Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: 3 Callbacks To The Live-Action Movie You Probably Missed
Contains spoilers for "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off"
For almost an entire episode, Netflix's "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" pretends it's an animated adaptation of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" — but it isn't. In fact, it's not even an adaptation of Bryan Lee Malley's graphic novel, although the creator does serve as one of the anime project's primary writers. No, "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" is its own thing that branches into a new storyline through the power of vegan time travel.
In this new timeline, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) must sleuth out the culprit behind Scott Pilgrim's (Michael Cera) mysterious disappearance. But while the series is full of new moments for familiar characters, it's also got plenty of callbacks to Universal's live-action adaptation. The animated Netflix series brought back the whole cast of the live-action movie, after all, and it would be a shame to not remember the glory days. You've already seen the spoiler warning up top, but, seriously, there is no way to contextualize these callbacks without spoiling entire swathes of new narrative decisions. Here are three of the many callbacks to the live-action movie you probably missed.
Same guy, same character, but very different projects
In Episode 1, "Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life," Scott Pilgrim encounters Ramona Flowers at a party hosted by Julie Powers (Aubrey Plaza), just like he does in "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World." The big difference here is that, in the live-action film, Scott's opening line is about how Pac-Man's original name was Puck-Man, but it was changed to prevent Americans from vandalizing the arcade machines. "You know, scratch out the 'P' and turn it into an 'F'," he finishes lamely. It's not a strong first impression, but it's in character because Scott's an awkward, nerdy guy.
In the animated version of the same encounter, Scott takes a different approach. Instead of Pac-Man trivia, he opens with Sonic the Hedgehog trivia. "You probably know this, but in the early '90s, there were two different 'Sonic' cartoons airing at the same time," he says. "One was dark and dramatic; the other was a hilarious comedy about chili dogs. And the same guy played Sonic in both shows. Isn't that wild? The same guy playing two different versions of the same guy?"
But that's not the point. The point is that Scott's anxious monologue about Sonic directly parallels the situation that Netflix's "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" finds itself in. We mentioned earlier that the entire main cast of the live-action film is attached to the Netflix project, and here's Scott using words in canon to remark upon how strange it is for a single actor to play the same role for two different shows. And Netflix secured an entire cast? Yeah, there's no way Scott isn't meta-bragging on the streaming studio's behalf, here.
Wait ... bread makes you fat?
In "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," Scott makes garlic bread for Ramona Flowers. They sit together on the floor of Wallace Wells' apartment and bask in the glory of Italian food. Scott says, "Garlic bread is my favorite food. I could honestly eat it for every meal or just eat it all the time without even stopping." Without missing a beat, Ramona replies, "You'd get fat." Confused but confident that she's wrong, Scott asks, "No, why would I get fat?" Ramona hits back with, "Bread makes you fat." It's just before she finishes that line that Scott stuffs the rest of his meal into his mouth and, his cheeks puffy with food, replies in horror, "Bread makes you fat?"
In "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" Episode 6, "Who Did It," Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) and Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) are working on a musical collaboration ... about bread. When searching for things to say about bread, Stephen sings, "Bread ain't all that." To complete the rhyme, Knives tries, "Bread makes you fat." It's a lightbulb moment for the two artists because they both halt in their tracks to soak in the line's apparent poetry. Tragically, the plot continues forward, and the joke is left behind. But there's no way that Bryan Lee Malley and his compatriots didn't write a full version of that song. It's got to be out there ... somewhere.
The beef line never works
In "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," Scott Pilgrim races to the Chaos Theatre to confront Gideon Graves in an epic duel over the fate of Ramona Flowers. Except ... Gideon isn't interested. When he clocks that Scott is in the building, Gideon offers him a Coke Zero. It's not so much a peace offering as it's a taunt, but the mood is decidedly non-combative. After a little bit of back and forth, Gideon states, "I've got no beef with you." To this, Scott cleverly replies, "Well, what if I have a beef ... with you?" Well, cleverly is a strong adjective, but Scott's heart is in the right place, for once. That's gotta count for something, right?
In "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" Episode 8, "The World vs. Scott Pilgrim," Even Older Scott Pilgrim teleports just about every main character to the moon, where he intends to clobber them into dust to prevent Scott and Ramona from ever getting married. It's not an elegant plan, but, hey, they can't get married if they're dead. Gideon, who has his own villain thing going on and doesn't particularly enjoy the idea of dying on the moon, tries to reason with Even Older Scott by saying, "Please, send the rest of us back ... we've got no beef with you." But Even Older Scott isn't having it. He claps back with the same line that Scott uses to start a fight with Gideon in the live-action. And, in true Scott fashion, it works about as well in both situations.