The year is 2010, and we are unspooled, and we are here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff. The movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Welcome to Unspoof. Amy, I realized I didn't say hello. I just let you take hello by yourself. So I apologize this many years in and I just, I left, I left you out there. I hung you out to dry. I apologize. Hey, you know, just like the best garage bands, man, we can be a little sloppy, but it's our raw energy.
I was going to say, I was very Scott Pilgrim of me. Just like, leave my good friend out to dry. I am Paul Scheer. That other voice is Amy Nicholson. And this is Unspooled, where we talk about great films. We talk about movies that... are classics. And we also look at movies that people consider classics and ask the question, are they good? Or do we just remember them that way? Or in the case of this movie...
Was this a flop or can we now remember it as a massive, massive hit? Can we redeem Scott Pilgrim? It's not versus the world anymore. It's not even versus its own reputation. It just is Scott Pilgrim.
And we're doing this episode because right now we are a couple weeks after the release of the brand new Scott Pilgrim anime series, which is yet another incarnation of... this franchise and this is such an interesting franchise because this is a film that truly combines so many things that we love i mean this is an adaptation of text But it's also a meta adaptation of text. It's also an homage to the aesthetic of comic books. It pays tribute and embraces...
things in the video game world that are so small and unique. The biggest super fan will find a smile across his face. It is something that feels completely different, but yet is such a... a worshiping at the altar of all things pop culture and captures this moment in our society 2008 like that era that i feel like we've moved past it but when i see it i'm like I remember that. I remember that time. And when you lived in it, it was a little bit more murky, but now I see it so clearly.
yeah watching this movie took me back to the headspace i was in when we did jennifer's body just a few uh months ago like not only was i feeling the hey there's johnny simmons of it all but i was thinking like oh right this is a look a style an aesthetic a musical obsession that i didn't quite vibe with at the time and yet watching it now there's like that little touch of like extra nostalgia while it's already being nostalgic for the 90s we are people
that have come from a pop culture world and we see ourselves probably in a much more pop culture way than people before us like we are the heroes of our own story we all are and If we are looking at our movie, our movie is going to be a lot more influenced by what we've ingested in the 90s and early 2000s than...
maybe a classic piece of literature. This is like the Walter Mitty of today. I don't know if there's a great example of that, but it's like, this is a now version of how we see ourselves and how we want to interact within the world. And we're going to talk about...
how this movie came to be and the collaborations around it. I mean, this is a very interesting film on so many levels, but I think the thing I'm looking forward to the most is why does it resonate? And I don't think it's just stylistically. I think it's... I mean, Paul, if you're telling me that someday you want to do the Ben Stiller-Walter Mitty movie, a movie that I deeply love and will stand up for, a movie that I do think deserves a reappraisal, I will say yes to that. But yeah.
I mean, this is kind of a movie about like living in the echo chamber of your mind where it's hard to relate to your own emotions, where it's hard to really even understand that other people are real because you're relating everything to pop culture, to ephemera. Everything is like being mediated to you through a wall of experience, even coming home and being like, I spent the night out, but I'm in a sitcom. Oh, the Seinfeld moment is amazing.
Yeah. How do you live an authentic life when you're constantly seeing yourself not as a human, but as a character and other people as characters? And, you know, we're not going to get into it, but I will say this movie would have been a hard sell right now. to have a lead character who is 22 dating a 15-year-old, even though it's very chaste. 17, 17, 17, 17. No, 15. I thought she was 15.
She's 17. Okay, let's just have it be known that Amy is cool with 22-year-olds dating 17-year-olds. And Amy, on that note, let's unspool it. The year is 2010 and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the blockbuster cannot miss smash hit. of July's Comic-Con, and it should be. It's based on a comic by Brian Lee O'Malley, and if attendees didn't already know the books, Scott Pilgrim has got its poster on elevators. It's got its poster on the side of a hotel. That is the first time that is ever.
It's got three sneak preview screenings and the crowd goes wild at each one. It's got several past and present superheroes, a future one too, and... As director Edgar Wright tells the screaming crowd at Hall H, it's even got the leads of his last two hit movies. Not appearing in this film, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost came out.
gave Edgar Wright the middle finger and left. But minutes later, the real star of the movie, Michael Cera, came out wearing this heavily padded Captain America suit, which is a nod to his Scott Pilgrim co-star, Chris Evans, the genuine Captain America, and also a nod to the... fact that scott pilgrim himself is a comic book and video game obsessed lead character who's not that different from most of the attendees and this movie itself is a comic book and video game obsessed
action slash romance slash comedy slash musical about the love life of a 22-year-old bass player from Toronto who's caught between his 17-year-old girlfriend Knives Chow, that's Ellen Wong, and the age-appropriate girl of his literal dreams, Ramona Flowers. That's Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Between them and his ex-girlfriend, current drummer, Kim, that's Alison Pill, and his ex-girlfriend, current indie rock superstar, Envy, that's Brie Larson, Scott is surrounded by people he's made out with, and he's surrounded by people Ramona has made out with, her seven evil exes. played by Satya Babha, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Mae Whitman, Shota Saito, Kieto Saito, and Jason Schwartzman, all of which he has to fight and defeat. But the truest obstacle between himself and true love is...
himself. He's not the greatest guy in the world. He's not even the greatest bassist in his own band. The music here, by the way, is fantastic. We're talking about songs written by Beck, the producer of Radiohead, Broken Social Scene, Metric, Cornelius, Dan the Automator, and Needle Drops from the Pixies, the Rolling Stones, and T-Rex.
Scott Pilgrim opened in theaters on August 13th, 2010, less than three weeks after it dominated Comic-Con. In that Friday the 13th, this $60 million movie opened wide and was beaten to a pulp at the box office. What crushed it? The number one movie was Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables. And you can actually hear Edgar Wright taunting him from that Hall H panel.
And the only way that I can prove my masculinity is to, if he's still backstage, is to challenge Sylvester Stallone to an arm wrestle over the top style. Technically, I win. Although if he comes back, I am in deep shit. The number two movie was Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, Julia Roberts kicks up Pilgrim's ass while eating spaghetti.
And Scott Pilgrim was just all the way down behind some stuff that I'd already been playing in theaters at number five. By the next week, it was basically out of the top 10. I mean, this movie was a massive flop by box office standards. But the Monday after release, Universal's head of marketing, Michael Moses, sent Edgar Wright a three-word email. Years, not days. Which I think has been proven pretty right. So what was in the zeitgeist that weekend of August 2010?
It was a song about destructive exes sung by two artists who had, by then, both gone through the awful public scrutiny of being in famously awful relationships. And it is a song about how relationships are also not as easy as a Nintendo game. I think they say literally right here. It is Eminem and Rihanna, and I love the way you lie. That's why they call it windowpane. Just gonna stay.
Interesting side note about this song. The chorus was written by a songwriter named Skylar Gray, and Skylar Gray got her start writing songs on an album that only sold... 4,000 copies at the time that it was released in 2005. It was called Finally Out of P.E., and the singer on that album would go on to win an Oscar and be in this movie, and this is her singing. Because it's all so pointless. I'm too young to be jaded. Brie Larson, finally out of P.E.
the number one hit album of 2005. Not at all. You know, things grow. Isn't that right, Paul? Isn't that the lesson of this whole episode? You know what? I think it should be because I want to admit right now something that I probably have never admitted to anyone. I did not like this movie the first time I saw it. I didn't get it. Whoa, really? I saw everyone reacting around me like it was the best film ever. But for me, there was something that this film just missed.
Now, I've really grown to love it. I own the Blu-ray. I'm a huge fan of it. But I think in that first initial viewing of it, what I really missed was the interpersonal relationships. I felt like... these books that Brian Lee O'Malley wrote, and I love these books, were so much about dating and these little conversations, and the movie felt to me like just...
fight scenes almost like a movie musical but they replaced the musical numbers with fights and i was like no that's not scott pilgrim scott pilgrim is like a much more like introspective thing and i felt like this became so much about video games
OK, because, yeah, you're right. I mean, the original books have a chance to kind of further explore Scott's like relationships, get into backstories more about like him and Kim, more about him and like Knives Chow's dad. Six volumes, right? You're allowed to like really expand. Well, the six volumes also are really interesting because the movie was written after the first two volumes were written. So this movie, which was closely orchestrated with Brian Leo Malley.
were kind of running on separate tracks. So the movie was in process before the books even completed. And I think that Edgar Wright really picked this really wonderful way in and I think focused up.
these big books into a really digestible movie but at the time it wasn't exactly what I was looking for now I can stand back and I can look at it and just be like oh I love this I think what he did is genius I'm a little further away from my love of the books look there's another thing out here too that i think a lot of people had an issue with it was probably michael sarah fatigue at this point
I can see that. I mean, he's coming off Juno. He's in Arrested Development. Was it Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist? Was that him? He was in one of those. But wait, what I'm hearing in your voice, too, is like, tell me if I'm wrong. Paul Scheer, young man. creative, early 20s. Am I hearing you maybe identified a lot with the character of Scott Pilgrim when you were reading the books? Did he feel close to you? Oh, absolutely. I mean, this was a book that I...
truly identified with as somebody who I think started reading this book right after a breakup and being in that like pit of despair. And then this movie talks about something or the books talk about something that you don't often talk about in. film it's like you have rom-coms but you don't have the rom-coms that carry the baggage that we all carry into new relationships yeah you're right because like there are tons of romantic comedies where it's like
we're getting married. And then her ex shows up and oh no, he's got a Lamborghini and a mustache, you know? And it's like, he's comic or the way that even like the ex was in Titanic. ex slash current fiance, I guess, however you want to think of him. Dastardly mustache. Billy Zane. The great Billy Zane. But this movie seems very much like it's about that. You must fight, fight, fight all your exes. It's really about all of your exes showing up. But what it's about underneath that is...
How are you responsible for how things went wrong? What baggage are you bringing to this that you created? This is really not just about externalizing your real life into a bad guy, but what are you bringing with you as you try to start new? What did you do to make your ex-boyfriend so insane? Exes. Whatever. No breakup is painless. Somebody always gets hurt. What about you and that girl, Knives? Who broke up with who? I believe I broke up with her. And was she cool with that?
Naves is with young Neil now. She's totally cool with it. Are you sure about that? Yeah, she's very immature for her age. We had a very healthy breakup. We're all peaches and gravy. What about you and Kim? And Kim? I can barely remember. It was high school. She had freckles. That's it. Yeah, it kind of ended. It changed. And that is really different because it's like kind of a non-romantic romantic film. It's more romantic in the vein of like eternal sunshine.
than like a rom-com. Exactly. I loved how the fighting was incorporated into the books. And each book had a different fight scene. And the movie, pretty much every 15 minutes, we're in a different...
fight scene, if not even sooner than that. And I love the way that the movie took the idea of, you know, we are a culture or at least people of... of our age grew up playing a lot of video games and you know what if life was as easy as fighting someone to then move on to the next level like it's not that easy it's hard right you have to deal with so much more stuff and this movie does a really great job of articulating
that idea, like how do you move to the next level? How do you actually get over these obstacles? And, you know, the original books stemmed out of the fact that Brian Lee O'Malley found out that his wife had dated multiple men named Matthew. And that kind of stuck in his head. So there was going to be a league of Matthews, but then that changed and it was only one Matthew, the first Matthew. I have a running joke with my boyfriend because all of his exes also have names that start with A.
So when we're at truck stops, I'm always like, ta-da, it's your wall of girlfriends when we look at the little like fake license plates. But, you know, I think this movie captured a moment that. We're kind of out of this hipster movement that was post-Seattle hipster. It was this kind of new era of hipster, the mid-2000s. And I feel like there's this energy of...
like the internet or the video game hipster. There was, there was more of a pop culture thing to it where I felt like old hipsters were a little bit more well-read and these hipsters are a little bit more pop culture literate. But I do feel like there's kind of this schism in my head between the books and the movie where I read the books and I picture kind of the 90s matador indie rock scene, I guess.
you know like kind of the gentler late 90s indie the kind of like pavement boys for no reason i picture pavement boys and then the movie i picture like fallout boys and it's like to me that's like such a shift of indie rockers no i definitely see that
There's a lot of poserism in this movie. And it's right there on its surface. Like, yes, they are in a band. They're not very good. They're admittedly not very good, but they just want to become famous because... they're in a band right there's an element of that like there's not this purity there's a meta hipsterness
to it i think on a certain level that i really appreciate like there's a great line that nelson franklin says he's like the rock critic in the film he he's the first person who identifies ramona flowers to scott pilgrim on the stairs the party But there's a line when Scott Pilgrim goes back in to defeat Gideon at the end where he goes, well, their first album isn't as good as their first album. And I love that line. Oh, that sounds funny.
sums up that entire culture, that moment in time that they're capturing. I thought you were going to talk about the line that's right in there. He's like, the comic is better than the movie. Yes, and I think that that also is part of like... this meta commenting on what we're doing. thing like like when Scott Pilgrim writes that song for Ramona and he's playing it at her and I can forever not see any man playing a guitar and singing to a woman without thinking of Barbie now but
When I see that moment of- Yeah, even in your choice of words, playing it at her. Yes. I mean, but that song is awful, right? It's terrible. But he wants to have a song for her. And so he just kind of half-ass.
a song and everything is like why isn't it just easy why isn't it just easy why can't i just get signed why can't i just have a girlfriend why can't it be okay and i think that this thing that we're watching with scott pilgrim through these fights and i don't know if this is like perfect in the film but i i like where it ends up is like there is no easy way out right it is hard it is work and even though we wish
it to be easy, we are just kind of fooling ourselves because Knives Chow is easy for Scott Pilgrim in a very Josh Giddy. relationship here if you follow the NBA at all. But, you know, and I think that they kind of soften the blow that a 22-year-old is dating a 15-year-old by saying that they've never kissed, they barely have held hands. Right. They try to they insist right up at the top that it's as innocent as possible, like within less than a minute has gone by in the movie.
How old are you now, Scott? Like 28? I'm not playing your little games, kids. So you've been out of high school for like 13 years. I'm 22. 22. You're dating a high school girl. Not bad, not bad. Thank you, thank you. So did you guys, like, you know, do it yet? We have done many things. We ride the bus together, and we have meaningful conversations about... Which is a relief because I have to admit...
I tend to forget for some reason, the Knives subplot of this. I always just think Scott and Ramona, Scott and Ramona. And the movie starts and it's right away like he is dating a high school. It's like Romeo and Juliet. It's like always forgetting Rosaline exists. And that's who he's like upset about the whole first part of the movie.
You know, this other girl. But like the Knives element of it is fascinating to me. Like, I mean, I was definitely a Knives. I was trying to date older guys in bands. Like that was, I was Knives. And it never occurred to me that I looked like such a tiny little dummy. We all have that element of knives, right? We all want to be like in with the cool kids and knives is easy. Like knives will never challenge Scott and knives is a reaction to, you know, being dumped.
by this beautiful girl who has now achieved the most tremendous amount of success like it's all his ego can take it's like it's easy it's not hard it's not work and I think we were watching like Scott Pilgrim mature in this film and kind of figure out what he really wants, whether it's what's right for right now or what's right for me as a human being. He really does grow.
I mean, I hope he does. It's like you're stressing like how easy his relationship is with knives. And like the hardest thing for him is the idea that he would have to like break up with her just because he doesn't want to have that conversation. You have to break up with knives. Poor angel. Today. But it's hard. But like what he's so good at doing is making the relationship sort of miserable for her before he even breaks up with her. I find it.
so dead on that I'm actually going to use this word about myself non-ironically a little bit triggering to see like this type of bad relationship where somebody thinks they're being the nice person not to hurt somebody else's feelings like the scenes that he has with knives chow early on where he they're like going on their fun little date
And they're playing, you know, video games and he's making her pay for all of the video games because like he's too broke to even have money to like pay for anything. He's like milking off a 17 year old. That's bad. But then like after he meets Ramona and then he goes on the same date again with Knives and you can just see how much he's not even paying attention to her anymore and she doesn't realize. That's the kind of thing that just like, oof.
It's like such a flaming sword stabbed into my abdomen. I did that once. And it's still one of my biggest regrets of just... not really having the courage to end something because it also is convenient. It's nice. It's easy.
And I remember those moments and being conflicted. And I think that that's why Michael Cera is actually a really inspired choice for this. It's not exactly who I thought of when I read the books. And I don't even know who I did think of. It's so interesting now because I feel like...
the way that the characters look on film and the way they look in the books like they've now become one i also just love all the little things that edgar wright did like nobody really blinks in this film like he wanted to make sure that it kept this comic book energy and vibe so everyone has their eyes open wide for pretty much every scene i think there's like a few very rare exceptions and now with the netflix show where we're having anime versions
of the characters that brian lee o'malley has drawn voiced by the actors that edgar wright cast so like scott pilgrim is really now this one big version the books are its own thing the movie is its own thing the video game is its own thing and now this anime is another incarnation of it. And I think each one of them is very different and tells different stories, but I think that they all hit upon this central idea, like you can be a good person, but you can also be an asshole too.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I kind of struggle with, with the casting of Michael Cera here. I mean, the Internet at the time when he was cast, they had kind of pictured him as more of maybe like a Zac Efron type, you know, or maybe like a Chris Evans type, you know, or Universal wanted Seth Rogen. I think Seth Rogen was like, yeah, more of a fuckboy because he is a fuckboy. And I think I have a hard time.
holding on to the fact that Michael Cera is playing a fuckboy like the movie has to keep reminding me and I still kind of don't believe it you know I mean you've got like Aubrey Plaza just like calling him out really harshly Scott, I forbid you from hitting on Ramona, even if you haven't had a real girlfriend in over a year. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Scott's mourning period is officially over.
Totally dating a high schooler. Dating a high schooler is the morning period. Just got a point. I thought you guys broke up. I don't want you scaring off the coolest girl at my party, Scott. We all know you're a total lady killer, wannabe, jerky jerk. That's completely untrue. That time with Lisa? That was a misunderstanding. You've got his ex-girlfriend Kim just being like, are you evil?
I mean, are you really happy or are you really evil? Like, do I have ulterior motives or something? I'm offended, Kim. Wounded even? Hurt, Kim. You? Hurt? You've even got him singing a song called Garbage Man.
I'm a garbage man. And nevertheless, I cannot buy in my gut that Michael Cera... is a fuck boy but then he could be like the most dangerous type of fuck boy which is a fuck boy that you don't think is a fuck boy and those yes are so fucking toxic because then you think you you can trust them
Oh, gosh, it sounds like I'm talking from personal experience, and I certainly am, but I've completely blocked out all of my 20s, and I don't remember a single thing about it. Don't ask. But I do think, though, the one way that it kind of goes awry, maybe, is just because he sounds so... excited about dating knives and he sounds so happy and innocent he doesn't he never he never ever strikes me as sinister but maybe that is it maybe he's so dangerous because he isn't sinister oh god
By the way, I love what we're getting from you on this. But yeah, I agree with you 100%. I think it's a new type of fuckboy, like a sensitive fuckboy. He's not in it. Like he doesn't want to like have sex with knives. He wants... to just have the adoration, like the purity of just being perfect. And anyone who's in a good, healthy relationship knows
That is not part of the deal. Like, it is not. Like, it's not. Like, I love my wife. I've been with my wife for a very long time. Married and dating. It is the best relationship. i've ever had but it's not easy and i don't say that to be like it's hard it's just like the person that you're in a relationship with should challenge you and while they are there to support you they also aren't going to let you get away with
being a dick. And I feel like that's what Scott wants. It's like Scott wants this person. He doesn't want sex as much as he just wants the ease of something. I think we can all identify with that idea of like, I just don't want to do it. It's too hard. And I think if Edgar Wright changed the fuckboy nature of him, the Zac Efron version of him into this version.
I actually think it's more relatable because it's like, it's not easy for him to get girls. He just wants an easy path. Those are two different things. The guy... or the person who has it easy and the person who wants an easy path. And I think that the person who wants an easy path is way more identifiable than, oh my gosh, they're just so hot. Everything comes their way. I mean, I can be swayed by this.
I do think one of the striking things, though, is that here we have Scott Pilgrim fuckboy surrounded by people who do exactly what you're saying he kind of needs them to do, which is call him out.
every single person in this movie does nothing but like call him out you know say that he's a terrible person and i think that's kind of striking that he's this annoying maybe lazy guy that everybody's kind of nervous about like oh look out for him and everybody's willing to tell him that he's screwing up and he's not surrounded by any like yes men Do fuckboys not gravitate towards other fuckboys? He's got maybe like a pretty healthy friend group.
The other character in here that I think is really interesting is the switch on the manic pixie dream girl, right? Like that energy that we've seen. I mean, all the way back to our episode about bringing up baby with Catherine Hepburn. She takes a buttoned up guy and makes him want to commit or whatever that is. What we see with Ramona here is something that is. a spin on that as well she presents as like a manic pixie dream girl but is also like a lot more depressed a lot more quiet but
she's still creating that same sense of Tasmanian devil spinning around for our lead character. Actually, yeah. Wait, I didn't think about this until right now, but like of the tapestry of manic pixie dream girls that we do have going back to like Catherine Hepburn.
She does not, as far as I can remember, anything in this movie, introduce him to anything. She's not like, check out this band or let me take you to this wacky restaurant. Oh, no, I put you in a situation out of your head. In fact, she's kind of remarkably even. passive to the point of sort of being a non-existent personality around him what i like about her is as you're saying like he kind of comes from this moment in pop culture we were starting to get this like almost
traveling junkyard of pop culture ephemera conversational patterns, you know, where he's like, let me tell you about Pac-Man. And she's like, oh, I could not care less. You know, she kind of cuts through that. Like she lets him know that the things he obsesses over are silly.
But she's never like, let me replace the boring parts of your life with something interesting. You know, she's sort of like, let me see where you'll take me. You're going to take me on a kind of badly planned date where we're cold. OK, you're going to invite me to see your band. Okay, you're going to invite me to your band practice? Okay. So in a way, it's like he kind of has to do all of the work of this relationship.
He really does have to do everything because I'm not sure what it all she even brings to this table for him, except for maybe like a ton of different types of teas. What kind of tea do you want? There's more than one kind.
We have blueberry, raspberry, ginseng, sleepy time, green tea, green tea with lemon, green tea with lemon and honey, liver disaster, ginger with honey, ginger without honey, vanilla almond, white truffle, blueberry chamomile, vanilla walnut, constant comment, and... Earl Grey. Did you make some of those up?
I think I'll have sleepy time. And I'm not bringing that up even as like a complaint about Ramona, although I would otherwise. Like if this was a genuine deep-seated romance where it's like, yes, I'm really rooting for this couple, I'd be like, I kind of wish Ramona was a little bit more of a character. But if this is all about him and his inner growth, which it really is, he could be chasing a stuffed rabbit. It's all about what is he doing to chase? What do you think about the idea that...
This movie is the anti-manic pixie dream girl because it shows her just as being normal. But all these men put her on a pedestal like, oh my God, she's the best thing ever. but she's complicated and she has different thoughts like it's almost as if the men respond to her in a way that she's not like they're looking at her as this like
object of affection, but she is not actually being appreciated for who she is. Yeah, I could see that in her. She's almost not even trying to show people who she is because she's like, what does it matter? Edgar Wright told Mary Elizabeth Winsett that...
one of the things for her character gave her like an enormous backstory about Ramona. And one of the things that he gave her was that she was to wear a shoelace around her neck because it was her brother's shoelace and he died when he was very young. Now, that's not canon, according to Brian Lee O'Malley, but I think it's interesting in looking at her character because she is darker.
than a typical manic pixie dream girl, but she presents physically as that. You know, her hair changes colors representing the three Zelda princesses, which I think is interesting. Oh, is that what it is? Yes. both Scott and her in this relationship that we're following is about them going deeper. It's about them like figuring out like it's sitting in the uncomfortable moments. It's actually listening to each other. It's actually going there. Now that's where...
I personally miss the elements of the book where we actually see this relationship flourish in between the fight scenes, whereas this movie just kind of treats the fight scenes as, okay, now we're on to the next moment and the next moment. And there are these great little...
chunks in the film where they they talk about well should we break up should we split but it's not as deep as the books go with this relationship yeah i mean when i think about the tone of the books i think more that the books are living in this kind of post breakup vibe like i think of them as being broken up in the books more than they are together where it's like a lot of living in your mistakes like the characters in there have time to you know
Move around, get jobs, lose jobs, leave town. You know, this movie feels like it could take place in a week. less than a week it just it just happens like one day kind of rolls into the next it's like boom boom boom boom it's got this energy i mean this movie is all energy oh 100 and i think that each fight scene escalates in a different way you know to the point where
Ramona then gets in front of Mae Whitman and they start to work in tandem with each other from the very beginning. Like, what are the...
cheat codes here that we can use. Well, they become the pairing that Scott and Knives are in the beginning when they're playing Dance Dance Revolution. They learn how to navigate things together. We're watching that learning process. And yes, Scott... can do that in a game with knives because it's a game it doesn't mean anything but to do it in the real world with ramona i think that
It's harder and it's more earned. I mean, that sounds like this advice that this advice comes. I love Carolina Hacks is always giving it like when you're in a relationship and you guys have a conflict like. I'll just throw it out here that I'm sure is relatable to a lot of people. Where are you going to spend Christmas this year? Right? Right. Right. That you don't consider this you fighting your partner about it. You consider it you and your partner on the same side fighting the problem.
picturing yourself aligned with your partner as you battle the problem together instead of butting heads which is very hard to remember in the moment to be honest but like yeah you're talking about them doing like the literal representation of that i guess at the end of this movie it's like knives standing up and like knives fighting for him almost just more out of like a you meant a lot to me once kind of moment i mean because that's one of the interesting things about this film is like
As you were saying, like Brian Lee O'Malley hadn't finished the comic books when they were making the movie. He didn't know yet how they were going to end as they were writing the script. There was also like, just like in Ferris Bueller, there was like a writer's strike happening. So they had to like finish the script really fast and they're like, okay. And then they moved on.
The whole time they're shooting this movie, they thought that it was going to end with Scott Pilgrim winding up with knives. And they filmed that ending right here. Where are you going? I don't know, maybe Prague or somewhere. You weren't even going to say goodbye? It's hard, you know? So that's it? I don't want to think about it too much. It saves me from getting hurt. Listen, if I ever came across...
Nonchalant or aloof, I'm sorry. It's just the way I'm put together. If I ever came across as stupid and asinine, me too. And then they showed it to test audiences, and test audiences were like, I don't know. I don't know about him ending up with knives. Why is that like the happy ending? Who's that happy for? Even Ellen Wong herself was like, really?
I mean, he just cheated on her. And now the happy ending for her is she's like with this older guy who's like cheating on her. And so they went kind of back to the basics. Like, OK. I guess he doesn't wind up with knives. Like let's write the scene again so that he winds up with Ramona. But that's why you kind of like watch this whole movie.
And you're not necessarily feeling that he and Ramona are right for each other. You know, Mary Elizabeth Winstead isn't playing this like we're supposed to end up together. She plays the whole movie as though she thinks they're not supposed to end up together.
And it kind of explains why like Knives Chow is so committed. We're supposed to end up together. So those performances are really like channeled on a different gear. And I think that makes it better because part of me at the end of the day is like, maybe he shouldn't be with Ramona, but I'm okay with this ending. You're seeing this exhaustion by Ramona that no one is willing to do this for me. This is too hard. Why would you want to do this?
You know, there's a certain point where she's like, you know what, it's easier for her to go back and be like, I'm never going to get free of this. So I'll just go back to Gideon and that's fine. Right. She becomes this kind of robot for him because like. it's too hard to put hope in someone to try to get through all the obstacles that equal like
a good relationship to her. I think what's really interesting, and I don't want to spoil it, but the anime series that just came out on Netflix is really... I've only finished two episodes. Okay, well, I'm just going to spoil the first twist, which is...
What happens if Scott Pilgrim died in his first battle? Like, that's the first twist to kind of spiral this into a different direction. And I think that... what i've been seeing too and watching is that we get to see that journey of ramona like how does she carry this weight of being this girl who's like burdened by these men that won't let her go or that are these relationships like and i think that we've seen that so many times in like shitty rom-coms like this idea like
oh, yes, but I was different then. You got to let me go. I feel like I've seen that idea like men hold on so hard to the past that it's hard to form a new relationship because... they get so obsessed with the boyfriends of the past. But it's also probably for her to release that as well. And it's a two-way street. She's got to release those boyfriends too. I think that that's what she does do with Mae Whitman and with Gideon.
i think it's a real challenge like you talked about it in the beginning like we just can't blame somebody else for a relationship not working this is a movie about relationships it's like we both bring in baggage and how can we deal with our baggage without making it affect the other person and here We literally have seven people who are going to kick your ass and kill you. Meanwhile, Scott's baggage is I'm never going to connect to anybody because.
it's going to hurt me again and his just want to actually fight becomes this thing that we're enjoying and that like that lust for life or that that want to actually win and not just do it for a girl, but do it for himself because it actually gives him back something that he's been missing, which is just being this passive fuck boy, you know, which is easy to do, you know, especially when you see this, this girl of your dreams or this, you know.
this envy adams which is another interesting character too envy adams is a really interesting personification of like did you make a mistake did you let this thing go like wouldn't it have been amazing to like be along with her? If she didn't dump you, would he have just been like her number two or plus one forever? Is that a life that he wants or he at least considers it, I think.
Well, yeah, I mean, I like how Brie plays this, right? Like, because I mean, not only can she sing, I mean, she definitely sings better than she did when she was like even younger, as we heard at the beginning. Again friend of a friend I knew you were I love her like disaffected way that she is as like envy for most of it, you know, like so unflappable, so chill, so like in charge of their conversations.
You know, when you kind of see her break right at the end when he calls her Natalie and she's like, nobody calls me Natalie anymore. It's almost like she's been a little possessed by her own fame or like by her own sort of ego kind of snaps out of it just sort of briefly.
But then I do feel bad. She just lost her boyfriend and her bandmate. So what happens to Envy at the end of this? It's interesting the way that Brie Larson approached this character because she just wanted to be in an Edgar Wright movie. She loved Edgar Wright. So she hadn't read any Scott Pilgrim books. She saw a drawing of Envy Adams and she decided that she was going to watch the AVN awards, which is the adult video awards. So she was watching those adult.
film actresses and kind of started to take her character from that like acting very vain and kind of copying voice and body language of you know these models and i think that she's playing a character and when he calls her natalie that's the break in her character and we actually see the old version of her but it's i think again we're talking about people who are taking the easy road it's easy for her
to be this new thing, to be this other, you know, and it's like, and she can justify her breakup with Scott Pilgrim or the dumping of Scott Pilgrim, which seems pretty brutal in the way it's told. Like, you know, she just goes away and this starts cheating on him. Well, yeah, and isn't it true that in the books it's more like...
She wants their band to become a success. And he's like, I don't know. I don't know about selling out, blah, blah, blah. And it's like if she stays with him, then she doesn't get to be in a cool band. Like he's almost prepared to drag her down.
Because he's not a guy who really pursues anything except for this like brief moment in time, Ramona, you know, as much as he can. Like he cares more about pursuing Ramona than he cares about anything in this entire film. And maybe about his entire life. Like he doesn't care about his band.
that much he does but he's like super happy to leave practice and kind of leave everybody in the lurch he definitely doesn't care about like having a job he definitely doesn't care about like having any independence in life it's kind of ramona or bust and i would almost imagine that there's a world where like
He just summons his energy and like pursues Ramona for like a month and then gets like tired of it and does something else completely different. You see, but I disagree with that because the ending of her opening up that door. and them going into whatever they're going into. And that's kind of the cool thing that this movie does. It's like she takes a shortcut through his mind. You know, there are these fantastical elements to this movie that aren't explained.
Like, are these fights happening all the time? I don't think so. But at the same time... No one had to sit there and go, well, you see what's happening is this, you know, no one has to explain like how she roller skating through his mind. Yeah. They're just like, she's American. Oh, you just don't know how to do it in Canada. They go to a different place. They're kind of.
breaking a pattern and they're trying something together. They are making a decision to be truthful, to be who they are without pretense.
all the faults and flaws that we all are and i think that's how you should come to every relationship it's like you don't have to be perfect for me and i'm not going to be perfect for you so let's get down to business and figure out who we actually are and do we want to be together and i feel like that's like the beginning of their story like forget all this other stuff like what their relationship will be will be post this film because
We don't know that much. We only know them through their own heartache. We only are hearing about them through their past. But what's their future? What's in their future? are they? Because even at the end, when he learns his little thing in the desert, I rewound that twice, like, what is he learning? I didn't mean for you to get dragged into this, Scott. I just wanted something simple.
I'm sorry it had to end this way. Well, I really fought for you. Maybe I'm not the one you should have been fighting for. What? What? What? I feel like I learned something. Which would be great if I wasn't dead. I mean, do you get what he learns there? Not really. No, but I think he gets a little bit of perspective. I mean, because then it's just a couple beats after that where...
He and Ramona are having that exchange where she's like, you are the nicest guy I ever dated. And he's able to be like, that is sad. I should thank you, though. For what? For being the nicest guy I ever dated. It's kind of sad. It is kind of sad. But, you know, I do want to believe that he could learn something. I mean...
This ending really is eternal sunshine. Now that we know things about each other, do we want to continue? Yes, no. You are counting down. Put your quarter in. Maybe he has a quarter. I do want to believe that people can. learn and grow, that's a really fundamental tenet in my life. And it's strange that I don't totally buy that Scott Pilgrim is there. And that's not a ding on the movie. I don't need to buy it. I don't even think this movie completely buys it himself.
I think the movie kind of believes at the end of the day, Scott is to Ramona what Knives is to Scott. You know, here's somebody that I can sort of try being with because it's easy. I mean, the parallels between her and Knives are really interesting in that he kind of likes Knives because Knives has no past as well. She's never kissed a boy at the start of the movie. She doesn't have exes he has to fight. He's got nobody to compete with.
You know, it doesn't get any easier than that. I think they're both a little bit like damaged, but I think they'll have a nice relationship for four months or six months or something like that, which is great. It's all you need.
That's all you need? No. Well, I mean, it's all they need from each other. It's all they need from each other. Sometimes relationships are just like what you need from each other in this moment. And you get to the next step. You level up. You go to like Mario's next castle. When you've been through a breakup. There's a moment, a switch that turns on where you start to feel like yourself again. You start to get inspired again. You start to feel good again. He's not looking to her.
to feel good he's looking to himself to feel good like he says love and that love i think is earned i don't think this fuck boys have really said love and that gives him a certain power but the true power up is i'm doing this for me
Like he gets some like he's like, I am not going to let you fuck over my friends by putting them in this band and not making them be who they are. I'm not going to let you take over this girl who I like and respect. And regardless of what our relationship is, I'm standing up.
for everybody because all my friends have been around me and yeah they pick at him but you know what this is the first time that i'm actually doing something for my friend group like he's not doing anything and this is the first moment where he
he kind of gets in front of it. I do think to your point, the movie is made towards the ending where he goes with knives. I think that that final fight scene is like a recreation. I know I said in the beginning, like him and knives at the video game and him and knives at the end.
work in tandem and i think they're supposed to be like oh they belong together i think that that end scene probably should be a little bit different if he ends up with ramona yeah because ramona's just standing on the sidelines from a lot of it like oof okay and it's like knives stepping up
But I do think it's sort of like he gives her something real. And instead of putting her down, because what he's been doing is like, he breaks up with her and he breaks up with her in a really shitty way. Like he... pumps her up and they work together and they leave actually on a good note. It's like, you know what? We actually are friends. It's inappropriate for me to be with you, but we actually had a good thing. Don't go away feeling like a piece of shit because I was a jerk.
And I feel like that's what we're seeing there. He gives something to every one of his friends. And I love that line that she gets. I love that when they redid this ending, Brian O'Malley gave her this line. Go get her. You've been fighting for her all along. But what about you? I'll be fine.
i'm too cool for you anyway because she's right i mean i think she's right she's right i think she is cooler than him you know and yeah sure at the beginning she's not a thrift store shop and she's never seen cool music before you learn man you learn she can thrift store shop now she's good that is being an adult is not just looking out for yourself it's looking out for everybody around you like this is a guy who's gone from a person who is just following his dick
and taking advantage of his friends, not like you said, not going to band practice, getting somebody to pay for his video games, sleeping on somebody else's couch, like everything in his life is.
take take take take take and in this moment at the end when he doesn't have to do any of that stuff because everyone's set the band has their deal knives has got her own thing like he stands up and fights and he does it his own way now he has transcended into another part of himself whether or not they exist past four months who knows but it's the first time scott pilgrim is
this version of himself the leveled up version of himself in a relationship well you know we're talking about like the things people were whispered to in their ear before they went ahead and like played their characters in this movie one of them was that Like Brian, the writer, told Michael Cera to play Scott Pilgrim like Scott Pilgrim is the hero of the film inside his own head. To be the main character, to think of himself as the main character the way people do.
And that there's sort of an argument that you can watch this movie as though the whole thing is basically inside his POV. Like we are watching the movie inside Scott Pilgrim's head, where Scott Pilgrim is like, I'm great. Yeah, I broke up with her. Doesn't matter. Everything's fine. Watch me play the baseline. The Seinfeld scene. Yeah, the Seinfeld scene, like this one.
Someone's happy. Well, someone got to second base last night, and someone has a second date tonight. Someone's lucky, then. You know when I say someone, I mean me, right? I got to second base last night. Maybe first and a half. Or even just the words on the screen, you know, ding dong on the screen. Like that's how he pictures it inside his head because he's like so steeped inside of video games himself of like comic books of things being written.
And so it being like his badass dream about how cool he is. When you spin it that way, you're like, oh yeah, okay. So that's why there's like no blood really in the fights, no bruises, like maybe an artisanal scar here and there. Like hair is always right back in place, you know? Until the end when he cuts Gideon. Yeah, that's the only cool scar that you see.
All right, so Amy, let's talk about some of the other big things in this movie. We teased it in the beginning. The music is just fantastic. I mean, for a band that's not very good, I like their songs. They are pretty... Fucking solid. They are. They are. But you know what? To me, my favorite number in this whole thing. Well, I got two. The first is I am sad. It's called I am so sad. I am so very, very sad. Goes a little something like this.
Thank you. Not a race, guys. All right. This next song goes out to the guy who keeps yelling from the balcony. It's called We Hate You. Please die. Sweet. Love this one. Love I Am Sad. And the second one. I have to say, this is my personal favorite song. Maybe just because I love like Dan the Automator, who I believe like had a hand in writing this. And I think even Cornelius, the song that Matthew Patel sings. Oh, I love it.
What? You're not the brightest. You won't know what's hit you in the slightest. Oh, that's a great song as well. And look, Edgar Wright really was very specific of this movie. We talked about the eyes being open, the way that the stylized fight scenes are. There's so many BTS features. um not the band bts uh but behind the scenes features of like all the training like fight training that these actors did in the movie but also learning how to be a band i mean sex bubble bomb spent weeks
trying to play together as a band, like Mark Webber, Alison Pill, Johnny Simmons, and Michael Cera all really worked on their skills. Michael Cera actually had to dumb down his bass playing, not to outshine the rest of the bandmates.
I mean, they're pretty convincing. Like I really walk away with this movie every single time being so impressed by Alison Pill. She's so good. I just think she's so fun. I love her poses. I love the way she stands. I love her glares. I love just like the acid that she adds to this movie. By the way, she is one of the only people who blinks.
during the entire film. She blinks once. And apart from that, she only breaks her gaze three times. She lowers her eyes twice and has her eyes closed when announcing the ban for the last time. So she really, watch her eyes throughout the entire film. I think it actually does something. I also want to talk about the music that is so prevalent and throughout, but it's not band music. It's video game music. I mean, from the NES...
Legend of Zelda, which Edgar Wright got by writing a letter to Nintendo and basically said to them, you... have to let us use this. It is the nursery rhyme of a generation. And it's such a great way that the movie starts with the universal theme on MIDI keyboard. We already talked about the Seinfeld theme, but this movie is chock full of...
sound cues and sound effects from all these video games, all these things that are like locked in our brain. Like my pop culture spider sense tingles throughout this movie because everything is inside of it. I learned something about this movie that I did not know, which is no one over 30 is in this movie. Now, I also was always bummed that I didn't get to audition for this movie because I love the character so much, but I might have been over 30 when this came out. Oh my God.
It's like Charlie Brown or something. There's like not a single adult. That did not occur to me. That's so creepy. The oldest two people are the vegan police. who are obviously Thomas Jane. I don't know if you counted Thomas Jane as one of the future superheroes. I count him as a superhero because he's a punisher. But when he comes in, he's the oldest character. I mean, the part that always gets me when we're talking about things that hit us in the very back of...
our like spinal column from being a little child it's the one where jason schwartzman is about to fight him in the giant battle and he's on top of the pyramid and he gives that tiny hop down the king koopa hop down the stairs from mario brothers That's like, oh, my God, it's like terrifying. It immediately puts me back on being like the living room floor. Well, maybe there's another tingle you might get. Bill Hader is the voice. of the movie every voiceover you hear in the movie is Bill Hader
So any announcement, like the last time Scott had a haircut or when Scott earns the power of love, like all those like video game voiceovers power up that like those are all Bill Hader. That's so funny. Bill Hader, famous Oklahomans. I just like pointing out famous Oklahomans.
And by the way, I'm in Oklahoma right now recording this episode. So thank you for bearing with my recording setup. If you have a second, I think you should go to a Brahms. It's kind of like our Dairy Queen in Oklahoma. And they will make a milkshake out of any ice cream you want. And I suggest you do peppermint. Oh, by the way, I know that you wanted me to go to Toronto.
for this recording. But I said, no, let me do a more unique choice, which is find the voiceover person's hometown and go there. So again, Earwolf is very upset that we spent all this money to have me shoot here. It should have been Toronto. By the way...
The movie wasn't going to be in Toronto. They wanted the movie to be in New York, which is really interesting. But... you know edgar wright prevailed got the movie to be shot in toronto because toronto has never shot as toronto anyway which is another joke in the movie like they shoot new york for toronto in the film and edgar wright felt like that kind of energy that city that coldness
is something that would really translate to all of his characters. And I do think that the movie, while very bright and exciting, also feels very dark and wintry. There are some visual things that are going on that are just...
but it's not a bright movie. For a video game movie, it's not bright. No, I think about lots of just like... eternally stretching black backdrops behind the actors as they're like walking at night you know there were moments in this you know we just came out of doing an episode on stop making sense where they shoot the band kind of in the way that they shoot the talking heads during stop making sense where there's just like
black behind them and almost the style of them being in separate comic book panels. Remember we were talking about how amazing it is that Jonathan Demme is able to do that layering while they're all on the same stage. It's like here they're doing it, but in a deliberate comic book style, which I think is so neat.
And it's weird. I went down on this like rabbit hole because I was thinking about how unusual it is to do a movie set in Toronto that's shot in Toronto or really I should say shot in Toronto that's set in Toronto because like David Cronenberg.
does it like you know he's a famous canadian kids in the hall shot brain candy there but one of the only other ones that like was shot in Toronto being Toronto to me is one of the worst movies ever made and I just had to pull a clip from the trailer to see if you could guess what it was. Jessica Alba. Justin Timberlake. Someone ordered the special Quebec pizza and, you know, like indie porno. The Love Guru. Ugh. Oh, Amy, you've pained me. You've pained me.
I know it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. Oh, poor Canada. Poor Canada. I'm so glad that Canada has this, you know, but like talking about like movies. Inside of movies, about movies, inside of movies. I can't believe we've gone this far and not talked about Chris Evans and Chris Evans' eyebrows. I think Chris Evans is just fantastic in this. I think this is one of the first movies I saw Chris Evans in.
where I liked Chris Evans. I mean, it was in the Fantastic Four ones before this. I think he was in an action movie. Was he in an action movie called Cellular? I might be making that up. But Cellular is basically like, okay, he's in a movie that's basically like the movies that his...
character here is kind of making and making fun of because if you look online you can find like posters of the movies that chris evans's actor character has made and they are so funny and i just want to tell you some of the titles and tell you some of the taglines so he's made a movie called Action doctor. The good news is you're going to live. The bad news is he is going to kill you. He made a movie called You Just Don't Exist.
Cole Hazard just got a call saying he has 89 minutes to live from himself. That's fine. There's one called Thrilled to Be Here. Spencer J is awesome. You're welcome. And then the one that we see that's on the back of the newspaper that Kieran Culkin's weaving around is called Let's Hope There's a Heaven, which if you freeze from it, you can see that it won Sundance. And the tagline of that, it's a romantic comedy in the Nicholas Sparks vein is Kiss Me.
I'm dying. By the way, if you also want to look at Nest flicks, you can see the Lucas Lee collection. They have like a fake internet page for him. But did you know that the fake movies in this? film. Four of those are Plumtree songs. They're actual titles of songs that Plumtree is a Canadian band that had a song scott pilgrim released in 1997 which inspired brian lee o'malley to write the scott pilgrim comics it sounded like this by the way
So, it all kind of comes back. Even though those are great movie posters, they do have a basis in reality here, too. Wait, that reminds me. We should talk about a thing that exists in this movie that they changed for the new cartoon, which is that in the cartoon, because it's sort of still like a flashback-y early 2000s thing, Ramona's job is she's a delivery person for Netflix DVDs. think because it is a netflix cartoon i forgot that here she's a delivery person for amazon
And I guess what was an alternate world when Amazon had their own delivery people, like a pizza place would have their own delivery people. And like you kind of knew the one delivery person, like in the in the book, it's like really explicit that Ramona Flowers is. The only Amazon delivery driver in all of downtown Toronto because she is so good at delivering things. But it also gets into the fact that like Scott Pilgrim in 2004, when the first book comes out.
is such kind of a luddite about technology that he doesn't really know what amazon is and he's never used the internet that much before and at this time amazon only sells like books and dvds it was a pure time when it was basically like an online barnes and noble It's kind of about a man who uses Amazon for the first time, falls in love with the convenience, and that will therefore destroy him and all of us. Wow. Yes, 100% yes. But I'm going to say that...
What I responded to in that movie was, back when I was in New York, there was a delivery service called Cosmo. It was amazing. Cosmo with a K. And they would deliver ice cream. and movies to you i believe they were on roller skates as well this is before doordash this is before uber eats it was really novel and cosmo was the best and you i remember knowing my cosmo people because
Only a handful of people used it. And I identified with that idea that you look forward to your Cosmo person. I think that's so sweet. I think the world would be a better place. If people were just like employed by the actual company again and not like outsourced beyond all sorts of help and benefits and nonsense. Wouldn't that be just nice? Okay, but so Paul, I haven't like summoned you here to talk.
necessarily about you know capitalism and outsourcing and amazon destroying the world i kind of just want to play a game with you called fuck marry kill and i will give you all of the x's of this entire movie okay Even as a pescatarian, I have to kill the vegan. He's too much of a jerk. I mean, truly got to be done. Got to be done with him. I think that I would like to date. may whitman's character i feel like she feels like a fun person to date and then just because uh
relationships are hard. I'm going to pick the twins because, you know, at least we can have like a full fun life. And, you know, if I get bored with one, I can go over to the other one. I feel bad for the twins. The twins don't really get, I think, enough screen time for me.
Although the twins show up right when I have fight fatigue, but it just feels like the twin fight to me is kind of the weakest point of the movie. Cause it's like, they show up, you don't know anything about them. They don't really talk. And then that fight goes on for a pretty long time and it's just music.
That's where I feel like I'm ready. Then it just feels like it rolls so fast into the climax that it just doesn't feel like it needs to exist. Well, you know what? Now that you said that, fight fatigue. I have an issue with, and I don't know if you feel this way as well. When a movie lays out...
a course it makes me start counting where we're at i'm like okay well he battled four people so how many more we have left it starts making me keep track of a film in a way that i don't want to keep track of it maybe that's my own, you know, ADD or it's my attention to wanting like some control. But once I understand that there's a number, you know, even in David Wayne's the 10, which I love, it's really funny. I'm like, well, we're only at six.
for more, and it automatically makes a movie feel longer to me. I know that there's a magic trick going on. We're still telling a story, but when I see that number there, it makes movies feel longer to me. I don't disagree with that, actually.
You're watching this movie and I think that he doesn't even have his first fight until like half an hour into it. 35 minutes and you're like oh man but at that point i'm okay because i don't know i don't even know that they're gonna be seven nexus like you know like once you tell me that there's gonna be six more fights
Now I'm like, oh boy, you know, I think I just like the magic trick of a movie ending and not knowing exactly where it's going. The one alternate ending though, that did not get shot that I do think we should talk about. This is true based on what Edgar Wright has said. that this movie could have ended with a news report after the last battle saying that a local teen killed seven people.
As in Scott Pilgrim is a mass murderer and invented this whole video game justification in his brain, kind of like he's Patrick Bateman going insane. And this whole thing was his like mental fever dream of why he had to kill seven people. Whoa. what do you think you know what i did think a lot about that during this film i'm like are these people dead
Like, did he kill people? Look, I'm all for a Jacob's Ladder scenario. I'm all for this. But when you think about these people actually dying, like the anime kind of even teases, it becomes a darker film. It definitely becomes a darker film. That's why I'm really caught on like Brie Larson's face. You killed my boyfriend and my band member. It looks real to her, man. And like nodding along to Natalie doesn't make it that much better.
And I just want to like shout out to, I mean, obviously we have great writing here. Michael Bacall, who is just one of, you know, co-wrote the script with Edgar Wright and has been behind so many great things. 21 Jump Street. Yes. So good.
so good but i also want to call out bill pope and as much as i believe edgar wright is such a visually interesting director i love his collaboration with bill pope i mean bill pope you know worked on the matrix bill pope is somebody who brings so much this he was a cinematographer on spider-man 2 you know he came from music videos but he also did team america world police before this he worked at the same time on
like such a small show, like Freaks and Geeks. You know, he's somebody who is really the best of both worlds. You know, Matrix, Freaks and Geeks, and Team America creates the visual style of Scott Pilgrim, you know, in many respects. Why didn't this movie connect in the moment? Because, you know, we're talking about all these things that seemingly are true. Was the audience too young? Was...
it viewed as being too nerdy? Was it Michael Cera fatigue? What do you think it was? Yeah, I know. It is a little confusing because this was a summer where kids were going to see kid movies, you know, like. eclipse was still in the top 10 when this comes out twilight eclipse by the way eclipse theme song done by metric the band in here that brie larson is pretending to be in I think part of it is...
This was almost an impossible movie to sell. Like, what genre are you going to say that it is? You know, how do you frame it for people? Because it is just specifically its own kind of thing. And I don't know if Edgar Wright had the brand recognition.
When this comes out, like Inception is still in theaters and Inception is doing great because like everybody will go see whatever Christopher Nolan is doing. If Christopher Nolan has his name on it, it's a Christopher Nolan movie. And I don't know if Edgar Wright had that name brand value yet.
on a large audience because I still think of things like Hot Fuzz and like Shaun of the Dead as kind of like culty movies that your friends had on DVD you know they're British like maybe it was like him transitioning from like British hits to like giant universal studio pictures done with Americans. Maybe it's also partially that now you look at this cast and you're like, oh, this is entirely wall to wall movie stars.
But it wasn't really exactly yet when this came out, you know? Yeah, it was pretty much unknowns. I mean, and like, I remember at the time, I think Anna Kendrick was probably one of the most famous people in the film. Yeah, and she had only just done like up in the air, you know, and was in a twilight. And look, there's just these weird moments that happen like this where, you know, you talk about, oh, I don't know these people.
super bad became a movie that people didn't know and it shot up to number one but i love that the universal executive had the foresight to know it was you know years not days and what's been so great about this movie is how it's lived on how it continues to attract an audience how it does feel universal and i think it it's a movie that
does embrace physical media and the fact that people can get out and see it and make sure that they can find it i think a lot of times now when these movies come out they go away so quickly we don't even have a chance to kind of pull it back in but this is a movie that i i think will continue to get popular
as the franchise continues to grow and get new audience. I mean, this anime show is going to probably pull in a brand new audience. You don't need to watch anything else. You can watch the anime show completely independently. But if you know it, then it's a rich part of it. You go back and find more.
I love that. I mean, all I want is for at least people to get a chance to shoot their shot and make the thing, even if it doesn't sell $60 million worth of tickets in opening weekend. One of the big stories about Edgar Wright for a little bit of time was... He didn't get to make Ant-Man. Edgar Wright was fired or walked or whatever this situation was. Like he left Ant-Man.
It was a real bummer. I know as a fan of what he was doing, I was so excited for Ant-Man. And Ant-Man, I think originally was going to have Simon Pegg as Ant-Man. And he was working on Ant-Man.
for this movie he stopped production on that for two years and there's a world in which if there was no scott pilgrim we might have seen ant-man before like the marvel explosion i guess in a way like he was making it kind of separately from that i just think it's a fun little side note that like you know it was this or ant-man and i think at the end of the day we're happier to have edgar wright directing
Scott Pilgrim and Baby Driver than potentially doing a really kick-ass Ant-Man with Simon Pegg. I don't disagree. I do not disagree. You know what this movie reminds me of? more than almost anything we've watched so far. I want to go almost all the way back to early, early 1.0 versions of Unspooled. I want to go back to Sunrise.
Because you remember how like when we did our episode on Sunrise, the silent movie from the 1920s that was like one of the last big silent movies right before sound came out. that one of the cool things that's also a movie about a love triangle you know there's like the married guy and like his innocent little wife and then the woman from the city and when the woman from the city shows up you know words are written on the screen you're like woman of the city like they're having fun with
taking this visual medium of film and putting words on it you know like she says like what if she were drowned or you know she mouths it because it's silent and the word drowned is like written on screen and then it like melts as though it's like going into the water and dying I mean
this movie picks up where sunrise left off you know that's where cinema was going and then we got sound and so then they're like okay we'll just say all these things we don't need to write them on the screen we don't need to turn this into like a visual graphic novel-ish kind of medium
But you can kind of just be like sunrise exists in the 1920s dot dot dot. Here's Scott Pilgrim. You're running with that same idea. And it's so fun to think of like one of the oldest movies we've ever done on the show holding hands with one of the newest movies we've ever done on the show.
And kind of saying, like, here's a thing that cinema can do. What happens is, you know, in that clip that we played about them imagining the city, you heard car horns and stuff, right? You heard voices. Yeah. Because this is done on early sound on film.
It's not a talkie. The characters never talk. But Murnau was able to have a soundtrack that he really wanted, create the score that went along, and then have sound effects that went on tape so you could always hear what he wanted you to hear. So it's this hybrid, really. basically one of the last big
grandiose silent films with a touch of sound woven in. It kind of was shocking, yeah. Yeah, it comes out, and then two weeks later, the jazz singer comes out. And everyone's like, okay, okay, you were fine, but the jazz singer, though. And I think that's a lot of why it wasn't a hit.
I cannot stress enough, like if you have not seen Sunrise or if you've seen it and you haven't listened to our episode, marvelous film. Please treat yourself to that experience. You will not regret it. So, Paul, next week we are going to do a movie. that we have actually taken a little bit of guff for in the past. A movie that I have yet to see. A movie that I casually insulted, knowing nothing about it, assuming that it was terrible, and then was told...
You are so wrong and so unappreciative. How dare you? And I welcome that. I welcome that because I want to open my heart and experience things I have not experienced. And I hope that you feel the same way. Amy, I am right there with you. This movie is a movie that when people say it's one of the best Disney movies ever, I go, what are you kidding me? But I am willing to look at it with an open heart. and that movie is the emperor's new groove a movie that people
around us seem to love and want us to do. And to celebrate Disney's 100, what better way to celebrate that than with a movie that I don't think Disney would want to put out in front of the 100. But it seems like... Like Zelda was the nursery rhyme of a generation, Emperor's New Groove is the animated classic of a generation.
I mean, I'm excited. I have yet to watch Emperor's New Groove since we got Hector that because I was like, I'm just going to wait. I'm going to wait until the week we do an episode on it. And now we are heading into that week. So, Paul, I hope that the next time I speak to you, we're both going to be forever changed. I cannot wait. Let's do it. Bring it on, Disney. Show me, Emperor, what you got.
A big thank you to our producer, Josh Richman, our associate producer, Jessica Cisneros, our engineer, Casey Holford, and our executive producers, Cody Fisher and Amelia Chapalo, and our MVP. Molly Reynolds. Our theme song is by Michael Cassidy and our fan art is by Kim Troxell. Follow Unspooled on Twitter and Instagram and join in the conversation about all things Unspooled on the Paul Scheer Discord at discord.com.
And you can get a deck of unspooled playing cards and more merch at podswag.com. Finally. See the official API list of Unspooled Films and more about the show at unspooledpod.com.