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The director was on Good Morning America to promote his new comedy special – Kevin Smith: Silent But Deadly – when he talked about going to visit the set of the new Star Wars movie, which meant signing his life away to Disney via a filing cabinet’s worth of NDAs. “They make you sign so many non-disclosure agreements that if I said anything, somebody would pop out with a lightsaber and cut my hand off,” he said.
But it was all worth it, because he got to see the scope of what Abrams was doing, and witnessed a performance from someone that got him very, very emotional.
“J.J.’s doing the lord’s work. This movie looks fantastic. It’s a year away, but man, it looks fantastic. I wept on set because I saw somebody give a career-best performance. Somebody I’ve seen in these movies before. I rolled a tear, it was so darn powerful. Biggest set I’ve ever seen in my life. The dude’s not directing a movie. It’s like he’s directing a small country.”
Smith continued, saying how he got to watch a few scenes filmed and heard some plot details – which he could not reveal lest he feels the cold grip of a Force choke. He gushed over getting to watch Abrams direct, saying he learned a thing or two in the process. That’s very good to hear because in there he also confirmed he would be starting production on the new Jay and Silent Bob movie at the start of the new year, echoing Jason Mewes' comments from last month.
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Smith is not one to shy away from his opinions about movies, especially ones in the nerd-sphere, like Star Wars, Marvel and DC movies. For example, he praised Jason Momoa’s costume in AQUAMAN, and though he hadn’t seen the movie he said it looked like “the truest comic book movie ever made.” While I don’t love his recent batch of movies, I do respect his thoughts as a fan and filmmaker, and it’s always exciting to hear his take on some big, new property, especially one like Star Wars. Hopefully, we will all pull a Smith and weep at the awe of EPISODE IX when it arrives December 2019.