Clerks: View Askewniverse of Madness

mollyurff
Sep 30, 2024
8 min read

I watched all of Kevin Smith's "View Askewniverse" in 2 days, I can safely say I've never had more fun with a project in my life. I have done us both the favor and highlighted every time I mention the best characters: Jay and Silent Bob. If you don't want spoilers for any of these films I would watch them first and then come back to this post. THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL OF KEVIN SMITH'S VIEW ASKEWNIVERSE.

CLERKS

Clerks is Kevin Smith's filmmaking debut. It's safe to say that he made a pretty good first impression on the industry. Clerks is a movie about a small group of 20-somethings who are still trying to figure out their lives. The focus of the film is mainly on:

Dante, a cashier who wasn't even supposed to be there today.

Randal, who works at the video store next door.

Jay and Silent Bob, are two drug dealers who stand outside and dance occasionally.

Dante gets all upset at one point because his girlfriend has slept with other people, and he slut shames her throughout a small part of the film. Randal is there to be the "fun version" of Dante, he is very loose with his morals and his language, while Dante always seems to be more tense and frustrated. They have a heart-to-heart about how Dante needs to "shit or get off the pot" by changing his outlook on his mediocre life. Dante feels like he's stuck behind the counter of the Quik-Stop, but Randal reminds him that he could leave at any time. At the end of the film, Randal yells at Dante because Dante makes his life seem so important when really he's just a guy working at a convenience store. Dante accepts this fact, and only then do he and Randal actually communicate, not as co-workers but as friends. In one of the original cuts of the film Dante is shot and dies at the end of the film, that is not the version I saw so I will not state my take on that.

This movie is a phenomenal look at making your life out to be more than it is. It's almost existential in the way that it takes something so mundane, like a convenience store, and makes it important to the main characters' personalities. Jay and Silent Bob wouldn't have sold drugs if it weren't for Quik-Stop, Randal wouldn't know Dante, and nothing in the entire film franchise would have happened. In summary, Clerks is a 10/10 movie and you should rewatch it right now.

MALLRATS

"Mallrats" is a very comfortable film, not in the way that it's lazy but in a way that makes you feel like you're drinking hot cocoa on a snowy winter day. "Mallrats" is about a group of 20-somethings who, instead of hanging out at a convenience store, hang out at a mall. We get introduced to another major character in the Askewniverse named Brodie. Brodie is what I will be focusing mainly on in this short entry. Brodie is a man obsessed with comic books, he is childish in nature but ultimately helps his friends when they need him. Stan Lee shows up in this movie, so that was really cool to see. I genuinely did enjoy this film I think the guy who couldn't see the boat was one of the best bits in all of Kevin Smith's films. We also learn that Silent Bob does have the force. This movie contains at least what I recognized as the first appearance of Ben Affleck in the Kevin Smith filmography. At the time of writing this, I did my binge-watch of all of these films three weeks ago, so sadly, I do not remember this one as well. I do know that this is a phenomenal movie and my second favorite of these films 9/10.

CHASING AMY

"Chasing Amy" is a terrible movie, plot-wise. My sources have told me that it's based on a true story that Kevin Smith experienced with the lead actress. The plot is as simple as this: A man convinces a woman she's not gay, they date, and then she realizes she's still gay. This film does, however, introduce two major characters: Holden and Banksy, two comic book geeks who run their own comic company. We also meet Alyssa, our resident female in this movie, whom Holden falls madly in love with despite her being gay. We do get more Jay and Silent Bob content; we find out that Holden and Banksy have been writing a comic called "Bluntman and Chronic" which uses the likeness of Jay and Silent Bob. In a meeting with Holden, they get to talking about Alyssa and Holden's problems, and Silent Bob in his one-line-a-movie fashion, brings up an ex-girlfriend he had named Amy and how "she was the girl that got away...and so I've spent my whole life Chasing Amy." This causes Holden to realize that maybe gay people are just gay, and you can't fix it. Overall this is the worst out of the franchise but I still love Kevin Smith so 3/10.

DOGMA

Hot take, Could not get through this one but heres what I think it ended up being about, through images:

JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK

Now, this was a phenomenal movie. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a bit biased. This movie contains fun, joy, and happiness. This movie is about the two best characters in the franchise, and they go on a wacky adventure because they find out they haven't been getting any royalties from the movie being made about "Bluntman and Chronic" So they go to Hollywood and see that Jason Biggs (American Pie) and James Van Der Beek (Dawsons Creek) are playing them. After they insult Jason Biggs for having sex with a pie in the movie American Pie, they knock them out and take their costumes, they then proceed to act in their own movie. Also, I forgot to mention that they had an orangutan with them throughout this process, they got it when they broke into a facility that tests on animals. Why did they do this? Because there were cute girls in a crime gang (called the CLIT) that told them to. Anyways the movie ends with Jay telling this girl that he met that he will wait for her to get out of prison (she was in the CLIT), and Jay and Silent Bob, and the orangutan walk off into the sunset. 100/10.

Some notable cameos in this film go as follows:

Wes Craven, Judd Nelson, Seann William Scott, Carrie Fisher, Jamie Kennedy

CLERKS II

I didn't like this one as much, guys, I won't lie. "Clerks II" is the second edition in the main "Clerks" trilogy. This time, we are in a new environment: Moobys (a discount McDonald's). We learn Dante is getting engaged to a woman with a lot of money but is having doubts because he's secretly in love with his boss, Becky. Randal is not pleased with this because he's uncomfortable with change, so he holds a weird bachelor party with a new character whom I HATE, Elias. The movie ends with Dante proposing to Becky in the drive-thru awwwww, he then reopens the Quik-Stop with his now-pregnant wife. I do like that at the end the final shot fades to black and white. 6.5/10.

IN OTHER NEWS: This has my favorite version of Jay and Silent Bob: We Found Jesus, but We Still Sell Drugs. They can be seen outside of Moobys selling drugs and spreading the word of Christ.

ZACK AND MIRI

"Zack and Miri make a porno" is the first Kevin Smith movie I ever saw, and I love it. I think it takes Kevin Smith's humor and puts it in a Hollywood-esque movie. "Zack and Miri" is about 2 roommates who are so broke that they decide to make a porno to make a quick buck. They eventually fall in love whilst making this film, accompanied by none other than JASON MEWES and JEFF ANDERSON, two of my favorite men also justin long and brandon routh. At the end of the film they end up making their own production company that helps couples who have issues with their relationships. I love this movie and recently watched it with Ariela. 10/10. Seth Rogen please marry me i love you.

JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT

This film made me cry and want to talk to my dad more. In this film, Jay finds out he has a daughter he has never met, so he meets her, and they go to bluntman and Chronic Con together. There, they meet the legendary KEVIN SMITH at Chronic Con. They find out that Bluntman and Chronic have been rebooted, and now they're being played by women and getting no money for it. We also find out in this movie that Alyssa and Holden have a kid together but only platonically. In the end, Jay says he doesn't know how to be a father, but he wants to try, so they stand outside of Quik-Stop together. I love this film I think it ends Jay and Silent Bob's story perfectly, as hetero-lifemates who now co-parent a kid. 100/10.

CLERKS III

And so, we have made it the last edition in the Clerks/Kevin Smith ViewAskewniverse. As of writing this, I have yet to see the 4:30 Movie, so I apologize for that.

Clerks 3 is a film about Randal. Usually, the main focus of these films is on Dante; he's the main character...right? Wrong. In Clerks 3, Randal is the star; it makes you wonder if he always was, and we weren't paying enough attention to him this whole time. In this film, we discover a lot, Becky died, leaving Dante childless, wifeless, and an emotional wreck. However, he has no time to mourn as he now runs the Quik-Stop, and Randal all of a sudden has a heart attack. Once Randal has a heart attack, there is a very large tone shift in the film; Smith based this on his own heart attack that happened to him. All of a sudden, we are focused on Randal, he wants to make his life worth living, so he decides to make a movie, Clerks, only he's the focus, not Dante. Dante is rightfully upset by this because in Randal's movie, his character is just a side character, and he thought he would be more important. This causes Dante to have an existential crisis where Becky starts popping up everywhere. It overwhelms him so much that Dante himself has a heart attack. Not knowing if his best friend will make it out alive, Randal edits together a different version of his film, one where Dante is the main character. He shows this to Dante whilst in the hospital. Dante closes his eyes, he's in a movie theatre with Becky, watching Clerks. At the end, they get up and leave the theatre.

Dante Hicks died. The final shot shows that Randal is now running the Quik-Stop, but Dante is standing right beside him as usual.

I think that Dante dying in Clerks 3 brings a sad but necessary end to the trilogy. Even if it was executed by making Randal the main character. I think that in ending a story it should end with the main character that it started with. Clerks 3 did exactly that, and for that, I applaud it. HOWEVER, if I ever in my life see Elias's emo fucking face again, I'm gonna throw something. ALL HE DID THE WHOLE MOVIE WAS COMPLAIN AND BE EMO LIKE BRO SHUT UP NOBODY CARES.

You might be wondering why I'm not bringing up Jay and Silent Bob; they acted in Randal's movie. That was it. That was all the J&SB content we got. The best part of them this movie was that Kevin Smith wrote in something that actually happened with Jason Mewes on the set of Clerks 1, which is that he wouldn't dance in front of other people, so they just let the camera roll and went somewhere else.

9/10.

My crushes of this experiment go as follows: