Kevin Smith Breaks Down a Scene from Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

[Director] Anytime you wanna pause or rewind

just let Jamie-

Is that right, that's what you're here for?

Mm-hmmm. So you're in control?

[Jamie] Yeah.

[Jamie] What's your name? Jamie.

I'm gonna be like, Jamie!

And that'll be your cue.

[laughing]

Hey, man, I'm Kevin Smith,

and this is Notes On A Scene

with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

[dramatic music] [gun fires]

[grunts]

[gasps]

[coughs]

[moans]

Oh, Indica, you son of a bitch.

Okay, I made a movie called Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

It's the sequel to a movie called

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,

that we made 17 years ago.

I'm a little lazy.

It takes me a long time to get around to things.

In this movie, the plot is very different

from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

was about Jay and Silent Bob finding out

that Hollywood was gonna make a comic book movie

based on this comic book they were in.

So they're gonna go across the country

to stop that comic book movie from happening.

It's 17 years later.

I'm a far more mature filmmaker

so it's a vastly different picture altogether.

In Jay and Silent Bob Reboot,

Jay and Silent Bob find out that Hollywood

is doing a reboot of that old comic book movie

that was based on them

and they go to Hollywood to stop it all over again.

It's a movie that makes fun of sequels

and remakes and reboots

while being all three at the same time.

Now, in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

there was a fake movie, Bluntman and Chronic,

and the stars of that movie were playing characters

that were based on Jay and Silent Bob

and we had Jason Biggs and James Van Der Beek

playing Bluntman and Chronic.

Years later, they're going to stop this reboot,

not the same cast.

This time around, since it's rebooted and gritty,

it's not Bluntman and Chronic,

it's Bluntman V Chronic and stuff.

Since it's rebooted in 2019,

Chronic, of course, not gonna be a man anymore.

She's gonna be a woman,

now played by Melissa Benoist, Supergirl,

and Bluntman is played by a guy who used to be Batman,

and it's Val Kilmer.

So at one point in the movie, the third act,

we actually see a scene from Bluntman V Chronic,

the fake movie in the movie,

and that's what we're going to dissect today.

Let me be blunt, man.

I liked you better when you were Silent Bob.

Right off the bat, we see Melissa Benoist

making a series of Kevin Smith type jokes.

There's Kevin Smith himself,

reacting to those Kevin Smith jokes.

Pause it real quick, Jamie.

I gotta share some information with them.

Val, look at where we paused it.

Let's roll it back for heaven's sakes.

Little dignity.

The great Val Kilmer, man.

We got him because he reached out to me and was like,

Hey, I'm gonna be in New Orleans

when you guys are shooting the movie,

and I was like, I'm busy making the movie,

but we're making a movie here with a bunch of cameos.

Do you wanna be in the movie with us?

And Val Kilmer was like, I would love to be in it

but I've had some health problems recently.

I don't know if you know this or not,

but I can't really speak.

So if I was gonna be in a movie,

perhaps I could play some poor cousin to Silent Bob,

as a joke, he said.

And I said, I'll do you one better, man!

I got a role just waiting for you, man.

So he got to play Bluntman so he didn't have to speak,

so it all kinda worked out.

And since he also played Batman at one point in his life,

it's a double joke.

It's a hat upon a hat or a cowl upon a cowl.

Roll it, Jamie.

[ding]

If you really wanna V,

I'm ready to blast your ass and kick you in the hater tots.

[Kevin] So he's doing this thing right here, man.

I'm circling this V here like it's football play.

Bluntman's holding up the phone to communicate.

He can't speak because he's Silent Bob.

So he types into his phone and holds the message out.

Silent Bob has a mobile phone

and he's constantly writing and then he turns it around

to show Jay what he's writing,

and generally he'll write for a few minutes

and then turn it around and it's one single emoji.

So in this sequence right here in the movie,

this is what you call a, you know, it's a setup.

We thought those were jokes

but they were all just setups to this payoff

because in the movie they're watching,

Bluntman does the same exact thing

that Silent Bob does in real life.

Go ahead, Jamie, play it.

[gun cocks]

[gun fires]

[grunts]

So there's Bluntman firing something at Chronic.

Pause.

Remember, the movie's meant to be Bluntman V Chronic.

So they're meant to be fighting

because presumably that's what V means.

And it's a reference, of course, to Batman V Superman,

which didn't make sense

'cause it should be Batman vs. Superman, that's versus.

Batman V Superman is Batman Five Superman.

It was a very confusing title.

So Bluntman fires this projectile at Chronic right here.

Chronic catches it in her hands,

has a smug little look on her face and stuff.

I stole this exact moment from an episode of Supergirl,

that I directed with Melissa in it, man.

In this sequence, somebody fired something at her

and she caught it and then all of a sudden,

it went off in her hand and it had a gas and stuff

and we put it into this thing

and when we were shooting it,

Melissa was like, Seems really familiar.

I was like, We just did it

six months ago on Supergirl, man.

You know, a good artist steals from other,

better artists and stuff,

and that's what we did in this instance.

[dramatic music] [gas hisses]

[coughs]

[groans]

Oh, Indica, you son of a bitch.

Now, I should pause this.

All of the things you see in this scene don't exist.

Melissa's real, her costume's real.

Val is real, his costume's real and the gun's real.

Everything else you see, made up.

You'll see, like, a cave goes on forever.

That was CG.

That's the smoke that's blowing up in her face?

That was CG.

The projectiles that shot out the gun

and caught it in her hand,

all she did was she had it in her hand, she went like this

and then the CG people erased it and took it off.

So, all of this, CG in the background.

This right here, these computer monitors, they're real.

That's just some foreground shit.

And she, of course, is very real.

She's as real as it gets, man.

Real as raincoats.

I love Melissa Benoist.

But over here in the background,

there's a Bluntman and Chronic uniform, those are real.

Everything else is a giant green screen.

So in a small way,

we were kinda like The Avengers: Endgame.

Like, they shot on a big green screen too,

except they had a lot more money

and way more talent at their disposal.

Smells like this reboot went up in smoke.

Let's pause it right there

to acknowledge the great, Tommy Chong.

When we shot this scene,

none of the actors were in the room at the same time.

You'll never see these three characters

in the same frame at the same time.

I'm a lazy filmmaker and stuff

and that sounded like too much work.

So Melissa worked by herself,

Val worked by himself and Tommy worked by himself,

and then we just married it all together

with some CG and some cuts and stuff like that.

But having Tommy Chong,

guy who laid the track for stoner movies,

as we're making a stoner movie,

that was a big get for us

and making him play Alfred,

that was a clever idea on my behalf.

So, boom, all of a sudden, Tommy Chong in our scene.

Let's play.

Alfred.

Hi, man.

Let's stop right there.

We icon everybody in the scene.

We missed it for Melissa and Val

'cause we did it, we jumped into the clip afterwards,

but whenever they first enter the scene,

we bam, put their name up on the screen

and stuff like that.

It was kind of a callback

to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,

when Mark Hamill was Cock Knocker and we froze it,

Hey Kids, it's Mark Hamill, and stuff like that.

We did that not to honor Mark,

although it did honor Mark,

but because in the makeup and the wig,

nobody knew who Mark was when we did the test screening.

So I was like, I got an idea!

Let's tell everyone who it is.

So we froze it and put that up there and it carried forward.

There was a moment where I had to change the lines

on the set because he goes,

Smells like this reboot went up in smoke, man,

and then she went, Alfred,

and then I liked going out on him,

so I needed him to say one more thing.

So I was like, Tommy, give me a hey man or hi man,

but he had already said, Man, prior to that

and I didn't want to end too lines of Tommy Chong,

who's only got, like, 12 in the movie,

and both of them end with man?

I'm a better writer than that,

so I said just do the first line as like,

Smells like this reboot went up in smoke.

And Up In Smoke is the title

of a Cheech and Chong movie they made years ago.

Then we cut to Melissa, then we cut back to Tommy

and I said, Tommy, then you button this moment

in the scene with, Hi, man,

and that's where the man was in play.

You have to be very careful, judicious,

in uses of Tommy Chong's man,

'cause it's a very powerful one syllable word

in cinema history, man.

Obviously, there's nothing visual going on in the scene

so I have to say things

and I can't marker the air like,

Tommy said this.

Well I guess I could do it here.

Tommy said, Man,

and I knew we had a movie.

Sorry to How High, dude.

Let's pause it and we've got our three characters.

There's Silent Bob, played by me,

Jay played by Jason Mewes

and sitting between them is Milly, his long lost daughter,

portrayed by my daughter, Harley Quinn Smith.

I should use a marker for this sort of thing.

This actor came out of my balls.

This actor showed me his balls

every day of his life that I've known him.

This guy is wondering why the [bleep]

he's stuck in this rudimentary motion picture

instead of making Quentin Tarantino type movies

but this guy doesn't realize

he ain't even as talented as this guy.

You know, he hitched his wagon to this guy's star

'cause this guy's a true original,

a true American original, man.

And this guy was smart enough to see that and exploit it.

This kid is exploited.

This man.

I say kid, but he's like 45.

But I'll be honest with you,

this movie exists in the first place,

this family story between these two right here,

a long lost dad finds his long lost daughter

because Jason Mewes, in real life,

has been a dad for the last four years

and I've never met a better father than him

and it's very ironic because Jason's the kinda guy

that, like, you wouldn't trust him,

you know, with 50 cents let alone a human life,

let alone a human life of a child.

Bart Simpson, you know, grown up and stuff,

and I include myself in that equation

and my father in that equation

and the Lord, our God, who I understand was also a parent.

Jason's got 'em all beat, man.

And maybe it's because she's like four

and he's 45 but emotionally they meet on the same plane,

maturity level or what not,

and then I was like, Wait.

If he's a weird wonderful Dad to his kid,

maybe Jay would be a weird, wonderful Dad to his kid,

and so I stole the idea from real life

and then I threw my kid into it

and as you see, it became this big markered mess.

So, we're about to hear the button on this scene.

A button, it ends the scene, man.

Now, I have to explain the button

'cause we didn't see the rest of the scene.

Jay's gonna turn to Silent Bob

and say, I'm sorry to How High, but this,

meaning Bluntman V Chronic,

is now the greatest movie ever made.

Because earlier in the movie,

Jay contends that How High, the movie with Method and Red,

is the best movie ever made

and they model their lives after that movie.

So as they sit here and watch Bluntman and Chronic,

Jay realizes, I've been wrong.

This is what we're modeling our lives after.

This is the best movie ever made.

So without clearing the deck,

let's watch this scene conclude.

It's gonna be a mess, ladies and gentlemen,

but I think that's a metaphor

for most Kevin Smith movies.

You have to see through a lot

of pink markery shit to find the good.

Let's try to do it together, shall we?

Jamie, let's watch.

Sorry to How High, dude,

but this is now the greatest movie ever made.

Thank God that was short

'cause that would've been really irritating

to watch a long scene through all that marker.

It was a bad idea.

But life is about a series of bad ideas, kids.

Sometimes you just swing for the fences

and sometimes the ideas are good,

sometimes they fall apart in front of a camera,

and you realize I should've have said anything.

Why did I come?

Anyway, there it is, man.

We have taken notes on a scene.

Hopefully you took lots of notes

and hopefully you've learned something.

And what you've learned is, like,

I ain't ever making that fucking movie.

It looks terrible.

You're right, 'cause I already made it so you don't have to.

I make the bad movies so you don't have to.

That's me taking one for you.

So don't, get off my [bleep].

How about patting me on the back instead?

Thank you.

This has been Notes On a Scene with Kevin Smith. [laughs]