Blu-ray Review: SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF: THE COMPLETE LIMITED SERIES

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Mar 22 Posted by Kyle Nolan in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is an 8-episode anime series that aired on Netflix in November 2023. It is based on the “Scott Pilgrim” graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. The graphic novels were previously adapted into the hit 2010 live action film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, as well as a popular video game. However, this series takes the characters in an alternate direction from the original story. The main cast from the film return to reprise their roles, lending their voices for the animated characters in the series.

Jobless 23-year-old Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) lives in Toronto Canada, in an apartment paid for by his gay roommate Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin). Scott is a bit of nerd, obsessed with video games, comics and movies—especially things like Sonic and Marvel. He’s also the bassist in an indie band, Sex Bob-Omb, which also consists of 22-year-old Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) on lead guitar/vocals, and 23-year-old drummer Kim Pine (Alison Pill). However, the band doesn’t actually know if they’re any good. Often hanging out at the band’s practices at Stephen’s home are Stephen’s 20-year-old roommate, aspiring filmmaker Young Neil (Johnny Simmons); Scott’s “girlfriend”, 17-year-old high-school student Knives Chau (Ellen Wong); and maybe a visit from Scotty’s younger sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick). Scott and Knives have never even kissed or been on a date, and the age thing is a bit creepy, but Scott just hasn’t got around to officially ending their nonexistent “relationship”.

Scott has been having dreams of a mysterious rollerblading girl, but doesn’t know her name, and isn’t even sure if she’s real. That is, until he crashes a party being thrown by Julie Powers (Aubrey Plaza), where he finally meets the girl of/in his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Ramona recently moved from New York City to Toronto, taking on a job delivering DVDs for Netflix. Scott is instantly smitten, but is unaware of Ramona’s past. Ramona has 7 evil ex-boyfriends, and when they discover that she has gone on a date with Scott, alarms go off. Ramona’s most recent evil ex #7, billionaire Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman) had organized The League of Evil-Exes, bringing together all of Ramona’s exes. The league has a stipulation that any potential new suitor would have to defeat each of the 7 exes in a fight before they can date Ramona. The other members of the league include evil ex #1 mystical powered Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha), evil ex #2 Hollywood legend Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), evil ex #3 Vegan rock star Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh), evil ex #4 half-ninja Roxie Richter (Mae Whitman), and evil exes #5 & #6, tech savvy twins Ken & Kyle Katayanagi (Julian Cihi).

Matthew Patel interrupts a Sex Bob-Omb concert to challenge Scott to a fight, and this is where the series diverts from the original source material and goes off in its own unique and creative new direction. In an unexpected turn of events, Matthew actually wins, obliterating and seeiming killing Scott. However, Scott actually disappeared during fight, so there’s no proof he’s dead, and Ramona believes that he was kidnapped via some sort of portal. She suspects that it is one of the exes who took him, and is determined to figure out who did it and why. And so begins a new Scott Pilgrim story, without much Scott Pilgrim for many episodes.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the show’s eight episodes:

Episode 1: “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life” (26:45)
23-year old jobless, hopeless Scott Pilgrim meets the girl of/from his dreams, Ramona Flowers, and the two start dating. However, this attracts the attention of Gideon Graves, leader of The League of Evil-Exes, who sends Ramona’s first evil ex-boyfriend Matthew Patel to take down Scott while his indie band Sex Bob-Omb plays a concert at the Rockit club.
Episode 2: “A League of Their Own” (25:35)
Scott’s friends mourn his loss, which includes a touching tribute by his now famous ex Envy Adams (Brie Larson). Meanwhile, as the league convenes at Gideon’s secret lair, a newly-confident Matthew makes a play to take over the leadership of the league.
Episode 3: “Ramona Rents a Video” (25:32)
Ramona believes Scott was kidnapped and his death faked, and now makes it her mission to find him, starting by going through her suspects. But her investigation is interrupted by a visit from her fourth evil ex, Roxie. Meanwhile, Julie also receives a visit from an old friend, Goose.
Episode 4: “Whatever” (25:41)
Ramona is still trying to figure out who took Scott, and heads to a movie set to investigate evil ex number 2, Lucas Lee, who is in Toronto filming a movie written by Young Neil. His film, “Scott Pilgrims Precious Little Life” follows the events of Scott’s life if he had won the fight against Matthew Patel (aka the events that happened in the live-action movie). Meanwhile, Lucas finds himself trying to save his career by fighting off paparazzi out to destroy his image.
Episode 5: “Lights. Camera. Sparks?!” (24:18)
Footage from a behind-the-scenes promotional featurette filmed for the recently-canceled motion picture follows the cast and crew as Ramona investigates if new star Todd Ingram may have used his Vegan powers to create a portal to kidnap Scott. Meanwhile, Todd develops feelings for Wallace, which causes Envy to fight his stunt doubles.
Episode 6: “Whodidit” (25:57)
Ramona confronts Julie and Goose about the whereabouts of Scott. Meanwhile, Stephen and Knives adapt Young Neil’s movie into a musical, with Matthew Patel starring as the lead. And Julie figures out the who, why and how behind Scott’s disappearance.
Episode 7: “2 Scott 2 Pilgrim” (25:52)
In the future, Old Scott ()Will Forte), tells Scott that fighting the exes (and winning) was the biggest mistake of their lives, but Scott believes there’s more to the story, and tries to figure out what really went wrong in the past.
Episode 8: “The World vs. Scott Pilgrim” (26:28)
Everyone is attending the premiere of “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Musical”, based on memoir from Old Young Neil. However, a force field is still preventing Scott and Ramona from kissing, and they don’t know who is behind it. During the show, everyone is transported away, where they find themselves up against the big bad.

I have never read the Scott Pilgrim novels, but have seen the live-action film. So going into this, I thought I knew where the story was headed, figuring that each episode would be Scott taking on a different ex. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see the series head in a different, unexpected direction. The writers have had a lot of fun with this new take on the material, rather than just rehashing the same story again in a different medium (anime).

The characters still feel very much the same (thanks in large part to the amazing original cast reprising their roles), and music, video games and pop culture also still play a large role in the series. What has changed is the focus, direction and look of the series. I’m not generally a big anime person, but I really enjoyed this new animation style and look of the characters. The wide-eyed anime style works perfectly for the humor and type of story being told. There’s not only a love story at the core, but also lots of action. Even though Scott is not fighting each of the exes in this version, there is still at least one big battle in each episode, with that familiar video game-style matchup announcement preceding each one. The anime animation style allows these fights to get quite elaborate, creative and exciting. Each episode also begins with Ramona dying her hair some new color—her look is a perfect fit for this anime world.

The series is filled with so much wacky humor and fun, enjoyable characters. And with each episode usually ending on some big reveal, it makes you want to just binge through all 3 hours in a sitting. The series makes use of flashbacks to flesh out some of the characters and relationships, and learn more about both Ramona’s and Scott’s exes. Finn Wolfhard provides the voice of the teen/young Scott Pilgrim. There’s also a lot of great musical performances in the show, such as Emily Haines providing Envy’s singing voice for the tribute to Scott, and the hilarious musical theater adaptation of Scott’s story. By taking the focus of the story off of Scott for a while, the writers also got a chance to explore difference matchups between these wacky characters, having different characters interacting with one another that we hadn’t previously seen. It’s so much fun to see these evil exes interacting with one another and Scott’s friends, especially when you realize they may not be that evil after all! There is also a lot of really great meta concepts mixed in with the movie-within-the-series, which finds various characters playing Scott and his friends, or even themselves in the movie.

Universal has released Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: The Complete Limited Series on Blu-ray, and we were sent a copy of the disc for review from AV Entertainment. The video presentation looks great and captures vision and style the creators were going for. This series is not going for the constantly crisp and clean-look of a modern digitally-animated picture. Lines from the animation are present and not always clean, and sometimes things look pixelated to give an 8-bit feel. There is often a racking focus to scenes where some characters look blurry or out of focus. Some scenes feature added or excessive grain to give them more of a cinematic look and feel. And there are also some scenes that do actually look immaculate. The ratio, style and clarity of animation changes throughout, especially for flashbacks and action sequences. The audio track provides clear dialogue throughout, which primarily utilizes the front/center channels. Though it does make nice use of the stereo and surround channels to give a more immersive feeling to some scenes. This is especially noticeable during scenes like Envy’s “I Will Remember You” musical tribute, or during the rainy meeting of the League. The episodes are also offered with a Japanese audio track, if you want even more of an anime feel.

All 8 episodes of the series reside on a single disc, which is placed inside of a standard HD keepcase. The inside liner details the contents of the disc. The disc also includes some excellent audio commentary tracks on all 8 episodes by the creators/executive producers.

The series wasn’t picked up for a second season, but the arc of the first season feels like a complete story. That said, the story does continue in the recently-released video game Scott Pilgrim EX.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (3:26:08)

Blu-ray:

All 8 episodes of the series:
“Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life”, “A League of Their Own”, “Ramona Rents a Video”, “Whatever”, “Lights. Camera. Sparks?!”, “Whodidit”, “2 Scott 2 Pilgrim”, “The World vs. Scott Pilgrim”
1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Japanese 5.1 DTS Digital Surround
Subtitles: English SDH

Extras

Episode Commentaries with Creators and Executive Producers Bryan Lee O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski (3:26:08)
Creators/Executive Producers Bryan Lee O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski provide entertaining and informative commentaries on all 8 episodes of the series. They talk about how the series came about, the opening title sequence/music, the anime and different styles of animation, the episode title references, getting all of the original actors back, the music, and more. They share lots of behind-the-scenes stories about the production, point out Easter eggs and other tidbits, and more. This is certainly worth listening to. Play All, or Select from:
- “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life” (26:45)
- “A League of Their Own” (25:35)
- “Ramona Rents a Video” (25:32)
- “Whatever” (25:41)
- “Lights. Camera. Sparks?!” (24:18)
- “Whodidit” (25:57)
- “2 Scott 2 Pilgrim” (25:52)
- “The World vs. Scott Pilgrim” (26:28)

Final Thoughts:

My Rating

Episodes:

Video:

Audio:

Extras:

Highly Recommended

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off starts off looking like it’s going to be another rehash of the original story, but takes a different turn at the end of the first episode, going in a brand new direction, giving some fun and completely original new adventures with these characters. The series is filled with lots of humor and action, and the original film cast returning to reprise their roles. The animation and presentation looks and sounds great, and the disc also includes some entertaining and informative audio commentaries on all 8 episodes. This release comes highly recommended for any Scott Pilgrim fan.