The man, the myth, the legend behind such cult classics like Clerks I & II, Mall Rats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Dogma, and Chasing Amy — among many, many other — is putting his money where his mouth is, and is wagering $10,000 that there will in fact be new footage shown at this evening’s Star Wars Panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
Now, I usually take statements like this and laughingly toss them by the wayside, especially since a source for Entertainment Weekly (someone in the know at Lucasfilm), that there would be no new Star Wars: The Force Awakens footage shown at this year’s SDCC. But Kevin Smith is not your average Hollywood Director/Producer/Actor…he’s a fan first. LA Times reported Mr. Smith’s challenge, and even had some insight into just how much of a Star Wars fan Kevin Smith is.
While Smith disregards the claim that there will be no new The Force Awakens footage shown at SDCC, calling it “Shenanigans,” he did go into some detail about J.J. Abrams inviting him to the set, and how stepping onto the Millennium Falcon brought him to tears.
"“The moment I stepped on the Millennium Falcon 10 years dropped off my life. Suddenly I was in my 30s, and I hadn’t done ‘Cop Out,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, this is awesome.’ And then another 10 years dropped off, and I was in my 20s making all those movies people like, referencing ‘Star Wars’ like crazy and stuff. And then another step up the ramp, and I was in my 10s and lower, when I fell in love with this stuff, when it was my religion, when I was a kid. Long before I made movies. I was a Catholic school kid; this mattered more than Jesus. They get mad when you say it; probably more so true now than when I was a kid. So by that third step, that fourth step up the landing ramp, I got so emotional. Suddenly I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is my whole life before I had a life.’ When I was a child, this sparked my love affair with movies. Just ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Jaws.’ I just start crying…”"
The man cried tears of nostalgic joy and had a moment of childhood feels that moved him so emotionally, there was only one correct response…crying. Kevin Smith is a man after my own heart.
There are also some very cool callbacks to the original Falcon set from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Smith talks about the the chess set aboard the Millennium Falcon (Dejarik), and how his guide aboard the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy pointed out that the seat belts that C-3PO uses are replicas of the same ones from the original movie.
In the film, once there is some rocky turbulence, the characters at the Dejarik table begin to strap in with these futuristic seat belts. Well apparently they were normal seat belts wrapped in bubble wrap…1977 knew how to do it right. Anyway, Smith’s guide (Morgan), pointed out that the seat belts on this new Falcon were also wrapped in bubble wrap, which of course Kevin Smith couldn’t resist touching and popping one of the bubbles…I love Kevin Smith.
So now the waiting begins. The Star Wars Panel in Hall H won’t begin until this evening at 5:30pm PDT, which means if you are on the East Coast you will be watching for news of the Panel at 8:30pm or if you live in the Central Time Zone like I do, you will be watching your computer with bated breath at 7:30pm. At this time, the word is that the event will NOT be live-streamed, but there will be plenty of fans in attendance who plan on using Twitter’s Periscope feature, and of course we here at Dork Side of the Force will be keeping a Live Blog — updating every few minutes or so — with any and all new information coming from the Panel.
And…if we do get new footage, you can bet Dork Side of the Force will have that video up as quick as possible, so stay tuned Star Wars fans, it’s going to be fun ride!
Next: Here's all you need to know about Star Wars at San Diego Comic-Con 2015