I’ve read the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, I’ve seen the movie, I’m not entirely sure that Scott Pilgrim Takes Off needed to be made. Sure, it’s more adventures with the same characters and actors portraying them that we had in the excellent film. But the new series on Netflix doesn’t really add much to the overall formula.

It follows the same story as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World or the graphic novels. Scott Pilgrim meets the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers, and then has to fight her seven evil exes. The premise is the same, but updates things a bit, so there’s at least that for superfans of the franchise. The entire cast from the movie returns to reprise their roles plus some new surprises. Coming back are Michael Cera as Scott, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona, Satya Bhabha as Matthew, Kieran Culkin as Wallace, Chris Evans as Lucas, Anna Kendrick as Stacey, Brie Larson as Envy, Allison Pill as Kim, Aubrey Plaza as Julie, Brandon Routh as Todd, Jason Schwartzman as Gideon, Johnny Simmons as Young Neil, Mark Webber as Stephen, Mae Whitman as Roxie, Ellen Wong as Knives, and Julian Cihi as Kyle and Ken.

What the series does add considerably to, and actually makes quite interesting, is the backstory of all the evil exes. We’ve seen enough from Scott. We know his story. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is really about the side characters and making their stories more interesting and, quite frankly, better than Scott’s.

For Scott Pilgrim Superfans And Those Who’ve Never Seen The Movie

If you’re not invested in the franchise, but haven’t seen anything Scott Pilgrim before, this might be a good place to start. It’s basically the run of graphic novels combined down into a series. The animation is stunning. That’s really the best part about the whole series is that it captures the essence of the graphic novels in a way that even the live-action movie didn’t. This feels like a motion comic version of the series.

For most people, this’ll be something nice to watch, but not really anything more. For fans of Scott Pilgrim, you might get more out of it than most. It’s nice to see the main cast all return to their roles, even though some of the voice actors don’t really sound like themselves. Michael Cera’s performance is a bit muted, but then Chris Evans sounds exactly like Chris Evans, so it might be a choice on Cera’s part. The action here is fast and frenetic and really reflects the pace of the novels. This doesn’t feel like its 100% necessary because the movie did such a great job adapting the source material, but what gets added here is nice for fans.

Don’t get me wrong, this still has all the hallmarks of what made the novels and movie so special, but it just feels like it doesn’t add anything to that, instead just doing similar things. The additions of new content for the side characters is really what you should watch Scott Pilgrim Takes Off for.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off releases on Netflix on November 17th, 2023.

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