around that much because the relationship is unhealthy. his arc is about learning to be more empathetic and if he doesn’t do that, he will lose everyone - the world does not revolve around him, and he needs to learn that. he’s still learning that when the comic ends, which is why it’s good that it’s sort of an open ending.
film scott never really changes. he apologizes, it’s a short sequence, and the ending is slightly less open, and because they cut the characterization of ramona and knives, it’s less poignant. scott is an asshole, but an awkward asshole, and the movie treats this like it’s okay, whereas the graphic novel says “hey, that’s fucked up, you need to grow up.”
stephen stills - also starts out kind of an asshole. he’s moody, emotional, high-strung, immature, and lets his girlfriend push him around. i think he was intended to be gay from the start. he’s closeted, which results in a lot of outward immaturity and unstable moods, and it’s also probably why he lets julie treat him the way he does. his growth comes from his relationship with joseph - joseph is blunt, and kind of mean, but doesn’t actually want to hurt stephen, unlike julie, who seems to genuinely kind of hate stephen. stephen learns that he doesn’t have to deal with the kind of shit he deals with(which is why he stops hanging out with scott so much) and breaks it off with julie(i think he also came out to neil first, but that’s for another conversation), and ends up with someone who understands him better and keeps him in line.
in the movie, stephen stays high-strung and emotional, because they cut joseph entirely. there is no development. he gets money and is happy. this is insulting to me, personally, because i highly relate to stephen as a gay man who let girlfriends abuse him before coming out, because i thought “this is all i’m allowed.” a lot of gay men go through this. what the movie is teaching us is that stephen and julie’s relationship is okay.
kim pine - this could be an essay all its own. at the start of the graphic novel, kim is still hung up on scott, knowing she shouldn’t be, and is, again, emotionally immature. she’s not allowing herself to grow because she’s not allowing people in. a lot of her growth happens off-screen, but a lot of it happens on-screen, too, because kim has A LOT of growth. she learns that harshness does not protect you from hurt. she needs to address her feelings for scott before she can move on, and once she does, she moves away and moves on with her whole life. you can’t get anywhere without addressing your feelings, is the moral here.
in the movie, kim gets half a second of development. again, i think alison pill had the potential to be a great kim, but was held down by terrible direction and a chopped character arc. kim gets good, funny lines, and then scott apologizes to her in LITERALLY THE FINAL ACT, and she grins for a second and that’s it. again, i think this comes from the director/screenwriter being a misogynist. women don’t get fully realized characters, here. this movie is for boys.
neil nordegraf - neil starts out idolizing scott. he’s nerdy, vaguely cute, but really really awkward and shy, and scott has had pretty girlfriends and now has a famous ex - he’s neil’s ideal self at the time. neil is very immature, at only 20 years old, doesn’t really understand what his goals in life should be, so he sees this guy who’s similar to him but gets laid more often and thinks, “wow i want to be that.” neil’s development definitely happens off-screen but is very deliberate. he wants to be a part of his friends’ lives(as seen in the “you assholes don’t even hang out with me anymore!” scene) but doesn’t realize that 1, these are not the friends for him, these are friends he met through his sister, and 2, he can become something without anyone’s help. he seems to figure this out during scott’s time cooped up in his house, while stephen is spending a lot of time with joseph, and kim isn’t around, so neil is left alone. even his sister isn’t in toronto anymore. he has to learn how to survive without the people he’s been relying on, and he does.
what does he do in the movie? he has a few stupid nerdy lines. no development at all.
knives chau - she starts out very 2d in the graphic novel. she is young, naive, eager to please. scott, an older boy, shows interest in her and she revels in it, because she’s a teenage girl who needs more attention from her loved ones. knives is what a victim of grooming often looks like. she feels really good when she’s getting the attention she wants, but is crushed beyond imagination when she loses it. she goes a little nuts, but once she realizes she won’t win scott back, she has to learn to live without him and recover from how he hurt her. at the end she’s not, like, “i think you should be with ramona,” she’s more like “i moved on, see ya later.” and i think that’s important. scott stops being so important to her. she’s growing up, realizes that she is her own person outside of her relationships with boys. this isn’t even including the probable trauma from being groomed by a man in his 20s. o’malley seemed to realize in the process of writing that this relationship was really fucked up and even had scott address it.
in the movie, wright wanted her and scott to end up together, so it’s no surprise that it ends with her still wanting scott. again, women don’t get characterization, so her arc is like, “sweet little girl is introduced to rock and roll and becomes badass” and nothing more than that. there is, of course, also the fetishization of her race, too, so like, fuck edgar wright
and lastly ramona flowers - starts out hurt, lonely, vulnerable but eager to please, while at the same time, trying to protect herself. she’s her own foil, really - she’s trying to heal from an unhealthy relationship but enters another at the same time and tries to make it work with a boy that’s refusing to fix himself. ramona, over time, learns that she can’t run away from her problems - she needs to address her feelings(this is a theme ofc) and deal with them before she can move on. she learns that she cannot continue with her pattern of not dealing with her emotional baggage - which is why scott fights her exes, but he needs her to help him do it, they have to deal with the baggage together or else she’ll never move on. her arc is beautiful in the graphic novel. it’s probably helpful for other women in abusive or toxic relationship to read this.
in the film, ramona is squashed down into the manic pixie dream girl trope, they kill off her whole moral. wright didn’t really like ramona, so he seemingly intentionally wrote her badly, made her appear more mean, didn’t allow her the personal growth she gets in the graphic novel. ramona is hot and funny and that’s all that matters in the movie.
tl;dr - read the scott pilgrim books and forget the movie ‘cause it sucks
