clerks 2

[big screen satellite]

Originally Posted by sunflowereye

For KS it was probably a wise choice, considering this was one of his first theatrical releases; however, in hindsight, the downer ending seems more fitting. Dante's character was this big whiner ("I'm not even supposed to be here today!") who took little effort to better his life(return to school, get out of dead-end job, focus on girl who loved him). His violent death in the director's cut, while terrible, seems fitting with the original script. Like Randal points out earlier, he should've told his vacationing boss to shove it and stayed home.

oh yeah, in the scheme of things, Dante kinda deserved to have something terrible happen to him, especially as he was screwed over and did nothing about it...but his getting wasted at the end is kinda out of whack with the rest of the movie's 'lighter' tone and really doesn't fit right...although KS probably wanted to show just how bad Dante's day got by killing him off at the end, but you are right as a first movie that ending might have spoiled its cinematic release.

i do like the directors cut of Clerks, and almost all directors cuts because i think thats how they originally intended the film to be, and i think thats how they should be shown...smoothing over cracks or imperfections just to suit theatre goers is kinda like soft censorship..."you're movie won't go down well if you leave it like that", thank god for DVD editions eh

i know some movies need to be changed because 'reactions' at test screenings are poor, but then if you've made a poor movie, tough, if the audience don't like a sad ending then @@$& them - that's what i'd say, redoing it changes how the original movie is perceived and it becomes something that the director doesn't want...

take the new Vince Vaughan and Jennifer Aniston movie, called "The Break Up"... apparently test screenings showed that the audience didn't like the ending where they broke up...WHAAAAT...its called "the break up"...thats the whole story ruined, apparently they had to refilm it with a happier ending... defeats the object kinda eh?

[Animal Boything]

The real genius of Clerks was its satirical message about all the unsung customer service workers that are taken for granted every day. Everybody I know who's actually worked as a clerk loves that movie because it dares to speak the truth. (it can be argued that it spawned a generation of imitators from "Office Space" down to "Waiting.) I think Kevin Smith has tried similar things in a lot of his other movies without really succeeding, because the poop jokes always took center stage, and the question here is: can he do it again? Can he make another movie that has actual significance hiding under its crude humor? From what little I know, it looks like this sequel deals with faceless corporate chain stores, wheras the previous one was about "shitty" mom-and-pop shops. That gives me hope because there is fertile ground for satire there without retreading what came before. Whether he can still find the right angle to make it work remains to be seen, but I'll definitely check it out.

[b.miller]

I have to say... this thing I read today went a long way in giving me a perspective on why Smith's made the movies he's made in the past few years that I never really considered before. Basically it's an extended 9-part entry to his personal blog talking candidly and rather in-depth about his complete history with Jason Mewes.

LINKIES BINKIES

It's a quite long read (not sure of the page count because it's webpages but it took me well more than an hour to read through all the entries), and yeah on one level it's just another story about a Junkie's journey to and from hell, but in the context of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, I couldn't help but get completely captivated and affected by it. if you're at all a fan of these guys and you have some time on your hands it's worth reading...

[grady]

Originally Posted by b.miller

I have to say... this thing I read today went a long way in giving me a perspective on why Smith's made the movies he's made in the past few years that I never really considered before. Basically it's an extended 9-part entry to his personal blog talking candidly and rather in-depth about his complete history with Jason Mewes.

LINKIES BINKIES

It's a quite long read (not sure of the page count because it's webpages but it took me well more than an hour to read through all the entries), and yeah on one level it's just another story about a Junkie's journey to and from hell, but in the context of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, I couldn't help but get completely captivated and affected by it. if you're at all a fan of these guys and you have some time on your hands it's worth reading...

Definently a long read that I spent most of the day on and off with among other things. Within the Kevin Smith/Jason Mewes relationship it's much more intriguing. Espcially if you've seen those Chasing Amy DVD/LD intros to deleted scenes where Mewes looks to be in another place entirely almost proped up on a comic rack, or listened to the old Clerks commentary while they were shooting Mallrats and Mewes proceeds to get more and more intoxicated.

If you can't read all of it, at least skim the pages. There are some wonderful bits of humor in there too, like when Mewes discovers who's in the room next door to him at a malibu rehab clinic and quotes himself from Chasing Amy('Look at this morse motherfucker right here...') when he sees it's Ben Affleck.

[dubman]

Originally Posted by big screen satellite

i do like the directors cut of Clerks, and almost all directors cuts because i think thats how they originally intended the film to be, and i think thats how they should be shown...smoothing over cracks or imperfections just to suit theatre goers is kinda like soft censorship..."you're movie won't go down well if you leave it like that", thank god for DVD editions eh

i know some movies need to be changed because 'reactions' at test screenings are poor, but then if you've made a poor movie, tough, if the audience don't like a sad ending then @@$& them - that's what i'd say, redoing it changes how the original movie is perceived and it becomes something that the director doesn't want...

take the new Vince Vaughan and Jennifer Aniston movie, called "The Break Up"... apparently test screenings showed that the audience didn't like the ending where they broke up...WHAAAAT...its called "the break up"...thats the whole story ruined, apparently they had to refilm it with a happier ending... defeats the object kinda eh?

what about if you've just made a shitty film and you need to make it better.

i never really watched the original version again because i thought it was immensely shoddy of them to do that. "well, yeah, life is random and all that and sometimes it's not fair"

yeah, well, kevin smith didn't get shot. and i thought it was about how he thought his own job was.

this comments been festerin in the back of my head since i read it last week and i gotta say, i think vision and original intentions and blah blah is so ridiculously overrated. i think directors can go stuff it when they want to put some superfluous crap as if it were their own vanity project at the expense of the audience. mind, 90% of the time it actually is worth it because the extra scenes are great for fans, but i think the movie revolving around the director is a whole lot of overreverential bullshit.

changing the ending of the break up to suit audiences makes perfect sense because it's a buttload of pap anyway where the whole movie was just made to entertain audienes. there's nothing there you're messing around with artistically, you're just staying true to it's nature as a crowd distraction.