City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Edgar Wright Interview on Scott Pilgrim, Pop-Culture Magical Realism, and Video Game Conditioning

ChrisMoses

By ChrisMoses,
Posted on: 2010-08-11 07:41 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture

 

Posted

With Scott Pilgrim vs. the World opening this Friday, the AVClub has a thoughtful interview with director Edgar ("Spaced", "Shaun of the Dead") Wright that ranges from working with Bryan Lee O’Malley to adapt a movie on a comic series that concluded only just last month to making "Billy Liar" for the Nintendo era.

Quote:
I tried to make it seem—and Bryan Lee O’Malley’s books do this as well—like an unreliable narrator. In film, I like this idea that he’s the hero of the movie inside his own head. A life of gaming brought him up to be somebody—he’s not selfish, but he’s definitely kind of thoughtless. He’s the hero of his own story, and he’s quite single-minded. In the film, he doesn’t think about the feelings of the characters around him, or the consequences of some of his actions. He sort of views Ramona like she’s a shiny object in a game. I like the fact that the movie is about, to some extent, him getting his comic comeuppance.
Wright also elaborates on the visual and audio allusions to video games that he inserted into the film:
Quote:
I see the videogame things as flourishes. Sometimes the videogame sounds and music are almost to induce nostalgia, or this Pavlovian response among people who know what those sounds are. [Laughs.] Just having a Mac error sound when the character does something wrong. I like it being the sounds that have defined a generation, the sounds you know so well, but don’t even recognize happening. They become the workings of your brain.
And finally, he tackles the big question of whether or not video games can be art:
Quote:
I think it both eulogizes them and shows the downsides of them. I think Scott Pilgrim’s thoughtlessness and selfishness could come from playing way too many games and being lost in a world where you are the hero, the bit players are not important, they’re just items along the way, and you’re achieving experience points without necessarily having the experience yourself. On the flipside, it’s interesting that Nintendo has become a design classic, and Mario has almost become the Mickey Mouse of our generation. I know it’s become an ongoing thing about whether videogames are art, and I think there’s plenty of examples of things that use the form in a fascinating way.
There's more in the full interview - including examples of specific video games Wright took inspiration from or considers art.

 

Posted

Great quotes.

Get in on the Scott Pilgrim train, haters and "Expendable-ers"! You'll love it eventually, you may as well be there from the beginning!

Thanks for eight fun years, Paragon.

 

Posted

Wright's coming on strong in interviews this week. Here's a more cinephilic interview from Coming Soon, in which Wright describes the presence of video games in Scott's real life as opposed to the way they influence his inner one.

Quote:
CS: In the books, we really don't see him play video games, and in the movie, we just see him in one scene playing "Ninja Ninja Revolution" with Knives. I don't even have the impression he has a TV set in Wallace's flat so that's strange.

Wright: Oh, there is actually. You can actually see it in the first book, and there are a couple of scenes where he plays video games in the books, and we put in the one arcade scene. There is actually in Wallace's apartment, it actually says, there's a "SNES" (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) in the room, so there is a TV and console in Wallace's apartment where Scott lives.
And Michael Cera, in an LA Times interview, affirms his membership in the Ninetendo generation: "There's a lot of Nintendo references, and those are all very close to my heart."

 

Posted

There is a scene in the book where he is playing a GameBoy in his dreams as well, I believe.

Can't remember specifics, sorry.

Thanks for eight fun years, Paragon.

 

Posted

Scott Pilgrim's video game element is breaking out ahead of its comics and indie rock ones in the building press coverage (although the latter two are no less important). Even as critical reaction splits between extremes, it's worth noting that typically the only thing more pejorative for a reviewer to call a film than a "comic book movie" is a "video game movie".

Under the headline 'Scott Pilgrim' Movie Speaks to Gamer Generation, Reuters declares, "After decades of Hollywood adaptations of hit game franchises{...}, Hollywood has created the first film that is designed to really speak to the video game generation. {...} While director Edgar Wright's film is based on a series of comic books by Bryan Lee O'Malley, not a video game, the universe he's created weaves classic video game elements with an alternate reality that focuses on a cast of 20-something gamers. In other words, it's the first Hollywood feature created by gamers, for gamers."

And in a different take on Method acting preparation, Michael Cera reveals that he retrieved his old Nintendo console from his parents' house and played his childhood favorites every night at his place after finishing work on the movie.

 

Posted

Damn I wish detractors would bother reading this.

Thanks for eight fun years, Paragon.