Max Borg
Kevin Smith famously loves Star Wars, to the point of referencing the franchise on multiple occasions throughout his filmography (my favorite? The rant about the original trilogy’s racial politics at the beginning of Chasing Amy). Born in 1970, he was the right age to fall head over heels in love with George Lucas’ creation, like a lot of his contemporaries who went on to become filmmakers. He’s also defended the much maligned prequel trilogy (when stating his 2005 preferences in the now defunct British magazine Total Film, he said of Revenge of the Sith, “F— you, I dug it!”), which came into play when he revived his View Asknewniverse – previously thought to have ended with 2001’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back – for Clerks II.
In between the two films, two major events had occurred: Star Wars had concluded its second trilogy, and The Lord of the Rings had rapidly dethroned it as the geek-friendly epic of those years. Hence a scene in Smith’s film, inspired by the director’s stand-up routines on the subject, where the two fandoms trade insults: young Mooby’s employee Elias (Trevor Fehrman) starts quoting the inscription on the One Ring (something he does on a regular basis), when a customer (Kevin Weisman) joins in. This prompts Elias’ colleague, the older and jaded Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) to initiate a rant about there being only one Return (“And it ain’t of the King. It’s of the Jedi!”).
What follows is largely a spat between Randal and the Tolkien-obsessed customer, ironically portrayed by an actor who had previously recited lines in the Ewok language in an episode of Alias (created by future The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams). Randall, who would have made a terrific writer for the Honest Trailers comedy series in the real world, dismissively sums up the entire Rings trilogy as people walking. His opponent goes for similarly cheap shots, referring to Hayden Christensen as Mannequin Skywalker. And so on and so forth, until Randal goes too far, as he usually does, and causes the other guy to puke his guts out by graphically imagining a scatological sexual encounter between Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee.
Such conversations were not an unusual occurrence if one was familiar with certain corners of the Internet, like the IMDb message boards (discontinued in 2017 because the excessive trolling and lack of effective policing of toxic comments made them untenable). With the advent of social media, they became more widespread, effectively dominating pop culture discourse and getting even more vitriolic (just try mentioning you’re a fan of Zack Snyder and/or James Gunn). The nerd atmosphere is so polluted, Simon Pegg – who 25 years ago devoted a large chunk of an episode of his sitcom Spaced to how much he loathed The Phantom Menace – found himself compelled to call out the nastier side of fandom after he joined multiple franchises (Star Wars and Star Trek most notably). And, of course, the plot of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back kicks in when the two stoners discover the existence of the Internet and read negative comments about themselves and their upcoming Hollywood alter egos.
Smith himself has been the target of some unconscionable behavior, with disgruntled He-Man fans, usually male, going after him online after the Netflix animated series Masters of the Universe: Revelation, on which the Clerks creator served as a major artistic force, sidelined the muscular protagonist in its early episodes. Fortunately, that hasn’t deterred him from continuing to develop new projects, perhaps because he was once like the people insulting him behind a screen and knows that world all too well.
Which leads us back to Clerks II, a foul-mouthed but heartfelt depiction of nerd passions taken to the extreme. It’s a cheerfully vulgar piece of work that comes from a place of love, produced with such a small budget Smith assumed another frequently discussed scene – the one with the “donkey show” – would be cause for concern when the time came to give the film an age rating (that wasn’t the case, as the movie received an R right away). And this in the wake of Jersey Girl which, as recounted in Kirby Dick’s documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, initially failed to achieve a PG-13 because at least one of the concerned people didn’t want their teenage daughter to watch the scene where Liv Tyler – Arwen in The Lord of the Rings – talks about masturbation in candid but fairly tame terms. Perhaps that added fuel to the fire of Smith’s animosity towards Peter Jackson’s trilogy?
Twenty years later, that scene remains relevant for two reasons. First, it captures the sense of fan entitlement that has poisoned the online community with frightening accuracy, although it is considerably milder than most things one can find on social media – presumably because, unlike the people who rely on rage for clicks, Smith’s tirades came from a place of love. And it sort of signaled, six years before Disney tried to reverse course and acquired Lucasfilm with mixed results, that maybe audiences were ready to move on from Star Wars after all. Of course, it’s not like The Lord of the Rings is faring much better these days, also feeling like a remnant from a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…
“Clerks II” is streaming on Tubi, Kanopy, and Hoopla, and is available for digital rental or purchase.
