Jaws, No. 2 - Jaws 2 (1978)

“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.”

No one’s askin’ why a Jaws sequel exists. It was the most successful film of all time, pre-Star Wars (pre-E.T., pre-Jurassic Park, pre-Titanic, pre-Avatar). No, the real question there is – How do E.T. and Titanic have no sequels?

Of course, in the three years since Jaws reinvented movie-going and damaged beach attendance, the cinematic landscape had changed considerably. Here I’m not talking about blockbusters, or marketing, or any of that important stuff. I’m talking about Jaws RIP-OFFS. Yeah, yeah, any sufficiently successful flick ‘ll see the copy-sharks, creating the sort of sequel hurdle the original never had to face. And amongst our illustrious Jaux (that’s faux Jaws) are masterworks Orca, Grizzly, Tentacles, Piranha, Alligator, Up from the Depths, Monster Shark, Killer Shark, Great White, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Sharktopus, Finding Nemo…Surely, not all of these things existed once Jaws 2 was perpetrated, but there was something in the waters, as it were, that Jaws 2 had to differentiate itself from. How do you do a proper Jaws film, with so many fakers riding in your dorsal fin wake?

Yeah, Jaws 2 needed continuity. It couldn’t simply be any old killer shark tale (they’re limited to sharks in this series), it needed a reason to tie back to Spielberg’s original masterpiece. And, well, that’ll have to be the cast, I guess…Now, Robert Shaw, he’d died in Jaws, and was in his last year of life anyway – He’s out. Richard Dreyfuss, well, he didn’t stick with this sinking Orca ship, but rather with Spielberg, off making some movie or other about UFOs, apparently. That leaves Roy Schieder’s Sheriff Brody, ‘cause it’s also too soon to go the Friday the 13th sequel route and jettison casts and continuity with equal élan.

Well, Brody’s back…Well, I’ve jumped ahead of myself. That didn’t happen immediately. First, Universal wisely asked Spielberg to return and direct. This being young Spielberg we’re talking about, he balked, as all sequels are but “cheap carnie tricks.” That’s Stephen "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" Spielberg saying that! And just as well, really, for instead we got that UFO movie, and didn’t have to watch the studio’s original dumbass sequel notion – Hooper and Quint’s sons hunting some other shark.

Neither did we have to contend with their second dumbass notion – A prequel set aboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis…Actually, I think that could’ve been a cool idea! Idiot producer Sid Sheinberg, though, didn’t like this…not enough Loraine Gary in it! Huh?!...Oh, right, the man’s wife, who, in his nepotistic mind, ought to get the majority of the Sharkly Action.

So it’s on to their third dumbass notion, it too never coming to fruition (I love how troubled these sequels can become, just like Alien3). This notion – the hiring of director John D. Hancock, Oscar winner…for short subject (Stick My Fingers…Fleet My Feet). With three whole small dramatic pictures under his belt before the 1975 start on Jaws 2 production, Hancock had – my goodness, man – he had better credentials than Spielberg did pre-Jaws.

Nonetheless, Hancock was onboard, beginning a ridiculous 18 months of preproduction on this stupidly conceived sequel. So, first up, who’s gonna write the sequel’s script? How ‘bout the new director’s untested wife? Why, sure! This script, by Dorothy Tristan, concerns Amity as an economic ghost town after the original’s events, with an emphasis on human drama. It seems Hancock, however potentially misguided Jaws 2 might fundamentally have been, intended a proper sequel, such as the ‘70s usually demanded (see The Godfather Part II).

Well, the producers didn’t like this idea – too dark. Who knows, maybe it also sucked! Still, Sheinberg didn’t like it, naturally, ‘cause Gary’s Ellen Brody wasn’t the superstar he knew she was (in bed) – Don’t worry, Sid you ass, you’ll get your wish some day. Richard D. Zanuck, meanwhile, the other producer, opposed Hancock because the sequel to one of the scariest films ever made ought not be scary – Jeebus, man, MAINSTREAM studio fare! Also, Zanuck and Sheinberg hated each other, as well they might. Too bad Hancock was their scape-shark.

So bugger off, Hancock, you’re being replaced with TV director Jeannot Szwarc, whose only other theatrical film then was Bug (even less promisingly, he later made Supergirl and Santa Claus: The Movie). I mean, I know a director as great as Spielberg was off the table, but yeesh!

Szwarc started filming immediately, without a script or even premise. And while he stalled with super-complicated scenes employing the latest malfunctioning mechanical shark-bots (replacing the original malfunctioning sharkdroid, which Universal stupidly destroyed by leaving it out in the sun – IDIOTS), a script was farted out. Now, and only now, do we see a return of original screenwriter Carl Gottlieb. Reportedly, it would’ve cost far less to just hire the obvious right man for the job from the start…and it would’ve made for a better movie anyway. No matter, with Gottlieb and Szwarc not in place, a troubled preproduction could give way to a troubled production.

Scheider was back, as noted, hating the idea of a Jaws 2 and hating director Scwarz just as much – as one of those technically-minded idiot directors thoroughly unconcerned with the dramatic quality of his film (see the whole AVP “series” for another example of this). Still, Scheider had to be in Jaws 2 – contracts and all, you know. Still, the man gave up on The Deer Hunter for THIS?! At least Scheider got a suntan, a quadrupled paycheck, and wasted much of this foolish production’s time to make Marathon Man and Sorcerer.


We’re back in Amity, a setting decision necessitated by Brody’s return and genre dictats. This opens up stupid contrivance issues, about why a second freakishly enormous great white is harassing this non-sharkly neighborhood, which the movie never even tries to solve. It’s the same problem as Die Hard 2, handled even less delicately.

Naturally, there has to be an opening killing…or two. Sequel escalation, you know, which also lifts the body count from 5 to 7. So these two…humans are scuba diving out at the wreckage of the Orca – this apparent desecration of ol’ Bruce’s death site is what must draw Other Bruce over from wherever. So Other Bruce snacks on the two delicious, rubber-wrapped morsels (but only one on screen), in an exceedingly inoffensive kill – all close-ups and bad editing, like Quantum of Solace imitating the Bourne series. Oh, and a diver drops his (or her) camera, which takes the shark’s lovely picture, the “plot” reason for this whole scene.

Over in town, lengthy and padding footage (a common feature of this shorter-than-Jaws flick) sees Martin Brody hie himself to the Amity Shores Holiday Inn – a real estate development and a holdover from Hancock’s version. Joining his wife Ellen (Loraine Gary), Brody pays unimpressed attention as Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton, if memory serves) oversees the hotel’s ribbon cutting, now the financial tool for a new capitalist straw man, Len Peterson (Joseph Mascolo). Like every other Jaws rip-off under the sun, Jaws 2 simply cannot stretch Sharkly Action enough to fill an entire B-movie; hence, you gotta have an evil capitalist (in this case – scientists or military jerks in others) as your human villain. This is a persistent and niggling fact of many post-Jaws blockbusters, even respectable ones like Jurassic Park. “Capitalism bad,” we’re told repeatedly by these merchandising tie-in movies distributed by heartless multinationals. Director Schwartz, or whatever that frog’s name is, goes all “artist” on us, summing up this entire trend in one amazing shot. It’s, like, real subtle and all!


‘Tis three years since Jaws, in real life and in-film, yet…yet the Brody’s brood, Mike and Sean, have both somehow aged six years. So Mike, formerly 12 (actor’s age), is now 18 (ditto), and played by charisma-challenged hulk of ‘70s hairdo Mark Gruner. Here’s the reason for this sudden violation of the space-time continuum: Jaws 2 is concerned with teens! Oh dear Godly Lord, yes, now in 1978 we’re starting to experience the true courting of the youth market – surely the audience for Jaws, but not its subject. Well, Jaws 2 is disgustingly correcting that oversight. The whiff of slashers in the air (genre codifier Halloween being Jaws 2’s contemporary), we must see the franchise’s brilliant maritime adventure transformed into a Dead Teenager Movie…Without even all that many dead teenagers, ridding audiences of even most reasons to watch those things.

Mike’s mass of teenaged teenager pals, all like twelve of ‘em, is apportioned to us with an artlessness usually reserved for the suspects in a Charlie Chan movie. I swear, slashers are better at this! Of course, when their entire concern is a teenage cast, they ought to give them care; Jaws 2 is ostensibly still about Brody (Martin), so we get the usual teenage stock types with less attention. And this is after Gottlieb’s rewrites beefed these ciphers up.

Okay, who do we have here?...Amity’s beauty queen and resident desirable blonde slut, Tina (Ann Dusenberry). Vaughn’s son, Larry Jr. (David Eliot), is an ass-in-training, like Pa. Mike, we’ve met. There’s Andy (Gary Springer), the one I first noted as the nerd, then switched to the comic relief upon discovery of other actors playing an ultra-nerd and a semi-ultra-nerd. There’s various others, but I can only differentiate the ones with immediately distinguishing nerd features – and I never learnt the nerds’ names! Oh, and there’s Jackie (Donna Wilkes, the only one with a future career – in Angel, which begat a franchise I gotta watch). She’s the cousin of…some other girl. She’s also an out-of-towner, which is suddenly a good thing in Jaws 2, as it causes simultaneous ejaculations across the entire male teenage cast. At this particular androgynous nonentity, above all the others? Sure, why not? “Tits like a sparrow,” in Larry Junior’s genius assessment.

The teens pass their idle days (and way too much of Jaws 2’s underwhelming screen time) puttering about the sea upon their various pathetic crafts: catamarans, men-o-war (or is that man-o-wars?), sailboats, duct-taped garbage. Here’s the producers’ explanation, that it’s a maritime equivalent of similar car-based landlubbing teen assemblies. Oy, sheltered producer misinterpretations of teenage culture, again driving the content of our teenager movies!

We, as an audience, are desirous of this mass’s deaths en masse. Even if that were coming, it’s too early for that now. Unlike Jaws, which took pains to make its shark common public knowledge, Jaws 2’s Brody vs. developer plot cannot, er, develop unless the shark remains in the shadows until then, killing on occasion to, er, tide us over, but never killing with plot importance. (Those divers, for example, seemingly have no relatives or anyone who care about them, as if there weren’t actual human beings, even while Brody takes such care with their camera.)


Our victims for now, though, are a water-skier and her boat companion. Who’ve done nothing wrong to warrant death, at least not in horror movie terms. It’s random, but not in that good way like Alex Kintner in Jaws, and it seems more cynical for that, even while it’s less overtly affecting. And the shark’s pursuit of the water-skier is at least technically capable – it ought to be, as it was Sczwrzz’s initial concern with this film. Her death, though, is PG and unaffecting.

Not so her companion. She beats back Other Bruce with gasoline, follows by a flare. Whoops!, wrong order. So ka-boomo for her, poor lass, and extensive burning for Other Bruce. It’s not evident yet, but this is the movie’s way to make the 25-foot long killer shark scary – facial scars! Poorly done facial scars, worse than Tom Savini’s $12 efforts at the tail end of The Burning. If this ain’t a sign of how our fishy fiend has fallen into formulaic flotsam, I don’t know what is.


Brody’s investigation into the exploded boat is dismissed by Vaughn as another totally ordinary maritime disaster, ever so common off Amity’s shores, we’re led to believe – Yeesh, sharks or no, I ain’t travelin’ to that place! (In Jaws, Vaughn was a Shark Agnostic; here, he’s a Shark Atheist.)

But Brody’s investigation, turning up no shark evidence and thus leaving his plot stalled in first gear, at least reveals one thing: an electrical cable spanning the waters beyond Amity, set up in a ham-handed manner that just shrieks at you “The shark’s gonna get electrocuted in this one! Just go home now!”

A little bit of bland, unrelatable teenaged frolicking reveals a beached, munched orca prop – payback to De Laurentis for letting his orca chomp on a great white in Orca. This affords Brody the opportunity to contact a marine biologist. It’s not Hooper, naturally (he’s off in Antarcticostralia, or wherever, we’re told), but a posthumously-named female scientist with but one scene. She assures Brody she cannot ID the orca’s killer, due to its non-existent state of decay, and she even mispronounces great white’s Latinate name in the process – It’s a big deal when I pick up on that! She dismisses Brody’s shark-o-noia, and bats down a proposed premise that would return later to haunt this franchise (“Sharks don’t take things personally.”).

Also, she expounds at length, for no reason, that sharks respond to rhythmic thumping, like radar signals or pornography soundtracks. Hmm, bet that won’t come into play in the climax, right? (Just look to Jaws, and its gas canisters, for an example of competent foreshadowing. It’s an art, man.)

We’re now at the minute equivalent of the Ben Gardner scene from Jaws. For while Jaws 2 neglects many smart ideas at all turns, it is a consummate retread. So Brody discovers a bobbing bit of debris along the coast. Fake-out POV shots (and John Williams’ score) are used in a way Spielberg would never dare, and a burnt corpse leaps out at us…Er, the 3-D entry’s next time, guys. And no, there’s no way that body could’ve done that.

(Like many a mediocre sequel, Jaws 2’s main value is to showcase how Jaws really ought to have turned out. I mean, we’re lucky we got a single good shark flick in the first place.)

Brody alone is suspecting a shark, even when everyone else is (rightly) dismissing these concerns. (We’re only on Brody’s side ‘cause we’ve seen the beastie ourselves, at director Sczczczcz’s insistence on pimping out his semi-functional fiberglass star.) So Brody, with his years of shark fear (and past experience), creates the ultimate shark weapon – No, not something practical like an anti-rhino-rifle. I mean cyanide-filled bullets. Homemade! These’d never work (they’d gum up the pistol, or explode delicious cyanide in Brody’s face, or something), and they aren’t even used against the shark, so what with the insistence on these things anyway?

Beach crowds are assembled, right in line with when Spielberg assembled his beach crowds. Montagery is put aside to focus on the film’s unwieldy mass of thoroughly unrelated subplots – a sure sign of a poorly constructed sequel. The moronic teens sail around, enjoying life and irony in equal degrees. Mike, at the reasonable insistence of his father, has a job. What effrontery! Vaughn and Peterson are perpetuating their non-starting condo development story, with Ellen in tow as Peterson’s employee solely so she can have a climactic moment with him later on. And Brody is up in the town’s permanent shark tower, which Vaughn instantly opposes, even though he’s surely complicit in the thing’s existence. I mean, Brody didn’t just pull it from hyperspace like Felix the Cat, right? And you fool!, Vaughn, can’t you suggest he’s looking out for the myriad other maritime hazards you yourself acknowledge plague your deadly, deadly town?

Whatever, Brody spots a dark mass in the water (Oprah? Cthulhu?), and shrieks for all the beachgoers to promptly stampede themselves in response. Then he shoots the ocean, Xerxes-style. But it’s only bluefish, to the seagulls’ infinite delight. The townsfolk all shuffle away, even as Brody insists they return to the cyanide-poisoned waters. Even Ellen deserts her husband, just so, you know, they can resolve things later, and call it an arc. Only son Sean is there to help Papa collect his toxic bullet shells barehanded – Awww!


Around now, the plot insists Brody develop those divers’ photos – I hate when clues that’ve been present for an hour are delayed like this. It’s so artificial! Anyway, one of those photos depicts…UFOs? Nessie? Lindsey Lohan? Honestly, it ain’t too clear, and that’s when I’m looking for a shark – considering the title and all. But Brody, he sees “shark” when I see “Stan Brakhage experiment,” and so he takes this one-and-only photo to Town Hall, so Peterson and his elected minions can promptly dismiss it. Considering the mere arguments, sans character judgment, Peterson’s right; Brody’s acting insane. But even reasonable arguments aren’t to be believed, not in movies. Still, Brody’s abusive accusations are not heroic, and in a movie (unlike Jaws) where we’re supposed to find Brody traditionally heroic. Ladies and gentlemen, our hero:


He’s fired.

I’d follow that track more, but we got teens to “enjoy.” Here they are at the bar, not drinking, discussing tomorrow’s plans to drink. To the lighthouse it is, with the unspoken truth being that this is all a setup to get ‘em near Other Bruce’s hungry maw. And Mike is roundly chastised for his gainful employment, so he’s sore tempted to join his hateful, characterless, unintelligent buddies out on the water. That Jackie, the most attractive woman Amity has ever known, suggests further dalliances, and that’s all Mike needs!

God damn me, it’s been, what, half an hour since Sharkly Action?! Yup. Here’s the problem with Jaws 2. Spielberg’s film insisted on the shark’s omnipresence, even on land, the whole plot driven by its persistent threat. Here, we have plenty of time to focus on romance, and character breakdowns, and so many other plot-stalling distractions. And I suspect the further sequels shall continue this flaw.

No matter, Mike sneaks past his jobless father’s drunken form for this fate-tempting boat trip. Middle school-aged Sean tags along, because what’s a few potential teenager shark meals without an endangered child to really get those heartstrings pumping? Oh, Sean’s not gonna get et, we know that! This is why children and ball-less horror films rarely mix.


That shot up there? That sums up Jaws 2 more succinctly than anything. Imagine it, five minute intervals of sailing montages. This is not a taut movie.

But soon sailing footage is traded for scuba footage. Lengthy, lengthy scuba footage. At last, a change of pace! Just-introduced guide “Sparky” leads an anonymous gaggle of tourists past Amity’s famous plastic lobsters, John Williams doing all the work to keep this movie afloat, when –

The SHARK! At freaking last! Too bad it’s too murky for a screen cap, but the shark, uh, like, sidles up against Sparky and – Hold up, I can do that with more alliteration! A sudden scarred shark sidles shockingly alongside scared scuba shaman Sparky, sending said swimmer sailing sloopwards…There we go! So, translated, that means Sparky rises suddenly to the surface, gets himself the speechless bends for his trouble (to delay that Shark Truth longer yet), and Other Bruce completely neglects to chomp down on any of the other tasty divers. Nope, not when he can stalk after the nearby teenaged regatta. Kill ‘em all, Other Bruce!

Obliging Other Bruce’s desires, mighty slut Tina puts her dingy dinghy in neutral apart from the others, so that she and a…boy can have some luvvvvv. That’s right, Jaws 2 is actually invoking the Have Sex and Die rule! And as Tina demands a carpet, to minimize sex bruises, the shark knocks the boat, sending the…boy into the water! Eat ‘im, shark! Eat that teenager! Yeah, here it comes! Die! DIE! YEAH!...Actually, it’s a rather listless de-lifing, but a combined scarcity of Sharkly Action, and a schadenfreude-esque desire to see teens die, makes it good.

Brody, Ellen in tow, is now aware of the teens’ cumulative stupidities, and has commandeered the police boat to go rescue them from almost-certain Brucings. He also radios a chopper for help, but the plot cannot use it yet, so it’s “busy.”

More footage of blissfully ignorant teens sailing! Man, that’s what I needed!

Brody happens upon Tina, strangely uneaten, cowering in a pool of overacting. Making a bizarre decision, Brody shall continue on alone to save the other fool teens, despite his hydrophobia and inept seamanship. Thus Ellen and his dopey deputy (a real seaman) are left with Tina in her pathetic boat, surely at the mercy of Other Bruce…

– Except he’s busy ramming the countless other worthless boats, sending interchangeable semi-named teenaged ciphers into the drink! Somehow, Other Bruce never quite eats any of these folk (what with digestion and all), but it’s something. All in all, actually, this shark is eternally incapable of truly threatening the eight or so teenaged targets, despite how utterly seaworthless their vessels are. He makes one effort, on Mike, merely exposing his animatronic hydraulics for his trouble:


During a characteristic lull in Sharkly Action, the teens lash their vessels together into a grand omni-sloop, something I once did with a bunch of rafts while shooting the Colorado. There were no river sharks there, though. This patchwork, makeshift, directionless vessel, patched together from unrelated constituent parts – Hey! I’ve just described Jaws 2!

Anyway, the mega-sloop ultimately drifts its mega-way towards Cable Junction, a precursor to Waterworld’s Atolls, and the setting of all those seaborne electrical cables – See, they’s gonna shock a shark! Also, the fat teen’s hungry. It’s funny. Oh, and here’s that chopper, its function to the plot now evident. So it’s gonna rescue the idiots from their present be-Darwining, only…


Naw, Other Bruce has seen Grizzly, and knows a helicopter is the frailest craft in all genre works…somehow even more frail than the super-omni-sloop itself. So the helicopter explodes, shark survives, and flying rotor debris patently fails to slice off any teenager faces, quite unlike what a modern Jaws rip-off would do – Piranha 3D, anyone?

Okay, I have a theory for the shark’s inability to just do in these teens. Think about it: You’ve got yourself a bag full of potato chips. Unlike Lays’ slogan, you can eat just one – at least, you don’t devour all the snacks in a single ravenous gulp like Slimer. So, those chips are eternally at your mercy, yet they remain mostly uneaten…for a while.

But now, Other Bruce is hungry, having used up all those calories attacking the helicopter, and having not even gotten at the crunchy human nougat within. Thus, with seriously little effort, the beast goes right ahead and gobbles down a…girl…Er, Jackie’s cousin, whom research suddenly reveals is named…Marge (Martha Swatek).


Meanwhile, Ellen, Tina and the deputy are back on shore, having apparently been towed there off screen by some unidentified Good Samaritan. This is so Ellen can finally tell off Peterson, and put a climax to all that anti-capitalist uselessness.

Brody, boating along after the teens, comes across…well, one of their boats, separated from the others in a moment our beleaguered, Oscar-winning editor couldn’t make clear. Mike is among this bunch (also the many nerds), leaving us with…

Sean – Sean as the only character still in danger for whom we care about even remotely. And the more I think about it, the more my potato chip theory holds less water than the super-omni-ultra-mega-sloop. Other Bruce cannot sink it simply because this movie is sad and pathetic and a poor, poor excuse for the original Jaws.

Besides, the teens are now a mere 10 feet from Cable Junction (safety), shark nowhere in sight, and yet they still cannot get to it. Incompetence!, man, from both humans and shark! Man, why can’t that shark even rip through the flimsy cloth that forms these sloops’ hulls?


Okay, forget I asked that.

Brody’s here now, ready to take part in this ballet of incompetence. So as he tries to aid the extras onto his boat, instead he crashes it into an island. Oy! So the teens simply swim over to the island and – Well, that was easy! But Sean is still out on the water (Jackie too), and the shark’s screen time is growing more and more generous. Quick, Martin Brody, you’ve – got – to – do – something!

Like piece together all that foreshadowing about electricity and rhythmic jungle thumping, say. And be sure to make this moment be a pale reflection of how you offed the last shark. I know! We could employ an underwhelming “action one liner,” say “Open wide!” Sure, that’ll work!



Spark shark! And that’s it then, with roughly nine more teenagers alive than there ought to be. No word, of course, of the power that’s suddenly out all over Amity Island…

Jaws 2 cost $30 million to make (averaging a whopping $80,000 a day), the most expensive film Universal had yet made. That’s roughly three times what it cost to make Jaws, a notoriously over-budget flick. Still, the investors and money men were okay this, and really, they drive the sequel genre. See, here we see the emergence of “market risk” as a movie idea – A sequel can still make but 40% of the original (as Jaws 2 did, with its $81 million domestic), but if you can guarantee it’ll make that (by dint of name, mostly), then it’s worth even a wildly inflated sequel budget. And this, the true innovation of Jaws 2 (like its predecessor, this film is notable for its accountancy as much as its craft), determined the path of all Hollywood sequels to come. If you can strike the perfect balance of cost to profit, you can justify any sort of sequel. Such thinking lead to the Saw series.

So, as a one-off sequel, Jaws 2 did what Universal demanded of it, and was…OK. Still, franchisery wasn’t yet an obvious thought, and that danged “market risk” thing rather guaranteed Jaws 2 would destroy the possibility of Jaws as a franchise to rival, say, James Bond. There’d be more sequels, sure, two of ‘em, but they still aren’t helped out by the existence of Jaws 2.

So I guess it’s back to square one for potential shark-jumping sequel mongers…


Related posts:
• No. 1 Jaws (1975)
• No. 3 Jaws 3-D (1983)
• No. 4 Jaws: The Revenge (1987)