The Nerd of Spectacle of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

“Hello again, friend of a friend.” Welcome to a new post celebrating a nerd culture franchise. This time, I will be exploring a lesser know entry, one that began as a graphic novel and then morphed into a video game, a short animation, and a cult classic movie, “bombing” at the 2010’s box office (making around $47 million worldwide out of a $60 million budget) before going into a rebirth phase once the DVD and Blu-ray hit the shelves. If you have ever heard of the name Scott Pilgrim and know who this character is, props to you. You will rejoice with me while I write about his story. (Extra bonus points if you identified what the opening lines refer to). If you haven’t heard of him nor the title Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, but you enjoy my deep dives into the fashion and costume designs behind tv shows and movies, this post will not stray away from their general formula, so don’t fret as I will present you to Scott Pilgrim’s world like I have done before in all the previous articles. Thus, with the movie being re-released on cinemas for its 10th (or 11th, more on this later) anniversary celebration, it is prime time to talk about Scott Pilgrim.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life is the graphic novel that started it all. Written by Bryan Lee O’Malley and published in 2004 by Oni Press, it provided readers with a plot that combined the slice of life genre with absurd and bonkers events that pin the 23-year-old Canadian protagonist Scott Pilgrim (and sometimes his band Sex Bob-Omb) against the seven “evil” superpowered exes of his new romantic interest, Ramona Flowers. The author and illustrator scatter references to rock bands, video games, and other comic books to present both the novel and Scott’s identity as a nerd rocker, an indicator of one of the book’s target audiences. Moreover, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life featured an art style different from what most graphic novels displayed at the time, with bright colors, highly expressive faces, models with big eyes, and soft, blunt features that looked to fit the fantastical aspects of the graphic novel more than a story about a lazy adult man who starts the story with little to no interest in finding a stable job.

With decent sales numbers, Scott Pilgrim’s story expanded into five more volumes that delved more into the outlandish uniqueness that made book one excellent (most notably, Ramona’s powers and the fight scenes between Scott and the evil exes of which no character in any novel seemed to question how certain people showed superpowers and others didn’t), presented new fan-favorite characters (Envy, anyone), developed older ones further, and tied Scott and Ramona’s story neatly in a satisfying ending that came six years later.

Around the same time O’Malley released the series’ volume six titled Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, a movie adaptation helmed by Baby Driver and Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright and featuring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona, Michael Cera as Scott with appearances by Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, and Brie Larson (more on her later) was released in theaters to a muted reception by audiences. I was a small kid during that time, so I am not sure why people did not show up to watch it. Still, I would wager that the reasons lie in a combination between the niche nerd market the movie catered toward (video game lovers, rock fans, and comic book readers overlapping together in a time when Xbox and PlayStation consoles were not hot commodities nor the MCU and DCEU were popular), a lack of awareness and interest from “the regular cinema-goers,” and competition from movies released in the same week like The Expendables.

Nonetheless, from the moment Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (named after the graphic novel series’ second volume) found its way to people’s homes through Blu-rays, DVDs, and televised movie channels, it became more than just a niche box office flop. With the advent of nerd and geek culture as a staple for what is cool inside pop culture, social media, and movie streaming, more people began to resonate with the film’s over-the-top video game fights, Scott’s personal life and personality, and the various references and easter eggs to previous nerd properties, something that helped the movie transcend from a simple cult classic.

What sets Scott Pilgrim vs. The World apart from other movies is how it plays with the nerd and alternative rocker culture by infusing different franchises like Pac-Man, Street Fighter, X-Men, Fantastic 4, Mario, Zelda, Castlevania, and Soulcalibur; bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Plumtree, Sex Pistols, Metric, Broken Social Scene, Beck; and traits like the anime glaring (actors were asked not to blink too much inside takes), emoticon faces, flashing red when losing HP, bursting into coins upon defeat, comic book sound bubbles, and the KO sign into the plot to create a fan-fest that becomes self-referential rather than a movie reliant on one particular franchise. And as a reference for those of you who are Disney fans, Wreck-It Ralph does almost the same as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World by featuring characters from video games in a plot that encompasses the experience of being immersed in a world with video game tropes rather than about specific games.

I could go on and talk about the symbolic reason why the “League of Evil Exes” exists based on how they are portrayed in the movie and how they contrast with Scott, how Ramona is an independent, fully-fledge, three-dimensional character while also being the male protagonist’s object of “desire,” and a lot more about how the film is more than just a nerd spectacle. Yet, I believe these are details that you can only truly appreciate while watching it. I also think that, for those who opened this post to read about fashion, it is time to discuss the movie’s costume design.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’s costume designer is Laura Jean Shannon, who had worked before in Elf, Iron Man, and Requiem for a Dream. Her approach to designing the movie’s vestures was to use the clothing seen in the graphic novels as a direct template for what the characters would wear in the film, staying true to O’Malley’s artistic vision. As Shannon mentions in an interview with The Style Notebook, what she did “was take his simplified version of real-life from the books and re-interpret it to be real again.” That included selecting which designs from the novels would be recreated and developing new ones based on them.

A great example of this approach is Scott’s style throughout the movie. In the source material, his iconic vestures include a variety of ringer graphic tees, jean pants, simple striped tennis shoes, and a selection of parkas, depending on the weather. In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Shannon almost precisely reproduced his base wardrobe, only giving him sport wristbands, swapping the graphic images from scene to scene, and modifying the colors of his other garments. His primary style became his superhero uniform in the simplest of terms, made even more interesting because many of the nerd references I mentioned in the previous paragraphs are featured in the movie through his t-shirts. Scott wears tees with Astro Boy’s face, a Fantastic Four (and ½) logo, a Diesel Sweeties pixel skull (this is a deep cut), a Guitar Hero logo, and many more. Scott’s Plumtree t-shirt is even a reference to the origin of his name, a 1998 song from the Canadian band Plumtree, and to the same garment seen in the comic series several times. Therefore, the protagonist’s “superhero garbs” are intrinsic to his identity, which permeates the movie’s overall aesthetic, and in many ways, serves as the most authentic and reproducible style for any fan to incorporate in their own life.

Ramona is another character who has a personal style that stands out. When Scott first meets her in “real life,” Ramona’s hair is pink, and she wears steampunk goggles over her head, a faded green parka over a blue hoody over a purple sweater, a short blue skirt over pink fishnet stockings (an interesting combo for the cold weather), a pair of roller skates, and her Subspace purse. Her skates are courtesy of her work as a “Ninja delivery girl” for Amazon Canada, which Ramona is fantastic at due to her mastery of the Subspace Highway, an in-between dimension the character uses to store personal items (that is what her purse is for) and travel between two locations in short amounts of time (the Highway is almost like an astral plane worm-hole). However, unlike Scott, she wears a plurality of garments that elucidate the nuances of her personality, from a pink button-up shirt and jeans that make her stand out from the crowd when she is trying to blend in, to an entirely black outfit consisting of a sundress, a left-hand fingerless glove, leggings, an oversized belt, studded punk boots, and a vinyl hooded motorcycle jacket when she (spoiler alert) “decides” to go back to her seventh ex. Interestingly, Ramona’s black outfit was created by Shannon for the movie before O’Malley was able to draw her in his last volume since the author was working on book six while Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was in development. And yet, her hair colors are one of her stylistic traits that stand out the most in the movie, also as part of her character arch.

Working with Ramona’s aesthetic, Shannon explains that she collaborated a lot with the hair and makeup department to build a cohesive style for the character that could also hint at her development. The costume designer says that she “always made sure to let [the hair and makeup department] know what to expect with the costumes, and we would often discuss what that meant in terms of their world.” In the comics, Ramona mentions that her hair color changes around three weeks or so, so throughout the six volumes, she goes through about eight distinct hues. In the movies, however, the character styles her hair pink, blue, and then green. Some people speculate this is a reference to the Zelda triforce goddesses. Another explanation comes from Ramona, who quotes her graphic novel version pointing to the color swaps being something she does every week and a half, providing viewers with a contextual timeline for the film. But looking at the moments in the movie Ramona styles her hair differently, she changes into the blue look after the first time Scott sleeps in her house and then into green when she “rekindles” her relationship with the seventh ex. These are clues that link her hairstyles with Ramona’s feelings about her relationships, where pink represents her status as single or in a situation she still is not the most comfortable in, blue represents the character’s developed love and attraction towards Scott, and green represents her breaking up with Pilgrim and more deeply, losing her freedom of choice as a result of her seventh ex actually controlling her emotions.

Lastly, I would like to focus on the character of Envy Adams as another iconic representation of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’s fashion-forward style. Envy, played by Brie Larson, is the protagonist’s ex-girlfriend, but more than that, the lead singer of Scott’s rival band, Clash at Demonhead, also comprised by Ramona’s third ex. She is based initially on Metric’s singer and keyboardist Emily Haine, who composed the song “Blacksheep” for the film, which Brie iconically performed in one of the best scenes of the movie and which remains one of my favorite songs of all time. (It is a shame that Universal did not release an official version of the song by the actress for everybody to listen to on a streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music).

Envy’s two outfits are fire, and that is why I wanted to highlight them. The movies present her first wearing hoop earrings, a skull and sword necklace, a snake ring, a white trench coat with black buttons over a black slip dress, and red lace heels styled with a high ponytail and bangs. Then, she only wears the ring and her black dress and red heels for the Clash at Demonhead performance with a new hairstyle (here, my limited knowledge about different hairstyle names shows), a locket necklace, and an armlet. And finally, after the performance, she is seen with her earrings, a black and white café racer leather jacket, a black and white striped blouse, white pants, and black glossy high heels. Envy’s limited color scale is a node to her band’s palette, but the shapes created by the trench coat, the jacket, and even the slip dress and the red heels transmit this idea of sexy, dangerous fierceness Scott Pilgrim vs. The Wolrd depicts her having, making her brief appearance one of the most memorable of the film and one of the most iconic Brie Larson performances.

Thus, if I convinced you to dip your toes a little bit more into the world of the nerd spectacle or if you are already a long time fan of Scott Pilgrim, you can watch a remastered version of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World remixed with Dolby Vision 4K resolution and Dolby Atmos surround sound in theaters in the US at select Dolby XD AMC venues for a whole week, beginning on April 30th. Director Edgar Wright planned this re-release to happen in 2020 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the movie’s launch (August), but because of the Pandemic, it had to be pushed back until more movie theaters around the country started to reopen. In theory, the re-release will happen near the film’s 11th anniversary but will still celebrate the number 10.

Update: the exclusive Dolby Cinema re-release of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World already ended. However, starting May 7th, around 451 theaters across the United States will screen it for a limited time and some may still display it in Dolby Vision, so this is your second opportunity to either rewatch this nerd culture phenomenon for the 10th time or do so for the first time in theaters. And hey British people and Canadians, there are plans for re-releases in Canada and the UK, so be prepared!

Nonetheless, if you are unable or unwilling to do so, you can stream Scott Pilgrim vs. The World right now on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, rent/buy it on YouTube and Google Play, or if you are old school or a collector, you can buy the movie’s upcoming 4K UHD Blu-ray whenever it comes out.