THE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT VOLUME 5

I alluded to this the other day. There was an early draft of volume 5, Scott Pilgrim Vs The Universe, that was very different. It had the same basic structure but it revolved around the fictional “Toronto International Battle of the Bands” — which, obviously, ended up being used as part of the structure for the movie.

Which means, yes, I made up the battle of the bands stuff, I just didn’t use it in the book in the end. There was a two-stage setup — amp vs amp and all that. It would have been really really really hard to draw all this stuff.

Skimming over the old script now, it just tonally didn’t feel right, and I think that’s because at this point (late 2007 through mid 2008) I was spending a lot of time working with Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall on the movie, looking at casting tapes, etc. My original ‘voice’ for Scott & friends kind of got submerged for a minute and it took me several drafts to find it again.

So anyway, the plot of it was that Sex Bob-omb got signed up for the battle of the bands without their knowledge, and it was an obvious trap set by the Katayanagi Twins. The twins are musicians in this version, and also they wear Super Sentai-style masks when they perform, like Daft Punk or something. Sex Bob-omb goes in to the tournament completely unprepared, and they’re terrible, but they keep winning every round anyway (because it’s all a sham). All the other bands in Toronto start hating them.

The rest of the story was pretty much the same — the book was always about the band kinda falling apart and about Scott and Ramona kinda falling apart. It was just a lot bigger and sillier. There was a LOT going on and it would have been really hard to draw and I felt the need to simplify, so it turned into what you all know as volume 5.

Anyway, here are some unused excerpts I thought were amusing!