Is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World actually funny….or is it just the editing?
Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a film filled with fast moving transitions and a lot of fast paced dialogue. This can make it kind of difficult to follow. Many might think what the plot of this movie even is. What is the genre? Is it a romantic comedy, an high packed action, maybe even a drama about finding your self worth? The editing in a piece can completely change a genre around and in this movie not only does it establish the genre, but carries the humor.
Establishing the genre
The main reason why there’s so much confusion around the plot is because this movie is an adaptation of a seven book series. Creating an adaptation of a book is already hard enough so do one on a comic where there is mostly illustrations and snappy conversations can be even trickier. Compensations needed to be made to cram seven whole books into one movie.From the very first second this movie starts you’re thrown into the world that is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. All that is given to prepare the audience for this past paced film is a familiarized storybook introduction, but with a slight twist of comic book. After that you have to completely jump into the experience without any regrets. The way the movie gets away with doing this is by adding literal subtitles with character descriptions and ratings.
These aspects of the film are all apart of the editing techniques. One of the most techniques utilized to fit these stories in an hour and fifty-three minute film is by using fast transitions.The editing in this film can leave people feeling disoriented, but it contributed to plot. Determining the plot or entire point of this movie is already complicated to do, so without them it’d be even harder. The edits try to add sense to the scenes by associating us with familiar objects, sounds, or popular tropes. These appear sporadically to help gather the audience again if they got lost along the way. Whether it’s a coin or level up sound from the famous game making company from Nintendo or even laughter from the sitcom Seinfeld, the edits grab your attention back to the movie. Have you ever you ever thought of what this movie would look like without these transitions and other editing forms? It’d be like one of those movie trailers that have had their theme changed by changing the speed of the music or the speed of the shots. This video changes the genre of the movie Enchanted seven times.
The question regarding the genre is still unanswered. We know how this movie warped the establishment of the genre, but never clarified. The answer is this is an action film and a comedy. The love aspect just creates an antagonist for the action and leaves multiple leeway for multiple forms of humor.
Comedy
The punchlines move just as swiftly as the transitions ,but once fully committed to this film, they’re everything. The jokes happen so frequently that they become apart of the characters’ personality trait or are enhanced by visuals so they are easier to follow and understand. The humor is carried through comic book onomatopoeia and this makes sure the punchline gets delivered and the audience knows when to laugh. Majority the edits done were comic like onomatopoeia. It’s almost like an extra punchline to ensure that you as the audience can acknowledge the joke despite the quickness. The snappy punchlines in this movie are an iconic staple. Adults who watched this in their pivotal teen years will forever quote the line “you punched the highlights out of her hair!”.
One of the main edits done throughout a large part of this film is having the seven evil exes explode into coins or point values after being battled. If you played any sort of video games as a kid you can understand a little more about what this means. If you haven’t this just means you can advance further in a game or level.
Scott battles each of the evil exes and once they are defeated they exploded into change. Quarters and other coins would come raining from the ceiling or there would be a pile of coins in the place that symbolize the defeat of the ex. Growing up most kids’ favorite game was Super Mario Bros. The battle of the evil exes was already funny to add these edits towards the end to enhance it adds a an extra chuckle. Most of the jokes in the movie come from the evil exes. They all have an evil monologue or backstory that leads to an explanation from Ramona, Scott’s main love interest. Rather than leave the audience imagine it for themselves, there are comic book stories or edits of flashbacks to when Ramona was with each ex. Along with the exes came the action. The fight scenes were probably one of the funniest parts of the movie. These scene were amplified by snappy dialogue, musicality ,and the addition of outrageous visuals. This ranges from adding “demon hipster chicks” to random digital fighting animal monsters.
Conclusion
So if that was all hard to follow, Scott pilgrim vs. The World is an action comedy and in my opinion is also stupidly funny. The edits amplified the humor and made is easier to catch on to it. It may have also carried it, but regardless it is a funny movie. The genre is also really hard to determine, but once its all over and you have time to ponder, you realize what the movie actually is. The visual edits were necessary to establish the genre. Without them a large amount of the movie would make even less sense than it already does. This comes to show you just how important editing can be in a film.
