Love Is A (Video) Game In 'Scott Pilgrim' Battles

Scott Pilgrim was a young man in Toronto dating a high school girl, playing in a garage band and drifting through the days with his slacker friends -- until Ramona Flowers Rollerbladed into his life. Before the two can skate off into the sunset, however, Scott must fight her Seven Evil Exes to the death.

That's the premise of a six-volume series of graphic novels and a new film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Bryan Lee O'Malley created the books drawing from his own life as a struggling comic artist and musician. Yet one other inspiration may be more obvious.

O'Malley spent his childhood playing video games. He tells NPR's Liane Hansen that years of playing Mortal Kombat-style games came in handy.

"I just had this feeling that, if I were to get into a fight, somehow I would have the ability to fight back, just based on playing Street Fighter for so many years of my life," O'Malley says. "It's almost like I actually learned martial arts."

In the graphic novels and the film, Scott Pilgrim battles hand-to-hand with Ramona's exes, who include a pair of twins, a vegan rock star and a skateboarding movie idol. The fight scenes -- what O'Malley calls "an insane wonderland of fighting and crazy magic" -- explode with video-game references (like the number of points Scott earns for landing a punch).

O'Malley chose video game-style fights as the vehicle for Scott's daunting battle for Ramona in order to show how melodramatic love can sometimes be.

"These physical fights are just, sort of, a literalization of these metaphorical, emotional things that we all go through in a relationship," O'Malley says. He adds that he's never had to physically fight for love.

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