Film as Video Game: How Video Game Change the Film Narrative in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Technology applied in film production has experienced unprecedented development ever since the birth of this art form. In less than 100 years, with the evolvement of technology, film gradually obtained sound, colour, wide screen, marvellous spectacle of digital effects and stereoscope 3D; filmmakers also explored many stylistic devices. For instance, the experiment in editing is the principle in the creative of film. (Dancyger 2007, xviii) All of these efforts altogether helped to make this medium totally different with cinema in its early history.
In addition, this change not only happened on the form and style of narrative expression. When the popular culture transferred from western fictions to computer and video games, it is not surprising that films were inspired by this change. Investigate the history of genre filmmaking, it is obvious that some genres which had been favoured by Hollywood studios in the early era, such as musicals and Westerns, are no longer popular. Schatz provided a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon:
‘Audiences response ultimately determines whether a film story or some technique will be repeated, varied and eventually conventionalized within the production system.’ (1983, p.12)
However, this argument did not clarify one significant question: why some certain genres have been approved by audiences in the contemporary world? For example, after an unexpected revival in the 1970s (Bordwell 2008, p.325), science-fiction movies have become a mainstream genre in Hollywood, especially for blockbusters. What is the reason? In his book Understanding Media, which mainly discussed how the imploding of technology affects the mankind and results in psychic and social consequences, McLuhan pointed out that new stresses and needs in the human beings are created by every technology they invented. Besides, it is an endless process that the new need and the new technological response are born from our approval of the already existing technology. (2001, p.199) Thus, the popularity of science-fiction movies can be understood as the development of technology as well.
Nonetheless, it is not the decade that the exciting of landing on the moon can easily inspires filmmakers. While the last space shuttle Atlantis return to its home port, some significant changes are happening. According to The Economist, the global video-game market has grew up to 56 billion dollars, in other word, it is approximate three-fifth the size of the film industry in 2010, and in the next few years it will keep the fastest-growing media. (The Economist, 2011) Therefore, observing the influence that the culture of video game has on films would be reasonable and valuable. As a consequence of technological development, video games are not only a social phenomena, they are the essential step stone in a redefinition of our relationship to the image-oriented narrative world. (Wolf and Perron 2003 cited Higuinen and Tesson 2002) In fact, they are not only providing new pictorial symbols and stories, but can also affect narrative methods in fiction films, and help to transform films into a more intertextual text.
Video Game and Film: From Adaption to Intertextual
Since the video-game-based film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) has shown on the screen, video games have come into the sight of mainstream producers in Hollywood. The first and most noticeable method they found is making films by adapting successful video game series. While serious academic discussions about the adaptation from video games to the cinema is limited, there are abundant studies in the adaptation from the literature to film that can be borrowed despite some controversial voices.
On the one hand, Stam concludes that the conventional critics prefer to use "profoundly moralistic" terms, including "infidelity", "betrayal" and "violation", to imply that the cinema is inferior to literature. (2005a, p3) Although some of the adaptations based on great novels are undoubtedly ordinary or misguided, the instinctive opinion of adaptation's inferiority comes from the elitist prejudices. (Stam 2005b, p4) He continued to analyse this issue by listing eight sources of this prejudices: the presumption that as for arts, the older is the better; the assumption of rivalry between film and literature; from Platonic contempt of the world of phenomenal appearance, the long history culture strongly against the visual arts; the iconophilia, namely written word always thought as having advantages in communication; due to the materiality of the film, it relates more directly to body response than novels, which probably informs less depth and more superficial in mind; the myth about the film is not complex to make and does not engage creative activity during the reception; unconscious prejudice of social class believes film is vulgar, because the nature of film is satisfying mass audience; the adaptation is a kind of parasitical on literature.(Stam 2005a, p4~p8) Interesting enough, as same as film, all these prejudices can be applied to video game. Compare to other art forms, they are all relatively new and mainly basic on the visual arts. Video game is the object of these prejudices as well. Therefore, it is inappropriate to use these conservative studies to criticise the adaptation from video game to film.
On the other hand, traditionally, theorists believe that the fidelity matters. Unfaithful adaption means violate our understanding of ‘the fundamental narrative, thematic, and aesthetic features of its literary source.'(Stam 2005b, p3) Moreover, fidelity can comfort the mind of humankind, fulfil their demand of security and immorality by convincing them that the great work of literature will still be remembered in the future, and more broadly by the new media. (Kranz and Mellerski, p2) However, there are some questions lied on video games' adaptation. One embarrassment truth is some successful films which based on the video games, including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Resident Evil (2002) had been rewritten, thus they have totally new and different plots comparing to the source. Thus, there is no author for a video game and its adaptation. Besides, the original texts just provide the protagonists and background stories for the film. Therefore, it is hard to reach agreement on fidelity. Are the genre of games, familiar symbols, monstrous bosses or the appearance of the characters remind the audiences of certain video games?
In addition, compare to the adaptation of canonical literatures who have a history for more than one century, the relationship between the film and video game may be more complex. Actually, video game and contemporary commercial cinema which highly relies on digital effects, root in the same technological field, namely computer graphics. Technologically, these two mediums related closely to each other. For instance, the game Avatar shared the same 3D technology with Cameron's the same name film. (Williamson 2009) Furthermore, they even have the common ground on the aesthetics. The pursue of virtual reality in video games can be thought as the sequel of 'the myth of total cinema', because they all have the same object of providing the complete illusion of reality. (Bazin 1967, p.235) Moreover, financially, the video games for film blockbusters do not only mean more profits, but also imply that there is an overlap in their consumer. On the other hand, while there are more and more games on the screen, the Call of Duty series also trying to provide some cinematic feeling. (Jenkins 2011) Moreover, it is common to use the cut scene in video games to demonstrate the story. (Glassner 2004, p. 285) Their relationship is interactive.
Darren Aronofsky's truly serious film The Wrestler (2008) can be a potent metaphor for the relationship between games and films. There is a scene that the out of fashion wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson plays a vintage NES wrestling game with the neighbour kid Adam. But this game is not attractive for Adam anymore, while they are playing, Adam keeps persuading Ram switch from this antiquated game to Call of Duty 4. Through the discussion about video games which belong to two decades respectively, this scene exquisitely implied the doom and gloom of the wrestler and this entertainment. Ironically, the long take of following shot from the back of "The Ram" on the steadycam is similar with the view of a third person perspective video game. Moreover, surprisingly the NES game Wrestler Jam is totally fictional, it was developed particularly for the shooting of this film. (McWhertor 2009) When McLuhan highlights "the medium is the message"(2001, p.7), he had such an argument:
'The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as "content. “The content of a movie is a novel or a play or an opera.'(2001, p.19)
Actually, the content of a movie can be a game as well. From the point of view of literary and cultural study, there is a similar discussion:
 
The systems, codes and traditions of other art forms and of culture in general are also crucial to the meaning of a work of literature. Texts, whether they be literary or non-literary, are viewed by modern theorists as lacking in any kind of independent meaning. They are what theorists now call intertextual. ... Meaning becomes something which exists between a text and all the other texts to which it refers and relates, moving out from the independent text into a network of textual relations. The text becomes the intertext.(Allen 2000, p.1)
In Kristeva's essay 'The Bounded Text', she argues that authors derive mind from existent text, it is inseparable for text from the larger culture textuality, a text is ‘a permutation of texts, an intertextuality in the space of a given text’ (Allen 2000 cited Kristeva 1980, p36)Directly based on Bakhtin's dialogism theory, the term 'intertextual' was defined as 'any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.' by her.(1986, p.37) She believes that the intertextual texts oppose any unity of meaning and against any authoritative definition. They constitutes 'a plurality of meanings' and presents 'the constant change of meaning emerging in society'.(Vargova 2007)
From a structuralist view, Gérard Genette proposed the term 'transtextuality', mainly his version of intertextuality with a wider horizon, means 'all that which puts one text in relation, whether manifest or secret, with other texts'. (Stam 2005b cited Genette 1982) He then clarifies this term into five more specific categories, thereinto, 'paratextuality' is the elements which are on the threshold of text and had the ability to help affect the reader's reaction, such as covers and titles; 'hypertextuality' involves two kinds of texts, 'hypertext' is posterior to 'hypotext', the former one can transform, reduce and amplify the pre-existed text; 'architextuality' refers to the reception responses of readers may be directed to some certain genres and conventions. (Allen 2000, p.102~p.107)
However, although their arguments all concentrated on the literary text, there are always many scholars welcome the extend of availability of the term 'intertextual'. Allen argues that the term is not been restricted to the writing arts. (2000, p.174) It is possible to speak of there is a system of language in the visual arts, as long as it involve complex patterns of signs, as the semiotics is the study of 'the life of signs within the society'. (Saussure, 1974, 16) Thus, they related to each other.
In fact, in the contemporary world, the World Wide Web and the hypertext can be seen as the ultimate method of intertextual. While Moulthrop worried about the disappearance of pre-hypertextual literary culture (1993), he did not successfully predict that the development in technology will enable the hypertextual space not only explosion in texts, but also full of musics, videos and pictures. Hypertextuality, coincidently the same term as Genette's, is ‘a fundamentally intertextual’ phenomenon (Landow 1992, p.10) and a more broad network of relations between all forms of texts, they link each other closely by a single click. It allows users to explore intertextual connections from what appears to be a main text. (Allen 2000, p.202) As Landow states, ‘hypertext embodies many of the ideas and attitudes proposed by Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, and others’ (1992, p.72–3).
Anyway, after inspecting these theories, we still have practical questions to answer. Namely, in the filmic texts how far is the intertextual or even hypertextual relationship between video game and film affect the narration in the cinema?
Scott Pilgrim VS. The World(2010): A Hypertextual Film
Obviously, not all the films which were intensively influenced by video game, can constitute an unusually extensive hypertextual text. As McLuhan believes:
'The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception. '(2001, p.19)
 
Compare to the gloomy and scary original game, essentially the film Resident of Evil is a new text. To some extent, they just share the same background. The plot in the film is totally different with the series of the game, even the leading protagonist Alice is specially designed for the film.
Actually, this film is still based on the genre filmmaking. It has closer intertextual relations with the prior low budget horror films. Russell states the argument that 'it made Romero's zombies into A-list stars.'(2005, p.171) Apart from the zombie films, it also looked like a hybrid of genres, including science fiction and action-film. Firstly, the fear of artificial intelligence has a long history in the cinema, the computer who killed all the staff in the hive probably can be seen as the modern version of HAL in the 2001: Space Odyssey (1968). Moreover, owing to Matrix (1999), the antigravity and slow motion martial arts fighting scene become so popular, thus Alice becomes the female Neo. Last but not least, the final battle with the monster happened in the close and fast moving train, easily evokes audience's memory about the similar scene in the Alien (1979).
More importantly, the structure of the film is still a traditional hero's journey ( Vogler 2007, p.8), or actually heroine's with some modern variations, including more crisis and climaxes. In addition, a fake return to equilibrium and an open ending in order to make the audience expect the sequel. Since the structure is necessary to a 'good poem’ (Aristotle 2000, p4), therefore, it is not a seemly one, in term of presenting its original medium- the electrical game.
However, Scott Pilgrim VS. The World(2010) states a different scene. The audiovisual style of this film extensively connected to other forms of arts, including video game, indie comic, underground music and music video. Viewing this film is like a travel through pop cultures, as Miller states:
It is kept coherent by a brilliantly realised governing conceit: life as seen by a young man raised on videogames and comic books, conversant in txt spk and emoticons. (2010)
Most of the critics appear to be aware of its originality and its close relationship with the comic books (Ferguson 2010; Lovece 2010; Miller 2010; MINTON 2010), but many of them failed to point out that both visually and narratively, the video game plays a critical part. It not only provided a visual style full of symbols directly come from games, but also change the structure of plot by introducing the narrative method which is common in games. Although this film is not a video game adaptation, it already has been praised as a video game movie. (O'Hara 2010)
The origin of the story
From the very first moment, the background of the story is complex enough. Because both of the original author and filmic adapter have intimate experience among many aspects of the pop culture, this story becomes an immensely hypertextual one.
The film is an adaptation from a series of graphic novel which created by Bryan Lee O'Malley, mainly based upon the conflating of video game and his real life in Toronto. He was majored in film study before he dropped out and himself is a musician play for a band as well. (Medley 2010) Interestingly, the name 'Scott Pilgrim’ comes from a song by his favourite band 'Plumtree', (Perpetua 2006) whose name is intentionally on Scott's T-shirt in the film. Besides, the first volume of the series published in 2004, and only four months later, the director and co-writer Edgar Wright, who is famous by the anti-genre cult comedy Shaun the Dead and Hot Fuzz, had begun to work on this project. (Perpetua 2006)
The story can be concluded in one sentence: in order to date Ramona, Scott must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends. Compare to the film, the visual style of the comic is extremely simple. It was highly influenced by japanese manga, nonetheless, the original text still relied on the video game as well. O'Malley suggests that the fight scenes in the comic is rock-and-roll-meets-Nintendo. (McElhatton 2004)
As for the film, all six volumes of graphic novel have been put in one instalment. In other words, Scott must fight with seven villains in 112 minutes. With the help of exciting visual style which full of fast cuts, comic like split screens and icons come from video game, the rhythm of the film is much more intensified, which make it more like an arcade game.
Narrative Structure of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World
Based on his study on russian formalists, Bordwell suggests that there is a distinction between what is actually happening on the screen and what is just be represented. (1985, p.48) What is remained off the screen that need the imagination of the audience to find is the fabula, which is a term defined by formalists, can also be translated as story. He argues:
'the fabula embodies the action as a chronological, cause-and-effect chain of events occurring within a given duration and a spatial field'.(1985, p.49)
The actual representation of the story is the syuzhet, usually translated as plot. It is the arrangement of the story events and states of affairs.(1985, p.50)Through analysing how the syuzhet(plot) represents the fabula(story), we can find how they influence causality and time. (Bordwell 2008 ,P77)
Bordwell suggests it is useful to begin with dividing a film into sequences because they constitute the plot. (2008, p.97) From a brief segmentation of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World, we can find the patterns of development and how it has been changed by video game.
 
Figure1. A brief plot segmentation of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World
From this segmentation, it is clear that although the fabula (story) is occasionally extended to their life in high school, the syuzhet (plot) covered all the essential details. Besides, it is significant to clarify the time, as it is the dimension of story-event. (Seymour 1980, p.96) Generally, in this film they are in the same temporal order, which indicates that the plot just follows the story's chronological order. Thus, apart from the truth that Gideon is the organiser of this league of evil exes, most of the causes have been presented before the effects. Although they seem irrational, the causality of this film is evident. Therefore, for the audience, it is easy to understand the chain of events in this film, which is in cause-effect relationship and occurring in the chronological order, (Bordwell 2008, p.75) it is mainly a linear narrative.
Patterns of Development
The plot of this film also indicates there are two patterns of development in this story. The first is the progression of the relationship between Scott and Ramona, the other is the battles with the league of evil exes. The latter one primarily restricts the information on the fights, inside these scenes the plot about their relationship always be suspended. Furthermore, only between every battle, the blocks of sequences advance the story continually. According to Figure 1, they interlaced with each other, and both of them rise to the climax in the final fighting.
Actually, the plot about the romantic relationship between Scott and Ramona can be seen as a common and traditional goal-oriented plot, as Bordwell states: ‘in which a character takes steps to achieve a desired object or state of affairs.’(2008, p.86) In addition, this pattern also belongs to the tradition of classic literature which can be traced back to Aristotle (See Figure 2). In order to become the boyfriend of Ramona, not only he has to defeat her seven evil exes, but also he has to know her, date her, get familiar with her, overcome their quarrel, express his love and ultimately save her from Gideon. Namely, there are conflicts between them.
 
Figure2. A classic literary plot diagram (Davidson 2008)
However, inside the scenes about the battles, the plot has little to do with their relationship. Almost every breakthrough in their relationship happens after a battle. The flow of story information about their love has been intervened and separated by the fights. Functionally, the enemies in the battles play the same role with the bosses in video games. In order to move to the next stage of the story, characters must defeat the bosses. Consider the film is mainly a linear narrative, it is reasonable that the linear game structure, which was based on the traditional game with a system of levels positioned sequentially (Lp, 2001), also functions here (See Figure 3).
 
Figure 3. Linear Game Structure.(Lp, 2001)
Meanwhile, narratively, the battles follow a repetitive pattern, which helps to keep the coherence of the fights. In every fight, Scott was firstly put into a disadvantaged position, and then he would use his intelligence, his courage or his friends' help to win the battle.
This technique can be seen frequently in the Hong Kong martial arts films as well.(Bordwell 2011, p.124)
According to Shatz, social function links to the structure of the story. (1983, p.9). Campbell also points out that all the structures presents the universal power which they rise out, they existent and they dissolve into.(2004, p239) Apparently, the film rises from the era of video game and it is a representation of it. From these two figures, we can find the structure of this film comprises both of film and video game narrative. To save Ramona completely from Gideon, Scott must defeat him in the final battle. Gideon is the ultimate boss, as well as the traditional villain. Defeating him is the final resolution for both of the film and game. Thus, the two patterns of development encounter in the climax.
Noticeably, this mix of narrative patterns dose not means it is another repeat of canonical climax. Although the resurrection is a common part in mythos(Campbell 2004, lii), the one extra life that Scott acquired after he defeated the twins, enables video game still plays the most critical part in the climax. Ironically, this extra life did not come from god or any other super-nature powers; he earned it by defeating his enemy.
In fact, this video game concept, which imagines characters have more than one life or can explore more than one branch of choice, has more profound affects on cinema. It origins in the non-linear and branching game structure. As Lp claims that branching structure 'represent a significant contribution to interactive storytelling by enhancing players’ opportunity to influence the pace of in-game events and offering the ability to alter the order in which certain events may be triggered.' (2001) Similarly, as for film, the non-linear structure also allows audiences to experience different angles of the story. (Hausenblas 2008) From Groundhog Day(1993) and Run Lola Run(1998) to the latest Source Code(2011), they all can be seen as the byproduct of this structure. These films all have a repeat plot which was restricted in a limited time. Only after the protagonists find the right branch, the stories move on to a resolution. In addition, If we trace back further, we can find in It is a Wonderful Life(1946), Frank Copra also provided an alternative branch of plot. Angel Clarence presents a world without Bailey to persuade him to give up the decision of suicide. In this case, this plot shows the almightiness and mercy of god, as well as the vital of every individual. However, in contemporary cinema, this kind of opportunities of branching is either created by technology, or simply lack a reasonable explanation, which indicates they come from void.
Besides, there is also a parallelism inside the structure of this film. After Scott defeats Gideon, the negative Scott has appeared. Correspondingly, this plot has performed once in the arcade game Scott and Knives played before. The repetition of this structure helps to link the film and game more closely. Moreover, the variations between this two scene also implies Scott has grown up. When facing the same situation, Scott has taken different actions. In the video game he simply give up the battle, but in reality, he stands out to face his evil side and finally accept it.
Cinematic Techniques
The narrative structure can not constructs a hypertextual film independently, the audiovisual style maybe a more evident factor. Actually, the stylistic system of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World also heavily relies on video game and comic and they extensively contribute to narrative. As Bordwell points out: 'All film techniques...function narratively, constructing the story world for specific effects.'(1985, p12)
The influences of video game mainly concentrate in battle scenes, including both of the band battles and martial fights. Firstly, the scenes of band battles can be seen as a combination of music video and Guitar Hero. The highlights and the monsters which come from their instruments drastically enhance the effects of music. Moreover, before most of the fights, the composition, which puts two opposite characters in either side of the screen and lets them facing each other, is also a simulation of video game, like Street Fighter and King of Fighter. Last but not least, the symbols that are frequently used, including 'VS' and 'KO', are typical graphics that video games always involved.
In addition, the editing in this film has a distinctive feature as well. In some scenes, the editors managed to keep the cut in continuity visually and logically, while jumping forward in time and space. Frequently, this effect was accomplished by "wipe-by" cut, which means edit when the audience's view is masked by moving people or traffic. (Bordwell 2002) However, sometimes they just cut directly. For instance, after Scott firstly met Ramona in the library, when he was in a daze, he was shouted by Stephen then the scene jump cuts to their rehearsal. This editing device is extraordinarily creative in linking scenes which belong to different time and space. It is like a hyperlink which enable users to jump between different web pages while keeping their perception continually.
Besides, under the effects of the original comic book, there is a great deal of split screens in the film. Unlike traditional mutiple-frame imagery which were typically divided by a rectangular frame in other films, there is the diagonal frame help to separate the picture. This technique is often seen in the japanese manga before. In general, the split screen functions narratively, it can help to provide a 'godlike omniscience' by presenting different actions simultaneously (Bordwell 2008, p187). However, in this film, sometimes the multiple-frame imagery presents different framings of the same action. In other words, it puts two juxtaposition shots in one imagery. As a result, it works similarly with the editing, intensively enhance the tension in single shots.
In conclusion, from the argument above, it is clear that in terms of narrative and visual style, Scott Pilgrim VS. The World has been driven by the technology of video game and the culture of comic. In other words, it relates extensively to other texts and mediums, this feature helps this film become a highly hypertextual text.
However, it is still doubtful whether this narrative will be adopted broadly in other films and conventionalised in the genre filmmaking. As Shatz describes the main attractiveness and the social-cultural function of cinema is:
'under the guise of escapist diversion from everyday life, the movies actually helped the public define and make sense of its rapidly evolving social reality. Film stories, so often structured with the elemental simplicity of folk tales, fed on the conflicts and contradictions basic to American life’ (1983, p1).
Although to some extent, this film can be seen as a romantic story in contemporary society, its effect of reaffirming culture values and its function of comforting audience is still more limited than traditional stories. As Heidegger states, death ‘rather gives information about the “life” of ‘the dying person” than about dying itself’, (1996, p.230) when the death has been deconstructed by unlimited extra life, then the meaning and the authenticity of existent will be perished. In addition, it is perilous that hypertextual texts might descend to purely pastiche, which defined by Jameson as 'the imitation of dead styles, speech through all the masks and voices stored up in the imaginary museum of a now global culture.'(1991, p.18)
Notwithstanding these doubts, the creativity in the narrative structure and in the visual style of Scott Pilgrim is still immensely remarkable. It is no doubt that to some extent, the video game structure will be repeated in the future films, as well as many of these cinematic techniques.
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