The Big Picture
The character of Scott Pilgrim began his “precious little life” in the form of a graphic novel series. Canadian author and comic book artist Bryan Lee O’Malley created the character based on the 1998 song “Scott Pilgrim” by Canadian indie band Plumtree, specifically the lyrics “I’ve liked you for a thousand years.” The comic series, which ran from 2004 to 2010, follows 23-year-old Scott as he begins a relationship with a high school girl named Knives Chau, only to then meet the girl of his literal dreams, Ramona Flowers. To date Ramona, however, there’s a catch. In addition to cheating on Knives, Scott is faced with the stressful task of defeating Ramona’s seven evil exes. But the graphic novels end very differently than the 2010 movie adaptation.
In 2010, Shaun of the Dead writer-director Edgar Wright adapted O’Malley’s graphic novels for the big screen, streamlining its soap opera scale to a near-two-hour runtime. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World takes its name from the second installment, and stars Michael Cera as Scott, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona, and Ellen Wong as Knives. It also features a legendary ensemble cast who would go on to become huge stars in their own right, including Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Kieran Culkin, Aubrey Plaza, and Anna Kendrick. But what lesson does Scott learn at the end of the movie, and how does it differ to the ending of the source material?
In a magically realistic version of Toronto, a young man must defeat his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes one by one in order to win her heart.
Release Date August 13, 2010
Director Edgar Wright
Cast Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Alison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, Ellen Wong
Runtime 112 minutes
Genres Action, Comedy, Fantasy
What Does the Ending of ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ Mean?
In both the movie and the graphic novels, Scott is portrayed as an immature character with lots of flaws. He’s certainly not a hero in the boyfriend department, and both versions see him grappling with his own guilt and accepting responsibility for his actions. By the time he and Knives free Ramona by defeating her seventh evil ex, Gideon (Jason Schwartzman), the fate of their romantic relationships are still up in the air. The movie ends with Scott apologizing to both Ramona and Knives, accepting his own faults and coming to terms with his dark self (literally). “We were trying to write an ending that was in the vein of The Graduate or The Heartbreak Kid, where our hero gets what he wants, but maybe that isn’t what he needs,” Edgar Wright told Collider.
When Knives forgives Scott and accepts that it’s Ramona he’s been chasing all along, she encourages the two to try again. This ties up the movie’s core themes of accountability and forgiveness, preaching ‘if you love them, let them go’ in a way that doesn’t prevent Scott and Ramona from ending up together. During production, Wright and his friend J.J. Abrams were “talking about a way of him getting together with Ramona, and not in a way that’s very conclusive,” so as a result, the film ends with Knives admitting that she’s too cool for Scott anyway and encouraging him to try again with the girl of his dreams, having matured in the meantime. Ultimately, defeating Ramona’s exes isn’t what gives them a better chance at a relationship — it’s that he earned his own self-respect.
How Does ‘Scott Pilgrim’s Ending Compare With the Graphic Novels?
With the upcoming anime adaptation Scott Pilgrim Takes Off drawing from the source material, it’s important to note just how differently things play out in the comics. In O’Malley’s books, Ramona isn’t relegated to a helpless victim role for the final battle against Gideon, and it’s actually Ramona that takes agency over her own freedom, not Knives. While Scott is rewarded with a second chance in the movie, the graphic novels allow more time for Scott to face the music, and he is not forgiven quite so easily. After pulling himself out of the rut and correcting his own mistakes in turn, eventually Scott becomes a more honorable man, actually worthy of this self-respecting Ramona.
While writing the screenplay with Michael Bacall, Wright recalls that “Bryan had not finished the book. He had an outline […] But then Bryan didn’t really stick to those outlines,” he told Collider. “I think in probably a very George R.R. Martin way, it encouraged him to be like, ‘Well, I’m going to do something different.'” Despite this, however, both the film and the graphic novels ultimately end with the suggestion that Scott and Ramona are going to give their relationship another try. This was actually due to the fact that Wright and Bacall’s original screenplay had a very different ending initially, and in an attempt to fix the film’s ending, O’Malley assisted the screenwriters in sharing what he’d come up with in the meantime.
‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ Originally Had a Different Ending
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was originally shot with an alternate ending that more closely followed Bryan Lee O’Malley’s intended outlines for the story. In this ending, Scott realizes from how well he and Knives fought Gideon together that they have been a good fit for each other all along. This is in part due to their shared immaturity, although some might argue that since Knives was mature enough to forgive Scott for cheating on her, she is the more mature character despite her youth. In this original ending, Ramona encourages Scott to be with Knives.
Although this version was an adaptation of O’Malley’s outlines, it’s clear that something didn’t sit right with neither author nor the filmmaker, since both opted to change the ending in turn. The original ending garnered mixed emotions in its test screenings and BluRay bonus features alike, with one YouTube commenter explaining, “I don’t know how to feel. This ending is way more emotional and realistic. However, the theatrical ending gives Knives the character development she deserves and sees Ramona finally not running away from her problems.” Another reads, “The ending should be, ‘Now it’s your turn to face my 7 evil girlfriends’.”
“I think the new ending is better by miles. And as soon as we test screened the new ending, the scores went up again,” says Wright. The theatrical ending we got expresses that overcoming someone’s baggage (personified here by seven evil exes) is not enough to make Scott the knight in shining armor, and that he has a responsibility not to create emotional baggage for others (namely Knives). Edgar Wright also joked about a twist alternate ending that was never shot, in which it’s revealed that the whole movie was Scott’s campy gamer-themed coping mechanism for needlessly killing Ramona’s exes in a blind fit of jealousy. This serial killer ending thankfully didn’t happen, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see what that might have looked like.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
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