Firefly

Kevin Smith has not seen Firefly

kevinsmith.jpgDon’t you hate it when your friends don’t share your interests?

OK, I’m exaggerating. I’m not friends with Kevin Smith or Joss Whedon, sadly, but still you hope the people you like like the people you like. And I have read that Whedon and Smith admire and respect each others work, and this made me happy for some weird fanboy reason.

But yesterday I went to see Kevin Smith speak in Orlando for the Florida Future Filmmakers event and during the talk, as he paced back and forth in front of a large mockup of the Quick Stop, someone asked what he thought about Joss Whedon’s “Serenity.” This is a rough quote from memory:

“I haven’t seen it.

”I still haven’t seen it. I still haven’t seen an episode of... what was first? The show? ‘Firefly’? Then it became the movie? Yeah, never saw it, never saw an episode. Mewes loves it, Mewes keeps saying ‘Dude, you gotta watch ‘Firefly,’ you’ll love it, it’s like a western in space.”

(laughter)

“Yeah, no, never seen it. I watched a few episodes of ‘Buffy,’ never really got into it, so ‘Firefly’ for me was never something I’d be interested in. But I’ve had, you know, a lot of people online, all those Browncoats keep telling me, ‘You have got to check it out, dude, you would love it.’ And it’s dangerous to tell me that because it sets me up for a fall. A big buildup for a huge ****ing fall.”

He referenced a “South Park” episode I couldn’t make out - we were in a convention hall the size of an airport hanger, and we were about a third of the way back - and said people were coming up to him all the time and saying “you must love ‘Family Guy’”.

“Hate it. Same thing with ‘Firefly,’ there’s always the danger I’ll watch it and go ‘This? This is what people think I’d like?’ So I didn’t see the movie because I hadn’t seen the shows and didn’t want to see ‘Serenity’ before I saw ‘Firefly.’”

He went about his current favorite scifi show, “B-Star Galactica,” and said he liked Whedon’s X-Men comics.

If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, do so. He’s funny, vulgar, very friendly with fans, will answer any question, no matter how personal, open and honestly, and he’ll go until he’s forced to stop. Yesterday he was scheduled to speak from 2 pm to 4, with the warning that “he tends to go long.” He did; he spoke until 8:48 pm, stopping only once for 15 minutes because the hosts needed to do a raffle. We were treated to 6 solid hours of Kevin Smith telling stories, talking about genitalia (his and others), giving filmmaking advice, offering his opinions on comic book movies, calling people on fan cellphones, dispensing hugs, describing the long years of Jason Mewes’ heroin addiction and his final self-propelled cleanup, and Smith’s own medical problems this year (an anal fissure that erupted right before he got called for jury duty), and never repeating any of the stuff he did for “An Evening with Kevin Smith.” It was an incredible day and one I’m very glad to have seen, although my butt’s paying the price for it today.

But damn, that dude needs to see “Firefly.” He’ll love it!