Perhaps the greatest legacy of the television series Happy Days (aside from launching the career of the irrepressible Henry Winkler) is providing us with a term for an artistic boondoggle so severe that it damages the quality of an intellectual property beyond repair: jumping the shark.
The term originates from Happy Days’ fifth season premiere when the lovable rapscallion Fonzie (Winkler) answers a challenge to his manhood by jumping over a shark tank on water skis while wearing his iconic leather jacket. This insulting display of egregiously stupid scriptwriting became the death knell for Happy Days’ golden era. However, on that fateful day, a new idiom was born; one that gave the world a means of pinpointing the moment when an artistic enterprise loses its credibility and needs to be tossed aside like a soiled hanky that has long outlived its usefulness.
The cinematic world is rife with franchises that decided to milk the proverbial artistic teat until it ran bone dry. So it is helpful to have a guide to warn innocent moviegoers away from the franchise ruiners, the misbegotten sequels so awful that they forever tarnished the legacy of their franchise. I present to you my list of nine films that jumped the shark.
9. Exorcist II: The Heretic
1973′s The Exorcist is a horror masterpiece that won the academy award for best adapted screenplay and grossed a colossal 441 million at the worldwide box-office. The film created a cottage industry for cheesy Exorcist films perpetrated by Italian filmmakers. The exorcism bug had bitten moviegoers and they clamored for more. Zeus himself couldn’t prevent a sequel from being made.
Audiences were treated to a very different kind of horror when John Boorman unleashed his unholy followup, Excorist II: The Heretic — the horror of unintentional comedy. The sins of this film are legion and the stupidity astounding. Perhaps the most egregious choice is to have the plot centre around a “synchronizer”, a biofeedback device that synchronizes two peoples brainwaves (?!). It doesn’t help that the device in question is just a strobe-light with a couple of headbands attached to it. Also, James Earl Jones shows up in a giant locust costume.
Exorcist II failed so severely the franchise was put on hiatus until 1990′s Exorcist III. Although Exorcist III is a decent followup, the damaged had been done and the shark had irrevocably been jumped.
We are currently seeking Film contributors on WhatCulture. To find out more about the perks of being a Film contributor, click here.
9 Comments
Personally I thought Batman Forever was far worse than Batman and Robin, granted they are both rubbish though,
While I mostly agree with your assessment, I have to call you on the Phantom Menace. While sure it was not a cinematic masterpiece and did feature a racist caricature in the infamous Jar Jar Binks, it was not a franchise ending failure as you describe. It is the #1 all time Star Wars film in gross receipts and the film needs to be put in context when being critiqued. It was setting the stage for the entire series – IT WAS THE FIRST CHAPTER! It is unreasonable to think that it should have the depth and of the other films. I always give the first film in a series a pass in terms of its quality because it is tasked with having to introduce you to characters and concepts which the following films does not. I know it was really the fourth film but even still Lucas seemed to approach it as the first. There are certainly plenty other films that have done worse including – Jaws 3D, Nightmare of Elm Street 2, the Howling 2, Fright Night 2, the Lost Boys 2, and Ghost Rider 2.
Have to call you on Ghost Rider 2, hard to jump the shark when the first movie was just as terrible.
Patrick – I disagree. The Phantom Menace as a story had little point, other than to introduce the characters we’d see over the next two movies. There was no compelling plot device to keep things moving as in the original trilogy (e.g. the Death Star, Vader chasing Luke or Death Star II/Luke, Vader and the Emperor’s final confrontation). As Yoda might say, “A Trade Federation blockade does not a McGuffin make.”
The scripting was weak and tacky in places, while characters like Jar Jar lowered the tone even further. The most interesting aspect of the story was Palpatine/Sidious and his manufacturing a crisis to secure his rise to Supreme Chancellor still wasn’t pulled off very well. The very notion that Palpatine was the culmination of a centuries long Sith plan to overthrow the Republic and crush the Jedi Order didn’t come through at all during the movie.
Maul, the one character who did capture everyone’s attention, was virtually pointless in the scheme of things, aside from later demonstrating (e.g. in retrospect in Episode III) how Sidious had little concern for the tools he used to gain power.
If anything, the film should have started where Attack of the Clones did. Anakin’s backstory as a slave boy from Tatooine could have been covered off easily in dialogue, and then we could have spent more time in a new Episode II which delved into Anakins descent toward’s the Dark Side and friendship with Palpatine during the Clone Wars. Which would have had the effect of making Anakin’s final decision in ‘Revenge of the Sith’ far more plausible.
As it stands, The Phantom Menace made trying to cram the story of Anakin’s downfall into the final two films far more difficult and rushed than it needed to be.
Yeah I totally agree, I’ve had countless arguments with mates because I’ve always thought that the prequals should have started at epiII. Quality of the film making and casting choices aside – there was just too much to get into epiIII. Bloody Lucas…
I remember reading a review in Time on Episode II which said something of along the lines of George Lucas having finally rediscovered the epic tone of Star Wars. It pretty much summed it up for me. Most things that happened in Episode I could have been covered off in Episode II, allowing for more substantial story and plot development in a story set between the outbreak of the Clone Wars and the Revenge of the Sith.
Thankfully the Clone Wars series is doing a lot to address that, demonstrating how Anakin is failing to cope with the struggles of war and his own emotions. The storyline where Obi Wan’s death is faked was a great example, setting up a real sense of disconnect between Anakin and the Masters on the Council, and no doubt fueling his desire to be in the inner circle. Which all helps explain his anger at not being appointed to the Council when he is made a Master in Episode III.
If the prequels started at Episode III, how could you understand the abandonment issues which Anakin goes through which ties into the other influences that lead to his going to the Darkside. I think their are subtle kinds of things also that you are not considering. When I first saw Star Wars and Alderan was destroyed…it was hard to feel that much empathy for the segment because the audience had no sense of what the planet was like. After Episode I it made the destruction of Alderan more tangible. That is the point of the first episode in my view…to create a connection to future people and events which is why I don’t think it should be ranked number one on this list.
I see it so much differently which is not to say it is a great movie. The Phantom Menace established a lot for the rest of the series – the roots of the Empire’s rise; the parallels between Obi Wan and Anakin (both being stubborn which led both to making mistakes); the way in which Palatine placed himself in a position to seize power; the class parallels of how Leia was a princess and Luke a water farmer (…or whatever the heck he was!) and Padme being a queen/senator and Anakin a slave. All of those things create the metaphorical complete circle that would not have been the case had they started with Episode II especially if Luke is already attempting to be a Jedi. I know the acting was bad and some of the characters buffoonish but I think the enduring thing about Star Wars as a whole is the way that it intertwined politics, mysticism and themes of love and fate into a saga that despite all of its shortcoming I think at least did a good job of rounding out the saga in a way that made each story seamlessly fit together.
Patrick – read carefully, I suggested Episode II as a starting point, not Episode III. I also noted that most of the backstory covered in Episode I could have been covered off in fairly quick order in Episode II, without us having to endure a movie that was, essentially, about nothing.