patrick wrote:Are there any Smith fans on here who can explain how his fans feel about Smith's tendency towards blatant merchandising and repackaging of his material? I suppose it's kind of like how Star Wars fans complain about Lucas being a greedy bastard but still eat it all up. I've heard rumors that Smith wants to do a new Chasing Amy DVD, but I'm guessing that that means it'll be pulled from Criterion since I doubt they're going to see the need for a second disc of fan convention interviews or whatever he wants to add. I guess in the end I can't fault him for what he does, since if his fans didn't want it they wouldn't buy it.
As far as I can tell it's exactly like Star Wars nerds (which I am, and I have spend thousands of dollars on Star Wars crap) in that they obsess over the "ViewAskewniverse" and collect all the action figures and lunchboxes and what have you.
As for Chasing Amy, I think the criterion disc is fine and I didn't bite for the Mallrats X dvd (because I rented it and the extra scenes are SHIT). But as I understand it he didn't feel a need to revisit Mallrats, he just made the dvd for the fans since the studio was releasing a tenth anniversary with or without him.
As far as Smith's writing is concerned, he is a natural when it comes to writing comic books, as evidenced by an excellent run on Daredevil and a pretty good run on the Green Arrow.
Unfortunately, he is also a bit of a lazy comic writer (which I don't understand, he had time to write a Superman script that was never used) as he never followed up a strong first issue of Daredevil/Bullseye. I remember him joking that the two things someone always said to him when he would walk into a comic shop was 1: I am a huge fan & 2: Where the fuck is my Daredevil 2?
Anyways, I think Smith is afraid to try new things and I would love to see him try his hand at directing one of those comic book movies (Maybe Green Arrow?) or just stick to screenwriting for awhile.