There’s a rumor that when he was being interviewed for Jaws 3-D, Dennis Quaid, who was struggling with his cocaine addiction, responded, “I was in Jaws the what?” You can’t blame Quaid for not wanting to remember the making of this movie that almost seems like a parody of Jaws rather than a sequel. Quaid later admitted in 2015 that he was high on cocaine in every scene and every frame of the movie.
Originally intended as a parody, the concept was to have National Lampoon‘s producer Matty Simmons do a mock-up of the killer shark genre titled Jaws – 3, Humans – 0. Reportedly Steven Spielberg wasn’t too happy with this and other issues arose. David Brown who had produced the first two movies with his partner Richard Zanuck said it could have been a good movie as they had a young John Hughes working on the script with Joe Dante interested in directing. But Brown said Universal considered a parody to be “fowling the nest.”
Needless to say, it appears part of the parody script may have gotten mixed into the shooting script. Richard Matheson, who is credited as one of the writers, said there were numerous script doctors with very little remaining of what he had wrote. Carl Gottlieb, who had worked on the script for the first two movies is also credited as a writer along with Guerdon Trueblood, who gets a “Story by” credit for turning into a script about a killer shark who swims upstream and gets stuck in a lake.
However, there is no lake here but a lagoon as the movie takes place at SeaWorld in Florida, which is a pretty damn long upstream for the shark to swim considering that SeaWorld is in Orlando many, many miles from ocean water in either direction. But as Johnny Depp said in Ed Wood, “It’s not about the little details but the big picture.” The movie looks like it was filmed in the style of Wood considering that it has numerous goofs such as a worker’s shirt changing back and forth in between shots. The same worker, Danny (Dan Blasko), has a voice that is constantly changing along with accents.
The plot begins as SeaWorld, which is just a jetski ride from the Florida coast, is preparing to open to the public. Even though it’s been five years since Jaws 2 was released, Michael Brody (Quaid) has aged about 10 years and become the chief engineer at SeaWorld. He’s dating senior biologist Dr. Kathryn “Kay” Morgan (Bess Armstrong). The fact that both Michael and Kay are only in their late 20s but are holding top positions at a major themepark like SeaWorld will make all Millennials and Gen Zers with college degrees being told they can only be paid $8.50 an hour scream at the screen.
Of course, SeaWorld opened 10 years prior in Florida and was owned by the Harcout publishing company at the time. But for the reasons of this movie, it’s the brainchild of businessman Calvin Brouchard (Louis Gossett Jr.) who beats Bryce Dallas Howard by a good 30 years of being the one character in a movie like this who does everything wrong and still DOESN’T get eaten by the big bad creature at the end. In reality, the filmmakers were going to film Calvin becoming shark chow but they felt Gossett’s performance was too good not to kill him off.
It may be that Gossett was kicking ass (and Richard Gere’s nuts) as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman, it was wrong to do. They must’ve also realized that since Gossett’s character had died in The Deep, another movie based on a Peter Benchley novel, that it’s best ot let him live this time. Instead, Fred (Alonzo Ward), Brouchard’s nephew gets eaten. But, hey, this is the first African-American character to be killed off in a Jaws franchise. Not too bad all things considered. Depending on what version you’re watching, Mario Van Peeble’s Jake either is killed or survives at the end of the fourth movie. (But the less said about that, the better.)
I mean, both movies are horrible. But Jaws 3-D carries its awfulness like a badge of honor. You can see where the filmmakers tried to do everything they could to make an outrageous movie and kinda succeeded. The plot involves a huge great white shark swimming up into the lagoon to give birth. When passing through the gates, it knocks them off the rails. A worker, Shelby Overman (Harry Grant), foolishly goes down off the clock to lock them without a second diver and gets eaten by the shark. Since the movie was shot and presented in 3-D, we get to see part of Overman’s arm floating in the ocean.
When told that Overman is MIA, Mike thinks the worse that Overman broke driver rules and went to close the gate, even though there appears to be nowhere around seeing Overman do it. Reportedly there was 20 minutes of the movie cut so that might explain why Mike knows. He and Kay take a submersible (not Oceangate Titan) down to look for his body but discover a baby shark. (Apologies to anyone reading this who just sang “Baby Shark” in their head or aloud.)
Mike wants to kill the shark because this is the third motherfucking time he’s come close to being eaten by one. But Kay wants to rescue it because they can keep it in captivity. With help from adventurer and filmmaker Phillip FitzRoyce (Simon MacCorkindale in a hilarious eccentric performance) and his friend, Jack Tate (P.H. Moriarty), they capture it. Kay being a biologist would know better than this because great whites can’t be held in captivity. Attempts have been made but they died. And the baby does die (as a child watching cries in horror).
But damn if more problems don’t arrive when guests to the underground kingdom spot Overman’s body and Kay realizes that the bite marks are too big to be caused by the baby shark. Then, we see the mother who spends most of the time flashing her gums toward the screen and growling. This was mostly due to a plaigarism lawsuit Universal Pictures brought against the makers of Great White (The Last Shark). Elements of that movie were incorporated into this one.
The mommy shark (Sorry!) wrecks havoc and attacks the dimwitted Kelly Ann Bukowski (Lea Thompson), who works on the ski team and may or may not be a slut. It’s never made clear but she’s quick to bonk Mike’s brother, Sean (John Putch), who is visiting for the summer. He goes to the University of Colorado but apparently the filmmakers mistook Colorado for Texas, because he dresses like a cowboy. Kelly survives so Thompson can play bigger sluts trying to fuck her son in Back to the Future and a duck in Howard the Duck.
The movie is one big mess. While making a note that Overman broke the diver’s rules, Mike goes underwater himself alone to fix the damage so stranded guests can be release (and sue the absolute fuck out of SeaWorld!) I’m just wondering did SeaWorld actually think this movie would give them a lot of good publicity. Part of me suspects that they may have seen one of the better scripts that Matheson had talked about but through all the rewrites and re-edits, it became something else. It’s the only movie directed by Joe Alves, who had been a production designer on previous movies.
“I’m a good storyteller and I wrote a good outline and a good script. And if they had done it right and if it had been directed by somebody who knew how to direct, I think it would have been an excellent movie,” Matheson said of the finished movie, criticizing Alves’ direction. He also said the special effects made the movie look murky. “It had no effect whatsoever. It was a waste of time.”
I agree. At one point, the submersible loses part of its front as it comes toward the screen and then turns. Then, there’s the atrociously bad special effect of the shark coming toward the screen to break the glass of the underwater control room. First off the shark seems to be floating through the water. Sharks have to constantly swim or they’ll die and the glass would have to be so thick for the underwater pressue to keep it from breaking on its own. Also, there’s scenes of the shark swimming backwards which anyone who’s seen Deep Blue Sea knows sharks can’t do. At one point when the shark does appear underwater, it looks like a fucking hand puppet.
Yet, there is one kinda good scene in which FitzRoyce who is so cocky finds himself royally fucked when he tries to lure the shark into a filtration pipe but the rope he’s using breaks and he finds himself in the mouth of the shark. The interior of FitzRoyce in the mouth gives a creepy vibe as he is facing his imminent death in one of the worst ways possible. It’s scenes like this despite how ludicrous they are that give the movie the terror it should’ve had.
Released 40 years ago this weekend, the movie was actually a big success for its time making $88 million off a budget of $18 million. During this time period, 3-D had a brief popularity as movies like Friday the 13th Part 3 and The Amityville Horror 3-D were in theaters along with Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. It was decades before IMAX and Avatar helped revitalized the 3-D format to avoid all the silly moments where something is pointed or directed toward the screen.
Unfortunately, Universal should’ve really quit while they were ahead. As I noted in the previous post about Jaws 2, Roy Scheider had done everything he could to make himself unavailable even in appearing in the action thriller Blue Thunder. Matheson flat out rejected the idea of having Michael and Sean return but the powers that be that wrote his check overruled him. Sean is supposed to have thalassophobia, a fear of the ocean, after nearly being eaten by a shark in the second movie. But that is never really examined. That’s why he goes to college in Colorado, but is he afraid of all bodies of water?
Critics weren’t too happy and it has 11 percent aggregate on RottenTomatoes.com. Movieline actually called it one of the most enjoyably bad movies ever. There might have been a better movie with those additional 20 minutes. There’s the implication that FitzRoyce wants to use his long lens on Kay’s biology, if you know what I mean, that is dropped almost as soon as she rejects his invitation to dinner. I felt there was supposed to be more of an alpha-male standoff between Michael and FitzRoyce that was edited out, which is both good and bad because the two characters never seem to work off each other either as friends or foes.
Gone is John Williams’ memorable tense music for Alan Parker to add a more fun-oriented triumph music that carries on the lighter tone studio execs wanted. It’s not the best but it works in this movie. But Universal wouldn’t learn their lesson. They reportedly only made Jaws: The Revenge because they wanted to get people excited about the new Jaws attraction ride at the theme park. That movie still turned a profit of nearly $52 million against a $23 million budget but the rushed production and the plot retconning all the events of this movie didn’t sit well with audiences. Sir Michael Caine famously had to miss the 1987 Oscars where he won for Hannah and Her Sisters as he had to reshoot scenes.
Caine later said he did the movie for money. “I’ve never seen it, but by all accounts it’s terrible,” he said of the movie. “However, I have seen the house that it built and it is terrific.” People later pointed out that the roar (!?!?!) of the shark as it literally stands up out of the water on its tail is from a Tom & Jerry cartoon where Jerry roars. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIY0Cr6XDdQ
But there’s a gazillion other killer shark movies and thankfully one thing Back to the Future Part II proved wrong was a Jaws 19 in theaters by late October of 2015.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 