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Prequel to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - A Christmas Carol (1999) Fan Reaction · This Film is Lit

• 0:10
  Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Christmas carol listener polls and preview Scott Pilgrim versus the World. Hello and welcome back. This film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. Back for 2026. It's the first official prequel episode. We did our. Well, it's not out yet, actually. I gotta edit it still. But we recorded our first bonus episode of 2026, discussed Enora. If you want to hear us talk about Anora. I thought we had a really interesting conversation about it. You could go check that out over@patreon.com thisfilmislit it'll be up there if you're listening to this. It'll be up there within a day or so of you listen, hearing this if you're listening to this when it drops. But yeah, we put up a bonus episode every month, but this is our first official mainline episode. Although it's not a full. Sorry, my Grindy is rubbing his face on the microphone. We've been letting the cats join us in the studio more because they're getting used to it and not being as now.
• 1:12
  Speaker B: He's rubbing on my microphone.
• 1:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, which you won't be able to hear, most likely. I'll try to keep what I can of it in, but it's usually not audible.
• 1:21
  Speaker B: So, Grindelwald, if you meowed right now, they'd be able to hear you.
• 1:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, why don't you talk right now, buddy? You don't have anything to say?
• 1:32
  Speaker B: Usually can't get him to shut up.
• 1:33
  Speaker A: No, but anyways, we have plenty of stuff to talk about on this prequel episode, so we're gonna jump right in to our patron shout outs. I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why no new paying patrons this week. But we do have a free member, which you can do as well. If you want, you can head over to patreon.com thisfilmislit and become a free member. And you still get to see posts get dropped and you get to see some stuff.
• 1:59
  Speaker B: The main thing at the free level is the. The polls. Yes, the polls are available on every level.
• 2:06
  Speaker A: You can do the polls over there if you want to do it there instead of on another social media platform. Anyways, thank you, K, for joining us at the free member level. Kita. And as always, we have our Academy Award winning patrons and they are Amanda Nicole Goble, Harpo Rat, Nathan, Vic Blofeld, Mathilde Cottonwood, Steve. Ben Wilcox, Teresa Schwartz, Ian from Wine Country, Kelly Napier Gratch. Justgratch Shelby says watch K Pop Demon Hunters and that darn skag. Thank you all very much for your continued support. I think I do have K Pop Demon hunters on my IMDb watch list. Maybe we'll do it as a bonus episode.
• 2:47
  Speaker B: Maybe.
• 2:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, it looks fun.
• 2:49
  Speaker B: It does look fun.
• 2:50
  Speaker A: The music from it's fine. I've heard, you know, like, the big hits that came out. We listened to them on a road trip with some of our friends because.
• 2:58
  Speaker B: They had kids and they were so. It was all in their Spotify.
• 3:01
  Speaker A: It was, like, in their spot. So we heard, you know, we've heard, like, golden and whatever. Soda. Whatever that one is.
• 3:07
  Speaker B: Soda Pop, what it's called.
• 3:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. Handful of the other songs. And yeah, they're. You know, it's K Pop. It's good music. It's. It's. It's scientifically engineered to be good, enjoyable music. So.
• 3:20
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. But, yeah, I've heard the movie is fun, but I think we'll check it out at some point anyways. I don't know why I'm stalling. We got plenty to get to. Let's see what the people had to say about A Christmas Carol, 1999.
• 3:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man. Feels like a million years ago that we talked about this now, but on Patreon, we had six votes for the book and zero for the movie.
• 3:49
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 3:50
  Speaker B: I know. Kelly Napier said this wasn't a bad adaptation. This wasn't a great adaptation. It did a good job overall, telling a story that's been told a hundred times before and still trying to make it feel new and fresh. Somehow I ended up going with the book over the movie in this case because I agree with Katie that it could have benefited by having a narrator to lead us through the story. And I'm just going to state for the record that if you had done Muppets again, that movie would have won. It's just that fantastic. The ruler, by which all other adaptations should be measured.
• 4:25
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, it definitely would have won because I think. Yeah. Yes. I don't even know if we were doing voting back then, so I don't.
• 4:33
  Speaker B: Think we were because that was, like, very early in our run.
• 4:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Speaker B: Our next comment was from Nathan, who said, I gotta go with the book. I loved Patrick Stewart as Scrooge, but the movie was just meh. Overall, for me, my favorite part of any adaptation is after Scrooge has changed. I love seeing him happy and bringing happiness to all around him. In this version, though, the scenes of his happiness were too awkward for me. Both the cousin and Cratchit scenes were undercut by a sense of how awkward it was for Scrooge to develop friendly relationships with those he had mistreated and pushed away. That's probably more realistic, but I want unabashed happiness and joy.
• 5:15
  Speaker A: That's interesting because I will say that was my. One of my favorite things in the movie was all of that. I thought that that was really fun. I thought it still kept the fun, like joy, kind of like exuberance of the post, you know, post change scenes. But I also thought that added layer of kind of how that would be awkward was interesting and felt, you know, grounded in a realism that I enjoyed.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: Also, having the song about shyness sung while Scrooge was being shy made me roll my eyes. It was just dumb and borderline insulting to the watcher.
• 5:52
  Speaker A: I don't think so. I don't think it's insulting. I think it's a fun little. Like. I think in that particular instance, I think it works because I. The other thing is, I don't think it's like a specific. Like, I don't know. For some reason it worked for me. I can imagine sometimes needle drops can be a little on the nose. But that diegetic thing of it being. And I assume an actual. I assume what happened is they found an actual song that existed contemporaneously in this time period.
• 6:17
  Speaker B: Oh yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker A: That people sang and were like, ah, that's fun. We'll have them sing that. So I. I thought it worked, but it. I could understand. Like it is sometimes there are moments like that that are where you. That do make me kind of roll my eyes. But this, for whatever reason, this wasn't one of them.
• 6:33
  Speaker B: A few things I noticed in the book, Dickens takes a shot at American securities, using them as an example of how worthless his future promise notes would be if time stopped moving forward. He clearly hadn't forgotten his ill fated trip to the us he describes a tailor as having been drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets. I feel like there must be another meaning for bloodthirsty or it's weird that the tailor is free for Christmas.
• 7:00
  Speaker A: The only thing I think is that maybe it means bloodthirsty in a. It could just be bloodthirsty in the sense of like he wants to get into a fight or something. Yeah, it could be like that kind of thing. Like he's drunk and looking for a fight kind of thing. Or it could be drunk and bloodthirsty. I think you could. I don't know if it would from this time period, be a thing, but I could imagine using bloodthirsty there to mean he's looking to get laid. I could understand that as, like, kind of a euphemism, and maybe not. Euphemism is not the right word, but, I mean, that's a way to describe somebody who's, like, on the prowl for some strange, as it were, or whatever phrase you want. I don't know.
• 7:39
  Speaker B: I would not have thought to interpret it like that.
• 7:42
  Speaker A: I think that's less likely than the fact that when it says drunken bloodthirsty, is that he's just out there looking to.
• 7:47
  Speaker B: I don't remember the exact context of that. I would have to go back and look.
• 7:51
  Speaker A: You know, I. I'd imagine what we're going for there is he's like a soccer hooligan who's drunk and out looking to.
• 7:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 7:57
  Speaker A: You know, getting us.
• 8:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. Getting a little bit of trouble.
• 8:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
• 8:03
  Speaker B: Our next comment was from Shelby, who said, I wasn't planning to watch a version where one of the many stars of Avengers Doomsday bullies, the baddie from my favorite Doctor who episode. But I'm not mad about it.
• 8:18
  Speaker A: Trying to figure out who these people are. Well, obviously Patrick Stewart, I guess, is in. Gonna be in Doomsday. I just saw they just released a trailer as we're recording this where he's.
• 8:26
  Speaker B: In the trailer for that and then Bob Cratchit. Was that the one guy from that Snowman episode?
• 8:31
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Yes.
• 8:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker A: Fair. Okay. Yeah.
• 8:37
  Speaker B: I must have missed the sign aging at the beginning because I had trouble figuring out if Marley had died that very Christmas Eve. I liked the idea of showing Marley's funeral more than the execution. Ultimately, the book is a hard one to measure up to. Mickey's Christmas Carol is the version I grew up with, but I haven't seen it in years.
• 8:58
  Speaker A: We talked about that. Right? That story falls into the.
• 9:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it's like hell and it's terrifying.
• 9:03
  Speaker A: Or whatever you said.
• 9:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like, way scarier than a Mickey Mouse cartoon had any right being. Our last comment on Patreon was from Cottonwood Steve, who said, for me, I have to stick with the book. I'm not really a Dickens kind of guy, but this is the only book of his I read outside the context of schoolwork. But that is not to say that this is a bad adaptation by any stretch. I mean, for sci fi nerds like me, we have to watch and love what Patrick Stewart stars in.
• 9:36
  Speaker A: You don't have to. You're not required.
• 9:39
  Speaker B: Especially the movies Conspiracy Theory and Green Room.
• 9:42
  Speaker A: I haven't seen either. I've been wanting to see Green Room, but that's one I'm gonna watch on my own. Cause I don't think you'd have any interest in that. It's a very, like. I don't even know exactly, but it's like a violent, like, interesting. I think he plays a Nazi in it, but like a neo Nazi. I'm pretty sure the plot of that movie is like a band is playing a concert and they're in the green room, and then the club gets taken over by skinheads.
• 10:07
  Speaker B: Interesting.
• 10:08
  Speaker A: And then it turns into this weird violent. I think. And I think Patrick Stewart is one of the skinheads.
• 10:15
  Speaker B: Genuinely cannot imagine Patrick Stewart playing a neo Nazi.
• 10:19
  Speaker A: I think I could be wrong. Maybe he's on the other side, but I thought he was one of the neo Nazis. I think that movie came out forever ago. And like I said, I never saw it, but I'm aware of it. It came out in 2015. Punk rock band becomes trapped in a secluded venue after finding a scene of violence for what they saw. The band themselves become targets of violence from a gang of white power skinheads who want to eliminate all evidence of the crime. And I'm fairly certain, leader of the skinheads.
• 10:46
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 10:47
  Speaker A: Patrick Stewart plays the leader of the skinhead gang. Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker B: Steve went on to say. However, I will say the George C. Scott version is a far superior television adaptation. That's my mom's favorite.
• 10:59
  Speaker A: It is your mom. Yeah.
• 11:00
  Speaker B: Anyway, great episode. Have a great New Year's.
• 11:03
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 11:04
  Speaker B: We did.
• 11:04
  Speaker A: We did.
• 11:05
  Speaker B: Well, you were sick.
• 11:06
  Speaker A: I did get sick. It was good for as good as it could be, considering. And I wasn't like. I just had, like, a. A bad cold. So we ended up coming home early from the party we were at because I started feeling bad and then I went to bed before midnight.
• 11:20
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 11:20
  Speaker A: So all things considered, it was fine.
• 11:23
  Speaker B: I was eating a bowl of leftover beef stew at midnight.
• 11:27
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 11:28
  Speaker B: One of the more uneventful New Years we've had.
• 11:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. But the rest of the weekend was good. I started feeling better, like, within a day or two. So.
• 11:36
  Speaker B: All right. Over on Facebook, we had one vote for the book and three for the movie. Full disclosure, there were a bunch of comments that I didn't include because they just said, like, Patrick Stewart or Charles Dickens or. Yeah, or the Muppet.
• 11:54
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:54
  Speaker B: We got, like, multiple comments about the Muppet Christmas Carol on Facebook, specifically which.
• 11:59
  Speaker A: We'Re aware that it's the best one. We agree.
• 12:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, we agree. We're not saying you're wrong. It's also not what we're talking about right now.
• 12:06
  Speaker A: We did cover it. You could go listen to our episode on it if you want.
• 12:10
  Speaker B: But we did have a very meaty comment on Facebook from Melissa who said, I would absolutely choose the Patrick Stewart version over Dickens. While this is counterintuitive, as one would not exist without the other, I would like the opportunity to defend my argument fair. I know this post lacks brevity in all the worst ways. However, without it, I feel there is no way to fully elucidate on why I came to this conclusion and would make my opinion just words without merit.
• 12:45
  Speaker A: There's. Is there a. Is there a. A term for when a sentence exhibits the thing it's saying? Because I love. I love. I know this post. Lax brevity in all the worst ways. However, without it, I feel there's no way to fully elucidate on why I came to this conclusion and would make my opinion just words without merit. It's one of those sentences that is like. It insists upon itself, which is interesting.
• 13:10
  Speaker B: We're not making fun of.
• 13:11
  Speaker A: No, I think I prom. It's just. I thought it was fun that, that said, you know, I don't know. I'm genuinely curious if that's a thing.
• 13:19
  Speaker B: It's very like 18th century writer.
• 13:22
  Speaker A: Yes, it does feel. You're right, it does kind of feel. Which maybe they're doing a pastiche of Dickens, which I guess he's not 18th century, but whatever. 18th century. When was Dickens. No, 19th century because 1800s.
• 13:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, okay. Melissa went on to say, while Dickens provided the base ingredients, the haunting atmosphere and the timeless moral, Patrick Stewart performs a feat of cinematic alchemy. He doesn't just play Ebenezer Scrooge, he reconstructs him into a psychologically complex human being, giving him the nuance that many other performers simply do not. This could be due to the fact that unlike many actors who do this as a one off, Stewart has interacted with this material before and therefore has had a chance to refine his performance. Before filming, Stewart performed a celebrated one man stage version of A Christmas Carol on Broadway and in London, where He played all 40 plus characters himself, starting around 1987, 1988 in the UK, premiering in Mirrorfield West Yorkshire and then coming to Broadway in 1991, running multiple successful years, stepping into the role by himself. Justice Dickens also did. Because of this, he would know Every beat of the story cold, allowing him allowing the ability to bring nuance to Scrooge that Dickens prose which often leans into caricature, lacks.
• 14:48
  Speaker A: We did talk about the fact that.
• 14:49
  Speaker B: He did, we did mention One man.
• 14:51
  Speaker A: Show in our prequel episode and then I actually found a recording of said One man show. It's not like a live performance, it's like a studio recording of it, but it's on YouTube and full for free if you want to listen to it. I listened to a little bit of it and seems like a lot of fun. It seems like it would be a good thing to listen to. Yeah, like a fun thing to listen to on a car ride during the holidays or something like that. But yeah, he does a good job with it.
• 15:15
  Speaker B: And I do agree that Dickens prose often leans into caricature. To me that's something that like I like about his writing. It's like very something that make it sit very Dickens. Yeah, to me. But yeah, Dickensian. But yeah, if you're not into that, definitely could be annoying. An example of this is the scene where Scrooge realizes he is looking at his own grave. This can be a tricky scene where it is too easy to lean into theatrical fear rather than a more understated but still visceral existential breakdown that I found Stewart's performance to have here, which were also shown in his performance of Macbeth and other Shakespearean works. After all, he is famous for his Shakespearean training and it is evidence to show us the frosty rhyme on Scrooge's heart through subtle micro expressions and vocal shifts. We don't need Dickens or an all knowing narrator to tell us Scrooge is lonely. We see it in the way Stewart lingers in the shadows of his cold house. He turns descriptive adjectives into living emotions which is what movies are supposed to be showing. Not telling. Another good example is his voice cracking when he tries to sing in church and his uncertainty and hesitations at his nephew's house, which I am sure is relatable to anyone that has had to go into an uncomfortable and unknown situation.
• 16:40
  Speaker A: I agree with all that. I think the only like note of disagreement, and it's not even really disagreement is this that I, I, I haven't seen a ton of adaptations of A Christmas Carol, but I've seen a couple of them and I think most of them that I've seen. The person playing Scrooge does a pretty, I think like for instance we actually watched a little bit of the Alastair Sims one on yeah, at your parents house. At my parents house. And I thought the handful of scenes of that that we saw, I thought he captured that. It's a different style because this is from 1950 or whatever. So it's like kind of. It's more theatrical just in its overall depiction. But another instance, I think that Michael Caine captures a lot of those nuances in his performance in the Muppet one. I guess my point is that I think it's. I don't know. I would have to directly compare a lot more of the performances, and it sounds like Melissa here has seen a lot more of them than I have. So I will defer to you on your expertise of.
• 17:34
  Speaker B: And I do want to clarify, because I talked quite a bit about the narrator in the episode, and I just do want to clarify that the reason I kind of cited this movie's lack of narrator as a negative for me wasn't because I think that the acting needed, like a narrator to explain what was going on. I absolutely do not think that and.
• 18:02
  Speaker A: Cause that was what I was getting at when I was saying in the episode, I don't think it needs it. That's kind of what I was getting at. But I think. Go ahead.
• 18:08
  Speaker B: But I do think that the narrator is so integral and baked into what A Christmas Carol is, that when it's missing, I feel like the story is missing a vital ingredient.
• 18:24
  Speaker A: It's not so much that you need it. Yes. Like you said, it's not so much that you need it for the story to work or for it to work. It can work without the narrator, but when the narrator's not there, it's like it's missing a character or something. It's its own thing.
• 18:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. The narrator is absolutely its own character.
• 18:40
  Speaker A: That adds an extra layer of a specific kind of whimsy and humor to it, depending on what parts of the narration they choose to include. That is missing a little bit in a version without the narrator. But again, it's not that it needs the narrator work, it's just that without the narrator, it's a slightly different thing.
• 19:00
  Speaker B: Yes. Furthermore, the strength of the supporting cast significantly enhances the overall performance. It is a common pitfall in filmmaking to focus predominantly on the leading actor. However, this film constructs a rich, weighted world that feels substantial and meaningful. Witnessing the reactions, dialogues and interactions of the ensemble lends authenticity to the story, transforming it from mere script into a living experience. After all, a strong lead with a weak cast would make this story more of a caricature than it was already written to be. With the good performance emphasizing the bad ones. During the funeral of Marley, the attendants attempts to break the awkward silence are notably unsuccessful, culminating in their rapid consumption of drinks, possibly port or claret. Following their hurried remark, we will leave you to grieve in silence, accompanied by expressions of evident discomfort. It is apparent that they are eager to extricate themselves from Scrooge's dour presence as swiftly as possible, and it is equally clear that they are likely to discuss this encounter subsequently. Additionally, the genuine and uncontrived sense of joy and merriment at the nephew's gathering, along with the accompanying music and dancing, is particularly striking. It is challenging to pinpoint exactly what imbues the scene with such natural authenticity. It really made me relish the thought of participating in such festivities. Furthermore, I appreciate the subtle details, such as the Ghost of Christmas Present transporting Scrooge beyond London to scenes including a ship, a lighthouse and a prison, each experiencing Christmas in distinct ways.
• 20:43
  Speaker A: I like that just because I don't see that in a lot of that.
• 20:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of adaptations leave that out. I think the inclusion of Scrooge's sister fan and the depiction of Scrooge's childhood, as well as the revelation that his mother died giving birth to him, serve to illustrate the cycle of trauma rooted in this in his familial history. This context helps elucidate the persistent nature of his fractured relationships, particularly with his nephew. Some may perceive this characterization as overly sentimental. However, in my personal experience, it resonates truthfully. This theme is further reinforced by the revelation that Scrooge's sister, who was the sole person to show him affection and support, died postpartum following the birth of his nephew. This detail offers a compelling explanation for his treatment of his nephew in both narratives, which otherwise might appear inexplicable. Really, Several of Scrooge's flaws are as portrayed, each have distinct explanations for those who pay careful attention to the small details and show he is not merely wicked for wickedness sake, but rather desperate to feel safe in a world that feels inherently unsafe.
• 21:53
  Speaker A: I will say I hadn't connected that the I don't even think after watching this one, I necessarily connected that the falling out with his nephew being potentially related to his sister's death after the postpartum following the birth of his nephew. It also echoes something you speculated on, which is that maybe some of Scrooge's father's disdain for him for Scrooge comes from potentially his mom, right? Didn't we discuss that his mother dying potentially in childbirth, although he has a Younger sibling with.
• 22:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. The movie kind of implies that that could be what happened.
• 22:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 22:41
  Speaker B: So if that were the case, she would be his half sister.
• 22:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which. Also weird. So we were trying to figure out. Yeah. Either way. Anyway. I don't know where I was going with that. Anyway.
• 22:51
  Speaker B: Although Belle's role is relatively minor, her performance is both strong and memorable. She confronts the younger and the unseen older versions of Scrooge, supporting the narrative arc. Her presence accentuates the older Scrooge's desperate plea to his younger self, urging him to pursue her, speak to her, and overcome his fear. Without Belle's empathetic portrayal, this pivotal moment might have fallen flat.
• 23:16
  Speaker A: Mm.
• 23:17
  Speaker B: Bob Cratchit grabbing the poker to defend himself from a laughing Scrooge, who he must have assumed was going mad was hilarious, as was Patrick Stewart's dogged attempts to skip.
• 23:28
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 23:30
  Speaker B: By casting equally strong actors around Stewart, the characters such as the Cratchit family or Belle serve as more than mere plot devices. They function as mirrors, reflecting Scrooge's shortcomings in high definition. A note on the ending. I did like the ending with the Ghost of Christmas Future, just because to me, it feels like the movie knows what it is. While I understand that the moment where he falls into in his coffin and ends up nose to nose with his corpse may feel excessive, to me, it gives a unique focus on a literary moment that has been done so many times it has lost its punch. Most adaptations follow the book and focus on the reveal that it is his tombstone, but most people know that it is. And even in this version, and arguably in the book version, Scrooge already knows as well. Yeah, yeah. This is clearly demonstrated when he asks desperately before looking at the stone, paraphrased, are these the things that might be or are these the things that must be? Why would you show me these things if I was beyond all hope? To me, that alone speaks to his foresight of what is coming next. But this arguably overblown ending to his ghostly experience to me bookends the scenes with Marley's purgatory and his suffering, and could even be seen as Scrooge seeing himself for the first time as he is, to paraphrase Oliver Cromwell, warts and all. And since the emphasis of the scene is changed without changing the scene itself, even if it was not entirely successful, it was refreshing to see them try a new approach with a well worn story.
• 25:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, I don't disagree with that. It is one of those things where the scene has been. It's kind of, you know, the pivotal kind of climactic scene in the story. And it's been done so many times that you are always trying to. Like, when you're doing another adaptation, it's like, how do we make this more interesting, more compelling? How do we put a spin on this that obviously keeps the heart, the soul of what this moment is and represents, while also just not doing the exact same thing everybody else has done already. So I can appreciate taking a swing.
• 25:39
  Speaker B: I wonder if showing the dead Tiny Tim was a choice made to parallel the showing of Scrooge's corpse. It seems beyond coincidence that they would do it without some thought. And perhaps the thought there was some irony to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker A: It could be that. I also still think. And I didn't look this up. I still think that it might just be like the song. I think they did some research and I think.
• 26:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously.
• 26:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, no, but I'm saying, like, I think it might have been a thing where this was a thing that did actually happen during that time period where the bi. Which I think I have heard or read this is purely just bouncing around in my brain somewhere, so don't trust me. But that it was not uncommon when somebody passed away for the family to keep their body in their house for a while, for a couple days at least, or something.
• 26:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, before the proliferation of funeral parlors, you would lay in wake at home.
• 26:35
  Speaker A: That's what I mean.
• 26:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:37
  Speaker A: So it's. Yeah. So to me, it feels like just they're like, well, this is a real thing that would have happened. And none of these other stories have really touched on that or versions of the story has ever done this or maybe other versions have, I don't know. But it's not mentioned in the book. I guess it's also just a even, you know, even if you take away kind of the irony or the. The parallel of us, Scrooge seeing his own corpse and coming face to face with that. If. Even if you take away the paralleling that I think just the impact of. For the audience and for Scrooge, of literally seeing Tiny Tim's body, you could argue is a more. Could be a more impactful scene than just hearing that he died. You know what I mean? Like, seeing that moment where Cratchit has to, like, is, like, there with the body of his dead child has more moral or more, you know, emotional weight than just, oh, yeah, he died. And you just hear that.
• 27:36
  Speaker B: No, I agree. And I do think, like, after thinking about it more, after we recorded that episode. Part of the reason it caught me off guard was because for whatever reason I think I had always interpreted as Tiny Tim had not died like quite so recently. Like he had died recently, but not that recently, that he would still be like lying in wait.
• 28:02
  Speaker A: That he would already just be buried.
• 28:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. Continuing on with Melissa's comment here, in my humble opinion, Dickens wrote the recipe, but Patrick Stewart cooked the feast. By stripping away the Victorian sentimentality and replacing it with raw Shakespearean intensity, the 1999 Christmas Carol proves that sometimes the reflection is more vivid than the object itself.
• 28:26
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 28:27
  Speaker B: Lovely prose.
• 28:28
  Speaker A: Lovely.
• 28:30
  Speaker B: And then Melissa left a couple of follow up comments to her original comment here. To answer Katie's question, is young Scrooge often attractive? I have seen many and I think most adaptations lean towards generic and clean cut, but not necessarily attractive. I think the emphasis on more sharp, more on sharply dressed with very contemporary, stylish clothing that leans on flashy, often with a cravat or similar. I always notice the clothes.
• 28:59
  Speaker A: Is it cravat?
• 29:00
  Speaker B: I think so.
• 29:01
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. I'm always in my head. I don't know if I've ever actually heard it said in my head. I've always said cravat, but I don't actually know which way it's pronounced.
• 29:07
  Speaker B: I have no idea. I always notice the clothes though, before the actor. But to me, young Scrooge tends to be conventionally good looking but not handsome. I feel the nice clothes are supposed to represent his superficiality and veneer of character. How he is trying to present himself as something he is clearly not, but is not quite muffling his true nature. I have seen many renditions of this and feel qualified to comment.
• 29:34
  Speaker A: Based on the rest of this comment, I would. I think you are qualified.
• 29:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. And we. When the one that we watched at your parents house, I was.
• 29:42
  Speaker A: I was waiting.
• 29:44
  Speaker B: I was waiting with bated breath.
• 29:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 29:47
  Speaker B: And they skipped over the entire part.
• 29:49
  Speaker A: With Belle, there was only kid Scrooge. There wasn't like.
• 29:52
  Speaker B: Like they did show the brief little SC of him working at Fezziwigs, but he was still a kid, the kid actor or whatever. Yeah. They did not bother hiring a young adult Scrooge. I was very disappointed. I am at my character limit above, but I was also enchanted with Belle's hood and want to try to make it someday.
• 30:15
  Speaker A: Oh gosh.
• 30:17
  Speaker B: If I actually try to make that, I'll be sure to share the process. It would need quite a bit of boning, almost like a corset to keep that shape.
• 30:28
  Speaker A: Clearly has some sort of structure. Yeah, physical structure, like boning or something.
• 30:32
  Speaker B: However, I bet it makes doors very annoying.
• 30:35
  Speaker A: Well, I guess it depends on how tall you are.
• 30:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not very for you.
• 30:39
  Speaker A: It wouldn't be interesting.
• 30:40
  Speaker B: It would be fine for me because, yeah, I am not tall. It would be a nightmare for you.
• 30:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, if I was wearing it, I'd be hitting it on every door frame.
• 30:48
  Speaker B: The costuming was absolutely on point, as were the music and games that were very Edwardian and also Victorian.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Well, there you go.
• 30:57
  Speaker B: All right. And that was actually our last comment. A good one. Yes, we did have three votes for the book and one for the movie on Instagram, but no other comments from anywhere. So our winner this time was the book, with 10 votes to the movie's four. Despite our very impassioned defense of the film.
• 31:19
  Speaker A: Yes, honestly, I'm willing to give that one based on the prose and length alone. You get a couple extra votes to bring it closer to. To an even match up there because Melissa put in the work. Well, thank you all for your comments. Really appreciate it. We always love hearing that feedback and talking about it. Katie, it's time to preview Scott Pilgrim Burst the World. Well, sorry. Scott Pilgrim, the Graphic series novel.
• 31:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. Hey, what's up, Scott? I'll leave you alone forever now. You know this one girl with hair like this?
• 32:02
  Speaker A: Yes, that's Ramona Flowers.
• 32:03
  Speaker B: She's out of your league.
• 32:04
  Speaker A: You know her?
• 32:04
  Speaker B: Tell me now.
• 32:05
  Speaker A: She just moved here. Got a job at Amazon.
• 32:08
  Speaker B: I have to order something really cool.
• 32:11
  Speaker A: Scott, are you waiting for the package you just ordered? Maybe.
• 32:15
  Speaker B: Scott Pilgrim is a series of graphic novels by Canadian author and comic book artist Brian Lee o'. Malley. The original edition of the series consists of six black and white volumes that were released between August of 2004 and July of 2010. So O' Malley was inspired to create the series and the title character after listening to Canadian band Plum Trees 1998 single Scott Pilgrim.
• 32:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that in my research. I was like, oh, there's just a song called Scott Pilgrim.
• 32:53
  Speaker B: Apparently.
• 32:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, which makes sense when you find out about all the names in of like all the bands and stuff are all just references to video games and stuff like that.
• 33:02
  Speaker B: In particular, o' Malley was inspired by the lyric, I've liked you for a thousand years.
• 33:08
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 33:09
  Speaker B: Apparently. And I want to apologize in advance for the names that I may or may not butcher right now.
• 33:16
  Speaker A: A bunch of Japanese names coming up.
• 33:18
  Speaker B: So o' Malley wanted to write a Shonen style comic book series and he has cited the works Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi. Even a monkey can draw manga by Koji Ahara and Kentaro Takekuma and Koudelka by Yuji Iwahara as sources of inspiration, among other things. But those seemed to be like kind of the main three things that he's talked about. The Scott Pilgrim series received widespread acclaim from critics for its unique artwork, humor themes, characters, influence, storyline and visual style, and it has also garnered a significant cult following in the years since its release. In 2005, O' Malley won the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent for the first volume of Scott Pilgrim. In 2006, he was awarded the Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist in the Joe Shuster Awards. He won the Harvey Award in 2007, and that same year the series was awarded a spot in Entertainment Weekly's A list. And in 2010, he won his first Eisner Award in the best humor publication category. Publishers Weekly has ranked the third volume, Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness as one of the best comic books of 2006. In a critics pollution. And the character Scott Pilgrim was ranked 85th on Wizard Magazine's 2008 list of 200 Greatest Comic Book characters of all time.
• 35:05
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 35:07
  Speaker B: And aside from the 2010 film that we will be discussing, the series has also been adapted as a video game and a mobile comic. There was a an animated short in 2010 that followed up the movie and was also included like the DVD Blu Ray special feature features. And then in 2023, the series was reimagined as an anime series for Netflix.
• 35:31
  Speaker A: Which we have not watched. No, I have not seen, so I don't know anything about that.
• 35:34
  Speaker B: But perfect time to maybe give it a shot after this episode.
• 35:38
  Speaker A: And it's from my memory, it's all of the same cast from the film returning to voice all of the characters. So, speaking of that cast, we're gonna now learn a little bit about Scott Pilgrim. First, the world. Mr. Pilgrim, I'm Ramona's first evil ex boyfriend.
• 35:57
  Speaker B: What? Wait, we're fighting over Ramona?
• 36:02
  Speaker A: Didn't you get my email explaining the situation?
• 36:04
  Speaker B: I skimmed it.
• 36:05
  Speaker A: Mm. Mm.
• 36:08
  Speaker B: What was that all about? If we're gonna date, you may have to defeat my seven evil exes. So what you're saying is we are dating?
• 36:19
  Speaker A: I guess.
• 36:20
  Speaker B: Does that mean we can make out? Sure.
• 36:22
  Speaker A: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a 2010 film written and directed by Edgar Wright, known for Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, the World's End, Baby Driver, Last Night in soho, the Running man and Space. I think that's all of it. But there might be a couple other things in there. Probably some music videos at some point.
• 36:38
  Speaker B: Also known on this show as being your favorite director. Yes.
• 36:43
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, for a long time. I think he's still probably my favorite director. Stylistically, I think he's one of my favorite directors. Although the fall off has been real. I have not seen the Running man, but from everything I've heard about the Running man, oof.
• 36:58
  Speaker B: Fair enough.
• 36:59
  Speaker A: So, I mean, I have not heard good things about Running man, but I haven't seen it. So I can't say for sure. But a lot of people saying that it didn't even really feel like an Edgar Wright movie, that it just. It didn't have the sauce. But who knows? Like I said, I do want to see it because I watch everything. That's the only thing after. It's literally, I think, the only thing of his that I haven't seen. Everything else I have seen now, so. Cause we did last Night in soho on the bonus episode a few months ago, back in like the summer. And it was also co written by Michael Bacall, who's known for Project Z, sorry, Project X, the movie about the party or whatever. 21 and 22 Drump street and was a writer on the Running man, the one that just came out. The film stars Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Brie Larson, Allison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, Johnny Simmons, Mark Weber, Ellen Wong, Satya Baba, Chris Evans, Brandon Ruth, Mae Whitman Kita and Shota Saito, and Jason Schwartzman. It has an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 69 on Metacritic, and a 7.5 out of 10 on IMDb and it made 47.8 million against a budget of 60 to 85 million. It was a pretty big flop, which is crazy because it did gain a pretty big cult following.
• 38:16
  Speaker B: In the intervening, I was gonna say. I would not have guessed that that was a flop.
• 38:19
  Speaker A: I think it was one of those things that they just. I'm not sure they knew how to market it because it's a pretty unique movie.
• 38:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 38:26
  Speaker A: And I think they maybe just didn't know how to market it. And the name probably didn't help because the name's not super. You're like, what? I don't like, what is this? I don't know. I think that was. I think it was that because everybody who sees it is like, this is a great movie. Intervening, like DVD sales and stuff did really well and it developed a lot of a following in the years since then. But yeah, it did not do well in theaters, which to be fair, I did not see it in theaters. And this was great.
• 38:50
  Speaker B: No, I didn't either.
• 38:51
  Speaker A: Right. While I was in college, actually I might have seen it in theaters. I can't remember, but I don't think I did. I think I watched it after it came out on Blue.
• 39:00
  Speaker B: I was gonna say I probably watched it in somebody's dorm.
• 39:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that is literally. I think we rented it or whatever and watched it, but. So a film adaptation of the comic series was proposed after the first volume of the series was completed. But o' Malley wasn't particularly interested in having a film adaptation made because he just didn't know how it would translate and was just like, ah. But he needed money enough to go ahead and sign off on it. So Universal Studios acquired the rights and they reached out to Edgar Wright, who had just finished Shaun of the Dead, and he signed on to write and direct the film after he had received a pre release copy of the first volume of the graphic novel that he read while he was on tour. I think the promotions tour for Shaun of the Dead or something like that. Edgar Wright cited Mario Bava's 1968 film Danger Diabolic as an influence, saying, quote, the Italian influence, a sense of completely unbridled imagination. They don't make any attempt to make it look realistic. Mario Bava's composition and staging has a real try anything attitude. End quote. So he's. Edgar Wright has always been one of those guys that wears his influences on his sleeves. On his sleeve. He's a very similar to Quentin Tarantino and stuff in that regard. He's a cinephile and he has a huge nerds compendium of films in his head and boy, does he reference them all copiously in everything that he does. So Wright said that Brian o' Malley was actually very involved with the scripting process of the film from the beginning, including adding lines and adding polish to the film. And due to the long development of the film, several lines from various scripts written by Edgar Wright and Bacall, whatever his name was, ended up being used in later Scott Pilgrim comics. I'll get to it here. But nothing from Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour, the sixth and final volume in the graphic novel appears in this film. Because it wasn't out yet. The comic was not complete at the time of the film's production. The film was started. Production was in like 2008, 2009, which was right in the middle while like 4 and 5 were coming up. Basically kind of similar to how The Harry Potter production went where they were wrapping up the book series before or after the movies were coming out already. What did end up happening, though, because they needed an ending for the movie, is that o' Malley contributed suggestions for the film's ending and gave them notes from his sixth volume that he was going to be writing, but has stated that the film's ending is, quote, their ending. Actually, they shot an original ending where Scott gets together with knives, but o' Malley did not like this. Test audiences did not like this. So they ended up filming a new ending for the film three months before the final release in theaters.
• 41:47
  Speaker B: Interesting.
• 41:48
  Speaker A: They went back and changed it to where he ends up with Ramona, which. I actually don't know how the comic ends.
• 41:54
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 41:55
  Speaker A: Like, I've never read it before. I'm halfway through right now. I'm on. I just finished volume three, so. But I don't know how the actual comics, the anime or the mang. It's not a manga, I guess, but American manga ends. But. Yeah. So I don't know how different it is from how the movie ends. So the cast ended up spending. Or the cast that needed to. I would say probably not. The entire cast ended up spending two months in fight training prior to filming, and they worked with both Bradley, James Allen and Pin Zhang, who are members of Jackie Chan's stunt team. The movie was filmed in Toronto at the actual locations that are mentioned and show up in the book, including Casa Loma, St. Michael's College School, Sonic Boom, Toronto Public Library, Second Cup Pizza Pizza, Lee's palace and Artscape Witchwood Barns, among other places. The production was allowed to film in Second cup and Pizza Pizza locations, which are Canadian, like restaurant chains or whatever. And Wright said that using them instead of like a Starbucks just felt right. And saying, quote, it means something to Canadian audiences and people in international audiences. Sorry. It means something to Canadian audiences and people in international audiences just think they made Pizza Pizza up themselves. It sounds like a cute movie brand. You know what it does sound a second cup.
• 43:12
  Speaker B: Yeah, they both sound like a cute movie brand.
• 43:14
  Speaker A: Generic, like movie brands and not like, you know, actual brand. So, yeah, Michael. Sarah prepared for the fight scenes by training for over a year. So that, like I said, the cast, that some of the cast trained for several months ahead of time, but Sarah had been training for over a year and ended up earning himself the onset nickname Push Up King because he became so muscular, apparently. Well, muscular for his small frame, I guess.
• 43:41
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 43:43
  Speaker A: Edgar Wright said that Universal Pictures had suggested Seth Rogen for the role of Scott because of his recent success in Knocked Up. Locked up was such a big hit at the time. But Wright said he could not see anyone but Sarah in the role. And I had a hard time seeing Seth Rogen in the role. But if you go back and look at the time period, couldn't he have been too old? I see. That's what I thought. That was my head. In my head I'm like, well, he's way too old for the role. But you go back and look, he's only four years older than Michael Sarah, which is not nothing. But if you go and look at him from this time period, he looks a little too old, especially compared to Michael Sarah. But he looks, look. I think it would have maybe worked, but not, not as well as Michael Sarah. Michael Sarah is definitely much more a much better fit for the role. In the 2020 retrospective which was the 10 year anniversary which they put out this Blu ray, which there are. So I'm reading a lot of the. All this is like from Wikipedia. There's an insane amount of production notes and information and behind the scenes stuff just in the Wikipedia article. And even a lot of the subsections within the Wikipedia article have their own Wikipedia articles. Like the soundtrack has its. I don't, I barely go into the soundtrack here at all. And that's a huge part of it obviously because it's music based movie. But there's a ton. The, the Blu Ray that came out in 2020 which I want to buy. I don't, I think it's. I don't have it, but has like a ton. They did a ton of special features for that 2020 kind of retrospective Blu Ray release that came out 10 year anniversary in that, that I thought this made no sense. I'm including this because I do not understand the context of this and there was nothing else in the Wikipedia article. And I could not get to the original Entertainment Weekly article. Ellen Wong, who plays Knives Chow in the movie.
• 45:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 45:27
  Speaker A: Said in this 2020 Entertainment Weekly retrospective that she did not, according to Wikipedia, that she did not think she would even be considered for the role of Knives because she is Asian. And I do not understand what that could possibly mean because Knives Chow is Chinese.
• 45:43
  Speaker B: And yeah, the story, unless it got paraphrased, I don't know what Ellen Wong's ethnicity.
• 45:50
  Speaker A: That's. That's the only thing like again she.
• 45:51
  Speaker B: Said like because I'm some other ethnicity, other Chinese.
• 45:59
  Speaker A: I don't, I don't know. I, Yeah, I, I thought that was Very. I think Wong is a Chinese surname though. I think. I'm not 100 sure on that.
• 46:07
  Speaker B: It says born to Chinese Cambodian parents who fled to Canada during the Cambodian genocide.
• 46:16
  Speaker A: Both Chinese and Cambodian.
• 46:18
  Speaker B: But yeah.
• 46:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. I. Again, I could not. I just include that because I was like, what does that mean? What is. You're. You didn't think you'd get the role of the Chinese character because you. You have Chinese heritage. I just. I don't understand what. What that meant. Again, there must be some context there that is missing that I just couldn't find some other people who were considered for the role of Lucas Lee that ultimately went to Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan.
• 46:46
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 46:47
  Speaker A: Funnily enough. And Robert Pattinson. According to Wikipedia here he was.
• 46:52
  Speaker B: He was Edward Cullen at the time, though.
• 46:54
  Speaker A: Yep. In June of 2013, O', Malley, who is of Korean and white Canadian parentage, said that he did actually regret the fact that the film's cast was as white as it is and that there weren't. That he wishes that had been more roles for minorities in the film that had had a more diverse cast. Which I think if I'm looking at it, Edgar Wright kind of slavishly cast to the. If you read the graphic novel.
• 47:22
  Speaker B: I noticed that as soon as I opened up the graphic novel.
• 47:25
  Speaker A: It's insane how much they cast to what the people in the graphic novels look like.
• 47:30
  Speaker B: I mean it does. Yeah. It seems like he was trying to just like recreate. Yes. The illustrations on with like real people.
• 47:38
  Speaker A: It's kind of nuts. And. And I don't. I think to be fair, in the graphic novel the only like explicitly like not white characters is like Nice Child.
• 47:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 47:48
  Speaker A: For at least so far that I've gotten through. And then like some of her friends and like all minor characters, all the major characters are white Canadian people. Again, not that he couldn't have cast it, but I. It is one of those things where it. It. Yeah. So Weber, Pill and Simmons, who are the other members of Sex Bob OMB other than Michael Sarah, Allison Pill, Johnny Weber and. Or is it Johnny Simmons? Whatever. The other people all had to learn to play their respective instruments and. And rehearsed as a band with Michael Sarah. But Michael Sarah already knew how to play bass. So he played bass from prior to something he already did. And they didn't cast him for that reason. But it was a nice coincidence. I thought this was interesting. I didn't know this. Beck wrote and composed the music that is played by Sex Bob OMB in the film. The artist currently known as Beck, I think he still goes by Beck. The inspiration for the band Clash at Demonhead was the band Metric and they actually wrote the song Black Sheep for the film. So the Clash of Demonhead song in the film was written by the band who was the inspiration for the band Clash of Demon Head when he wrote the graphic novel Nice, which is cool. And also the clothing and performance of. And the style of Metrics lead singer Emily Haynes was also the basis for Envy Adams's character in the film and in the book. Speaking of that music, they did actually record full performances of quite a few of the songs in the film, namely those performed by Sex Bob, OMB, and the Black Sheep song performed by Clash of Demon Head. They had no plans to obviously use the entirety of the songs in the film, but they did want to record them in their entirety because they were full songs and they're like, why not? We'll record them basically as music videos. And those are on the Blu Ray release that came out in 2010, includes the full music videos for Garbage Truck, Threshold, Summertime and Black Sheep. So music from the Legend of Zelda video game series is used in the beginning of the film with sound. And there are some sound effects in a dream sequence. And in order to get permission to use that music and those sound effects, Edgar Wright apparently sent a clip of the film and wrote a letter to Nintendo of America that described the music as, quote, like nursery rhymes to a generation, end quote. And they ended up getting permission. I think more likely they paid them probably. Yeah. I don't know how much the letter.
• 50:12
  Speaker B: But the flattery probably didn't hurt.
• 50:15
  Speaker A: It probably didn't hurt, yeah. So visual effects supervisor Fraser Churchill described the look of the film as tricky to achieve, saying that the film style and appeal, quote, calling the film style and appeal, quote, very high tech images with a very lo fi feel. End quote. During an interview with MTV in 2010 about the effects in the film, he noted that some of the work was more complex because of the shooting ethics of Wright saying that there would be physical representations of any post production effect saying, quote, whenever the images, whenever the image flashes in the finished shot, every punch, sword, clash or something, those were actually flashes on set with photo bulbs. And then they. We added a flash with cgi. When someone dies and bursts into coins, they on set would empty buckets of silver Mylar so that the actors had something to react to, basically. And this is a. I, I included this because there's a whole big thing about all the special effects super Interesting about, like, the title cards and stuff. The opening credits were like, a suggestion by Quentin Tarantino because he's friends with all these directors, and he, like, showed it to all these different directors. And Tarantino was like, like, you should do this opening credit sequence because it needs whatever. And so they added that kind of last minute. But this specific thing about this I thought was really interesting because it's one of those things where this is one of those movies that is chalk full of cgi. There's so much CGI in this movie, but not a single person complains about the CGI looking bad or being bad or. Or there being too much of it or anything like that. And the reason is it was all meticulously and carefully planned ahead of time. And then they did stuff like this where they made sure that it integrated with what they were actually filming, and it wasn't just a shortcut after the fact to be like, well, we'll just do it all. Fill it in in post. They're, you know, they're going so meticulously that they're recreating. So, like, you know, like, he's saying here, if. If when a dragon flies into the room or whatever, instead of adding the. The light on all of the characters, faces in post digitally on the set, in that moment, they are hitting them with actual light. That is the color that they know the dragon's gonna be. So that it all. You know what I mean? They're doing all that kind of stuff, which. When you're. When you're planning your cgi, like, all of your shots to that level, which is how you should do it, you actually get something regardless of how much CGI is in it. And again, the budget for this movie was not insane. It's like 60 million or $40 million or. No, it was $80 million estimated or whatever. And so, like, $80 million is nothing. That's no money for the budget of a film film. And it's a fair amount for 2010, but it's, you know, relatively speaking. Yeah, it's not that big of a budget. And the special effects in this, I guarantee we're gonna watch and they're still gonna be. Look incredible. They're gonna look perfect because they're. They're also very stylized. But a big part of it is that it is all so planned and intentional that it allows the artist to actually create something that. That works way better than. Yeah. Just trying to figure it all out after the fact. And lighting everything flat and ugly and framing everything boringly because you don't actually have a plan. You're just like, ah, we'll add CGI it later. So there's a scene in the movie where Scott opens the door to get the package from Ramona and then he ends up throwing it away and he like throws it over shoulder and it lands in a trash can behind him. Michael Cera actually did throw the package over his shoulder into the bin. And it took 33 takes, most of which you can see in the outtakes on the dvd. So they did that for real. They fought. Even though everything. There's so many special effects and stuff, little things like that. Edgar Wright was like, no, it's for whatever reason, we got to do it for real. Because it just kind of adds to that. Yeah, there's a magic in filmmaking that I think when you do stuff like that, it's hard to describe, but I totally get why you would not just fake that. That. Yeah, I thought this was interesting. I didn't realize this. Michael Sarah was younger than both Anna Kendrick and Ella Ellen Wong, who both play younger characters than him in the film. He is Anna Kendrick's older brother. And then Ellen Wong is. Plays Knives, who's supposed to be like 17 or whatever. And Michael Sarah is 23, but. Or Scott is 23. I don't actually know how old Michael Sarah was when he filmed it, but point being, he was younger than two of the actresses that were playing older than him, which I thought was fun. Funny. Ellen Wong actually made two homemade Sex Bob OMB T shirts for her character to wear in the film.
• 54:41
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 54:41
  Speaker A: And then they. Edgar Wright picked the one that does appear in the film, but she made her own shirts for it. Michael Sarah and I thought this is funny. I just didn't know this, so I threw it in here. Michael Sarah and Aubrey Plaza dated for a year and a half after they made this movie together. And then finally getting to just a couple of reviews. Some excerpts. Excerpts from some reviews. Peter De Bruges of Variety gave the film a mixed review, referring to it as, quote, an example of attention deficit filmmaking at both its finest, finest and its most frustrating quote, end quote, saying it was economical with its storytelling and successfully incorporated the mini Big Fight set pieces. But missed opportunities to build Scott and Ramona's relationship. It's been a while since I've seen the film, but I can't say I disagree with that last sentence there. From my memory, which so far, reading the graphic novel is something that is. There is a lot more of in the graphic novel is those and just the Flashback. I didn't realize how much of the the movie cuts out, like almost all of the flashbacks to like, stuff that happened before the events of the movie. Whereas the graphic novel has a ton of stuff from like high school and like all these other things, which I thought was interesting so far just from where I'm at. David Edelstein of New York Magazine also wrote a mixed review agreeing that Scott quote, hardly seems worthy worthy of Winstead's Ramona end quote, which is definitely true. And saying, quote, the parade of supervillain X's is like a forced mat march. This critic felt that he had already had his fill of the fights when there were still five X's to go. So he's like, I'm already done with the fights, I'm done with this, but there's still five more. So he just got tired of it. He felt it was too repetitive, I guess. Michael Phillips gave the film a generally positive review review, but did agree that the number of fights holds the film back. And I don't agree with that writing, quote, quote, seven sounds like a lot. It is in fact, two or three too many. Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter wrote a largely negative review, finding the film, quote, a discouragingly limp movie in which nothing is at stake. A character can die, then simply rewind video and come back to life, or change his mind about his true love and then change it again. Scott Pilgrim's battle isn't against the world, it's an against an erratic moral compass, end quote. I don't agree with that, but I can, you know, we'll see. It's been a while since I watched the movie. Cindy White at IGN gave it a positive review, praising Wright in the film's style extensively, though she did mention, quote, the middle drags a bit and the ending isn't all that she hoped it would be, end quote. I will say from my memory of, well, I've seen this film quite a few times. The ending is like my least favorite part of the movie. It does kind of just end and you're like, okay, I guess that's the end. Ayo Scott, who made the New York Times, who made the film a New York Times critics pick, also reviewed it positively, saying, quote, it was maybe the best video game ever. And then in Slant magazine, Nick Schrader also gave the film a positive review, giving it three and a half out of four stars, with his colleague Simon Abrams calling it, quote, the most visually exciting, funny and emotionally involving studio produced film of the year. And he gave it four out of five stars in his DVD review. So, yeah, mixed reviews over. Generally, it's powder views. Like I said, it has an 83% on rotten tomatoes, so it's mostly positive reviews, but it's not like a hugely heralded film, which it shouldn't be. It's a fun movie that I love a lot. It's one of, one of my favorite movies. I don't know where I'd put it on the list, but it's one of my favorite action movies for sure. And I think it's genuinely very, very funny. But it's also, I, I, there's, it's not super deep. There's not, you know, it's not like a super, like, wow, what a film. It's like, yeah, that's an incredibly Fun hour and 45 minutes or whatever. It's. It's a blast to watch. It's, it's, it's a comedy. It's a, it's a comedy action film. You know, it's not trying to be anything more than that. What am I doing? I'm reviewing the movie right now. We'll talk about it. Sorry. I knew it was gonna happen. We're talking about one of my favorite movies, so we're gonna. What's gonna happen? Katie? This was a patron request.
• 58:51
  Speaker B: Yes, it was. This was a request from Kelly Napier.
• 58:55
  Speaker A: Amazing. Thank you for requesting Scott Pilgrim. Katie. Where can people watch Scott Pilgrim vs. The World?
• 59:04
  Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check with your local library or if you still have a local video rental store, you can check with them. Otherwise, I did not see this. Just like streaming.
• 59:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's not on Netflix since they have the show.
• 59:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, yeah, but you can rent it for around four bucks from Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, Fandango at home, or Spectrum.
• 59:29
  Speaker A: Boy, I am not seeing it streaming anywhere.
• 59:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, we could just buy the Blu ray since you want it anyway.
• 59:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, that. Actually, I will just buy the Blu Ray 100%. I'm going to go to go to the store tomorrow and pick it up, cuz. Yeah, I want it anyway, so. All right, that's going to do it. A comeback in two weeks. So no, one week's time, we'll be talking about Scott Pilgrim Vers the world. Until that time, guys, gals, not B pals.
• 59:57
  Speaker B: And everybody else, keep reading books, keep.
• 59:59
  Speaker A: Watching movies and keep being awesome. Sam.