One of the biggest cinematic disasters that await studios occurs when they try to adapt a video game or comic book to a live action full-length feature. The concern isn't that the source material is poor or that it wouldn't make an interesting film, the real challenge comes from most peoples' inability or complete misunderstanding of translating two entirely separate mediums into a film format.
Video games are a narrative that is structured around interaction. There is a large emphasis on allowing the player to dictate the event of the story; and as a result, diverges heavily from more traditional screenplay narratives. Comics are a unique visual entertainment in that they are free to play with aspect ratio and distort perspective and reality to communicate nonverbal ideas. These elements have remained a huge hurdle for movie studios to overcome and while a few comic films have broken the mold, most of them are still disasters on the scale of the Titanic, while video game movies continue to be nothing more than shameless cash-ins on popular trends. Thankfully the world was blessed by the grace of Edgar Wright, a man who can seemingly do no wrong who decided to challenge the world by bringing about the first A+ video game title that was based off, of all things, a comic book.
"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" is one of those revolutionary films. Similar to "Fight Club" or even Oscar contenders like "American Beauty", "Scott Pilgrim" changed the way we will forever look at movies. By seamlessly incorporating the imagery and symbolism commonly found in games and comics into the visual narrative, Mr. Wright created a spectacular template of stylized high energy perfection that helped strength the dialogue and exposition.
Visuals and editing aside, it helped that the film was based on some very strong source material. "Scott Pilgrim" is a very smart of clever tale that perfectly sums up the ideologies and modern zeitgeist of a 21st century 20-something-year-old who is entangled in a post-college malaise and all the drama and hyper sexuality that kids have to go through when trying to make it in the world. Taking these common themes and projecting them through the mind of a kid who's entire life is predicated upon music, games, comics, and movies is one of the most satisfying and sensible analogy to be committed to popular expression.
The greatest strength of the movie however, is held in its marriage of fidelity and independence. Because video games and comics are not written as screenplays first it would be silly to do a completely loyal adaptation without making a few modifications. On the other hand, if you change too much then the original message and feel of the story risks getting washed away. A large portion of all film adaptations suffer from these two problems; the ones we remember as classics, like "The Dark Knight" change the stories while keeping the feel and tone of the original intact. "Scott Pilgrim" does just that; it still feels like a thorough translation of the comic while also giving the audience a completely new experience that they haven't seen before.
Normally I don’t pick favorites, but the more and more I dwell on the subject, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” is starting to become my favorite film of 2010. Well done Edgar Wright, well done.
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