Solo: A Star Wars Story is having a rough time of things at the box office, performing worse than any other Star Wars movie since before the prequel trilogy, but Kevin Smith has seen the film and is coming to its defense.

During the latest episode of Fat Man on Batman, Smith spoke with co-host Marc Bernardin about his impression of the film and said he loved how it referenced other Star Wars stories.

“I saw it, and I enjoyed it,” Smith said. “I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. I wrote on Twitter that I thought it was fun fan service, man. I thought there are great moments. I would have written the Han meets Chewie scene the way they did, and not because I’m like, ‘My version was better.’ I’m not that clever. I thought that was a very clever way to f***ing do it and stuff. I liked everything that referenced or tied into the f***ing other movies. At one point they referenced Bosk, and I was like ‘AAAAAAAAHHHH! I have that figure, still!’

One moment that struck him, in particular, was the surprise appearance of The Phantom Menace villain Darth Maul.

“Darth Maul, first I was doing backward mental math, because I was going, ‘Wait a second. Clearly, they’re not referring to the cartoons, because no movies would ever do that.’” Smith said. “So I was like, ‘This must be a mistake because,’ because in my head I’m like, ‘Darth Maul was in Phantom Menace, and f***ing Anakin Skywalker was just a little boy. Are they saying that f***ing Han Solo was older than Anakin?’ And then I read afterward, ‘No man, we’re f***ing copping to the fact that in the cartoons he’s been back for a while,” so much so that the guy who voices Darth Maul in the cartoons was the guy who voiced him in the movie. They didn’t use Peter Serafinowicz. They used the guy who’s been doing him in Rebels and Clone Wars, I guess prior to that.

“So that to me was like, ‘Good for them!’ Why not accept extended universe and the animated shows that they’ve done because they’ve built the Star Wars universe and, to a lot of people, those stories are just as important as f***ing Luke and Leia and Han and stuff.”

However, he did note that the film lacked that one big moment that really sticks with you after you leave the theater, referencing the first standalone Star Wars movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, for comparison.

“That being said, it didn’t play like a saga movie,” Smith said.” It didn’t have to, ‘because it's kind of telling a standalone story. Rogue One gets the edge in a big bad way because no matter what happens in Rogue One, honestly, it’s a tough curve to judge by because all you remember of Rogue One is the f***ing last minute with Darth Vader and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I would f***ing let my mother be handed over to cannibals so I could watch that one more time.’ It’s a one minute of filmdom that makes the previous two hours, doesn’t matter if it was good or back, it’s like ‘F**k, there you go man. That’s well done.’

“And Solo was fun, but it never had that one scene where you’re like, ‘That’s why this f***er exists.’ And I’m certainly not saying that it has no reason to exist. It’s a f***ing movie. It’s fun. Some people treat this $#!+ more seriously, like religion, and feel like the movie is an affront to everything that is Star Wars or something. I still watch them as movies, and to me it was entertaining. They got me a few times.”

Smith goes on to say that no, he did not cry during the film and that he’s bewildered by how poorly it's performing at the box office.

Smith also offered his take a Deadpool 2.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is now playing in theaters. The Skywalker Saga continues in Star Wars: Episode IX, opening on December 20, 2019. Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is said to be working on a new trilogy of Star Wars movies apart from the Skywalker Saga, and Game of Thrones creators DB Weiss and David Benioff are also said to be working on their trilogy of Star Wars movies.