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Clerks: A Proper Movie Trilogy (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2023-01-19 00:00:01 +0000 UTCINTRO
Clerks, Clerks II, and Clerks III.
Not only has the 1994 original been deemed the crown jewel of Kevin Smith’s career and made him such a well-known figure in both pop culture and the independent filmmaking scene, but with the 2022 release of Clerks III -- the third and final installment of the franchise that launched the View Askewniverse -- Kevin Smith now has under his belt his very first trilogy. But is it a PROPER trilogy? Let’s find out.
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/Clerks was released in 1994, written and directed by Kevin Smith. It tells the day in the life story of Dante Hicks who has to run the convenience store Quick Stop on his off day in Leonardo, New Jersey, and his best friend Randal Graves who runs the RST Video store next door./
This being a passion project of Smiths, considering both the locations in the movie are the actual stores he worked at as well as the stories being inspired by his real-life experiences, Clerks quickly became a cult classic and set the precedent for a lot of independent filmmakers with its success, making over 4 million dollars on a budget of just over $27,000.
And from it, other interconnected films launched to create what would be deemed the View Askewniverse
/This also includes the films sequel Clerks II, also written and directed by Smith and released in 2006. It takes place 10 years after the first movie, and after having to secure a fast food gig after the Quick Stop burned down, it shows the duo dealing with making some important life choices regarding their futures -- both individually and together -- as Dante is given a chance to move to Florida to start a life with his fiance Emma and also dealing with the feelings he has for his coworker Becky played by Rosario Dawson./
And despite the time between the two movies as well as the budget increase, its 5 million dollar budget and Kevin’s growth in filmmaking since the first movie secured an almost 27 million dollar box office haul.
So by the time work started on Clerks III, Kevin Smith had dealt with a lot. Multiple films written and directed by him -- both in and out of the View Askewniverse -- gathered the attention of multiple individuals.
/But his overall wake-up call regarding his craft was when he had his heart attack in 2018./
And while he was exploring story possibilities for a third Clerks movie earlier on in the mid 2010’s -- one idea being the duo losing Quick Stop to Hurricane Sandy when he was initially working on it in 2013 -- the overall route he wanted to take the movie changed after dealing with his own mortality.
So with a page-one rewrite, switching distribution to Lionsgate from The Weinstein Company for obvious reasons, and a story that celebrated Smith’s humble beginnings...
/Clerks III received a digital release September 13, 2022, bringing a heartfelt and fitting end to the story that started it all./
And now that it exists in the format that it does, my overall impressions of the individual movies and as a whole trilogy -- proper or otherwise -- is that it's a rather fine display of development and growth. Not just for Dante and Randal, but for Kevin Smith as well.
THE CURRENT STANCE
/The first Clerks movie was my initial introduction to cynical comedy. However, his was unbeknownst to me at the time, because I first saw the original Clerks when I was an 18 year old freshman in college living on the campus of Wayne State University, and actively sought out friends of the caucasian persuasion because I was at the height of my “seeking white validation through tokenism phase.”/
So when I was seated to watch Clerks for the first time, it was from 18 to 19 year old white dudes of various middle to upper class families who comfortably lived outside of the city because of said wealth but always freely claimed it as their own whenever they were asked.
And just like my initial introduction to South Park at the time, which was just as late, I initially took the antics, experiences and opinions of Dante and Randal as just a form of comedy that, because of my blackness, I never experienced before; a culture divide that I was experiencing for the first time because I was brave enough to step out of the box in order to make myself a more rounded individual in multiple aspects.
Unlike you, when I watched “The Whitest Kids U Know,” I sat my ass down and listened
/It wasn’t until I had gotten older and learned to actually love myself that I was able to see the movie in the light that it was meant to be seen in; two friends who experience and express the various spectrum of emotions from working in retail and trying to live a life around it, thus allowing those in real life who also know that experience to live vicariously through them./
By the time I realized that, I was already absorbing Clerks 2 for the first time from a more diverse group of friends my sophomore year of college.
/And because it wasn't a 100% slice of life film like the first, it became the only Clerks movie that 100% stayed in my memory well after I finished it./
That, and it was crystal clear that Kevin Smith had significantly grown as a filmmaker in the 11 years between making Clerks and Clerks 2. No, it had nothing to do with the donkey show.
/The same can also be said when you take into consideration the development that Dante and Randal have had during the 15 years between Clerks 2 and Clerks 3, which, upon rewatching the first two movies and watching the third and final one for the first time immediately after the other now that I’m in my 30s and have developed an eye for storytelling and analysis, makes a lot of the humor and personal philosophies of the characters that didn’t age well up until 3 be seen not necessarily forgivable per se, but you can definitely tell that they -- and by they, I mean mostly Dante -- had matured and grown between the 11 year and 15 year gaps within the trilogy./
As someone who previously only looked at the franchise as nothing more than following the lives of two assholes from Jersey, I can now appreciate how -- despite it being a slice of life workplace comedy -- Clerks 1 both critiques and sets up a lot of the turmoil and rollercoaster-y state-of-being phases that both Dante and Randall go through with life in the next two films.
Because it’s thanks to those state-of-being phases and the overall amount of time allowed to pass from the first film to the third that allows us to witness these characters learn and grow. And, as a result, giving the trilogy its actual theme.
THE THEME
/When it comes to the Clerks trilogy, the overall theme that’s present over the course of the three movies is only really noticeable once you take into account what the overall messages are in each individual movie. Yes, they both involve Dante and Randal’s dynamic and it definitely plays a part. However, once you SEE how they each play a part in each other's lives and in the essence of all three of the Clerks stories, you’ll start to see what connects them all this way. And no, it’s not smoking./
As I stated earlier, there’s a lot of stuff in the first Clerks movie that because it was made in the mid-90’s didn’t really age well. Not just in regards to jokes and the use of slurs, but also personal character ideologies.
/The only thing that made a lot of what’s in the first Clerks movie passable is that there were sequels that followed and showed a progression in both the times with the introduction of new characters like Becky and Elias, and the maturity of both Dante and Randal. Well, mostly Dante./
But it’s in that passing of time and applying said maturity and development that we see how the individual themes of all three movies add up to the theme of the entire trilogy.
In the first Clerks, Dante is the most rounded between him and Randal.
/On one hand, the base of his character in the first movie is that he’s complacent despite declaring being tired of feeling like he’s only meant for working, paying bills and dying./
/Like the rest of us who had or have similar jobs, he complains about how frustrating the customers and scenarios that stumble upon him can be, but knows not to challenge said frustrations if he still wants his job. He has to sacrifice his off day to run the store so that his boss can take a trip to Vermont and lie to him and say he’ll be in to take over by noon to get him there, but is unwilling to close the store to go to the wake of one of his ex-girlfriends when Randal refuses to cover for him and insists on going with him instead./
On the other hand, Dante was an asshole.
Yes, there were aspects about his situation that lots of individuals regularly related to when it came to working in retail, feeling stuck and feeling underappreciated in the workplace.
/But one ALSO has to remember he also had some messed up double standards about the sex lives of women in comparison to men that reflects a lot of modern day whack-ass “Alpha Male'' behavior.../
/And also went out of his way to get back with his ex-girlfriend Caitlyn -- even more so once he learns she’s engaged in the local paper -- without taking into consideration the feelings of his current girlfriend Veronica. He even goes out the way to get things going again with Caitlyn when she comes back to town to stop the spread of her engagement, without even once letting Veronica know that he doesn’t want to continue things with her. Which is basically cheating/
With the only brash and bold decision Dante made before going to his ex’s wake being to play his previously planned hockey game on the roof of the Quick Stop being something Randal fully endorsed, we also see that while he’s not completely Dante’s antithesis, Randal contrasts Dante’s innate complacency.
/While he does show up for work at the video store, he constantly willingly shows up late. Despite knowing that customer complaints regarding how they feel about his service can cost him his job, Randal constantly berates and punishes them for being the annoyances he initially thinks they are, and doesn’t even try to watch his language around them either. Randal literally embodies Dante’s inner desires regarding how he feels about what he thinks is restricting him to just this job but is too afraid to act on them himself or enact actual change to make his life better and is deemed chaotic by him as a result./
Then Clerks 2 happens 10 years later.
/And while Dante has shown he’s matured during that time skip to be WAY less whack when it comes to his views on women thanks to having a fiance he’s one day away from moving to Florida with, and has a healthy “previously with benefits” friendship with his Mooby manager Becky -- y’know, despite having second thoughts when he starts to suspect that she said yes because she wants to settle and developed feelings for Becky around the time she found out she was pregnant with his kid weeks after they hooked up -- Randal has actually been regressing the more Dante was actively under the impression that leaving Jersey would put an end to his complacency./
As the time grew nearer for Dante to eventually leave and had shown to have grown out of a version of the wack-ass behavior that he displayed in Clerks 1, Randal got worse and worse until he seemed to almost match it in a non-embodied desire to not filter his frustrations out on his situation like in the first movie.
/While Dante has grown out of his womanizing Alpha Male facade, Randal falls for unknowingly using racial slurs taught to him by his grandma while Dante knows it's unacceptable. When a successful individual the two of them went to school with comes to Mooby’s to rub his success in he and Dante’s faces, Randal is reminded that he’s gonna be dealing with this shit alone and seeks the comfort -- the safe space -- of nostalgia via go-karts in order to not think about it./
While Clerks 1 is the movie that establishes Dante as one way and Randal the other, Clerks 2 is the movie that establishes that the two truly are each others yin and yang; that the way the weight on the scale is distributed when one shifts can be easily seen as disproportionate if the two don’t retain a certain balance in how they both perceive and take on the world.
/It isn’t until Dante makes the choice to stay in Jersey with Becky and co-own and run the Quick Stop with him that they truly begin to rebalance the scale with their development factoring in. You know, because you can say all the things you want about liking peeps with both male and female genitalia and even say things that hint at romantic interest about your male best friend in front of the ex they’re trying to get back with. But god forbid you have to tell them you love them and don’t want them to move away right in front of their face./
Then Clerks 3 happens 15 years later, and what’s established as the new norm for both Dante and Randal is now disrupted by the threat of mortality.
/We find out Becky and she and Dante’s unborn daughter Grace died almost immediately after the events of Clerks 2 from being hit by a drunk driver hit and run. The reason why Randal’s ego has been inflated to where it is over the course of the movie is because he had a heart attack and Dante enabled his desires under the impression it would be healthy for him. And when Dante has his own that sadly and unfortunately proves to be fatal for him, what was once the combined sense of cynical consistent contemptment that were the lives of these two friends over the course of 26 years has been interrupted and permanently altered by the one thing the two chose to not participate in in Clerks 1, and sought a form of it as a way to return to their old lives and avoid a drastic version of it in Clerks 2, before life forced the two to truly experience it in Clerks 3 -- culminating in the entire theme of the Clerks trilogy as a whole -- the eventual inevitability of change./
You see, while its presence isn’t necessary for a trilogy to be considered a proper one, its theme -- this important idea that’s woven into the stories that links the medium to a larger thought about how we perceive the world -- helps set the bedrock.
And while this is definitely true for singular stories that go without sequels, prequels or continuations, it means a lot regarding things like development and the like if this “important idea or ideal” is present in all three installments of a trilogy in order to deliver a form of unification.
And sometimes, depending on how well planned the trilogy as a whole is, or at least how well written the third installment of said trilogy is, the theme smoothly plays into what truly makes a trilogy proper to begin with; the story thread.
Now sometimes the overall theme of a trilogy can be confused with the story thread used in order to make the trilogy a proper one. But that does not mean the theme of the trilogy and the thread that the trilogy uses always works hand-in-hand with each other, nor does its presence immediately deem the trilogy a proper one.
The only way a trilogy -- movie or otherwise -- can be declared a proper one, is if it has a thread to utilize, and has succeeded in one way or another in utilizing it. So let’s discuss the one the Clerks trilogy uses.
THE THREAD
/It’s pretty rare for the overall theme of a movie trilogy and the story thread used to make it a proper one to properly coexist and compliment each other. In the case of Clerks, this is one of those rare circumstances./
Dante and Randal, two friends who have similar viewpoints regarding their station in life but tend to express it ways that end up being polar opposites of each other, secretly find contentment in both the lives that they live and the fact that they have each other as a support network, while subconsciously challenging the powers that be that drive them to do something entirely different separately, until said powers that be gives them no other choice but to do so.
As I stated in the last segment, both Dante and Randal have constantly bargained with the spirit of change over the course of the entire trilogy. Both on a personal and on an overarching scale.
/Dante being a young and dumb 22 year old in the first movie displays his want for contemptment through wanting the familiarity of getting back with Caitlyn while being unsatisfied with the change of being with Veronica, and goes about handling that in the most assholish way possible. Randal owns up to his contemptment while calling out Dante’s wishy-washy-ness at the end of the first movie, stating that when he’s ready for change, he’ll act on it. But as we find out in Clerks 2, not only have both of them sought out the means to try and traditionally change their economic station in life together and were unsatisfied with it, but Randal reveals that he never desired the change he claimed he would seek out if he was ready for it at the end of the first movie regarding the quick stop. And even before then, when the movie opened with it being on fire, the two sought employment elsewhere TOGETHER./
And despite Dante realizing that his reasoning for wanting to move to Florida with Emma wasn’t what he truly wanted -- a change that, as I previously mentioned, threw off the balance between the two of them over the course of Clerks 2 -- the movie ends with both Dante and Randal COMPROMISING with change instead of adhering to it altogether.
/Because despite the fact that they now co-own the quick stop and RST Video, they both still work there again, finding a way to return to the lives that they were previously content with./
However, it isn’t until we interact with the plot of Clerks 3 that the theme of necessary and inevitable change present over the course of the entire franchise is put right in the forefront for the individuals who couldn’t figure it out in one way or another.
/Rosario Dawson’s Becky being a specter for a grieving Dante, is constantly urging him to move on, to live his life, to accept change in its fullest. But as we see over the course of it, Dante still struggles to do so. Even though it’s only specifically shown in relation to him not being able to move on from the family he could’ve had. So having us witness him struggle moving on past the death of Becky and their unborn daughter Grace, helps us put into perspective for those who have been paying attention to the entirety of the trilogy, how hard it has been for both Dante and Randal to truly move on in ways that didn’t completely involve each other./
And this is made even more clear when it's revealed what the story thread is, that makes Clerks 3 the culminating chapter in a proper movie trilogy.
Now remember, Readers. The purpose of the plot thread in a proper trilogy -- movie or otherwise -- is to stitch all three patches that are the story installments together in order for it to become a single piece.
And in order for it to be that support in the final product, the thread has to be an element of the first film’s plot that plays a significant role in the third in a way that makes all three films work together as one cohesive story.
From there, you can use the third film to reveal new information about what's being carried over from the first, and expand upon it in various ways; the most common form being a plot twist.
Kevin Smith knows this to be true. And that’s mostly because he’s a fucking geek like the rest of us, who’s first exposure to the proper movie trilogy concept was assumingly the original Star Wars trilogy.
/And considering how many times he references the Star Wars franchise over the course of the Clerks trilogy, I’d be hella surprised if he didn’t learn how to go about learning the formula for a proper trilogy through the three original films./
However, something that’s overlooked is that he also distributed the first Clerks and Clerks 2 through Miramax and the infamous Harvey Weinstein. Who, before Spyglass acquired the rights to make the newer movies in 2019 and gave distribution to Paramount, were responsible for bringing the Scream franchise to life.
/And ironically, the characters Jay and Silent Bob -- the latter played by Smith himself -- cameoed in Scream 3. Which, thanks to the meta nature of the franchise regarding horror movies, was the film that taught those who didn’t know any better what it takes to make a movie trilogy a proper one./
Basically, I’m saying that if Kevin Smith didn’t learn about what it takes to make a proper movie trilogy from the likes of the original Star Wars trilogy, then he -- like myself -- more than likely learned about it through Scream. Which, in all honesty, I wouldn’t put it past him.
Because while Scream 3 used its meta nature to explain how proper trilogies are made, the story thread Smith took from the first Clerks movie in order to expand upon it in Clerks 3 while also allowing it to coexist and compliment itself with the trilogy’s overall theme is the entirety of the first Clerks movie itself. Let me break it down for you.
THE BREAKDOWN/RECONSTRUCTION
/At first glance, the plot of Clerks 3 is both very simple and, in a way, very reflective. The plot point of Randal surviving a heart attack was taken straight from Kevin experiencing one of his own in 2018, which then caused him to make a lot of the health choices he made these past 5 years that resulted in his weight loss. And it was that personal bout with mortality that gave him the inspiration to write Clerks 3 in the first place, not to mention have the movie tackle said mortality in a way that puts the entire trilogy into that perspective./
/After all, Kevin Smith is a Gen X’er; why else, out of all the bands and songs would he use My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade” in the opening credits if the inevitability of change via facing one’s own mortality wasn’t going to be the focus of the movie?/
But it’s like I said earlier, Readers. While the theme of the trilogy can easily tie in to the story thread being brought over from 1 to 3 in order for 3 to expand on it to make the whole a proper trilogy, doesn’t mean that the theme is the thread itself.
/What’s unique about the situation regarding the thread from Clerks 1 being expanded upon in Clerks 3 is that the story thread is the entirety of Clerks 1 itself, with Randal deciding to make a movie after surviving his heart attack as a passion project, and that movie in the View Askewniverse being what we all know as Clerks 1./
So that’s all fine and dandy, you might be thinking to yourself. But how does Clerks 3 expand on the entirety of Clerks 1 now that it's being used as a story thread? How does Kevin get blood out of this stone he brought over from his previous garden to this new one? Well, it’s not just the meta implications that come along with the decision to do so.
/One of Randal’s development hurdles he faces over the course of Clerks 3 after having his heart attack and deciding to make a movie, is that while the movie is about him, it instead focuses on the experiences of Dante thanks to making shot-for-shot recreations of famous scenes from the first film with returning actors and adding more context to ones that address how poorly they aged, while still be funny with said commentary./
So when Dante addresses to Randal how he feels about him hijacking Dante’s experiences and telling them as his own story, compounded on with using his heart attack as a reason to fuel the ego he developed and guilt Dante into having to relive experiences that he either outgrew with the maturity he experienced over time or are triggered by because of how they remind him of Becky...
/He begins to see the light at the end of the tunnel that he was being an asshole and a shitty friend. And he DOUBLE feels this after Dante has a heart attack of his own and learns what he had to do in order to finance the film to begin with./
Meanwhile, we the audience have seen Dante’s efforts and the happiness it brings Randal, knowing that his best friend is happy over the course of the film, causing us to be even more supportive and understanding of Dante’s inevitable confrontation.
So when Randal eventually reaches that realization, he puts his ego to the side, makes new edits to his film, and turns his movie into a celebration of his best friend's life instead of his own. And that movie became what we now know as Clerks.
That is how Kevin Smith TRULY utilized the entirety of the first movie as the story thread for Clerks 3 to expand upon it. Using the events of Clerks 1 -- the ENTIRETY of Clerks 1 -- as Randal’s love letter of appreciation for Dante, immediately transforms the 1994 film not just in a metaphysical way regarding how its events are translated within the canon of the View Askewniverse, but also in a way that is typically reserved for proper trilogies.
/Because once Randal shows Dante the finished product and how it reflects his appreciation for his best friend, using the film to truly show him how much Randal loves him and we see Dante absorbing that, he’s at peace enough to finally give up the ghost and be with Becky. Thus forcing Randal out of his own sense of complacency and comfort, and embracing the fact that in one way or another, change must happen. No matter how much things stay the same in the meanwhile. Another case of the trilogy’s theme being perfectly in sync with the story thread that stitches together the entire trilogy./
CONCLUSION
There is no denying that Kevin Smith has grown significantly, not just as a filmmaker and storyteller since that first black and white movie he made in 1994, but also as a person.
I’ve seen his stances change and grow in real time on everything from where he stands on systemic racism, homophobia, religious freedom and practices, you name it.
And not only does he apply the things he learns in real life to his work, but the decision to do so has done nothing but make it better, in my opinion
Every time I watch the Clerks movies, I also see that maturity and growth shown in Dante and Randal. Well, mostly Dante.
/And with Clerks III allowing Randal a prime opportunity to experience such growth while also providing such a brilliant take on how the formula is usually handled, I can honestly say that I’m absolutely glad Clerks as a whole is now within the numbers of what is deemed a proper movie trilogy/
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Hey Readers. La’Ron here, offering you critique and immersion of your favorite bits of geek and pop culture media.
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(Snaps) Right! Yes! Homework!
Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of the Clerks trilogy if you’ve seen it, or which one is your favorite out of the bunch
Also, which trilogy do you want me to cover next in season 2 of A Proper Movie Trilogy? Feel free to let me know!
/Thank you to ALL of my patrons -- big and small -- for your financial support and making this possible! If you want to support the creation of the videos for this and the main channel, make sure you click the card at the end or the link in the description to join.
But until then this is Readus 201. Class dismissed./
