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Clerks. is a 1994 film written and directed by Kevin Smith and starring Brian O'Halloran as Dante Hicks and Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves. It presents a day in the lives of two shop clerks and their acquaintances. Clerks. was Smith's first movie in his "View Askewniverse" films. It introduces several characters, notably Jay and Silent Bob, who reappear in his later films.
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Plot
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Dante Hicks is a clerk at Quick Stop Groceries, a local convenience store in Leonardo New Jersey. One morning he gets called to fill in for his co-worker, who claims that another employee is sick. After some arguing he reluctantly agrees to come in on the promise that he will be relieved at twelve o'clock so he can play hockey with his friends. When he arrives to open up the store he encounters several problems. The shutters outside won't open because someone jammed gum in the locks. With the shutters down, the store looks closed so he writes "I assure you we're open" in shoe polish on a large sheet and hangs it in front of the store. Next, a man enters the store to buy coffee and talks a customer into buying chewing gum instead of cigarettes after showing him a human lung corroded by tar. A group forms around Dante angry that he is "selling death". After Dante is assaulted with cigarettes, his girlfriend Veronica enters, acting quickly and calming the crowd by spraying them with a fire extinguisher. After a conversation, it is revealed that the man that aroused the crowd into action was a chewing gum representative, and was stirring up the smokers with intent on selling more gum. A bit later, Dante and Veronica have a conversation regarding Dante's current disposition. After the conversation, Dante meets an old boyfriend of Veronica, Willam "Snowball" Black (known as such for his enjoyment of his own semen being passed back into his mouth after fellatio). After a conversation, it is revealed that Veronica has, throughout her life, performed fellatio on 37 different men, for which Dante is furious, considering Veronica hit him in the previous conversation for claiming he'd had sex with twelve different women. Next, Dante's fellow clerk, Randal, who works at the neighboring video store, shows up late once again. Dante later finds out that his ex-girlfriend Caitlin is to be married to an Asian design major, much to Dante's disdain. As they pass time during the day they converse about many things, such as if the contractors working on the second Death Star were innocent victims or not.
It becomes obvious after a while that Dante's boss is not coming in, so Dante decides to play hockey on the roof, and closes down the store, leaving a sign on the door explaining, "Store Closed. Will Re-open After 1st Period." Twelve minutes into the game an irate customer shoots their only ball off the roof and into a gutter. The two reopen the store and Dante finds out one of his ex-girlfriends has died and her memorial service is today. Randal talks him into closing the store again and going to the funeral. The audience does not see what happened inside the house containing the memorial service, simply seeing them go in, time pass, a woman scream and the two run out (it should be noted that due to an unfilmed scene inside the house being animated for the 10th Anniversary Edition DVD, it is now known that while at the memorial Randal accidentally knocks over her coffin after trying to retrieve keys that are dropped in as an accident, and the body falls out). They rush back and when they return to the store, Randal asks to borrow Dante's car to rent a movie. After Randal leaves, Dante is surprised by a visit from Caitlin. After some banter Dante becomes torn between her and Veronica. Dante finally decides he will go on a date with Caitlin and drives home to change, after Randal returns. When Dante returns he discovers Caitlin has had sex with a dead man in the bathroom mistaking him for Dante (the man had earlier entered the bathroom with a pornographic magazine). In severe shock, Caitlin is taken away in an ambulance along with the corpse she recently fornicated with. Later, Veronica comes into the Quickstop and yells at Dante after Randal tells her he was in love with Caitlin. The two, Dante and Randal, get into a huge fight then reconcile. The movie ends with Randal walking out of the store before briefly returning to toss Dante's sign at him stating, "You're closed!"
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Production
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The film is in black-and-white and roughly edited due to a very modest budget of $27,575 (USD). To acquire the funds for the film, Kevin Smith sold a large amount of his extensive comic book collection in 1993, maxed out eight to ten credit cards with $2000 limits, dipped into a portion of funds set aside for his college education and spent insurance money awarded for a car he and Jason Mewes lost in a flood. The film was shot in 21 straight days (with two "pick-up" days). Originally, Kevin Smith wrote the role of Randal Graves for himself. According to Smith commentary on the DVD, this is why Randal has the best lines.
Several members of Smith's family played roles in the film due to budget contraints. When Dante is discussing the "Milk Maids", the shopper shown is Kevin Smith's mother and the customer whose job it is to "manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination" is played by Kevin Smith's sister, Virginia. Several of Kevin Smith's childhood friends also play roles in the film. Walt Flanagan plays five roles in this movie: The "Woolen Cap Smoker" in the beginning (which he reprises in Clerks II), the famous "Egg Man", the "Offended Customer" (during the "jizz mopper" scene) and the "Cat Admiring Bitter Customer." The fifth role was eventually deleted: Flanagan played a customer in RST Video who picked up a video and said "OOO, Navy SEALs." Walt never intended to play this many roles (Smith would often, in jest, refer to Flanagan as "the Lon Chaney of the '90s"). As one of Smith's friends who was present often during filming as either extra help or just moral support, it fell to Walt to play these characters when the actors Smith originally got to play them just didn't show up.
Dante's beard changes throughout the movie because Kevin Smith asked Brian O'Halloran to shave his goatee before filming started. After seeing what O'Halloran looked like without it, Smith told him to grow it back. Thus, the scenes earlier in the shoot show a thinner beard, while later ones show Dante with a thicker goatee, as it had longer to grow back.
During the porn recital scene, Randal and the Happy Scrappy Hero Pup lady are not actually in the room at the same time. Jeff Anderson refused to read the list of porno movies in front of her, and particularly in front of the child (although the reaction shots of the Happy Scrappy Hero Pup lady were obtained by a crew member reading the same list to her). In fact, Anderson also felt uncomfortable about knowing his mother would watch the film and hear the list and he, embarrassed, gave the list back to Smith to cut it down - mere seconds before shooting, Kevin Smith passed the list back to Anderson with a few more added for good measure.
Little know trivia: The supposed lung the Chewlies representative puts on the counter is in fact a cow liver.
The original ending for the film was meant to continue from when Randal throws Dante's "I Assure You, We're Open" sign to him. After Randal leaves, Dante proceeds to count out the register and does not notice another person entering the store. Upon informing the latecomer that the store is no longer open, the customer shoots Dante, killing him. Afterwards, he makes off with the money from the cash register. The sequence ends with Dante's dead face looking off past the camera. While the sad ending tested poorly, it was nevertheless foreshadowed earlier in the film (the opening credits' song includes the lyric "A meaningless end to the story" and Dante himself states at one point that life "is a series of down endings"). Smith said it concluded this way because he "didn't know how to end a film." He took constructive criticisms about the ending to heart and decided to remove it from the film. Both versions are available in Clerks X, the tenth anniversary special edition; the lost ending itself was among the extras on the 1995 Laserdisc and the 1999 DVD release. The culprit in question was played by John Willyung, who would go on to appear in later Smith films (most notably as "Cohee Lunden" in Chasing Amy).
The MPAA originally gave Clerks. an NC-17 rating, based purely on the film's explicit dialogue — it contains no real violence, and no clearly depicted nudity. This was a financial death sentence, as very few cinemas in the United States will screen NC-17 movies. Miramax hired civil liberties lawyer Alan Dershowitz to appeal the decision; the MPAA relented and re-rated the film with the more commercial 'R' rating, without altering a single frame or word.
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Reception
The film became a surprising success after it was taken by Miramax Films and has made over $3,151,000 gross in the United States despite never playing on more than 50 theater screens. Clerks. won the "Award of the Youth" and the "Mercedes-Benz Award" at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, tied with "Fresh" for the "Filmmakers Trophy" at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards (Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay and Jeff Anderson for Best Debut Performance). In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Clerks. the 16th greatest comedy film of all time and in 2006, British film magazine Empire listed Clerks. as the 4th greatest independent film. This film is also number 33 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies.
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Themes
Often the items that the customers are purchasing are strangely and coincidentally relevant to the topics the characters are discussing. For example, the woman who interrupts Dante and Veronica's conversation about oral sex is purchasing Vaseline and rubber gloves. The offended customer in the "Jizz Mopper" scene is purchasing Windex and paper towels. The woman who "manually masturbates animals for artificial insemination" is purchasing jerky.
Because the filmmakers didn't want to pay for the rights to use a particular cigarette brand, customers only ask for a "pack of cigarettes". Many fans pass this off by assuming that the Quick Stop only carries one brand of cigarettes. In later Kevin Smith films, notably Clerks II, all cigarettes are from the fictional brand "Nails" and the cigarette pack artwork has a coffin with the cigarettes being the metaphorical 'nails' in the coffin (in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back a poster advertising nails shows an X-ray of a human lung containing several three-inch nails). This is also a reference to the line "merchants sell you nails in your coffin" from a Chewlies gum representative earlier in the film. However, in Clerks, assorted real-world brands are visible (if not particularly distinct) behind the counter.
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Cast
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Home video release
Clerks was first released on VHS on May 23, 1995. On August 30, 1995 a laserdisc version was issued. This version features the original letterboxed version of the film, audio commentary by Kevin Smith and various cast and crew members, seven deleted scenes from the film, a theatrical trailer and a music video for "Can't Even Tell" performed by Soul Asylum.
The first DVD incarnation of the film appeared on June 29, 1999. The special features for the DVD do not vary from the laserdisc features. It was then released as a 3-disc, tenth anniversary edition set in 2004.
The film was released on UMD (playable on PlayStation Portable) on November 15, 2005. Special features include "Clerks: The Lost Scene", "The Flying Car" and original cast auditions.
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Clerks X
On September 7, 2004, a tenth anniversary edition of Clerks was released. The 3-disc set is commonly known as "Clerks X" as part of the Miramax Collector's Series. The features for this version of the DVD include:
A 24-page color booklet featuring thoughts on the film from Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier ten years after making it. The booklet also features various reprints of reviews and images of posters and memorabilia from the film's release. Kevin states in the booklet that Clerks II would be filmed in 2005.
Disc 1 - Theatrical Feature
The original theatrical cut of the film in Dolby Digital 2.1 Mono.
The original 1995 laser disc commentary track.
An "enhanced playback track" featuring trivia subtitles and title card descriptions.
"" animated short. This scene was originally written in the screenplay for the film but was never shot. For the DVD, the scene was animated in the same style as Clerks: The Animated Series. The scene can be presented in two different ways.
The scene can be viewed on separate from the film with an introduction from Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
The DVD also presents the owner with the ability to play the theatrical cut of the film with the animated scene as if it were part of the feature.
"The Flying Car", a short film featuring Dante and Randal. The short was shot in 2001 for The Tonight Show and features the two main characters from Clerks stuck in traffic having a somewhat similar conversation as the one in Clerks where the two are driving to a funeral and discussing sexual curiosity. On the DVD, the short is presented in its original cut with an introduction from Kevin Smith.
A series of short television ads that MTV commissioned from Kevin Smith featuring Jay and Silent Bob. Eight of them appear on the DVD (MTV also aired a special that Kevin Smith hosted but it could not be secured for the DVD for clearance reasons). The spots are introduced by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
An original theatrical trailer for the film edited by Matthew Cohen with a brief introduction from Kevin Smith.
The original music video for "Can't Even Tell" performed by Soul Asylum directed by Kevin Smith. The music video is introduced by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
Three short featurettes about the restoration process used to recreate the feature film for the Clerks X DVD. In the first featurette, Scott Mosier describes the sound restoration process. In the second, David Klein explains the visual restoration process. The third featurette is hosted by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier as a general introduction to the restored version of the film.
Original auditions for the film featuring Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti and Ernest O'Donnell. The auditions are introduced by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
Disc 2 - Clerks: The First Cut
A restored edition of the very first cut of Clerks before it was edited for theaters. This cut of the film features additional scenes and the original ending intact, less sound production and no music soundtrack. This version of the film replicates what Kevin Smith showed to film critics and journalists before taking the film to Sundance and selling it to Miramax. It was taken from a Super-VHS tape.
Audio and video commentary for the first cut of the film. The commentary was recorded in 2004 with Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier, Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes.
Disc 3 - Bonus Features
"Snowball Effect", a 90-minute retrospective documentary for Clerks that focuses on Kevin's early inception of the film, the process of making and distributing and finally, the reaction and response to the film from critics and fans.
Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary, a short student film with an introduction by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier.
10th Anniversary Q&A session with Kevin Smith, David Klein, Scott Mosier, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Jason Mewes, Jeff Anderson and Brian O'Halloran.
13 deleted scenes and outtakes from "Snowball Effect"
A still photo gallery of over 50 photographs and production images from Clerks as well as early photos of crew and cast members.
Two collections of journal entries that Kevin Smith wrote. The first entries were written before finishing Clerks and the second were written while Kevin took the film to Sundance Film Festival.
Eight articles and reviews about the film.
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Soundtrack
The soundtrack was released on October 11, 1994. It was comprised of various songs by alternative artists and sound clips from the film. It has been noted that Clerks is one of the very few films in which the cost of obtaining the rights to the music used was greater than the production costs for the entire film. The soundtrack includes the following:
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Vocabulary title cards
Various title cards are used throughout the film (after the title card for the film's title itself, "Clerks"). While some are merely the names of the characters that the ensuing scenes introduce, many of them are long vocabulary words that Kevin Smith pulled from a dictionary. Though none of the vocabulary terms are defined in the film, the enhanced trivia track on the Clerks X DVD defines them as they appear.
On the DVD, the movie is split into 18 scenes. Each scene is titled by a corresponding title card with the first being "Dante/Opening Credits" and the last being "End Credits".
Vilification - an act of making cruel and insulting statements about a person
Syntax - the arrangement of something in a methodical manner
Vagary - an erratic or peculiar modification, act or thought
Purgation - an act of getting rid of something disagreeable, flawed or unsatisfactory
Malaise - an all-around feeling of illness or bad health without any exact cause
Harbinger - a person or thing that predicts the future
Perspicacity - intensity of judgment or observation
Paradigm - a typical example of something
Whimsy - a thought that has no apparent explanation to exist
Quandary - a condition of doubt or uncertainty as to what to do in a certain situation
Lamentation - an act or expression of sadness or distress
Juxtaposition - an act of comparing two things, especially in a way that suggests connection between them or to distinguish them
Catharsis - an event or sensation of spiritual cleansing brought on by a powerful emotional experience
Denouement - the part of the ending in which all questions are answered and everything is cleared up
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Trivia
A Quick Stop convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey where Kevin Smith worked was the primary setting for the movie. He was only allowed to film in the store at night while it was closed (from 10:30 PM to 5:30 AM). This is why in the movie "someone jammed gum in the locks" and the steel shutters had to remain closed; otherwise, it would seem odd that it was dark outside during all the daytime scenes.
In Mallrats, when Brodie and T.S. go to the "Dirt Mall", T.S. puts on a black hat that says "CLERKS"
Because Kevin Smith was working at Quick Stop during the day and shooting the film at night, he slept no more than an hour a day. By the end of the 21 day shoot, Smith was unable to stay awake while some of the most climactic scenes of the movie were filmed.
The Quick Stop featured in this movie is located at 58 Leonard Avenue, where it enjoys success, not only because of business from locals and visitors to the nearby Leonardo State Marina, but thanks to the traffic from visiting fans of the film.
The first draft of the script was 168 pages.
The original draft of the screenplay was entitled Inconvenience. Other possible titles were Life of Convenience and Rude Clerks before choosing the final title of simply Clerks.
The screenplay is loosely based on The Divine Comedy. The character Dante Hicks gets his name from Dante Alighieri, the author and fictional protagonist of The Divine Comedy. The chapter titles are also somewhat of a reference to the literature in that in The Divine Comedy, each level of hell is given a title. It can be said that Quick Stop is "Dante's hell".
The VHS version of the film is one of the most stolen or unreturned video rentals from various video rental chains (specifically, from Blockbuster )
The rights to the soundtrack cost more than the film itself. This was a first in the history of film.
When Miramax took the film to post-production, the budget rose to $127,575. The combined cost of the film's entire production and its soundtrack would only have paid for about one second of filming the 1997 blockbuster Titanic.
The girl who died and whose funeral Dante and Randal attend is the same girl whose death is mentioned in Smith's next film Mallrats. She also dies the same way. This implies that the events in Mallrats take place a day before Clerks as she's stated as dying on Thursday in the film, and later Randal confirms that the date of Clerks is Saturday. In Mallrats, Brandi tells T.S. Julie died 'yesterday' implying that Mallrats takes place on Friday. She is also mentioned in Chasing Amy when Holden and Alyssa are discussing growing up in the same neighborhood.
If the events in Clerks are based on when they were filmed instead of the year that the film was actually released, the movie should take place on April 10, 1993. Mallrats takes place 1 day before Clerks, on a Friday, meaning Clerks takes place on a Saturday. In Mallrats, they also say that Easter is that Sunday, which would be the day after Clerks. In 1993, Easter was on April 11, so the Saturday before that would have been April 10th.
Even though Clerks was filmed in the early spring of 1993, it was not released in the United States until October 19, 1994. In the beginning of the movie, when Dante is putting newspapers on the rack inside the store, the headline of the New York Daily News is "Pray For Them". This headline referenced a story about the then ongoing Branch Davidian siege, which took place near Waco, Texas between February 28th and April 19th, 1993.
Before filming Clerks, Kevin Smith was a staunch advocate of non-smoking. However, by the time he began shooting Mallrats, he had been up to 2 packs a day.
A line of dialogue briefly mentions a girl named "Alyssa Jones". This would later become the name of the main female character in Chasing Amy.
The "smoker's lung" used in one of the opening scenes is in fact a calf's liver that was rolled in dirt and burned with cigarettes.
The "RST" in RST Video stands "Rajiv, Sarla, Tarlochen." Those are the first names of the son, mother, and father team who owned (and still own) the video store and the Quick Stop. RST Video closed in 2003 but the video tapes remained on the shelves, perhaps in anticipation of filming for the sequel.
The scene where Dante confronts Caitlin about her marriage to an Asian design major in the video store is done in one single take with no edits and lasts for over five minutes.
Dante sings the line "Here comes Randal, he's a berserker" when Randal "wrangles" out of Quick Stop at the end of the film. When listened to closely, the audio quality of this line does not match the audio around it. This is because the line was "looped" or, replaced in ADR. The original line of dialogue was "Here comes Wrangler and he's one tough customer", a reference to a jingle for Wrangler Jeans.
The correct spelling of the film's title is Clerks. (with a period at the end.)
The end of the credits read "Jay and Silent Bob will return in Dogma". Dogma would become the fourth film set in the View Askewniverse.
The roofer in the debate about independent contractors in the Death Star says his company is "Done and Ready Home Improvements." In Chasing Amy, "Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements" is listed as being on the 3rd floor of the bulding that "Bank Holdup Studios" is in.
In Veronica's first scene she uses a fire extinguisher on the group of customers who throw cigarettes at Dante. Similarly in Dogma Bethany Sloane uses a fire extinguisher on Metatron when he appears in a fire.
Various sports merchandise can be seen throughout the film.
The independent roofer is seen wearing a New York Yankees cap in the same scene.
During the hockey scene, Dante and his friend wear Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils jerseys, respectively (Randall also wears the jersey of the Soviet Union).
In the original ending, after Randal leaves, an unknown man enters the store, shoots and kills Dante, and makes off with the money from the cash register. This confims Dante's trademark lament, "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
Also in the original ending, after the credits, another unknown man (Played by Kevin Smith) walked into the store (Since there was nobody working there), and stole a pack of cigarettes, then ran away.
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Related projects
Following Clerks., Smith set several more films in the same "world", which he calls the View Askewniverse of overlapping characters and stories. Of all of Smith's films, however, Clerks. is the one with the most direct spin-off products.
Clerks: The TV Show
In a similar fashion to the Black Bart pilot based on Blazing Saddles, a pilot for a live action TV series was produced in 1995. It was produced by Disney and Buena Vista Entertainment. The pilot only referenced the character names and starred none of the cast from the original film, contained no foul language, did not mention Jay and Silent Bob, and had nothing to do with Kevin Smith, as he was making his second film Mallrats at the time. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson both auditioned for the role of Dante Hicks (as Anderson's part of Randal from the film had already been filled by former SNL performer Jim Breuer). After seeing the result, Smith said that it was terrible, and O'Halloran and Anderson said they were both glad they didn't get the part of Dante.
Clerks: The Animated Series
was a short-lived six-episode animated television series of the same name, featuring the same characters and actors. Two episodes aired on the ABC network (a subsidiary of the Disney company, which also owns Miramax, the studio which released many of Smith's films, including Clerks. itself) in late May/early June 2000 before vanishing from the lineup altogether. The Comedy Central network eventually broadcasted all six episodes of the series in 2004, as part of its late-night and weekend programming. A feature animated film is planned, based on the series, titled .
Clerks: The Comics
Clerks is a series of comics written by Kevin Smith featuring characters from the film. In the series are Clerks: The Comic Book, Clerks: Holiday Special and Clerks: The Lost Scene. Smith has discussed plans for Clerks 1.5, a comic that would bridge the gap between the original movie and its sequel, to be included in a reprint of the Clerks. trade paperback.
Clerks II
The live-action, feature film sequel to Clerks was released on July 21, 2006. The working title was The Passion of the Clerks, though the film was released under the title Clerks II. The credits for Dogma stated "Jay and Silent Bob will return in Clerks 2: Hardly Clerkin", however, that project "evolved" into Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The sequel features Jeff Anderson and Brian O'Halloran reprising their roles as Dante and Randal. The two now work at a Mooby's restaurant after Randal's incompetence resulted in the destruction of the Quick Stop and RST Video.
During press for Clerks 2, Smith briefly discussed the possiblity of a Clerks 3. Stating that "if there's ever gonna be a Clerks 3, it would be somewhere down the road in my 40s or 50s, when it might be interesting to check back in on Dante and Randal. But I don't know about Jay and Bob so much, cause at 45, leaning on a wall in front of a convenience store might be a little sad." *
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Trooper Clerks
Trooper Clerks is an American animated Internet film that was nominated for the Star Wars Fan Film Awards. It was made from Studio Productions.
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Plot
As written from the official site, "Trooper Clerks is a parody mixing the characters from Kevin Smith's Clerks universe with the settings and characters im George Lucas's Star Wars universe. The end result is a hilarious yet foul-languaged multimedia experiment that has captured the hearts and minds of thousands of fans."
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Cartoons
- Part I
Being told that their jobs are in peril due to cutbacks, Stormtroopers Dante and Randal embark on a quest to steal the Death Star plans by hiring the station's Sith duo in training, Darth Jay and Darth Bob.
Darth Jay is portrayed as Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and as told in the short film, Darth Bob is based on Darth Sidious.
- Part II
Dante and Randal continue their quest of gainful employment while Darth Jay and Darth Bob pull every trick in the book trying to snatch the plans from its ultra-secure location.
This is a shot-for-shot recreation of the 1994 "Clerks." movie trailer. This was the first project the Studio Creations Team ever did with "Trooper Clerks", and it was made in 1998. Clerks. Director Kevin Smith wrote the creators an email upon watching the trailer online, encouraging them to do more with the parody if they choose to.
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Footnotes
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