Toronto, Canada is a mysterious land. It is home of the titular character of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Released in 2010 as a film adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series, Edgar Wright brings to life the trials of Scott Pilgrim as he fights (literally) for the affection of the enigmatic Ramona Flowers. In order to succeed, Scott must fight and kill the members of the “League of Evil Exes” which is comprised of seven people from Ramona’s past romantic relationships. The film shares the same uniqueness as the comic; the visual effects in the film mirror that of the comic, the script utilizes the same dialogue, and the cinematography adapts the static, 2-dimensional drawings into a live-action, 3-dimensional world. The overall aesthetic is inspired by 16-bit video games and 80’s popular culture. Wright’s and O’Malley’s vision of an otherworldly Toronto, Canada leans heavily on the 16-bit video game inspirations and logic to form an artistic and narrative foundation for the film.
The inhabitants, especially those who fight, of Toronto, Canada exhibit superhuman capabilities. Most notably, Scott is shown to pull off incredible feats of agility and strength. As an example, at the beginning of his fight with Matthew Patel, Scott leaps up and spends 14 seconds punching Matthew 64 times before he touches back down (31:41). Keep in mind this takes place in a two story concert venue; Scott had no more than 40 feet to carry out this maneuver. A more subtle feat is Ramona’s ability to melt snow by roller skating over it. At the end of a conversation, Ramona skates away from Scott through ankle deep snow. Instead of having to struggle through the frozen water, Ramona simply melts it on contact (25:51). The scene shows her moving with a leisurely pace, but this is enough to generate enough heat to melt the snow. What’s more unusual is how the heat does not radiate out from the entirety from Ramona. Instead it seemingly emanates from her feet only. (Upon this writing, I am willing to accept the idea that the friction from the skates may be the cause of the heat, but not enough to melt snow on contact.) A much more grand example of a superhuman feat is the collective powers of Todd Ingram. By way of being ovo-lacto vegan, Todd is capable of telekinesis and super strength. As backstory during the film, it is explained that to win over Ramona, Todd impressively flew up to the Moon and punched a hole in it (1:06:24). He uses his powers for evil by punching the highlights out of a girl’s hair and levitating to overpower Scott in their duel (“He punched the highlights out of her hair!) (1:04:04). Finally, unbeknownst to the audience, Scott had been accruing points throughout his adventure as a player would in a videogame. He acquires enough points to literally gain an extra life. At the climax of the film, Scott is killed, but is miraculously able to live out the entire climax a second time (1:36:10). Scott was able to cheat death so that he could learn the meaning of self respect at the ripe age of 22.
On a geographical level, the world of Toronto, Canada is made to feel like it was ripped straight from the panels Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel. Toronto, Canada feels very malleable in terms of location and size. Two instances of the the world physically “bending” take place in the home of Stephen Stills, the lead singer of Scott’s band “Sex Bob-Omb.” At the opening of the film, Sex Bob-Omb commences band practice and the length of the living room is stretched out to several times its length. On one end of the room is the band playing and at the other, sitting on the couch, is Scott’s girlfriend, at the time, Knives Chau and Scott’s replacement/roadie, Young Neil (2:55). Scenes later Scott makes his way to the bathroom to relieve himself. He experiences an out of body experience: he left the living room and shut the door only to it open to the hallway of a school (19:47). It is later explained that different places are interconnected via the “Subspace Highway.” Ramona uses it to traverse Toronto, Canada as an Amazon.com delivery girl and to store her worldy (or “subworldly”) belongings. For context, in a fight that Ramona must intervene in, she pulls out a hammer that is bigger than her out of a bag that is the size of her head (1:15:24). On one hand, O’Malley uses this in reference to the video game trope that the player’s avatar has an obscene amount of carrying capacity. In contrast, this plot device helps to maintain the pace of the story.
The last aspect of Toronto, Canada that is purely bombastic is how every villain or henchman that Scott kills explodes into coins. In chronological order, here are the people Scott murders that explode into Canadian change and how it happens. Matthew Patel is punched in the face by Scott and bursts into coins. Lucas Lee is tricked by Scott to grind down a series of icy rails, is unable to stop at the bottom of them, and he crashes in an explosion of coins. Todd Ingram gets headbutted by Scott and blows up with Canadian shrapnel. Roxy Richter dies via orgasm and combusts into coins. The Katayanagi Twins explode by the force of sound and rain down coins upon the concert audience (yay for free concert). The henchmen of Gideon Graves that are slew by Scott all burst into coins by either kicks, punches, or sword slashes. (Oddly enough, Scott fights Lucas Lee’s six stunt doubles but does not kill them.) Finally, Gideon is punted in the chin and coins shower from his explosion for several seconds. Two things of comedic value to note: first, do all of the people who die in the world of Toronto, Canada burst into coins that equate to their net worth, and second, how was Scott able to get away with so much murder?
The world of Toronto is filled with super-capable people that engage in pugilistic fights to resolve their quarrels. Those fights spill into physically impossible feats of strength as the stakes become increasingly dire. For the sake of entertainment, murder is completely condoned, and accepted, in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s and Edgar Wright’s world of Toronto, Canada. If the dead do leave behind money instead of corpses, then that is a world worth living in.
