House of R - A Celebration of Scott Pilgrim

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Mal and Jo are back to talk about ‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.’ They discuss Scott, Ramona, and all the returning characters in this new show, as well as their love for the 2010 movie, ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World’ (7:09). Later, Joanna interviews the writer of the show, BenDavid Grabinski (1:12:27). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: BenDavid Grabinski Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if everyone said they heard your trailer a hundred times? You'd probably make a new one. I'm Justin Sales, the host of The Wedding Scammer, the ringer's first ever true crime pod. We've been hunting a con man for a few weeks now, and our hunt is coming to an end. Schemes, Heartbreak, How to Put On a Wire. We've covered all this and more, but there are still a few surprises left. Binge the Wedding Scammer wherever you get your podcasts. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts.

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This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. You need to let me live my life. If I do, you'll end up where I ended up. Alone!

Alone in a room for 10 years! That was your choice! Let me make my own! I'm you! What if... What if he's right? He's you. Do I want to date that guy?

You think I want to become that guy? I won't. Scott, how can you be sure? I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me today. She's my future. She's my past. She's my always. It's Mallory Rumen.

Hi, Mallory. How you doing? Joe. When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs, unless you do drugs. In which case, I do them all the time. All of them. Hello again.

Friends of a friend. It's been so long since I've seen you. We're here to talk to you all today. About Spot. Nope. I'm going to do it again. Not Spot Pilgrim. I don't know what I'm saying.

Dude, can we all? But what if season two is called Spot Pilgrim and it's an animal version? That would be great. You're just like working your Pet Avengers agenda into every podcast we do. All right. Don't cut that. Keep Spot Pilgrim in and we'll demand royalties if it happens. We're here today to talk to you about Scott Pilgrim versus everything.

Anything that has ever had Scott Pilgrim in the title, that is what we're here to talk to you about today. Most of we're here to talk to you about Scott Pilgrim takes off. Before we get into all of that. Program reminders. Over the Ring ofverse, Midnight Boys covering Invincible. They love Invincible. They love it. They're having a great time.

Button Mash doing their thing. They've got a game swap coming up. Love those episodes. Big fan of those. Mint edition, also covering this show. It's something that you can listen to the Minty folks talk about over on the Ringerverse feed. Over on the prestige feed, just want to say, I just want to shout out the prestige feeds back better than ever. The Crown coverage with the Man of Dobbins and yours truly.

The curse coverage was Sean Fennessee and yours truly. And Fargo, which is incredible. This new season of Fargo is so good. I'm covering that with Rob Mahoney. So that's just a taste of what's to come over. Proustache me. Also, trial by content is doing stuff, which is stuff all over the place. How can folks keep track of all that? Like, let's say the holidays are coming up, they want to avoid the fam, let's say, they do. Or they're just like blisten out in a post, like, turkey or to forky sort of haze. And they want to make sure that they catch all the shows that we have to offer, Mallory. How should they, how do they keep on track of all of that? Maybe they're going to hang out with family members and then tell them about the pod and they'll be able to pass along this stage council.

Yes. Follow the pod. Follow the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And then after you follow the pod, join us on the social media platform of your choosing. The ringer versus everywhere. We're on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. If you have thoughts that don't fit into a tweet, into an ex.

Evil X's. We're not talking about evil X today. Evil X's, yeah. send us your emails send them on over at hobbits and dragons at gmail.com sign it with your pickle, folks.

Spoiler warning, I already said this, but I'll say it again. I mean, listen, I would recommend you go watch Scott Pilgrim takes off when you talk about all those episodes. I'd recommend you get in a time machine and go back to 2010 and watch Scott Pilgrim versus the world, an incredible film. I'd recommend you

read the Scott Pilgrim comics. We're not going to get into that too much, but it's on the table. It's allowed. Anything, there's a, like, anything that has ever had Scott Pilgrim's, I'm going to say Spot Pilgrim again in our time. Anything that's ever had Scott Pilgrim in the title. We are a Sexpa Bomb and we are here to get nostalgic and stuff while talking about Scott Pilgrim. Amazing. What instrument would you play in Sexville? Oh, the drums. I aspire only to be Kempine in my life, so how about you? I was also going to pick the drums. Okay. I had a snare drum when I was a kid.

I used to want to be a drummer. Did you? Okay. If we're talking about instruments we had and we thought we would be, and then I guess I'm on lead guitar because I have owned a guitar my whole life and never learned to play it. Okay. Later in this episode.

Carlos, you're on bass. We have an interview with Ben David Grubinsky, who is one of the creators of the episode. Great. person, great human, great creator, created the show with Brian Leomalley, Brian Leomalley, who is the creator of Scott Pilgrim Comics. Full disclosure, we just recorded our Doctor Who episode, so I'm a little punchy right now. Doctor Who episode coming up for you in the future on this very feed.

And we'll be covering Doctor Who all through the upcoming specials. We're time travelers, which is apt today, recording our pods out of order from how they're airing. And, you know, if I, if I say Spot Pilgrim a few more times, you'll know why. Yeah. For a few hours. We're coming from the future where we have brought Spot Pilgrim into the world and people fucking love it.

And the merch is amazing. Oh, yeah, the merch for Spot Pilgrim. Oh, my God. Okay. Ben David, if you're listening to this and I hope you're not because you're like, why are they fumbling through every word? Are they professionals or what? And by they, you meet Joanna.

I really think you should do in season two. Scott Pilgrim takes off a Spot Pilgrim episode. Okay, we're going to start with origin stories. We're going to start with our history with the film, Scott Pilgrim versus the world, which came out in 2010. And I don't know if you saw in the theaters or not Mallory or when you saw it, but will you take us down memory lane to like where you were when you first saw Scott Pilgrim and how you felt about the film? I'd be happy to. Thank you. What a generous question.

Yeah. I'm known for them. It's not framed the way it is in the outline where you wrote, Mallory takes us down memory lane to 2010 when she was a tiny baby. Oh, God. I was living in... 2010. I had, so I graduated college in 2008.

So I was a couple years into my professional life at this point. A couple years into my stint at s.i.com. I was editing college football for, Sports Illustrated's website at this point in time. I was living in Manhattan. This was my New York City stint.

The big apple. Yeah. The big apple and the Apple Wars. And it means I was in a cold weather city sometimes, you know, so there was snow in my life. There's no longer snow in my life. And so when I watch Scott,

when I revisit the film, when I watch Scott and Ramon on the swing set, it's like, isn't it April? This is great stuff. Good old Toronto. I did not see this movie in theaters. I saw it. I guess it must have been like on DVD.

Yeah. At the time? Hell yeah. Blu-ray? Was this the HD TV era? Some sort of disc that I put into a player and then watch this from the comfort of my home. Just, you know, immediately, I think as as many people would say, like, the second I saw it, was just like,

what a work of genius. Oh, my God. Incredible. The, it is so surreal now to revisit the movie and, like, just think about the cast. Like, it is such a stacked lineup of current superstars. I had a real, like, depth of affection for Michael Sarah, because I was just a huge arrested development fan. So George Michael is a very important figure in my life. And I just thought that the film, you know, the first time I saw it and every time I revisit it, I feel this as keenly and maybe frankly even like more powerfully when I return to it,

is just such a vibrant and inventive and brilliant and like singular creation that has such like life and energy and buoyancy and a spirit of like experimentation in every single frame. I think it's incredible and I never tire of watching it. And I can't wait to hear what you think about it because I know it's one of your all-time favorites. So tell me what it means to you. Tell me about your origin story. I would say it's like maybe one of my most rewatched films ever. And I think it is a perfect film and every, like, I think there's something in every second of it to like delight and intrigue and entertain. I was a huge Edgar Wright fan. like a big Sean of the Dead hot fuzz fan.

So it's funny. I was listening. There's a, there's a, there's an episode of, uh, the big pick about Scott Pilgrum. That's Jason and man and Sean talking about the film, before the pandemic. Uh, and for an anniversary. And none of them saw it in the theater. And you didn't see.

So I'm the Scott Pilgrim hipster. I saw it in the theater. Oh, gee. Oh, wow. Yeah, just because I was just like obsessed with Edgar. Like Hot Fuzz is also one of my most watched and rewatched movies. And similar to this, there's just something like entertaining and exciting in like every single second of that movie. I was also a huge fan of space to the TV show that he made with Simon Pegg before he made movies.

That is also similarly like just like extremely rewarding with like gags and like jokes a minute and a second, honestly. So, yeah, I was just like a massive Scott Pilgrim. Oh my God, Scott Pilgrim fan. And just like drink every time I say Spot Pilgrim. I don't know what has happened to me, but it is all over for me. Thanksgiving is looming. We're almost at the end of the tunnel. But, yeah, I just like obsessively love this movie.

I think it is absolutely brilliant. And what I love about it is like you were, you know, had just got out of college when you first watched it. There's just something for this movie anytime that you see it. It's one of those great movies. I recently showed a friend of mine who had never seen it 500 days of summer. A wildly imperfect film, but a film that I have a lot of affection for. And a film like this in terms of being about a relationship between two pretty flawed people

that you think about differently, depending on how old you are when you see it. it is a story about time. It is about your past, haunting your present. And what I love about Scott Pilgrim takes off, which again, they took sort of like great pains to hide in the advertising of it. I think a lot of people just thought it was a remake of the comics or the movie is a wild retelling that is also about time. And it is about your future haunting your present.

And I just love that. Something really brilliant that Ben David, I'm not going to spoil the interview, but like something he said that unlocked a lot for me is he was like, there's a difference between making something about being in your 20s when you're in your 20s and then making something about being in your 20s when you're like in your 40s. And like both he and Brian Leomalley are either in their late 30s or in the 40s. And like so are you just like looking at it from a different point of view. And I just love that there's something there. Like I think people tend to go through this evolution.

with Scott and Ramona. We're going to talk about those characters specifically in a second, but like, oh, Ramona's a jerk. Oh, Scott's an asshole. Like, it's sort of depending on when you meet the film similar to Tom and Summer, 500 days of summer. And then you kind of get to a like, oh, aren't we all flawed people and aren't all flawed people deserving of love?

You know what I mean? It's sort of like, I think the most enlightened place you can get to is something like this. And don't I recognize the flaws in me that are reflected in the flaws in them and stuff like that? The you and Jay and Mann and Sean are not the only ones who didn't see this in the theaters. This a lot of people did not see this in the theaters. This was a giant flopola in the cinema experience. It's a very complicated legacy for Scott Pilgrim.

I got it right that time. The comics started really small. Brian Leomalley, like a thousand to two thousand copies. where the early runs. And I watched a bunch of great interviews. Brian Leomalley's great to listen to him talk about creating Scott Pilgrim and creating art. But I just love this very simple sentence.

He said, he says, I just really like the idea of having to fight for love as like this concept for Scott Pilgrim. And the specificity of the story of Scott Pilgrim, which is so autobiographical for Brian Leomale, because the character of Wallace is based on his roommate, the character of Stacey Pilgrim is based on his sister,

her name is Stacey. And when you get a story that is so specific to someone's life where they just put people they know in their story, there's something I think universal about a very specific storytelling approach. I talk about this a lot when I talk about some of my favorite films like Lady Bird or Moonlight, incredibly specific and personal stories that somehow invite all of us into what is shared in the experience of a very, very specific to a time and a place and an experience. I have almost nothing in common with the main character of Moonlight, but just sort of also everything in common because it's just about being human.

And so there's something so specifically Toronto about Scott Pilgrim and I've never even, I've been to Vancouver. I've never even been to Toronto. And like, I still feel like, oh yeah, my 20s, I remember. How do you feel about that? Yeah, I think that that's one of the like enduring appeals of the movie. And I agree with you that like some of the most successful stories can unlock that for you as a reader if you were even if you don't have the like, the particular. trappings of a person's life or their passions or their challenges, whatever the case maybe don't apply to you. Like, there's something about that yearning and like that seeking that is just

so deeply relatable. And like, I was going to say we might not have like an, you know, an X-Men jacket, but like it's possible that one of us actually does. So maybe I'll instead say, I do have X-Men sneakers. I don't have a jacket. I have a t-shirt. I have sneakers. Maybe the jacket awaits Hanukas just around the corner. We'll see. We'll see. But, you know, have you ever, like, shared a space like wallaces where everything around you at all times has a label that, like, it belongs to somebody else, you know, reminding you that you were just, like, squatting in somebody else's existence and, you know, going to the arcade and playing a bass in a band. with a lead singer who is just so utterly consumed by inferiority and anxiety.

For the band? For the band? Are those particular things, like, present in your life? Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn't really matter. Like, the thing that you can latch onto with Scott is he is shattered by his past relationship and is, like, desperate to figure out how to, like, build something new with another. person and because he has been hurt before and wants to find something that makes him feel safe, he is utterly unaware of the fact that he is then inflicting pain on other people, just like envy did to him.

Tale as old as time, right? Like, when people are young, they make mistakes. And I think what I loved in particular about the Netflix program that we'll be talking about more shortly is that it embraces that that is in no way a unique thing about being young. That's just part of like being alive. You age into a different type of mistake. And like maybe you're fortunate enough to still be surrounded by some of the people who knew you back then

and can help you find some like depth of understanding within. And maybe you have to figure that out for yourself or with yourself. And I think that the way that the new show navigates that is like absolutely brilliant. I loved it. We love people meeting other versions of themselves. Sure do. It helping them understand themselves more deeply. I was looking, I was, I had this, like, thesis in my head that, like, oh, the reason Scott Pilgrim didn't do well when it came out in theaters was because, like, the geek press wasn't really a thing in full force at the time. And so it was just like old crusty film reviewers reviewing it and not really getting it. That's not true. Because I was, like, looking through old reviews. I was like, oh, I know all these people. They're still writing today. Some of them are friends of mine. And actually, the reviews were fairly favorable for this. Like, I think.

I did look for Roger Eberts review because I love reading Roger when he's wrong. And he doesn't have an official review of Scott Pilgrim, but I found this Q&A he did, where someone was like, why haven't she reviewed Scott Pilgrim versus the world? Well, it's certainly underperformed at box office. Given your embarrassingly tumultuous relationship with video games, it would seem like fertile ground for a nuanced and controlled critique of video game culture and its effects on other forms of media. And Roger Ebert responded, video games rank low on the list of tumultuous relationships I feel embarrassed about.

But I've been amazed how often I've been asked your question. I took a month's leave to work on my memoirs. And alas, didn't see Scott Pilgrim. I still sleep nights. Incredible. Sassy Ebert. You love to see it. Oh, my God.

But anyway, like really great. Scott Pilgrim was not enough of a blip on the cultural radar that Roger Eber felt. like he had to see it. But I think more importantly, the film is itself just this very indescribable, un-packageable blend of indie rock, arcade games, comic book movies. You cannot advertise to people what it is because it's its own thing. And the thing I love about the comic book and this film and a lot of Edgar Rer, writes work is that it speaks in the language of like pop cultural pastiche, which is something

that like you and I and a lot of people who just like try to watch and read as much as we can tend to, I mean, at least I'll be for myself. My friends in my life have always been friends that I can like quote movies with and, you know, talk about TV and books with and stuff like that. It's a language that unites us. I think about like some of my favorite Edgar Wright moments are moments where someone is sharing something with someone else. There's this great sequence in space where Tim is showing his friends Star Wars

or you think of Nicholas Angel and Danny watching Point Break together and Hot Fuzz. You know what I mean? Just like showing something you loved. I just got done spending months showing you Doctor Who. It's just like it's a way we speak to each other.

My favorite line for my favorite movie of all time is from almost famous. The only thing in this bankrupt, the only currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else and you're uncool. And so this idea of like these comics and this film that are chocka block full of like references, just zinging back and forth

to other movies and other stories and other TV shows. Brian Leomalley does the same thing in the comics. There's references to Final Fantasy or the movie say anything. Or just like, there's just like cultural references crammed in every, corner of these of the movie of the TV show certainly oh my god and of the of the comic book um

how do you respond to stuff like that like is that how how foundational is that to the way you communicate with the world i mean you have and you have the added language and i consider it very much of a piece you have the added language of sports like i've seen you just melt can melt into almost only conversation with anyone because you you can like make fun of someone for their team. Like it's a, it's a part of the way that we communicate with each other, these fandoms that we have, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think it's, it's foundational and I think it's beautiful and sacred. So like, I never feel that somebody like has to like the same things that I like for me to like want to spend time with them or learn from them. I think obviously, like,

you can then share the things that you love with each other. And part of what is so magical about, like, making our pod and the shows that we make here is, like, not only getting to do that with each other and, like, talk about stories where that is a really, like, central element of building and forging a world in the way that the creators, like, convey what connection looks like to them. But then we get to make that with our listeners and share that with them.

And, like, what a truly special and wonderful thing. So I love how central that is. in the story. I think, like, one of the things I was most, I knew, I'll tease that I knew, like,

you had said, you had given me, like, a hint, because you would watch the screeners before me because of the interview, to basically just, like, you know,

going blind and, like, I knew nothing about what was coming. One of the things that I was intrigued about was actually on this front, like, what references would be, like, updated, what would feel like it was,

like, modernized or amended. And, you know, there's some, I thought it was really good and, like, deftly handled balance of a lot of the touchstones that we would, like, rely upon finding in a Scott Pilgrim tale. And then, like, you know, even something like this is a little bit different, obviously, than, like, a shared language of love. But the shift from, like, Amazon to Netflix says that the job, obviously, like, is on Netflix. But that felt like a kind of amusing little update to say, like, here's a thing that feels maybe a little bit more. Not the delivering DVDs rather than streaming, but a little bit of. more like at place for a different viewer at a different time.

Yeah. I think a lot of the Hollywood stuff also felt hilariously updated. And then the added layer of like the anime, the running like anime show that's like in the background of this show. I love a show in the background of another show, big fan. Yeah. There's a show in the show. There's a movie in the show. There's a documentary about the movie.

movie in the show. And there's a musical. There's a musical. Boy, is there a musical. Oh, my goodness. Wonderful. Speaking of, like, a thing that makes Scott Pilgrim as both a comic, because about a band, a band for the band, the band, it's about a band.

And also, the film itself is, like, the inherent, like, musicality of it. And I just think that's interesting. Like, Edgar Wright is constantly circling, making a full-blown. and musical. Like, he made Baby Driver. There's a, you know, there's the musical sequence in hot fuzz, and they're, like, whacking the zombies with pull cues to queen. You know what I mean? Like, he loves to time things, and there's just, like, always a rhythm and musicality to what he does. And Scott Pilgrim is no exception. On that, like, sort of big picture of the TV show front, like, you weren't sure what to expect. Um, I'm curious. I'm curious.

Curious, we got the full cast back from the movie. And as you say, they're all like stars now. Any voice performances in particular stand out or certain storylines that work better for you than others? Let me say, I'll make one broad point and one specific point. Yeah. Broadly. I know we're going to talk more about what worked in the show. I will just say it's difficult for me to think of a more pleasant surprise in recent pop culture history, sincerely. Like, I think I just had, again, no idea, like what the twist was.

And I got to the end of the first episode and I was like, holy shit. Like that is just really inspired. And I think in this era in particular of, and like I'm an IP glutton, so I say this with I think a healthy dose of self-awareness. But like, I hope in this era of constant backdoor pilots and spinoffs and sequels and reboots, I love the Scott Pilgrim experience and universe. And so when I saw that they're making a show, I was excited and intrigued.

And then I watched the trailer and I was like, huh, okay. You know, and went in with like a little dose of just like a curious trepidation. I guess trepidation is definitely overstating it. But I was like, there's got to be some more here than maybe how this is being presented. And I find the restraint that they showed to withhold telegraphing or, tipping anything about the recalibration of the story and what they did in the show to be remarkable and astonishing. I don't know how, like, in the streaming wars era, they were able to, like, pull that off.

Like, seriously, like, Bravo. And it's an immensely rewarding thing to realize what story you're actually going to see instead of the one that you thought you were going to see retold and redone. So that's my broad, like, overall feeling about the season. I thought it was great. I loved it. I thought it was inspired. I don't know if this will shock you in terms of one particular performance or character. I could not have been more delighted. Seriously, I want you to almost maybe guess who you think I'm going to say. Wait, do want to guess.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, I want to guess. Go ahead. Okay. It's maybe not that much of a surprise. I get three questions. Okay. You're just going to get another first one. Am I?

You know me so well. Yeah, I think so. Maybe not because there are so many great characters and performances. Is it just Chris Evans? No, it's not. No, obviously Chris Evans is great. Is it Kieran Culkin? It's not, though also great.

Okay, you might need your third guess. Okay, so this is a little bit of a surprise. Good, I didn't overstate it. One guess left. I'll give you a hint. Okay. You won't be able to guess correctly if you're near chicken. Or any sort of meat.

Oh. Your vegan power will be compromised. The Todd experience could not have been more of a thrill. I love him so much. Oh my God. Now, obviously wonderful in the movie. The vegan humor in the film is just like flawless to the stay. Actually, maybe has like improved somehow over time, even funnier.

The deployment of Todd. The deployment of Todd in the series was so. great. I just loved it. I just thought it was so, it's a good example to me of how to like update something, not just for the sake of it, but in a way that actually like genuinely shows us something new about the character. Right. And it was like a really fun and comedically electric experience to like watch Todd shove his, the popcorn butter scene. It's like, keep going. okay, okay, okay, then double that. Like, hilarious.

But, you know, Todd is just, I mean, obviously one of the real delights of the premise is this all of the X's are more central, right? So like, to your Chris Evans point, we get to spend time with Lucas and Gideon just like, build it a skate ramp or gaming or hanging out and like the closing lingering shot of Lucas Lee's ass as he's like learning to live life as a barista, obviously inspired. But like Todd and Wallace was such a treat. It's genuinely such a treat. And just having Todd more central. Sparks. I loved it. What about you?

Yeah. So my stealth fave in Scott, like it's hard to pick because everyone is so good. My oddly self-fave in the original movie is Johnny Simmons's young Neil. I just think every young Neil delivery is just like, not just he punched the highlights out of her hair, but like, what do you play? Oh, Tetra. That's a big question. Like, it's so good. I love Young Neal.

So I just thought he was like, I thought he was so good, the expansion of Young Neal in this. Also, Ellen Wong is Knives Chow. Like, I love her so much. And I, like, again, to your point, there's more time. And Ben David talks about this. There's just like more time to spend with everyone and it's used so well. Maine women, of course, is like a voice acting goat. So like she's incredible in this.

And then I just like, we'll talk about this more, but like the treat of having this like so Ramona driven was just like it really, really important to me. Yeah, I just, I loved the Hollywood. I love the musical stuff as you would expect I would. I love the hot, like the two episodes that are like very Hollywood. Hollywood's boofy stuff. I loved that. I love N.V. Adams showing up to the funeral. You and I talked, you and I texted about that a little bit. I'm just like obsessed with it. That was so good. Like in the running, it's a crowded field, but in the running for best scene of the season.

I have watched this rendition of I Will Remember You by N.V. Adams in Scott Pilgrim takes off. No viewer than 500 times. Yeah. Ben even has some great stuff to talk. about that in the interview. I will let, I will let him say that. But I was just like, oh my God, what is going on here? So good. Incredible. But most of all, and we're going to talk about this a little, we're going to do like kind of like, it's not a tropes course. It's a mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, it's like a tropes little bite. Time travel and love stories. I just think that they're a fascinating preoccupation that people have. And I have yet to fully satisfactorily crack

why telling stories about time and telling stories about love are so impactful. but the fact that we get this reveal at the end that it's like future Scott and then we meet like even further in the future Scott and we meet future Ramona's and that just the clever idea of flipping it from your past haunting you to your future haunting you and and what do we do when we know what's coming or we're worried about what's coming and we'll talk about that a little bit more but that like that has been the thing that has been really lingering with me And again, it has to do with how old you were when you saw the film or watched the comics, read the comics for the first time versus how old you are when you're consuming this and what it tells you about yourself. The show, like the show is so entertaining and funny and funky.

And then it's just like, it almost sounds insulting to say surprisingly deep, but it's surprisingly deep in the end. And so I just, yeah, I was astonished by it. Let's just talk quickly about Scott and Ramona as characters. Scott Pilgrim, Carlos, hit me with a clip. Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. Yeah. Wait, what? I mean, are you really happy or are you really evil?

Like, do I have ulterior motives or something? I'm offended, Kim. Wounded even? Hurt, Kim. You? Hurt. God. Kim Pine, my all-time hero. I love her so much.

Some good Kim action. in the show. Everyone gets more to do. And that was my, we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to Ramona, but like Scott Pilgrim. I've heard from people,

many people are saying that they can't watch Scott Pilgrim in the first place because they're like, Scott is such a dick, and he's like dating a teenager and it's so gross and like all this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, that's the point. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. flawed. Deeply. But like unworthy of love question mark? I don't know.

What did you make of like specifically I would say in the, because we have very little of Scott. Scott is absent for much of the of the show. What did you make of the ending stretch when we get to meet our variant when Scott gets to meet his future self? and how he like does or does not redeem himself or is redemption even necessary to embark on your own love story, Scott in the original film,

like what do you think? I'd just like to take a moment to say two words to you and they are Will Forte. I cannot have been more thrilled. He was tremendous, no surprise. I... Okay, so like there's twist upon twist and surprise upon surprise.

The first one that you're confronting is that Scott loses the first fight, right? This is going to be Ramona's story. Whoa. Then you kind of, as soon as you have kind of come to terms with Scott not really being in the story, like maybe not being in the story, we're pulled into the portal.

We understand that something else is afoot. We're solving a mystery. And so the promise is like introduced us that Scott will be with us again. And then when we get it, it's Scott upon Scott. upon Scott. I love what you said a few minutes ago about that shift from facing your past, having to confront

your past to having to confront your future. Because I think it like, Scott is a great vessel into this. So is Ramona. All of the characters are really. I think maybe Ramona is in the most fully realized way, actually. But certainly with older Scott and then even older Scott. We think of the first film so much as like. this examination of what it means to be young, right?

Like being in your 20s, trying to figure out what you're doing, trying to figure out what you want, trying to figure out who you can hold on to, trying to figure out who can tolerate you, etc. And I think that often we, like we, the collective, can have a tendency to think about of coming-of-age stories as like the thing you work through to get to the point in your life where you've figured everything out.

And that's just not true, right? That is just like not how it goes. The road goes ever on. Yeah, ever on. Ever on. And then sometimes you walk back down the road and can fright yourself from the future. And so I just like in a broad sense, even independent of Scott, though I think he's like such an interesting character to unlock this for us. That concept of like having to reckon with the fact that you spend your,

used telling yourself, you'll get to the point where you've figured it all out and everything is okay and you've got a job and you're making money and you're with the girl you want to be with and you're in your band and you got to hit and like you have your own apartment and everything's great. Maybe it's sunny in Toronto. Everything's perfect. And then you get to the future and you're like every day there's something new to figure out and that's just how it goes. Right. And so like to reposition the character and to take the young Scott who we think of as being

our charming and adored but like charming and adored fuck up who is like constantly behaving in a way that like dismayes us and charms us but dismayes us and to have that Scott be like the

arbiter of some sort of insight or wisdom was I just thought so fascinating the more mature Scott yeah like you can always learn something about yourself and from yourself, no matter where you are. Like, you can learn something about where you are now from your past. You can anticipate something about the future, like embracing the fact that you're never going to know everything is like

part of how you make it through the day. And then you wrap that in this love story and you remove it from just being about Scott, Scott and Wallace, friendship, community, Scott and Ramona, like the quest for something lasting. And to have to like, I thought, that was just so interesting and amazing to take like these people, you're kind of like you leave the movie and you're like, well like,

is it going to last? Right? Well, it's like, are they going to make it? Should they make it? Right. You know? Yeah. And for that to be so dominant here, right? As this like, okay,

to know that they moved forward and they got married and they were together, but like, was it good? Was it right? And like then to see them keep fighting for that and to see to reposition what you what you cited earlier of like how compelling it is to watch somebody fight for love and like what happens if you can't stop fighting and you're kind of like blinded by the fight and it's like the fight at the cost of actually like acknowledging maybe the reality of your circumstance or what somebody else needs from you. I thought there was like a level of in a vibrant and inventive and really fun and vivid rendering, like a real

like maturity to that area of interest that I just really appreciated and thought was cool. Completely agree. I love your insights. I love talking to you about anything, literally. Same, pal. Let's talk about, let's talk about Ramona. Carlos, we play this clip. Have you dumped everyone you've ever been with? You've never been the dump peak? Look, I've dabbled in being a bitch. It's part of the reason I moved here. I was really hoping to just leave it all behind me. Hey, love, Gertz.

We have unfinished business, I and He. Sorry, it's so funny. In the original of that clip, I cut it off before Brandon came in, but I'm with you, where I was just sort of like, it's too irresistible. I and He, we have unfinished business. I and he. Tell it to the cleaning lady. Because he'll be dust.

Monday. Anyway. Because it's Friday and the weekend. She doesn't work on the weekend. Okay. So Ramona often gets accused of being a manic pixie dream girl. And I kind of, I mean, she's literally introduced in Scott's dream space. So that's tough.

And she applies to her hair. A good, you know, manic pixie dream girl, a phrase we don't use as much anymore because I think that like, so rightly so when Nathan Raymond, who was writing for AV Club at the time, um, coined that term in 2007, mostly about the film, Elizabeth Town, a deeply flawed movie that I love. Um, he, uh, I think in naming it and shaming it, he did a lot of good work to eradicate it from storytelling, which is great. And I think the problem with the Manipixie Dream Girl trope in general is not just like a female character who exists sort of just for the advancement.

of the male character, but also just, like, has no life outside of... It's almost like they're an NPC, sort of standing in a room, sort of, you know, rocking back and forth, waiting to be activated by whatever the male protagonist story is. And I should say that, like,

in the comic books, Ramona, I would say, is a bit more flushed out. She has roommates, they suck, but she has them. Like, she has friends. Like, they're... She has, like, a life outside of whatever is going on with Scott. And I think that, like, I think Edgar Wright, one of my favorite filmmakers of all time, could do better by some of his female characters in general. I think that that is just true.

And I was, I never heard Brian Leo Malley say anything negative about the film. He was not that directly involved creatively in the film. He, like, came to set or whatever, but he wasn't, like, really that involved. He's obviously enormously appreciative of the film for boosting his comic book and boosting his career and all this sort of stuff like that. But I was watching this Twitch stream that he recorded in the pandemic in lockdown. So years and years and years and years after the movie came out. And he was sort of going through pages of his comics on this twist stream and talking about the film adaptation. And he says that like they took, he says, quote, they gave Kim's lines to other people and made her less funny. Kim's the funny ones. Scott is not

funny. He's a moron in this book. So like this idea that, like, Like, some of the female characters were flattened and some of, like, their lines were given to the male characters is something that he's just like, he didn't say one thing one way or another about it, but like, it's sort of clear that like, you know. So I love that the TV show is from Romona's perspective in a large part and that she is central here. And we learn so much more about her and that we like start every episode with her dyeing her hair. the color and like all this sort of stuff like i just love this emphasis on her as a more fully fleshed character but going back to the original film uh again a perfect film that i love i don't think that she i would say that she's a manic pixie dream girl just because like her wants and needs are important you know what i mean like to the story and her like deciding to go with gideon or

like, why don't she decide to say with Scott? We're not sure. It's not a given that they're going to be together in the future going forward as far as we know when we leave them in the film. So, like, I wouldn't put her quite in that box, but I think I really embrace and relish the idea that I get to spend more time with her and know her better, you know? Yeah, absolutely. It was such a, such a delight to have her, like, really centered in the story and not just,

okay, we have eight episodes and we've got more time. literally more time with all of the characters, which I think is also true, as we discussed already, but that she's such an active engine, right? Like, she's the driver. Yeah, she's the driver. Would you call her a baby driver? I would call her a baby driver.

I would. And like, you know, we both absolutely love the movie, so I don't need to keep issuing these caveats, but it is one of those things where if you just sort of describe, It may be absent the experience of watching it and having it like wash over you and get its hooks into you in so many different ways. Girl who guy like dreams about and stalks watches as her seven exes fight like dipshit who wants to date her is like a pretty passive experience.

You know, again, love the movie. And so just like a recalibration where the overall framework, the exes are there, the battles are there, the question of whether Ramona and Scott will end up together is there. But Ramona is getting to like work through so much of her own shit. The Roxy episode, I thought in addition to just like traveling through genres and people. period of film history and like a video store being like very fun and cool. You know, that's an example of something that there's just like no time for in the film and like to see them work through some of that. I think like it's not just there for Ramona, you know, the Kim Knives jam session, fantastic, you know? And again, just like a much more

active stretch for these characters to explore who they are and who they want to be. Knives, like, Knives gets a fairly satisfying arc in the movie and that she's like, I'm too cool for you anyway, like, and walks away, like, all of that. Great. Yeah. But to, like, give her, again, to, like, give characters their own interests and stuff like that. So the fact that she's, like, writing a musical with Stephen, like, is just delightful. She has her own shit going on.

She's doing stuff. She still has her, like, her envious moments and all. Like all of the stuff that makes her knives is still there. But like, I don't know. It's just, it's, it's just you more, there's more time and you get to go deeper. So all of that is good. All right. Let's talk about time.

This is our mini. It's, it's, it's a tropes bite of time travel. A nash? Yeah, well nash. A little pre- Thanksgiving snack, an appetizer. And a moose for your boosh. All right. Carlos Lee play this clip, please.

Scott. Was she really the one? The what? I mean, did you really see a future with this girl? Like, it's Jet Pax. Time heals all wounds, little brother. Maybe next time we don't date the girl with 11 evil ex-boyfriends.

Seven. Oh, that's not that bad. Oh, Stacy. Like with Jet Packs is one of my favorite lines of the whole movie. With Jebax. Like whispered. One of my favorite sequences in the movie also is, you know, as we're taking these little comic strip tours through Romona's best in the film, we get the sequence where Ramona calls Scott out for knives, for Kim, you know, and Kim and Scott have a whole, like, issues in the comic books run and stuff like that. And so, like, again, it's that, like, I think the thing about time and love is this. And it's funny, I went back and re-listen to one of our, I promise, actually, I'm not going to talk too much about Lost, but I remember asking on the Lost podcast that I did, I remember asking Damon Lindeloff, what is it for you about love stories and time stories that go hand in hand? And I was like, oh, yeah, I did ask him that. What was his brilliant answer so I can, like, crib it or whatever? And then I listened to it.

He didn't answer. He was just talking about love stories and he didn't really answer the time travel part. And that, like, bothered me in retrospect because I was like, damn it. But so then I had to think more about it. And I was like, I think the thing about time and about love is that ultimately love is about someone knowing you. You know? And that can only, A, come with time and be, like, taking people into your past by sharing things about your past. with them is this kind of time travel.

You know, Scott and Ramona are just like accelerating that process by the exes, literally like encroaching on their beginning of their love story, but that forces Ramona to tell all these stories about her past, which she does to a certain degree in her own journey towards self-knowing. And what's interesting about the self-knowing aspect, the TV show and the film act as mirrors to each other in so many different ways. At the end of the film, you get Scott and nigger Scott, like making brunch plans and stuff like that.

But it's about him not fighting himself, but him embracing himself, right? And in the TV show, Ramona, older Ramona, young Ramona, blend together to form super Ramona. And it, you know, it becomes this great moment of self-understanding. So that's part of it, too, is like you have to understand yourself in order to open yourself up to someone else knowing and understanding you, that is the pursuit of love. And so the pursuit of love is the pursuit of intimacy, of knowing, of knowing each other, of taking someone into your past with you, and taking someone into your future with you.

And so that is my thesis on time travel and love stories and why they matter. I want to shout out Brian Leomalley's ideas about time. I want to shout out a book that I love. I have it right here. I'm going to hold it up to the camera. you can see it that no one else can. It's a beautiful book. It's called Seconds.

Great cover. Brian Leo Malley. I know. It's gorgeous. It's like, well, I have a little hardcover. I don't know if it's still done a hardcover. Seconds is about this woman who has like, whose life is holding apart and she gets an opportunity to go back in time and change decisions and figure out what could be different about her life.

And as with any sort of like make a wish kind of story, there's, there is some consequences. And it rules. This book really rules. But like he has this idea of time on his mind. I was watching a talk he gave it Google years ago where he was talking about how this comic book series dungeon dungeon, don't know, I think it's either French or Belgian. I don't know. But it is like among comic creators, a beloved comic where the creator said about telling the story. set in the past and the present and the future, and they were like putting out issues working forwards in time and backwards in time. So you know the ending and you know the beginning, you just don't know how

they got there. And it is a project that was somewhat abandoned and then resumed and it is like kind of still going on. But it was it's not like a complete beautiful thing that you can read start to finish. It is like a

complicated, as you might imagine. endeavor, but, you know, as someone you who likes stories like dark or, you know, other twisty, turning, time you wimy stories, like, I think it might really appeal to you. The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end. There you go, baby. But like, and I love that, like, when we're in our 20s, I think the thing we fear the most is our past mistakes because our few, we think the future, to your point earlier, you made this so eloquently. When we're in our 20s or younger or older, we're like, like, oh, in the future, I'll have it all figure it out, right? So the future is certain and set. There's a vision of yourself in the future and that person, as you said, has the job, has the like, whatever. And it's like, it's all figured out. Which is often not the case. But we don't know that when we're young. So we're like, the future is not something to be scared about. The past is what I'm scared of. The mistakes that I made in the past, those are happening me. When you're older, the future is the thing you're scared of because it's the imperfect version of yourself that has survived that long. And that is the thing that sort of like haunts your,

your 20s is your future of like all the things you've done since and you're like, what would I have gone back and changed to make it different? And so again, I just love that this story about time and about love forces us to think about time and love and choices and mistakes and embracing those mistakes or embracing those choices, whatever they may be, or embracing our current imperfections as we think about the imperfections of our past and the imperfections of our future. And how we are all, in our most imperfect states deserving of love, which I think is beautiful.

I love that. That is absolutely lovely. I think back on my 20s, not necessarily thinking about like mistakes or regrets, which is how I thought I would think about my 20s. And in some ways still do, certainly. I have some notes. Yeah.

But I find myself like really love. longing for something that I feel like I have completely lost or like am losing, you know? And I think that was an interesting thing about watching this story too. And in general about time travel stories or thinking about a version of yourself across time or meeting yourself in another moment in time or like, who are you sharing your life with and what do they know about you? Love is time travel is beautiful. Move over Michael Waldron, friend of the pod.

Love is not a dagger. Love is time travel. You heard it here from Joe. I love that. I think of like the way that we. understand the future or think about the future and the past, of course, definitionally changes because, like, we're on a sliding scale, right? And so, like, there's always less of the future waiting for us than there was a moment before.

And, like, that's terrifying. So there's a period in your life where you're young and you think everything is ahead of you because it actually is, right? Most of your life is still waiting for you to unlock and discover and live. And then you reach a point where, like, this is where I am right now. Just all I can think about is, like, are my best days behind me, how little time is left, and like, losing some sort of tether to a period of my life where I felt like the possibility around me at all times. And so, like, I think, so hope. I think that that's interesting because those things often are entwined, like anxiety and

insecurity, but is also, like, part of what can spark that and you is feeling like you have a lot of choices ahead of you, right? And so, like, what's the right thing to pick? who's the right person to be with. And it's not always up to you to pick. Like other people have to choose you too, right? That's part of what's scary about it, ultimately. And that's part of what's interesting about being able to glimpse.

Like, did I pick that person? Did they pick me? Did it work? Did it last? Now, as you know, I'm not a, that's a child of divorce. I'm not a big believer in the longevity of the institution of marriage. Which I'm sure my husband will love me. From a marriage.

I mean, you better get that ex-men. jacket for Hanukkah or else. Who knows what's going to happen? Sometimes you spend a very meaningful period of your life with somebody and then sometimes you move on to somebody else and like, maybe you don't, but maybe you do and that's okay. And I think the question, I really love what you were saying earlier about a few minutes ago about like how sharing something about yourself with another person is a form of time travel because like there's something more at play there when you're really putting yourself up to somebody than like nostalgia or a recitation of facts. It's not like you're presenting a potential partner or friend or whomever it might be with like your lifetime CV. It's like,

this is the substance of who I am. Like these are the things that matter to me. This is what I care about. Like do you want to receive that? You know? And that's like a really scary, harrowing thing to have to confront. I think it does connect in a less like romantic way. but still is of a piece with what you were talking about earlier with this, like, connected tapestry of, like, shorthand and pop culture, language and the things that we share, because, like, sometimes people end up together who have nothing in common, and that's part of what's exciting is, like, we have different passions or different things that we're interested in, and sometimes you end up with somebody who's, like,

we could just genuinely spend all of our time watching or reading or doing the exact same things that the other person wants to do. And like, there's a real, like, safety and comfort in that. And then also maybe we'll have to confront at some point that we've never tried something new because neither person in the relationship, like, suggested that we should. And there are all sorts of other versions of that as well. And, like, that's what building a relationship with somebody is. And then, like, confronting what losing it might mean, you know, like, are you going to be able to share that with somebody else? Will it be different? How? Will it be different with the same person later in your life? Because, like, you, you,

aren't fixed in time. That's part of what the story does a great job of reminding us of, right? Like, maybe there are things that are always central in your experience, but the perspective that you bring, the reasons that things matter to you, like what has a dominant holding on your heart or your head at any given moment is always shifting. It's always in motion, just like time is, right? So I think the story did a great job of really embracing all of that in a way that was like heavy and profound, but like pretty accessible and conveyed through like a couple people in a relationship and a friend group in a community. And really like allows you to bring your own experiences to it and think about your own life

and the decisions that you would make. Like what would you do if you were confronted with an older version of yourself who behaved this way? Like what bearing would that have on how you lived your life? because I am like physically incapable of spending this much time talking about Scott Pilgrim and not hearing the dulcet tones of Jason Schwartzman Carlos Lee play this clip

Owl Scott I try to keep your emotions in check man don't let what's past ruin your future I just I love Schwartzman so much just here there everywhere don't let your let don't let what's past screw up your future I love that. Okay. So speaking of time, time and love stories, obviously lost is something that we've talked about a lot. The constant. Have you out of it a lot? We don't need to dwell on it. This is how you lose the time war is something that we talk about a lot, a book that we love that is a love story told through time. As I think I've told you, I think the single most romantic thing I've ever seen is in that book, the one line. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. Can't be talked. Remarkable.

About Time, the Richard Curtis film, an imperfect film, I have some notes. I have a funny experience with this, which is I started kind of accidentally watching this movie in the middle the first time I saw it. So I watched it out of sequence, which is like a kind of interesting meta relationship to the film. Yeah.

I was like, I guess I should probably go back and watch this from the beginning, huh? I have some notes about that film, especially in terms of how the ethics of wooing someone. using time travel and not telling them that you have that ability to do overs on things. But anyway, but once that story about a young man who can travel back in time, his time travel gets sort of locked in because of he has a kid and it's a whole thing and his father dies and all of

this or stuff. The thesis of the end of about time, which is very sappy Richard Curtis, but really It gets to me about this idea of like Bill Nyey plays the father figure. The way that he lived his life as a time traveler was he would live every day twice, once with all the like frustrations and aggravations of time. And then the next day, just letting all that go and soaking in and enjoying it, right? And that's how he lived his life. And then his son, played by Donald, the wonderful Donald Gleason. No, no.

Patron Saint of the pod. Oh, my God. the hucks of our heart, our favorite Weasley, Donald Gleason. Boy. The fact that he's like... Favorite Weasley. I mean... The fact that he lives his life that way without doing it twice,

that he's just sort of like, I live each day as if I've come back to savor it, is just like this absolutely beautiful thing. So what would you do if you could know your future is... is the big question lingering at the end of this. And that ties into two other properties that I want to talk about that I think about obsessively all the time and I think are two of the most beautiful love stories of all time. The first is Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind.

If you have never seen Eternal Sunshine in Spotless Mind, which is not technically about time travel. But it is in terms of like, let's do the thing we did before again. I'm about to ruin the ending of it. So skip ahead if you haven't watched it. It's a perfect film and is just inventive and funny and emotionally

gut-wrenching and beautiful. The story ends with our two characters, Joel and Clementine, as played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, figuring out that they dated before, that everything fell apart because of their baggage. It has so much DNA in common with Scott Pilgrim,

down to Clementine, applying her personality with a paste in her hair and all of that sort of. Comes down to this ending, one of the most perfect ending for a film ever, like, okay, when you know that you've dated someone, you can't really remember, but you know that you dated someone and it ended poorly, but you've met them again with your memory erased and you're attracted to them again and you want to, and you're attracted, what do you do? So can we hear this,

please, Carlos? I can't see anything that I don't like about you. But you will. But you will. But you will. You know, you will think of things and I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me. Okay. Okay. Okay. They knew their likely future and they did it anyway. And they did it anyway is one of my favorite endings. So like this, you know, for Scott and Ramona at the end of this TV show, and, you know, to a certain degree at the end of the film, we know the potential pitfalls here. We know each other's foibles.

You know, in the case of the TV show, we really know what our future looks like to a certain degree. and we're going to do it anyway. And now I'm going to hit you with the ultimate they did it anyway story. And this is also a time travel story. This is a rival. Again, please skip ahead if you have not seen arrival. But the end of arrival, Louise, who has the ability to see that we find out that we've watching this story a little bit out of time and that Louise knows that she will have a child.

and that child will pass away and that the man that she is met and fall in love with Ian, played by Jeremy Renner, will resent her and their relationship will end because she knew and she did it anyway. Carlos, can you play this gut-wrenching ending of a fantastic movie? If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things? Maybe I'd say what I feel more often. You know, I've had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know, it surprised me the most. That wasn't meeting them. If you want me to cry in zero to 20 seconds, you just have to play the score from arrival, and I will cry.

What happens right after this, right? She says, I forgot what it felt like to be held by you. Is something that she says to him, like, in the present about something she knows from the future. And then he asked and she wants to make a baby and she says, yeah, you know what I mean? And knowing they did it anyway. She did it anyway, right? And so yeah, it said they did it anyway ending of like, you've seen our future. We know, you know, we'll fight.

Super Ramona says, you know, like, I'll have trouble. I run away from what I love. I'll have trouble saying this in the future. But I love you and like, you know, remind me of that. Remind me. Just absolutely beautiful. And, like, again, like, it doesn't, honestly, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work out. To your point, you're often with people for a time.

And that's okay. You know what I mean? It doesn't have to be forever. But the being that it is is, you know, it matters. Absolutely. I'm emotional. That clip made me emotional. Both those clips made me emotional to incredible films.

I really, really love it. I love Arrival. And I really love Story of Your Life, the Ted Chang short story on which the film Arrival is based. I love all of Ted Chang's story. It's a fantastic sci-fi writer. And that particular short story, story of your life examines that question and that calculus almost more nakedly than the film does. It's just so, so, so harrowing to read. And confront, like, what choice would you make? And I think that question is, like, obviously, for each individual person to decide, and at each maybe moment in their life, they would, maybe you would decide something

differently, but, like, it's, there's something, like, so sad and almost, like, claustrophobic about feeling, like, boxed in by an ending. But I mostly find it to be, like, a very hopeful and inspiring choice when people, when people make the and they did it anyway decision because it's like part of it I think is like a kind of rejection of the idea even if you do know something is coming that you have to be like boxed in or bound by that knowledge like why shouldn't you share an experience with somebody or maybe see if you can change something perhaps but it does make me think a lot you know we we've been doing our doctor who watch as we said and it makes me think obviously about in general

like the relationships that the doctor forges across time. But it makes me think most of the doctor in River and like moving in, you know, opposite directions and like that really like agonizing but beautiful final. Just means time. And just like, yeah, times and river because they have to because there's no such thing as happy ever after. It's just a lie we tell ourselves because the truth is so hard.

No, doctor, you're wrong. Happy ever after doesn't mean forever. it just means time, a little time. A little time. But that's not the sort of thing you could ever understand, is it? And it's like, there's something really beautiful about that, you know? It's not necessarily always about, it also makes me think a little bit as not a time travel story, but halt and catch fire. I'm paraphrasing now.

I don't have the exact quote, but one of the lines from the final season of halt and catch fire show that I loved that, like, I think about often and really like stuck with me. And it was on my mind a lot reading a story like tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and thinking about like making things with people. and what a gift it is to just, whether you're building something or in a relationship or living your life, whatever it is, to like share an experience with another person and then how challenging that can be sometimes. And like there was that great moment from our another patronessing to the

bodily pace the best. You know, it was never about where we were going. It was always about how it felt. And like that just summed up, I think, so much of like what, why even, why even bother in the first place if you can't hold on to that idea, right? So they did it anyway. It didn't anyway. It wasn't about where they were going. It was always about how it felt. Maybe that's reckless,

but I think there's a real truth to it. Let's go now to my conversation with Ben David Griminski. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips,

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Exactly. I cannot wait to ask you about that. But I want to start by asking you, I know that, you know that, you know that you. you weren't certain from the start that you would get the entire full cast back from the films into the project. So I'm just wondering, like, what this project looked like when you first hopped on and what you were hoping it would be before you knew that you would have all this, like, sort of star power behind it. Yeah, I never really expected that to happen. It's like buying 16 lottery tickets and needing to win all 16, you know, and I, so I just hadn't put too much thought into it. I obviously thought it would be great and that was the preferred approach for it. But I never at any second really thought that would happen. My whole priority was just trying to make

the best show that I could and not think about that. The idea of casting all those people and making them new and interesting and not feeling like they were just like sound-alikes or doing the same kind of thing felt very that truly felt like the only thing that was like a little daunting of the show the rest of it it was like a ton of work but it felt doable because it was like in a good like creative environment but just kidding all those people i still don't believe that it happened the only reason i know that it actually happened is because the show exists uh otherwise it sounds like a thing that i made up yeah you dreamt it into existence i love that i i So Scott Pilgrim, the original film and the comics are some of my favorites ever.

I owned back when we owned so much digital media. I didn't have that many DVDs, but I did own Scott Pilgrim. I watched it and like Warhol in it. I love that film so much. That being said, there are things about Scott Pilgrim, both in the comics and in that film, that, you know, as my Tasty Valdo is sort of like, hmm, do I love that? And what I love is that this show addresses all of those little things I had where I'm like, I would like to know more about Ramona or like the Nile shout thing really doesn't sit super well

with me sometimes. Or is Scott Pilgrim a good person question mark? Which I always thought was kind of the point. But I love how your show seems to dig into all of those little lingering question marks I had about the property. And I was wondering if you talk about sort of what you or Brian wanted to make sure was addressed in this new story? Well, I don't, I mean, stuff like that is tricky because if you, if that's your priority and it's driving your decisions, then that kind of gets in the way of telling a good story. I think that I came up with a concept that just kind of deepened everything and made it more complicated and had kind of the life experience of Brian and I projected into it. I mean,

this is a show made by people who are looking back at their 20s instead of a show made by people who are in their 20s and the middle of that kind of chaos. Like, you're making a, you know, if you're writing something about your 20s while you're in your 20s, it's like making something when you're in the middle of a tornado. Yeah. Not really, you're just, you know, trying to make the best creative decisions and make something that's awesome. And then we get older, you have the the time to look back and think about things. And I don't have, I mean, I think the best thing about TV is that you can make stuff

about characters who are incredibly complicated and flawed. So obviously, Scott Pilgrim is a great character for that. I mean, all my favorite TV characters, whether they're like Walter White or Tony Soprano or Rory Gilmore, have made like a lot of really questionable decisions. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, I love Rory, but she changed. chose to take a bus to New York hours before her mom's graduation. But her mom is her best friend and she spent the whole season talking about her mom's graduation. So why'd you take a bus

to New York and think you'd get back in time? Or to quote the prophet, Jess, why did you drop out of Yale? Right? Like, come on, Rory. What are you doing? How many great, uh, weird, prolonged, dramatic storylines are about college. It's like Seth Cullen not admitting he didn't get into Brown. There's all these great storylines that are like people making bad college decisions or holding secrets about college when college should just be fun, man. It shouldn't be like creating season long storylines of the conversation. Exactly. But yeah, it's like I just, you know, we just wanted to make something that kind of made everyone even more complicated than they were before and also not shy away from, you know, their mistakes. and like how they view those things later and just they're just trying to find ways that organically

do that instead of making the subtext text because you don't want yeah to have someone look into the camera lens and then just directly state stuff like that but I think we found fun ways to address a lot of that that doesn't get in the way of telling a fun story well one of the like really clever ways you found to do that is uh in the like two part arc around the film of Scott Pilgrim, episodes four and five, whatever, and lights, camera, sparks, which were standouts to me. I thought until I got to the musical section, we'll talk about that later. But so you get sort of in a really fun meta way, you get things like your director voiced by Canadian legend Kevin McDonald's saying, like, yes, our hero is flawed about

Scott Pilgrim, you know what I mean? Like, you get to have those moments within this larger thing, but it's fun and it's fleeting and it's never getting bogged down and too self-serious, you know what I mean? Or to make older Scott Pilgrim the literal, like, villain of the story, like, all that sort of stuff. I just thought was really brilliant. I want to talk about whatever in lights camera sparks and how much fun you had sort of spoofing film industry, TV industry, et cetera. Talk to me about that.

What are some of your favorite parts of that arc? I mean, I'm like overly happy. with whatever. I mean, my, my pitch to Brian initially was a two-sentence thing that I made up on spot in a dinner that was not supposed to be a pitch. He was talking about the pros and cons of doing a straight adaptation. And I don't know where it came from, but I just blurt it out. Well, what if Scott Pilgrim dies at the end of the pilot? And then what if they make a movie of Scott Pilgrim starring Lucas Lee? And then everything kind of worked backwards from that. And I love, like when I was having like early pitch discussions

with people about those episodes and someone was a little hesitant about how meta they were and how might be off putting. And I think I remember my argument being, I don't think, I think this is like 1% as self-reflective or self-aware as the Muppet movie and no one can say that like the Muppet movie is too niche, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And I loved that movie when I was like five And I wasn't too overwhelmed by like movie jargon and all that stuff. I mean, I'm, I love Last Action Hero. I love Adaptation. I love Pee We's Big Adventure. There's all these things that I love that I kind of thought I could put into one box. And then the fun thing that Brian and I thought was like, well, so it doesn't get stale.

Let's go in a completely different format for like the second episode. I remember at one point it was part one and part two, but then when we decided to have the second episode be like a fake documentary with weird hell as like a Ken Burns narrator that we shouldn't have it be a two-parter that they would be like distinct enough because from the beginning our whole approach was we wanted every episode to feel like an episode not like this one story chopped into eight of them so when you get to the end you can be like well my favorite was this one or my favorite one was this one instead of being like I don't remember which episode this thing happened and I hopefully you'll be able to separate but yeah it's just like I had everything

I love about that stuff and it was organically part of the world that Brian created and was extended in the movie to have that, but to make it be about a Scott Pilgrim movie got to just add so many stupid layers to all of it. And I like that the character who has the most in common with me as the dumbest person in the show, like Young Neal. I love Young Neal. It's like if I'm going to make somebody in the show be a cinefile, I might as well not make it. it's someone who's cool. Do you have a Cronenberg for President t-shirt and or has someone made it for you yet? Well, that's something I put in there from Beyond Fest.

So Beyond Fest gave out Cronenberg for President's shirts a few years ago when they did like a screening series with Q&As with him. And I put it that shirt is in are afraid of the dark and it's in happily. So it's been like a runner where I thought, what have I even got it into an animated show? Sam Ramey has the same car in all of his movies. and I so far have somehow put this t-shirt into all my stuff. And it's something I'm doing only to amuse myself and maybe my friend Christian who runs beyond first.

And now all of us, we will be on the lookout for it and all of your upcoming things. What I love is that when I was watching, I was re-watching lights, camera, sparks, and I wrote Lost in LaMontia question mark in my notes. And I just like, like, the idea that you're doing of a documentary of a movie production that has gone completely sideways, inside of a Scott Pilgrim show that has, you know, the iconic video game illusions, you're doing anime, you know, text and illusions, and then we get to go into musical theater, which I'm going to ask you about in a second, like, just a mortgage board of mediums for you to get to explore.

You know, the simple, smart version of the show would be, what if you just do an anime adaptation of the books. Not only did I feel like we needed to do something way more ambitious, I also did feel like if you, you might settle and think, okay, well, this is like one new thing, but the goal was it to feel like 200 new things that hopefully are cohesive. Yeah. All those things you said may sound like they don't mix together, but in my head, they always did. And, you know, Brian and I just had a rule when any time we didn't think something was worked or one of us hated it, we would just go. But we are really hard on all of our ideas. But hopefully to some people, it does feel cohesive to be mixing all of those things into one thing. Did anything you did anything you both landed on

as something when you were like, eh, didn't work? Like get cut? Any high five concepts? On the script stage, we sent months and months and months being really hard on every idea sitting in Brian's office where, you know, I'd pitch 10 things and nine of them, Brian would be like, oh yeah and I pitched 10 and he's like that's not Scott Pilgrim. I'm like, are you sure it's not? And sometimes we decided it was and sometimes we decided it wasn't. But our just rule was that there be no joke or plot line or emotion or reference that one of us thought didn't work. So we just kind of shot everything down and I can't even remember a lot of the stuff. But the real good process is like any idea that's in there is something that kind of went past our security system

of bullshit, you know. We just always, even like, whether it's just like a needle drop or anything, there'd just be an endless text conversation about stuff until we felt like, okay, yeah, that'll work. Moving on to the next dumb thing. I love that. As a huge musicals fan, here's the first thing that set off my radar. And it might not even been the first thing. But the first thing was you're responsible.

You're the one to blame. It's your fault and into the woods joke in the Scott Pilgrim funeral episode. And then you think that's going to be. the last end of the way. And it's not. We get a Greece 2 reference, and I'm here to advocate for Greece 2 supremacy over Grace 1. Love that that's in there. I'm going to shout out to my friend Robin, who made me watch Greece 2 during

lockdown, and I had never seen it. It's so good. And I think it's a very flawed movie, but it's also incredible. Oh, God. It's hugely flawed. But, like, Michelle Pfeiffer is on a different, like, plane of existence in that movie. Absolutely love it. and then we get a musical at the end of all of this. So, like, you and I both saw, recently saw Marily

Roll along in New York. I know that we were both musical fans. Like, talk to you about working a musical, like a musical thread into this. Why does this feel like a good fit for Scott Pilgrim? Why is this a setting for the end of the show? I mean, Scott Pilgrim's about music. A lot of people in the show are musicians or aspiring musicians or in bands. And, you know, Brian wrote, it kind of based on his life of like, you know, being that age and he was in bands too,

but he was also a big Sondheim guy. And I'm, I love musicals too. And the way we kind of feel about it is that we both are passionate about something and organically feels right as a reference or tonally, then we feel like it'll work. And if it's, if we're trying to deal with ways of people adapting Scott Pilgrim within the show in different formats, um, you might as well just go for a musical. And having Nives and Steven as a songwriting duo just felt right. And then it was obviously an opportunity to do the world's dumbest Ishtar reference, but then all building to a musical.

I mean, behind me, the listeners can't see it. But in front of my Ninja Turtles' jock poster there is Joe Trappinezzi just framed the written sheet music from the musical, which was written by me, Brian, going over to our composer's house and him sitting at a piano and like me pacing around and like singing lyrics at him and then playing references on Spotify and saying, I want to have a song kind of like this, but I think it should be Ramona. And what if it's like this? And like I would like horribly sing some lyrics to him. And then he said there with a pencil and start playing something at a piano.

He's like, well, then what about this? And I'm like, oh, yeah, well, they say this back. It became this incredibly stupid situation that was. very close to the first five minutes of Ishtar, which then we do already had in the show, like an homage to it. So it was like to me, a lot of the show was just like an opportunity to see what I could get away with, but also always trying to make sure it felt correct creatively. And the idea of having a musical that we did like in demo form and then had to like hire singers and fly to Nashville and like have an orchestra record it.

I just felt like that's a thing that you should do. I mean, when people watch Scott Pilgrim, I'm sure they're always like, I bet someday they'll do a musical. It's funny while we were working on this, before the cast had read the scripts, Brandon Ralph, I think he'd written on Edgar's Instagram, something like, when are they going to do a Scott Pilgrim musical?

And I texted Brandon. I'm like, man, you don't even know what you're talking about. Tell him, buddy. That's amazing. one of my favorite so in addition to wearing a hole in my scott pilgrim DVD just watching the movie is that DVD has incredible commentary tracks on it and one of my all-time favorite I think about it all the time commentary track moments uh is when brie larsin is up there doing black sheep doing the metric song um really going for it and schwartzman on the commentary is just like uh i really wish that brie had showed up

and like tried that day She just, like, gave it no effort. She's just doing 0% doing nothing. I love Breeze N.V. Adams. I love that, like, metric cover performance. So I went to the moon and back again when she did. I will remember you at the Scott Pilgrim of Funeral episode. Tell me about the song choice.

The song is produced and sung by Emily from Metric. Yeah, it just felt like the fun choice for what to do there. I love it. idea. That was Brian's. Like, episode two is so like some of the episodes took months to write and then Brian and I would go back and forth and back and forth. There's some episodes that are like mostly Brian, but episode two is, uh, I wrote like in one afternoon and then like only two lines changed, but I did not have what this song would be. And Brian had the best pitch ever, which is he's one day he either said in person or texting me. He said, what if she starts?

singing, I will remember you. And it starts sad and then becomes a banger in the middle. And I'm like, you know what? I think that's a genius idea. And he wrote a really passionate email to metric about why he picked it as a Canadian, why he thought it was important. And we, and they signed on. And that was like the most fun thing. Because just if they hadn't done that I just, I don't know if it would work. And that was the only way to also make it feel kind of cohesive within that world of what the Clash of Demonhead music is. But having a funeral scene that she crashes like a huge narcissist and then sings a song that seems sad, but then becomes a big, it just felt like the most fun stupid thing to do, you know.

Incredible funeral costume that she wears, the like wings, the boots, all of that incredible. Yeah, we went to fall like Lady Gaga or like my reference is always Ellen Ame from Streets of Fire, but we did just try to make her even more of this ridiculous pop star in this version of it. So good. I'll remember you came out, is it 98, I think? Anyway, it came out like right when I was in high school. And so like every girl I'd ever met saying that for graduation for like, I don't know, it was either that of the Green Day song for like five years in the 90s early odds.

And it was just, it was a time. It was a time to be alive in music, you know. Yeah, the time was like that. And then the as we go on vitamin C song that was like graduations. And there's all these songs that were just designed to make you cry. And they were omnipresent for this specific period. Perfect. Something that you and I had talked about a little bit before we started recording here is this idea of like, so you've got all these incredible actors who were in the original film who have all

gone on to do more and more and more, you know, their stars have only climbed ever since. But we were talking about the difference between being like a film actor and being a voice actor. So I don't want to like, like, no need to like, everyone's great. So there's no need to be like who wasn't great at it. But like, who surprised you in terms of like how good they were voice acting in addition to being like great on screen presences? I mean, I'm really happy with everybody's performances. The people, but there are a few people who just kind of over delivered in a way that you can't expect because they just have a gift is like Ellen the every knives chow like line delivery came from outer space in the most beautiful way just like a gift there's so many lines that

I was so sure in my head what the punchline was or what the delivery was going to be and then she'd go in front of a microphone and just like kick my head off with like the funniest thing There's just, there's so many lines of her that there's a line like at the end of seven where she's like screaming about celebrating musical theater before you like transition to like our dubstep evil X's theme that I, it just kills me. I just was so happy with like everybody and our guest stars that it felt like everyone just really rose to the challenge. Like some of the people, the movie performance still is sort of right for animation. and some people you kind of need to push it in a direction either smaller or bigger. There was like a real kind of process to it. And I feel like everybody was like super game.

And those just like, I mean, if you look at Jason's performance, he has this whole thing. He's like a stoic bad guy. Then he's pathetic. Then he's silly. Then he's a badass again. He has like all these different shadings to it. I was just super happy. You know, also just, you know, when you have to have an actor.

come in and spend four hours making fight noises, you can't lose there. And so I'm like, okay, well, you're getting kicked in the head, but it needs to be sad. Okay, you're getting kicked in the head, but it wanted to be kind of funny. Working and all these things. I mean, it was just a really fun process. One of my favorite envisioning what the behind the scenes real looked like, actually, was what does it look like for Chris Evans to be making coffee in a superstar? kind of way. You know what I mean? He had all these little like, ooh, ah, like, grots and groans

in the barista sequence at the end. And I was like, that's, that's fun B-roll. I would love to Yeah. Like my joke there, I think it might have even written into the script was I said, it's cocktail but coffee, making all those insane concoctions or I was even also thinking of like when Ben Stiller is doing his riff of that on the MTV Movie Awards in the middle of that Mission Impossible 2 spoof where he's doing the epic TGI Fridays. Yes. stuff. But that was a actually that was a really funny

day because Chris was so unbelievably prepared. And the only thing he couldn't prepare for was there some scenes that we had almost no animation yet. And I remember just saying, all right, so I need a noise where like, okay, you just did a kickflip, but then you land on the ground and there's kind of like a grunt.

But then you kind of like laugh because you're amused with yourself. Okay, now can you do this thing? And I'm just like pitching in these things where I'm kind of walking him through. moments and the amount of trust it takes there. And there's sometimes where he had like animation and had the exact timing. Some of it was sort of getting like a collection of noises that were correct. And then we were kind of cutting it in.

But my favorite for him and Jason was that there's a montage, the stepbrothers montage at the beginning of six where they become best friends. And when we did our walla, which is like noises that like an actor makes, we just let them improvise to it. So we let him watch it a few times and we're like, all right, just we're going to hit record and just start making your noises. So it's like Chris is seeing Lucas like jumping on a couch like chasing after Gideon or like shushing him or like getting sprayed in the face of a fire extinguisher. And you're just getting like top tier actors doing this silliest bullshit. And then it all just cuts together.

There's some really funny little improvs that Jason did in that where he just is constantly saying stuff like, awesome. and then whoa. That was not supposed to be playing when his character's like off screen and then we end up putting all of it in there. I mean, all of that was just fun bullshit. I love it. Because we get to speak about anything and everything, this is a, you know, you have

already watched the entire series kind of interview. Are there any, like, you know, there's a million little, like, references and throwaway moments and Easter eggs and all the sort of stuff in here. you can watch it you know five times through and not catch it all are there any like little ones that you are especially proud of that you're you're like no one's going to get this but this is for me uh in addition to things we've already mentioned i mean there's a lot of stuff i mean some very specific visual references to like a short film i made that like not many people have seen like the fact that i got to have a death stranding monta like reference in seven it's and it just was

so organic because Ramona delivers packages in the present day. She's a delivery person. Desranting is a video game about delivering packages in the apocalypse in the future. Episode 7 kind of takes place there. It's like sometimes these things that you really love just sort of slot in to what you're doing. And that was a lot of the joy of the show is like we almost never did anything for the sake of a reference.

But there's things where you know, you're sitting in a room and you're like, well, how do we have a visual device to show the story of the movie and book for someone who hasn't seen it? And also because Scott hasn't seen it because he didn't experience it or in the future. What if they use virtual reality? Actually, what if there's a virtual reality room, but there's a virtual boy in there? And then, like, you just end up doing, you go down these sort of weird, like, creative avenues where it's like trying to come up with the funny and it's the most interesting and specific way to, like, create, like, a storytelling device, where then you're just like, okay, well, now we're going to have a sequence that is

just like the graphics for a virtual boy, and then they go to Universal Studios, Hollywood. Oh, this is Universal Show. Can we get a Minion in there? Oh, wait, can I get Will Forte to say Optimus fucking Prime? It just this endless collection of like weird ideas that all kind of end up getting executed by geniuses. Yeah, there are little moments like in terms of how easy or how difficult things are. like if you have Scott Pilgrim make a, you know, Professor Xavier's school for Gifted Youngsters reference.

Like is that, is that something you can just do? Or is that something that costs you money? Like, well, there's stuff that costs you money in an insane way. Like, we're recording May for the end of episode three. And in the script, we just wrote, she whistles on her way out the door. And I remember hitting the button and saying,

hey, do you know like the rooster song? from Robin Hood. Is there any way you could just like sing a little bit of that on your way up the door? And as I'm doing it, Mal, who's our assistant, would like email Universal or email our music department and say, how much does it cost to clear eight seconds of the Robin Hood song? And someone will give you a number and you say, worth it. So it's like we have to spend money just to have this really silly joke of May singing the Robin Hood song for worth it. Worth it according to me. Well, at the end of the day, everything that's in there, I decided was worth it.

So now it's really up to the audience to see if they think I'm out of my mind. I think you crushed it. Anything else? Do you want to mention before we go? I mean, I just, I really hope that people are into it. It was, you know, making this with Brian was one of the, I mean, it was definitely the best creative experience I ever had. and it was really nice to work with somebody who like I've known forever who we were like really on the same page and just in the shit on this for years with the brilliant people's signed sorrow and all this cast and I'm you know it hasn't come out yet but if it doesn't people watched it and liked it I'm grateful and also if you didn't I'm grateful still but I just really can't believe it exists it's very weird to me like I'm going to go now over to

Universal City Walk because I guess our trailer is playing out of Jumbotron by the theater, which is such a weird, surreal experience for me. So I'm going to go eat some Taco Bell and just wait for it to play in the rotation just to make sure the show actually exists. That will be the moment. Like, with you, it will have like a CrunchRap Supreme and then you will know that you've made it. It has happened.

Yeah. Hopefully I'll look back later and say, remember that time when you had Taco Bell and you went to watch that thing for no reason? and then hopefully someone nearby will go, what the fuck is that? Thanks so much. What a joy. Thank you.

Well, thanks for talking about it. Well, that is it. That does it. It's about time for us to go. Oh, look at you. Tune in a little later. Thanks. Tune a little later this week.

Speaking of time travel and River and the Doctor, we'll be back covering. The Jody Whitaker run of Doctor Who in this feed. And then we'll be back again to cover the anniversary special, which is dropping this afternoon. I'm so excited. Can I? I can do it myself. I'm so thrilled.

Same. This episode was produced by the great Carlos Cherbourg. Carlos, thank you so much for stepping in and being a champ as always. Thanks, as always, to our Jenner-Rank-Paul for production work on this and to join me a dinner on the socials. if you don't hear me say it in the next podcast you hear from us doctor who just carry this over into the future to say i love you happy holidays enjoy your fam uh or your found fam or your found turkey or your found toferky or whatever it is you most enjoy this holiday season and we will see you soon bye