3 things we learned from Kevin Smith's 'Star Wars' set visit

Director and geek icon Kevin Smith recently attended the Neuchatel International Film Festival in Switzerland to take part in an in-depth Q&A session with his fans. Fresh from his visit to the set of "Star Wars Episode VII," the filmmaker revealed about as much as he was legally allowed to about his brief visit to a galaxy far, far away.

“It looks fantastic,” Smith said after being asked about “Episode VII.” “So anyone out there wondering if [Abrams] is going to pull it off, he’s pulling it off. He showed me cut scenes, he showed me sequences, images, pictures. I cried and I hugged that guy.”

A lifelong fan of the series (yes, even of the prequels), Smith has a reputation for being slightly hyperbolic when it comes to things related to “Star Wars.” He heaped praise on the critically reviled “Attack of the Clones” when it was first released and has been equally defensive of Episodes I and III in the years since they hit theatres. With that in mind, it might be worth taking his on-set impressions of “Episode VII” with a grain of salt for now.

That said, the usually boisterous Smith appeared unusually genuine and reverent during his talk.

“He got it,” Smith said of Abrams. “I was like, ‘Honestly dude, you’re doing it. You’re making my childhood again. You’re doing our ‘Star Wars.’ What I saw blew me away.”

Here are three things we learned from Smith’s “Star Wars Episode VII” set visit.

Security is tighter than the Death Star
Despite several early leaks (most notably photos of the Millennium Falcon set under construction), security on the set of “Episode VII” is unsurprisingly pretty tight these days. Not even Smith, who is both friendly with director J.J. Abrams and certainly no stranger to movie sets, was immune to the strict security procedures at London’s Pinewood Studios.

After being made to sign a non-disclosure agreement swearing him to secrecy under penalty of legal action, Smith spotted a poster of a stern looking Imperial Starfleet officer and the words “loose lips sink starships” (a reference to a famous World War II era propaganda poster that stressed the importance of secrecy).

“J.J. hung that up for you!” Abrams’ assistant reportedly told Smith. There will surely be more leaks from the set, but you can bet they won't be coming from Kevin Smith.

Real sets and not a green screen in sight
One of the major criticisms of the George Lucas directed “Star Wars” prequels was the over-reliance on green screens and computer-generated characters and locations to bring the galaxy to life. While “Episode VII” is certain to have its share of green screen and CG, Smith said the big difference he noticed was that there was actually a physical set.

“It was tactile, it was real. It wasn’t a series of f---ing green screens and blue screens in which later a bunch of digital characters would be added,” Smith said of what he saw at Pinewood. “It was there, it was happening. I saw old friends who I haven’t seen since my childhood, who aren’t really friends, but I love them more than some of my f---ing relatives. I saw uniforms; I saw artillery I haven’t seen since I was a kid. I saw them shooting an actual sequence in a set that was real. I walked across the set; there were explosions. And it looked like a shot right out of a ‘Star Wars’ movie.”

Better than the prequels?
The hope of every longtime “Star Wars” fan is that “Episode VII” will, at the least, be slightly better than the prequels (some would argue that it's not a hard bar to clear). Given the huge amount of talent working on the film and the fact that George Lucas’s role has been limited to that of a consultant, most agree that the movie is definitely heading in the right direction. As Smith described boarding the Millennium Falcon set, he revealed that he believes that Abrams has tapped into the same thing that made the original trilogy so great.

“As I walked up that ramp I realized that the something that was missing from [the prequels] and is now in these movies — and it’s not the obvious like ‘hey, the Millennium Falcon’ or ‘hey, the characters that we know are returning’ — it’s something else entirely. He’s building a world you can touch, and he’s replicating it with all the love of someone who has the world’s greatest collection of Star Wars figures," Smith said.

“I just started crying,” Smith recalled. “I was connected to my childhood in such a primal way... and I wasn't even stoned!”

Smith has a whole lot more to say about his visit to the “Episode VII” set. You can see the full video of his NIFF Masterclass here (the “Star Wars” talk begins around the 35:00 mark).