Kevin Smith Explains Why Star Wars: The Force Awakens Set Visit Brought Him to Tears

In an early Comic-Con interview with Meredith Woerner of LA Times Hero Complex, Kevin Smith talked in-depth about his set visit for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Very few people were allowed on the very closed, secretive set, but Smith didn't just get to see the set in general, he got to tour parts of it intimately, including the Millennium Falcon.

And it made him cry.

"I got to walk on the Millennium Falcon, which I cried after I did that. His assistant Morgan takes me to show me, and J.J. [Abrams] was like, 'Take him to Stage M.' And so Morgan takes me to Stage M and turns on the lights, and there's the Millennium Falcon. And I was like, 'That's nuts.' And Morgan was like, 'Do you want to walk on it?' And I was like, 'Oh, my God, yeah.'"

He went on to describe what it meant to simply climb the steps up the ramp of the iconic starship flown by Han Solo.

"The moment I stepped on the Millennium Falcon 10 years dropped off my life. Suddenly I was in my 30s, and I hadn't done 'Cop Out,' and I was like, 'Oh, this is awesome.' And then another 10 years dropped off, and I was in my 20s making all those movies people like, referencing 'Star Wars' like crazy and stuff. And then another step up the ramp, and I was in my 10s and lower, when I fell in love with this stuff, when it was my religion, when I was a kid. Long before I made movies. I was a Catholic school kid; this mattered more than Jesus. They get mad when you say it; probably more so true now than when I was a kid. So by that third step, that fourth step up the landing ramp, I got so emotional."

Smith said that overall, Star Wars and Jaws sparked his love affair with movies (both of which get a reference in his first feature film, Clerks, nooch). "I just start crying, and Morgan is like, 'Oh, I'm sorry -- usually everyone who comes here likes this.' I was like, 'Oh, I like it. I like it.'"

Check out the link for more on Smith's tear-jerking set visit including video of the whole emotional moment, and stay tuned for more Star Wars: The Force Awakens news this weekend.

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