Death of a Series: Jaws (Part 1)

Jaws - Jaws: The Revenge

It is easy to make a good movie. The challenge is to make more than one of them. The challenge of following up a successful film- either critical or financial- is a daunting one for a studio and/or director. Very few film series' have ever been able to do more than two films and maintain any semblance of the quality that people expect. It is something that every fan of cinema- nerdy or casual- knows all too well. Movies like "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" or "Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space" pop up when you think of series' that run that long. So many things can go wrong- from your series changing its tone completely to your studio hiring three different people to play the same role- that you should learn to leave well enough alone. In an era that has given us "Wrong Turn 2" and "The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting, "clearly this lesson has not been learned. The key to this changing is to look at famous examples in-depth. One famous series that suffers from this kind of a problem is the "Jaws" one. The first film is just classic, full of great moments and dialogue. The second one is not terrible, but is also not even close to the same quality. "Jaws 3-D" is as bad as the title sounds, daring to change the setting, characters and clearly the writers. "Jaws: The Revenge" is a painful exercise in boredom that drags the original film through the mud to connect its terrible plot to a classic. Watching this series go downhill so fast is like watching a bald eagle choke to death on a squirrel. With the prerequisite disturbing image out of the way, let me get down to the films.

Jaws
The mother of all shark films is still a great film to this day. A killer beast is loose in the waters of Amity Island, snacking on tourists and late-night nudist swimmers. Tough-talking Sheriff Brody has to tame the monster, but is thwarted by politics, lack of resources and primal fear. He teams up with a marine expert and a shark hunter for a journey out into the shark's home waters. They are humbled to learn that the size of their boat is not adequate in comparison to the size of the monster they are trying to capture. If only there was a more concise way to say that? Things go downhill pretty quick as all attempts to catch or outsmart the big guy fail pretty badly. The finale involves an exciting- if scientifically inaccurate- climax that is emulated and referenced to this day. It is hard to find any major gripes with this movie, but, I probably should. The shark/human interaction is more minimal than people who only know the film by its reputation might think. This is less the fault of writers (as in other films), but, rather, it is with the technology itself. The damn thing just would not work reliably for them, so they had to cover it creatively. Fans of the book were upset by omissions in the script- including a subplot involving an affair between Brody and one of his colleagues. Unfortunately, this is par for the course whenever a piece of work is adapted into a new medium, be it film, cartoon, etc. The shark, when on screen, still works really well in creating dread and suspense. Much like the original "Alien" film, "Jaws" is more about the scare of a looming monster than a monster constantly stomping around. The film is a classic for quite justifiable reasons. In an ironic way, this works against every other film on the list. Those are the breaks.

How does it get bad from here? Stay tuned…