Scott Pilgrim vs the World is probably my favorite movie, though the books are much better. However, it is decidedly lacking in figure based merch. I was pretty excited when I came across these figures from Bottle Neck Gallery. The site seems to specialize in limited run sort of niche merchandise, a lot of which is prints. Like the prints, these figures came in some mass release colorways, and a few limited color versions. Despite ordering on day one, I missed out on the limited versions, though I was more interested in the limited Scott, who had the PLUMTREE logo on his shirt, but otherwise seems to be the same as this one. The Ramona variants were mostly hair colors, but I prefer this color.
While they are “action figures” they are lacking in the “action” part a bit. I imagine this is partly to do with them being more art figures than straight action figures. Both Ramona and Scott sport the same articulation. The site lists it as “5 points” but its actually more. Both have ball socket head joints, which lets them look up and down and side to side a bit, and ball wrists, so they can swivel and bend a bit. The elbows have single joins, though the range of motion isn’t great and the shoulders are limited universal joints. There is also a waist swivel but it doesn’t really seem like it wants to go all the way around. The legs have no articulation, but both figures stand solidly, including Ramona on her skates.
Neither is going to be fighting any evil exes with any finesse, but that’s ok. The sculpt and paint make up for it a bit, they both look really good and the paint apps are solid all around. Each comes with some swap-able hands and accessories. Ramona fairs a little better than Scott in this department. The hands are relaxed, gripping, and fists for both, Ramona has her shoulder bag, and Scott has his guitar, both of which are removable. Ramona’s bag can slip on from the bottom but Scott’s guitar has to open the strap to go around his body. The head may come off, but I’d rather not risk breaking something, the strap has a removable peg for the strap. Ramona also comes with a bat and a package from Amazon.ca that she delivered to Scott when he was trying to meet her. The bat is from when Ramona battles Roxie in the comics (in the book she uses the Subspace Hammer to battle Envy not Roxie). This outfit doesn’t match that fight though at all, though it is one she wore.
Anyway, both figures are really nice, and I’d definitely be game for some other characters, maybe Knives and Gideon. The other members of Sex BombOmb would be fun, though I’m not sure Kim would work without her drum set, which means she gets to sit or maybe an alternate set of legs.
Mr. Lee, you’re needed back on set!Vegan Powers include uh… shrinking?
I generally like to avoid giving away too many spoilers for anything
new so I’ll break this review in half so to speak. I’ll preface this a
bit with my thoughts and feelings before going into this movie.
Based on almost no evidence, the original thought was “Hey look, it’s
River City Ransom the Movie”. These character all come off the way Kunio
and company would if they were live action players in a film with a
plot slightly deeper than “Fight across the city to rescue your
girlfriend’. In addition to the seemingly gratuitous River City Ransom
influence, there were other obvious general Video game references at
work here. This movie seemed to be one right up my alley though no
matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get my expectations to actually go up
much more than “this will probably end up being ok but mostly annoying.
I realized later that part of this reason is that I don’t really care
for the lead actor, Michael Cera. He’s just not overly compelling to
look at and comes off as if he’s about to burst into tears at any moment
because someone is being a puppy in front of him.
That’s the best way to say it really.
Thankfully, this film ultimately does deliver a pretty good if not
somewhat random story. When I say random” i mean the good sort of
random. The kind where it’s random in that it’s reasonably original in
concept, and less so in that it’s all over the place with no
explanation. In fact, other than the completely outlandish fight
scenes, which there are many, this film’s plot would still flow decently
and stands coherently on it’s own. I guess what I’m saying is, nothing
ever seems to happen “just for the sake of happening”, which is often a
pit fall of hipster stylized films such as this one. Everything
ultimately has a purpose.
Scott and Ramona
So
the quick plot in a nutshell. Scott Pilgrim meets the literal girl of
his dreams and does his goofy best to court her. He then discovers that
in order to date her, he must battle, to the death, each of her seven
previous “Ex-es”. The base issue i have here is that Ramona is general
aloof and mysterious and there is actually not as much given into her
background as I’d like. This brings up the issues involved with the
idea of “adapted from a book/graphic novel/comic.”
Due to interest generated by this movie, before seeing it, I’d been
reading through the books. I’m through book 2 out of 6. The plot line
follows pretty closely with the plot of the books I’ve read up until
around the end of book 2. It quickly becomes apparent that somewhere
someone realized that they would never fit all of the 6 volumes into one
manageable film. Liberties with the plot start showing up and even
though I’m not familiar with the entire plot (yet) it’s fairly clear
more and more chunks are chopped out as the show moves along.
Especially considering that the halfway point of the movie’s run time
roughly corresponds with the end of book 2, that is, only one third of
the way through the overall actual plot. I’ll touch on a few details
later in the spoiler section later. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing
but by the end things feel a little rushed.
The climax sequence probably also isn’t helped if another factor I
heard is true either. It’s my understanding that the 6th book wasn’t
quite finished when the movie was in production. This means the end is
slightly different than the book. i personally don’t have a problem
with this however the overall feel and dialogue of the climax and ending
sequence does feel slightly “off” from the tone of the rest of the
film. It’s not a game breaking feel, and it may just be a result of the
books being put out over like a 6 year period but it just felt slightly
more… big budget Hollywood than the rest of the movie.
Speaking of big budget feel, Scott Pilgrim is loaded with some fantastic special effects. It’s all very subtle through and meant to mimic the feel of a comic book. The last film i remember seeing that really FELT like a comic book was Ang Lee’s Hulk. Not the one with Edward Norton, the other one that no one seemed to like. It does make for some slightly odd scene transitions but it works well for flowing time across multiple periods and locations. It also works well for conveying the force and power behind various actions.
Like when the band plays it’s music and there’s these little waves of
energy flying from the instruments. Speaking of music, this film is
has a lot of it. It’s all pretty decent thankfully and it’s often
central to the plot. Scott Pilgrim is a member of the band Sex Bob-Om, a
reference to Mario Brothers. This band and it’s members is directly
involve in the activity of something like 5 of the 7 Evil Exes generally
through the Toronto Battle of the Bands contest.
As for a generalized review, the movie pretty much delivers as
expected and promised in every way possible. If you’ve seen the trailer
and said “oh wow, that looks fun/interesting/good” chances are you’ll
be satisfied with the experience. If you’ve seen it and said “That
looks like some hipster indie wanna-be nerd trash flick”, you probably
won’t like it. I will say that I though it looked “ok” based on the
trailer and pre knowledge and ended up being satisfactorily surprised at
how good it ended up being. On the other hand, someone like my wife,
who will get almost zero of the “subtle video game jokes” and generally
doesn’t like kooky action filled ironic comedies, probably wouldn’t care
for it.
So if you’re not interested in a bit of spoiler related notes, I’ll let ol’ Scott here send you packing.
These
will be fairly free flowing here… If i come up with something really
good after finishing the books I’ll probably just update this list….
Before all else I want to throw in how hilariously awesomely fan
wankish it is that the people who get killed explode into coins River
City Ransom style. I prefaced this review with how this looked like
“river City Ransom the Movie’ and i had no idea this would actually
happen (ok, i didn’t know before I saw it in the book but still).
Speaking of the book and RCR, there’s also a scene where Scott is
effectively dreaming about living the game in his past and rescuing some
girl from Simon on the roof of River City High.
Firstly, Secondly, the video game references were
fairly numerous and the effects often had the simulation of Fighting
Game style graphics. Most obvious is the appearance of the word “VS” on
the screen just before any fight actually started. I found myself
heavily anticipating the final VS appearance between Scott and Gideon.
It didn’t come at first but it was later shown why (Hey, i got an extra
guy!) Basically, the real fight hadn’t happened yet.
Then there was the REAL final VS between Scott and Nega-Scott. I can
say i knew there wouldn’t be a real fight here. it wouldn’t have fit
with the tone flowing at the moment at all, this is something the film
seemed to control very well.
I also was rather surprised and not surprised when it came down to
Ramona VS Roxie instead of Scott VS Roxie. i almost pulled a hokey
“Stand up and cheer” move in the theater.
Speaking of Ramona VS, in at least one occasion, we get Knives vs
Ramona before the climax. This was completely cut and seems like it
could have made a decent addition since it would have helped set up
Knives’ appearance during the climax better.
As for Knives in the Climax. I actually was really REALLY
disappointed that Scott didn’t pick knives over Ramona in the end.
Frankly, despite the hassle everyone gave Scott over Knives, she seems
to genuinely give a shit about him while Ramona doesn’t seem to care at
all, about anyone.
Basically, Scott really should have just told Ramona adieu but he’s realized that it’ll never work out and stuck with Knives.
