Over the weekend I finished watching the new Scott Pilgrim anime, which I thought ultimately stuck the landing despite being a little too all over the place for its own good. As I – and seemingly a healthy portion of the population – do any time I finish anything, I immediately went online to see what other people thought. This was, as it almost always is, a mistake.
WARNING: SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF SPOILERS AHEAD
It did not take me long to stumble across The Old Website’s piece about backlash to the new Scott Pilgrim, as well as a series of highly argumentative Reddit threads. These all focused on the show’s central conceit: At the end of the first episode, Scott, the main character of the original comics, the movie, and the video game, “dies,” effectively blasting the new series into a divergent timeline. Ramona Flowers, Scott’s principal love interest, becomes the main character, Columbo-ing her way through the mystery of Scott’s disappearance from a story that is, ostensibly, about him. In Scott’s absence, the supporting cast takes over, getting more room to breathe and, crucially, grow. As a result, they end up in slightly (or hugely) different places by the end of the series.
I adore this setup. To be frank, I kinda saw it coming, too. Original Scott Pilgrim author Bryan Lee O’Malley is not the kind to needlessly repeat himself. His subsequent works generally have something to say about his previous works – a byproduct of telling stories about personal growth. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is the ultimate example of that: It posits (correctly) that members of his old cast were done dirty, either by being flattened into cardboard cutout good/evil roles or, in Ramona’s case, not getting enough time to explore and atone for their own pathos in the face of Scott’s. Now they finally get a second(s) chance.
The resulting eight episodes of television are wacky, reference-heavy, and extremely in-step with the tone and vibe of the original comic. They’re also so in conversation with the original comic that if you didn’t read it before watching the show, you’re definitely missing some crucial context. But if you ask me, that’s fine! We live in the era of the Marvel cinematic universe – and countless other, failed cinematic universes – not to mention heaps of other expensive, commensurately money hungry franchises across TV, film, comics, and video games. At least, in the case of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, O’Malley and co use this tiresome status quo to say something about growth, regret, and the passage of time – something of actual value. Something human. I’d take that over yet another brick in the already teetering multiverse wall any day. And I’d certainly take that over yet another remake or remaster that arrives years too soon with nothing to show for it.
I felt this way about a game that many have compared the new Scott Pilgrim to as well: Final Fantasy VII Remake. That game similarly leveraged a familiar setting and cast of characters to say something new and vital, to push back against the weight of fan expectations. It suggested, more or less, that in bringing this story into a new era – even just in the act of expanding a portion of a pre-existing story – you fundamentally alter the identities of its characters. They live different experiences and, as a result, grow at different rates and choose different paths. The game argues, passionately, that audiences should allow the characters they claim to love a chance to do this. Let them explore. Let them live, rather than keeping them locked in a prison of nostalgia.
I can understand, to an extent, feeling that a remake shouldn’t diverge too far from its source material when that source material is difficult to obtain or has aged poorly in terms of presentation, playability, etc. But the standard bearers of not-actually-a-remake remakes – Final Fantasy VII Remake, Rebuild of Evangelion, and now Scott Pilgrim Takes Off – are all readily available in their original forms (as well as numerous others). There’s not really a need for rote retreads.
Moreover – and this is the part that drives me nuts when I see people complaining or calling these kinds of remakes “fan fiction” – the main reason people liked those series in the first place is that they subverted expectations. Literally! All of them! Final Fantasy VII secured its place in the video game canon by killing Aerith, a massively controversial narrative decision at the time. Evangelion became a must-watch by turning a standard anime genre into an exploration of the human psyche. It did not signal this or spoil what it would ultimately become ahead of time. It just did it! And Scott Pilgrim took off because it infused a tale of young adulthood not just with video game references, but with eventual rumination on the fact that beloved, aspirational members of its cast – especially Scott – kinda behaved like dickheads.
All of the aforementioned remakes remain true to the spirit of their original works and thoughtfully expand on ideas that didn’t get enough attention during the first go ‘round. None of them are perfect by any means, but they do something bold and interesting while remaining familiar. It’s a best-of-both-worlds situation. If we’re gonna get buried in remakes, remasters, and revivals until we suffocate because our corporate overlords demand it, let’s at least force them to throw money at interesting things, rather than spooning out the same old lukewarm gruel.
