Jaws 2 (1978) (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

Jaws 3 is Casablanca compared to Jaws Revenge.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I've probably said it before but at least Jaws III is a good bad movie so you can have some fun laughing at it. The Revenge is just a bad movie.

That's about the only potential distinction. "J3"offers some campy laughs, whereas "Revenge" largely lacks even those!

I still contend they're 2 sides of the same coin, though - awful and awfuler, perhaps, but very close relatives!

 

[Malcolm R]

 

[Tino]

Rewatched Jaws 2 recently and while of course it doesn’t hold a candle to Jaws, it’s fun and the best of the sequels with great production values and a great John Williams score.

 

[TonyD]

When I was a kid we spent summers at the jersey shore in Wildwood.
All of us were water kids. Spent much of our time in the Wildwood bay or the beach.

Needless to say at 10 going on 11 after we saw Jaws it took a
minute for us to get back in the water.

We must have seen that movie once or twice a week for the rest of the summer.

Then a few years later Jaws 2 came out.
We all thought, wow they did it again.
As far as us 13 year olds were concerned it was another great movie.

Clearly it isn’t the masterpiece Jaws is but it’s still a pretty darn good movie on its own.

 

[TravisR]

When I was young, I liked Jaws 2 and III more than the original because they've both got more action and more people getting eaten by a shark.

 

[Jason_V]

When I was young, I liked Jaws 2 and III more than the original because they've both got more action and more people getting eaten by a shark.

Jaws III was my jam when I was a kid. I still find it enjoyable and goofy to watch, but that's about all it has going for it now.

 

[TravisR]

Jaws III was my jam when I was a kid. I still find it enjoyable and goofy to watch, but that's about all it has going for it now.

There's a few good things about Jaws III but yeah, the biggest reason that I will frequently end up watching it when it's on AMC is because it's silly.

 

[Malcolm R]

When I was younger, I also enjoyed J2 more than the original, as I thought the original was too slow. More shark action in J2. Must be the shark worked better for this one, and the shark FX also looked better, IMO.

Which made it more perplexing that the shark effects were so bad in Revenge. Twelve years after the original, you'd think they would have looked better.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

There's a few good things about Jaws III

Name one. I dare ya!

 

[Tino]

Name one. I dare ya!

As I said in the other JAWS thread, The POV death scene from inside the sharks mouth. Terrific.

 

[TravisR]

Name one. I dare ya!

Ha! The scene Tino mentioned is easily the best scene in the movie and legitimately creepy. The score, while certainly not up to John WIlliams, is still pretty good. Lou Gossett saying "You talking about some damn shark's mother?" makes me laugh. The scene with Overman trying to lock the underwater gate and the shot of the shark pushing against the gate is somewhat suspenseful. After that, it pretty much gets by on its goofiness or nostalgia with me.

 

[Tino]

I also though the acting was pretty decent especially Bess Armstrong.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Ha! The scene Tino mentioned is easily the best scene in the movie and legitimately creepy. The score, while certainly not up to John WIlliams, is still pretty good. Lou Gossett saying "You talking about some damn shark's mother?" makes me laugh. The scene with Overman trying to lock the underwater gate and the shot of the shark pushing against the gate is somewhat suspenseful. After that, it pretty much gets by on its goofiness or nostalgia with me.

I don't even remember if I saw "J3" theatrically - don't think I did, and if I did, I obviously maintain no nostalgia for it. Nostalgia for summer 1983? Sure, but not that film - can't be nostalgic for a film you don't remember seeing!

So I've seen it 3-4 times on various forms of video and... yeah, I still say there's no redeeming value.

Wait - are there some bikini babes in it? If so, that's redeeming!

All my nostalgia goes for "J2". It's also a perfectly watchable movie in its own right, unlike the 3rd and 4th entries.

Though as a more "objective" adult, I see so many ways "J2" could've been better. I wish they'd left the presence of the shark more in doubt, as it would've been a more suspenseful film if we actually thought Brody might be crazy.

As it stands, we know there's a shark so there's no psychological tension there.

They basically made a version of "Jaws" for kids, and that's fine - I was a kid and as I think I've noted, it took years before I thought the original was a better movie than "J2".

There's just too little depth to "J2". It's a decent thrill ride and that's about it.

It's still better than almost all the other aquatic-attack movies out there!

 

[EliAmador]

It still bugs me that the sharks look progressively worse in each sequel, despite the massive advances in special effects technology between 1975 and 1987. I remember thinking that the Audrey II plant in Little Shop of Horrors looked better than the shark in Jaws the Revenge. You'd think after 12 years of shark research and effects technology, the shark would look and move better, but no.

The original Bruce had some problems, but those can be somewhat excused because it was made in a hurry based on the limited films and photos of live great whites that were available in 1974. Plus, the technology of animatronics was in its infancy. Given those limits, they did a great job.

Jaws 2 had the benefit of three years of special effects advances, plus many more photos and videos of sharks that had been taken after Jaws became a huge hit and made sharks into major stars in the public eye. The movie also had a much larger budget than Jaws. And yet they managed to make the shark look and move in a less realistic way. It just seemed like they weren't even trying to make the sharks look right.

Jaws 3D at least had some cool stuff with the shark baring its teeth, though the effect wasn't used very effectively, and the shark overall seemed slow and stiff compared to the previous sharks.

And Jaws the Revenge pretty much just used the same look as in the first two movies without any attempt to improve on the other sharks or make them move better. Plus, seeing the shark in long slow motion shots in broad daylight only emphasized how fake it looked.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

It still bugs me that the sharks look progressively worse in each sequel, despite the massive advances in special effects technology between 1975 and 1987. I remember thinking that the Audrey II plant in Little Shop of Horrors looked better than the shark in Jaws the Revenge. You'd think after 12 years of shark research and effects technology, the shark would look and move better, but no.

The original Bruce had some problems, but those can be somewhat excused because it was made in a hurry based on the limited films and photos of live great whites that were available in 1974. Plus, the technology of animatronics was in its infancy. Given those limits, they did a great job.

Jaws 2 had the benefit of three years of special effects advances, plus many more photos and videos of sharks that had been taken after Jaws became a huge hit and made sharks into major stars in the public eye. The movie also had a much larger budget than Jaws. And yet they managed to make the shark look and move in a less realistic way. It just seemed like they weren't even trying to make the sharks look right.

Jaws 3D at least had some cool stuff with the shark baring its teeth, though the effect wasn't used very effectively, and the shark overall seemed slow and stiff compared to the previous sharks.

And Jaws the Revenge pretty much just used the same look as in the first two movies without any attempt to improve on the other sharks or make them move better. Plus, seeing the shark in long slow motion shots in broad daylight only emphasized how fake it looked.

I think a lot of the decline in quality was just complacency. After "Jaws" established that audiences would buy a fake shark in a movie, the sequels didn't feel the need to work as hard - the "trust" was established and they could piggyback on that.

Also, the sequels didn't have anyone as talented as Spielberg involved. He was able to use cinematic techniques to hide the shark's flaws better than the others...

 

[TravisR]

I think the shark looks crappier in the third and fourth movies because they're cheaper movies so they literally spent less money on the sharks. Also, I think both of the movies are brighter than the first two. Someone with more technical knowledge than me can correct me or back me up but I believe that 1980's 3-D cameras required alot of light in the third movie and the beautiful clear water in the Bahamas in the fourth made it impossible to hide sins as well as the US east coast water did in the first two pictures.

 

[Sam Favate]

The thing I remember most about Jaws 2 is the commercials. They were everywhere in 1978. I can still hear Roy Scheider saying "And you better do something about this one! Because I don't intend to go through that hell again!" And, of course, the best tag line in movie history: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water."

I wouldn't see Jaws 2 for another 10 or 12 years, and I remember thinking it was okay, but not in a league with the first one.

The only good thing to come out of Jaws 4 was this quote from Michael Caine: "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I wouldn't see Jaws 2 for another 10 or 12 years, and I remember thinking it was okay, but not in a league with the first one.

As I've mentioned, I saw "J2" opening day 1978, and I saw it a good 5-6 more times that summer. Just loved it.

Saw "Jaws" in 1979 and liked it but not as much. Not sure if I saw it again during that run, but I would see it on video in the late 80s.

By the early 90s, I loved "Jaws". I watched "J2" on LD around 1992... and you can't go home again.

By that point, I could recognize it was vastly inferior to the original!

 

[Jeffrey D]

The bit I remember most about J2 is when Brody asks his deputy which direction to go
to help the teenagers in danger. The deputy starts talking in boaters language, and Brody interrupts him by saying, “Don’t give me that shit. Point!” A good piece of screenplay to emphasize how illiterate and disinterested Brody still is when it comes to being on the water.