Scott Pilgrim 1-3

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is my absolute favorite move of the last two years.  I finish watching it and immediately want to start over.  It is just as funny every single time.  I remember someone saying that the comic books were even better, so I've been going through the graphic novels.  Brief summary: Scott Pilgrim, a heart-breaker finally dealing with having his own heart broken, falls for a new girl, but has to fight her seven evil ex's if he wants to be with her.

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Scott Pilgrim 1).  The first graphic novel blew me away.  It was hilarious, but what really struck me was how close to the graphic novel the movie is.  We're talking word for word, scene for scene, I would believe it if you told me they shot straight from comic.

One of the things I liked best about the graphic novel is that it don't try to explain why Scott is such a good fighter.  In the movie, it felt like Scott learns his fighting skills from a DDR type game, but in the graphic novel he knows how to fight because... he's Canadian, so of course he knows how to fight.  Granted Bryan Lee O'Malley didn't have to contend with convincing the American public (or any public for that matter) that Michael Cera could actually defend himself.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Scott Pilgrim 2).  Since I just relocated and am currently job hunting, I borrowed the rest of the series from the library.  Reading the second volume made me really glad that I didn't go ahead and purchase them all.  I think there were a lot of flashbacks, but I'm not really sure because I spent the entire book trying to figure out what was going on.  There was the occasional obvious joke that made me laugh, but mostly I felt stupid for not getting it.

This volume changed significantly in the movie.  I have to say that a lot of the changes in the movie were genius.  The evil ex in this novel is an action movie start and in the movie Scott contends with both the ex and the ex's body doubles.  I found it interesting how much they used from the first volume when they used only bits and pieces of this one (thank God!).  Still, I don't feel like reading it was a waste of time, just buying it might have been a waste of money.



Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness (Scott Pilgrim 3).  The third graphic novel picked back up.  It was funny and easy to follow.  We get a lot more background on Scott's relationship with his ex, Envy, which I really enjoyed.  There really wasn't space for it in the movie, which is okay.  That's one of the reasons that I decided to read the graphic novels in the first place.

This volume fell in the middle of the first two volumes on the amount of changes the filmmakers made.  A lot of scenes seemed to be shot straight from the pages of the novel, but a lot of the best material just didn't fit with the flow of the movie.  The filmmakers did a wonderful job of taking some of the funniest moments and bits of dialogue and changing them ever so slightly so that they would fit perfectly within the film.

I loved the movie, I'm loving the books, and seeing how they made the adaptation work has proved to be far more interesting than I expected it to be.