The Fan-Favorite Director Who Loves Star Wars But Never Got A Shot

What might be less known is how Star Wars has reciprocated Kevin Smith’s love over the years. From getting married at Skywalker Ranch to inspiring Finn’s Stormtrooper assignment in The Force Awakens, Smith’s love of Star Wars has occasionally risen above simple fandom. As with everything related to the Silent Bob actor, it all starts with Clerks.

The raunchy, black and white, independent film made for a paltry $27,000 featured a lengthy Star Wars diatribe penned by Kevin Smith for his two leads to recite. The scene is two best friends questioning the morality of the Rebels destroying the second Death Star mid-construction. The premise put forth by one of the friends is that the battle station would have housed several independent contractors like plumbers and carpenters when it exploded.

“You think the average stormtrooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.” says one of the friends, illustrating just how much outside help the imperials would need to construct the Death Star.

At the time of Clerks‘ 1994 release, Smith had no reason to believe that George Lucas would ever see his hyper-vulgar, micro-budget comedy, let alone like it, but that’s exactly what happened. Smith has on occasion recounted a story about Ben Affleck once running into Lucas and asking him if he’d seen Clerks, to which the Star Wars creator answered affirmatively and even confessed he found the film funny. While that could have just been Lucas being polite, the director later referenced Clerks during his commentary for Attack of the Clones.

“They’re sort of construction workers,” Lucas said, discussing the race of intelligent insectoids known as the Geonosians. “They’re the ones that would be contracted to build the Death Star. They were the ones Jay and Silent Bob worried that they got killed on the Death Star, but they are, after all, just a bunch of large termites.” Glossing over the fact that Lucas thinks bug lives don’t matter, the fact that the creator of the biggest sci-fi franchise ever created considered a tiny movie like Clerks when making one of his blockbusters must make Kevin Smith proud.

Especially since Lucas could have instead held a grudge against the guy for illegally getting married on his property. Since Star Wars is such a big part of Kevin Smith’s life, when mixing the sound for 1999’s Dogma at Skywalker Ranch, he decided to marry his fiance there—without getting permission. Smith snuck a priest and his best friend, producer Scott Mosier, onto the property and secretly held the ceremony.

Smith has since hinted that Lucas found out and was cool with it.

Star Wars took a more prominent role in Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Both with the title, which not only resembles The Empire Strikes Back but uses the same font and the casting of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher in cameos. Mark Hamill’s villainous Cock Knocker even wields a lightsaber-like weapon. Though being a Kevin Smith film, the blade comes out of a sex toy rather than the usual metal cylinder.

Star Wars itself finally returned the love with Disney’s sequel trilogy. Not only did director J.J. Abrams allow the lifelong fan to provide “additional voices” for The Force Awakens, but he also made Finn’s Stormtrooper detail sanitation in a playful nod to Clerks‘ claiming that the soldiers didn’t know anything about doing mundane tasks. On top of that, J.J. made his friend’s Star Wars dreams come true by giving Kevin Smith a background cameo in The Rise of Skywalker.

Despite the hold that Star Wars has over Kevin Smith’s imagination, the director has stated firmly that he would never want to direct one of the films himself. Going near a Marvel or a Star Wars would make me insanely reticent.” said Smith. The director also pointed out that “a billion people” want to make Star Wars movies, but only Kevin Smith is making “Kevin Smith movies.”

While he may never helm a Star Wars project, it’s just cool that Kevin Smith has gotten to be involved with his favorite franchise in any capacity. Smith has proven time and time again that he’s one of us—a comic and sci-fi geek who just happened to get lucky enough to meet his heroes. As a fan, Kevin Smith is living the dream for all fans everywhere.