The Gaps

So you've given it a go, and by now you realize some things really aren't adding up.  Just want everyone to know that I'm not trying to stall for too long.  It's just that Wright really did pull a number on this one and I think really hard about the way to go about revealing things.  I've got a life too, so.  Try not to worry, there's a reason for everything... even if it's a twisted one.

The first thing you should know, is that this monstrosity is probably going to frustrate the crap out of you.  You want to see it work but you reach a point where things just fall apart.  The answer my friends is not one that's going to make you happy, but does add a little adventure to it all.  That's the reason why I'm breaking this up into pieces.

It's hard to make sense of an artist's taste absurdly combined with a major broken arm, but there's a reason why no one has found this out and that is because of two things, one is THE GAPS.  If you have an actual CD, stick it in your computer, and play it on your Winamp, you're going to listen to the program's predefined rules of playback.  Typically this means it's going to ignore the gaps in between tracks.  What's a gap?  It's just a space of time, usually a few seconds, that fills in between the tracks.  It carries no track number, even though it CAN be used to play sound.  Generally it is a manufacturing trick after the mastering process of the album itself, helping define parameters between songs they don't want to "start too early".  

At least that's the best explanation I can come up with.  There's not a whole lot of info on the web about why they're even there, but you will find that on a lot of major label album CDs, they're there.  When you play an original CD in nothing but a standard CD player, it will recognize the gap and begin the next track with i.e. -03, -02, -01, 00.  CD-ROMs will as a basic player I believe, but a media program will ignore them.

What does this mean for S.P.vs.S.P. (Scott Pilgrim VS Smashing Pumpkins as I like to call it)? Well, you have to know that Edgar, in all of his master planning, seems to have included these gaps.

You know what that means?  In case you've tried to start out the movie already, and been somewhat successful playing your MP3s, AS SOON AS YOU GET TO ZERO, IT IS NO LONGER IN SYNC.

Because between track 3 and track 4 there is a gap on the CD.  And while it may appear to keep going, you will be missing the major changes happening together.  If you follow the instructions to the tee on the post titled "Zero", you will see, and hear, the way it should actually sync with the movie.

Now that you know this, just imagine what kind of bloop this has to be with the second reason that has destroyed the tangibility of a fan's reconstruction of this hidden gem... the last big screw to turn, and a subject for a later date ...the secret of the track switch.

You Weren't Supposed to Know

This piece of work seems to me to be a unique blend of alienated attractions.  On the one hand, the film is going to be mostly enjoyed by a younger generation than the Smashing Pumpkins fans who, like me, have a dated coming-of-age story of our own.  That's why it took me a couple of years before I even watched the movie.  I haven't the attention span, nor the type of friends keeping me well informed of the pop culture going on.  These differences in taste and generations, no doubt, will leave a rift flowing between the uninformed and any phenomena to to be experienced.

Even Pumpkins fans have moved on to a certain degree.  It's a given, no matter how great an album is, it's easy to wear it out, and I wouldn't expect anyone to be looking for this to suddenly rise out of the moist graves of the 90's because of a trippy flick characterized as a live video game.  The movie is a blindside any associating fan base of the Pumpkins.  Although I find it interesting that just after finding out this hidden movie game, there has been a certain revival of their "exclamation mark" alt-rock juggernaut.

I don't know if this means there will be a new upsurge for the pumpkins, but Wright's experiment definitely adds some interesting new flavor to the pallet.  Watching a reenactment of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is fucking crazy.  The way the director associates the visual with the audio is so esoteric at times, you feel like the emotions are forming words in a language of impulse.  I have trouble differentiating the two from each other now.  When I hear a MCIS song, I think of Scott Pilgrim fighting for his life.

Edgar has managed to make a story out of the album, that's the bottom line.  He immortally disguised this film triumph however, and its a wonder that it even exists.  It's simplified organization, jutting up against a cocky decisive move, creating an inflexible code for a feature that has a strange breadth of land to cover.

You see kids, dear Edgar picked a big twist of track... did I say track? I mean fate... to chunk his melodrama into.  It's a cypher wrapped up in an enigma, and considering which accidental circumstances that must crop up to be able to detect such hidden treasures... well, that's to be debated.  In this case, it has to do with a screwed up meta-tag because, yes, I downloaded the album because, yes, I already bought it five times probably.

You're not gonna believe this, but Scott feels like a RAT IN A CAGE
You can play Bullet With Butterfly Wings to this video and see for yourself

I cut this clip EXACTLY 8 seconds before where the 00:00 mark of the song should be.
In other words, when the video hits 0:08, that's the time to play the song.
I would do it for you myself, but EMI doesn't like it when you upload their copyrighted stuff.

Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic

Take a look at this...

Why does it seem as though these titles are all getting switched up?
Which came first, the chicken or the Easter bunny?

Perhaps the first clue goes back to before the movie was made...
The comic, from which the film was based, features a title that alludes to another familiar title.  Turns out, Bryan Lee O'Malley's "coming of age" comic series, has Smashing Pumpkins references all over the place. That's because he was heavily influenced by them growing up.  Here's a helpful review with the author: http://www.fluxblog.org/2010/08/interview-with-scott-pilgrim-creator-bryan-lee-omalley/

In it he mentions briefly his influence by the band, as well as other life situations gathered around him at the time of writing his epic SP story.  He also talks about Edgar Wright getting a hold of it and beginning the brainstorming process that would eventually become his famous title.  This has no real relationship with what I'm going to tell you though.  It says nothing about the gigantic cock-up Edgar Wright was really dreaming about.

HAVE YOU SEEN SCOTT'S SHIRT?

That heart shaped SP doesn't stand for Scott Pilgrim, in case you didn't know.  That is one of the first logos for The Smashing Pumpkins if not THE logo.  Was it just intended to be a pun for Pilgrim's initials?  Or because of some wacky connect-the-dots symbolism Wright decided to throw in? 

I don't know about anyone else, but there's a cliff hanger here to me, a drop off, a silence hushed over with a finger neatly pressed against it's lips.  But then perhaps that's because I know something you don't.  If Edgar wanted to put parallels between his film and the original, then why leave it empty?  The problem is that there is discontinuity in referencing a reference from a comic book when there's a lack of content in the film.. I mean...  HE'S JUST WEARING THE SHIRT!

Perhaps fans have taken this in stride for only being a hint of the idolization Scott carries for the Smashing Pumpkins.  Or maybe it's just the director's simple stylization after the comic itself.  Either way, it's vague.

What I'm trying to point out is that, to the viewer, Edgar's only playing with the idea behind the comic series.  So far the relationship with the Pumpkins is comical, and I do mean that as only having the comic series to support any notion about the band.  It's Bryan Lee O'Malley's love affair with the Pumpkins that's shining through, but only on TWO T-SHIRTS?

There's no context without the dialog as is featured in the printed series.  By all rights it appears to be a shoddy attempt to link the two works together.  It's almost as if it's a joke.  A weak one.  If you read any kind of source from the Smashing Pumpkins side of the fence, you might find that to a real fan of their music, this is a turn off.

In the movie, Scott doesn't really talk about his interests.  Apart from being goo-goo for Ramona, there's not a whole lot to go on as to why Scott's a Smashing Pumpkins fan, or anything else attributed to them for that matter.  After knowing how much time Edgar spend on the set directly with the actor's parts, creating very specific parameters for them to work in, it would seem that he would of put a lot more though into it. 

Why would the director so explicitly include such references as vague as the ZERO shirt?  Is it to compliment Bryan O'Malley's love of the Pumpkins?  Is it because Scott like's Coke Zero so much?  Does the movie not deserve to get the same transcendental love experienced by the comic author when he was first writing the series?

Could it be that there's more to it than it appears?

Edgar Wright and the Infinite Sadness

For some reason, Edgar Wright has intentionally hidden the meaning behind an obscure relevance between the star of the film, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World and The Smashing Pumpkins.  The relationship of the comic, which the film is based upon, and the Pumpkin's hit album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, has trickled into the foreground without detailing any secure intentions.  What those intentions were have remained somewhat of a mystery, and I am thus far the only person to my knowledge outside of "the know" who has figured it out.  Fans who have scavenged the film for the so-called Easter eggs Edgar repeatedly drops into his works have turned up only mild speculations.  This is a work in progress to reveal the true nature of Wright's take on O'Malley's tale of epicness.

It's been years, and although the hype has dissolved and interests have cooled, perhaps there is another scale to this supercharged, musical adventure.  One that just may bring the whole thing into another deeper, explosive and heart-driven manifestation that reveals a master-work far more worth the consideration than it's previous form.  The film itself is a remarkable piece of work, delving into an uncategorical genre and pulling off a unique view of a pre-to-post coming of age story.  But everything sought after to enjoy about this rouge film has been completely checked off, thus far, and all of the current reviews seem to be, at best, a weakly supported afterthought when it comes to any hidden languages appearing within the film.  What I want to do is start the fire on a major oversight that I believe the world has sadly accepted, so that this amazing discovery that I have been thrilled to uncover may finally make it's glorious début.

However, as hard as it was for me to believe that I was viewing solely by myself this phenomenon, it has been even harder still to piece together the combination of clues with the strange.  I discovered the reasons why this has escaped the public for so long; without fate playing a part, it would have never happened.  Because of the nature of the beast, there is no easy way to show anyone not personally nearby, so the best way that I can deliver the notion is by giving everyone the chance to pick it up for themselves.

Look at it this way, Edgar left a trail of egg shells for you to hunt, but he was more worried about the end result and so the pieces got half buried in the path.  I am simply going to point them out the best I can.  After getting such great satisfaction from discovering something of this magnitude myself, I'd hate to deprive anyone of the same opportunity anyway.