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Nov. 16th, 2010 11:12 amIt's possible I'm the last person in the world to read Scott Pilgrim. And I only read it after it was cool, with the movie and all, so it earns me precisely zero geek cred anyway. OH WELL.
Anyway, I have been slowly working through the volumes as they trickled in for me at the library since I saw the movie back in August, and I finished them last week, and I have thoughts! I don't think they're very deep or original thoughts. They basically go like this:
1. Scott is likeable only because he's an idiot. If he had any more intelligence - emotional or otherwise - all the self-centered and jerktastic things he does would make it much harder to like him at all. But because he's the kind of guy whose deep thoughts amount to making :D!-faces in an elevator because elevators just make him happy, he manages to sneak into the realm of the likeable anyway.
(1.a. Which is why I find book-Scott much more sympathetic than movie-Scott. Michael Cera totally doesn't have it together, but he doesn't radiate that kind of beaming obliviousness that book!Scott does that occasionally makes him weirdly charming in spite of himself. I just don't believe in Michael Cera's idiocy as much!)
2. Most of the plot is really pretty incidental to the year-in-the-life-of-a-bunch-of-post-college-kids-sort-of-getting-their-lives-together. Which is good, because I don't really care about the plot; the idea of a story centered around "dude wins girlfriend by fighting all her ex-boyfriends" is actually such a conceptual turnoff to me that I couldn't get past it to even read the comics to begin with until I'd seen it repeated over and over by people I trusted that it was a METAPHOR FOR EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE, no seriously Ramona is not a prize, it's cool! And it is, and often plays out hilariously, so I'm okay with it. But I was reading for Kim and Wallace and Ramona and everyone being funny and fumbling their way through growing up and growing out of some of their jerkishness, and it becomes increasingly clear throughout the series that that's what Brian Lee O'Malley is writing for as well, so that's cool.
3. My favorite kind of magical realism is lulzy casually-integrated-into-the-story magical realism. People hilariously getting their ass kicked by robots in the background while people are having casual chats about completely different topics? I am all about this!
(3.a. I have seen Scott Pilgrim described as hipster. This is probably true! But dudes, I live in NYC, and hipsterness is just at a whole different level here, so my meter for this stuff is all off these days.)
4. People who got shafted by this being Scott's story: Roxy. Envy. Julie, possibly. Kim (who is my favorite; everyone is shocked.)
5. Scott and Wallace's apartment makes me feel better about mine. Which I have to clean. TODAY. oh god so many dishes
(4.a. Wow, these thoughts are just getting less and less deep as I go.)
6. Okay, maybe I just missed it because I was too busy LOLing at the way the ending cranked the anime surrealistic craziness up to a whole new level - who's been watching Utena? YOU have, Brian Lee O'Malley! - but did we ever get it explained what really went down between Scott and Envy on The Night He Remembers Tragically In Scott-O-Vision? I mean, there are hints enough to build your own narrative either way, but I'm curious!
Anyway, I have been slowly working through the volumes as they trickled in for me at the library since I saw the movie back in August, and I finished them last week, and I have thoughts! I don't think they're very deep or original thoughts. They basically go like this:
1. Scott is likeable only because he's an idiot. If he had any more intelligence - emotional or otherwise - all the self-centered and jerktastic things he does would make it much harder to like him at all. But because he's the kind of guy whose deep thoughts amount to making :D!-faces in an elevator because elevators just make him happy, he manages to sneak into the realm of the likeable anyway.
(1.a. Which is why I find book-Scott much more sympathetic than movie-Scott. Michael Cera totally doesn't have it together, but he doesn't radiate that kind of beaming obliviousness that book!Scott does that occasionally makes him weirdly charming in spite of himself. I just don't believe in Michael Cera's idiocy as much!)
2. Most of the plot is really pretty incidental to the year-in-the-life-of-a-bunch-of-post-college-kids-sort-of-getting-their-lives-together. Which is good, because I don't really care about the plot; the idea of a story centered around "dude wins girlfriend by fighting all her ex-boyfriends" is actually such a conceptual turnoff to me that I couldn't get past it to even read the comics to begin with until I'd seen it repeated over and over by people I trusted that it was a METAPHOR FOR EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE, no seriously Ramona is not a prize, it's cool! And it is, and often plays out hilariously, so I'm okay with it. But I was reading for Kim and Wallace and Ramona and everyone being funny and fumbling their way through growing up and growing out of some of their jerkishness, and it becomes increasingly clear throughout the series that that's what Brian Lee O'Malley is writing for as well, so that's cool.
3. My favorite kind of magical realism is lulzy casually-integrated-into-the-story magical realism. People hilariously getting their ass kicked by robots in the background while people are having casual chats about completely different topics? I am all about this!
(3.a. I have seen Scott Pilgrim described as hipster. This is probably true! But dudes, I live in NYC, and hipsterness is just at a whole different level here, so my meter for this stuff is all off these days.)
4. People who got shafted by this being Scott's story: Roxy. Envy. Julie, possibly. Kim (who is my favorite; everyone is shocked.)
5. Scott and Wallace's apartment makes me feel better about mine. Which I have to clean. TODAY. oh god so many dishes
(4.a. Wow, these thoughts are just getting less and less deep as I go.)
6. Okay, maybe I just missed it because I was too busy LOLing at the way the ending cranked the anime surrealistic craziness up to a whole new level - who's been watching Utena? YOU have, Brian Lee O'Malley! - but did we ever get it explained what really went down between Scott and Envy on The Night He Remembers Tragically In Scott-O-Vision? I mean, there are hints enough to build your own narrative either way, but I'm curious!
