20 WTF Moments From Sharknado: The 4th Awakens

It's that time of year everyone's been waiting for: the arrival of the latest Sharknado movie, which has become an annual tradition ever since the original 2013 SyFy film became a social media phenomenon and "so-bad-it's-good" delight.

While there are certainly reasonable arguments that the series' increasing self-awareness dilutes the charm and fun of people passionately making a film that turns out to be accidentally terrible, it seems unlikely that the series is going away anytime soon, and Sharknado 4's final tease in particular suggests at least one more go-around.

Though The Fourth Awakens is far from a high-point for the series and the formula is starting to feel more than a little strained, it still serves up enough insanity to earn its stripes: the deaths, the cameos, the 'Nados and the outrageous pop-culture references conspire to make this arguably the most mental Sharknado movie to date, if certainly not the best.

Here are 20 WTF moments from Sharknado: The 4th Awakens...

The Sharknado franchise is no stranger to Star Wars references, what with the light-saber machete in the previous movie, and as soon as this film's title was confirmed to be Sharknado: The 4th Awakens, it was pretty clear we'd be getting at least a few cursory nods to the iconic sci-fi franchise.

Well, SyFy wasted no time with it, kicking the film off with a Star Wars-esque title crawl, referring to itself as "Episode IV" and neatly blasting through a ton of plot exposition that would've otherwise wasted precious screen time. It's not big or clever, but it did its job and left more time for shark shenanigans, so we'll take it.