Space Raiders: A Rip-off With Charm

How much time has to pass before a rip-off becomes an homage? Consider the following pitch: An embittered war veteran leads a rag-tag band of space pirates on a never-ending quest for the cash they need to keep their ship flying. Sound familiar? No, I’m not talking about Firefly. I’m talking about the 1983 low-budget Roger Corman cash grab, Space Raiders. One is a beloved though short-lived sci-fi series which borrows elements from Star Wars while injecting enough original elements to find its own identity. The other… is fondly remembered by some while being largely forgotten by most. But is Space Raiders a rip-off or does it have enough of a unique identity to stand on its own? Does the question even matter? When you boil it down, is it actually any good? Let’s have a look.

The late 70s and early 80s saw a glut of outer-space films designed to cash in on the success of Star Wars. Most of them focused on the superficial – space fighters in dogfights, strange aliens in droves, larger-than-life heroes and villains, and an emphasis on fun and adventure. Few if any of them touched on the mythic aspects at the core of Star Wars which was the key to its enduring success. Most of them, such as Star Crash and Message From Space survive today largely as curiosities. But others, including Space Raiders, have managed to garner their own cult followings. What makes the difference? In developing Firefly, Joss Whedon readily admits to drawing his inspiration from Star Wars, but he had the luxury of introducing his space opera over twenty years after the fact. And even though the Star Wars prequels were in the process of being released at the time, the cultural impact of the former saga had already soaked in. Star Wars is just part of the DNA of storytelling now. You can draw from it as readily as you might draw from Robin Hood or King Arthur. But when Star Wars was fresh, people were still trying to figure out what it was. A lot of producers didn’t even care. They just saw a space movie making lots of money and assumed that spaceships would be a draw. But others were still interested in trying to tell a good story. They saw the success in the space opera format, but they also knew that you still had to follow the rules of good storytelling. So into which category does Space Raiders fall? Well, a little of both.

The first thing a viewer will notice is the overall cheapness. The opening sequence, which takes place in a warehouse, is hardly futuristic. The exteriors are pretty obviously southern California, and one sequence takes place at a very present-day looking factory. What’s more, the special effects, sets, and music are all lifted from Corman’s earlier and far superior space film, Battle Beyond the Stars (which was also a Star Wars clone). When you know this, it becomes painfully obvious that Space Raiders was written around the existing effects rather than the effects being tailored to the script. To be fair, though, it was a smart business move. By comparison, Battle was lavishly-produced, featuring A-list talent like Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, and George Peppard. The sets looked great and the music was fantastic. All that doesn’t come cheap, so it’s understandable that Corman would want to get his money’s worth. The effects were originally created by James Cameron, and while not quite up to the standards set by Star Wars, they’re nevertheless impressive, especially considering the budgetary limitations. The stirring score was composed by James Horner, and it’s not surprising that both he and Cameron would go on to bigger and better things. Taken on their own, both elements integrate pretty well into Space Raiders, and it’s only when you know about the previous film that they contribute to the sense of cheapness. But such technical aspects aren’t necessarily everything. If the story and performances are strong enough, a film can rise above such shortcomings. So how does this film fare in that respect?

Space Raiders centers on Colonel C.F. Hawkins, or “Hawk,” played convincingly by veteran actor Vince Edwards. Once proud of his military career, he now laments his status, talking about the old days when “being in the space service really meant something.” Now he is affiliated with a criminal organization run by a reptilian creature called Zariatin. When a young boy named Peter (David Mendenhall) accidentally stows away on a ship Hawk’s crew is trying to steal, Hawk feels responsible and vows to get Peter home. The corporation that employs Peter’s father sends a robot ship (why does a robot ship have windows?) ostensibly on a rescue mission, but really in hopes of destroying Zariatin’s operation. Hoping to ransom Peter, Zariatin turns on Hawk, picking off the crew one-by-one. Finally Hawk bests Zariatin in a shootout but is wounded in the process. Fortunately, Peter paid really close attention when he watched the crew give first aid to a wounded comrade, and he manages to resuscitate Hawk, who then finally gets Peter home. It’s a pretty simple narrative, and it’s executed simply: setup, complication, payoff. As a cash-grab, that’s smart, and at 84 minutes, it’s definitely well-paced. That said, there’s such a thing as being too simple, and there are areas where Space Raiders probably should have been allowed to breathe. For one thing, aspects of the worldbuilding are implied rather than explicitly established. It certainly seems as if the galaxy is run by a single corporation but the movie doesn’t tell us that. We’re left to infer it. And that’s a bit sloppy.

But the most critical of these areas is in the relationship between Hawk and Peter. The entire film hinges on the bond between these two, and by extension, between Peter and Hawk’s crew. When the crew first discovers that Peter is aboard, he’s in the way and everyone is bemused and annoyed by his presence. Hawk even jokes about chucking him out the airlock. But when they come under fire by hostile space fighters, a critical ship component is damaged and they can’t get to it. Peter is just small enough that he can worm his way down into the engine to fix the problem, and presto! Peter has now earned his stripes and is treated as a full-fledged member of the crew. Just like that. It works… sort of. In reality that might earn him some token respect, but it’s hardly the sort of thing that makes people ready to sacrifice their lives for you. From this time on, they all act like Peter is a member of their family who has been traveling with them for years, or at least months. Contrast this with Simon and River, who occupy a similar role in Firefly. It’s the end of the two-hour pilot before Mal even invites them to stay aboard, and even that only if Simon earns his keep by acting as ship’s medic. And their position aboard ship is only ever tenuous. Indeed, in the big-screen film, which takes place eight months after Simon and River first come aboard, Mal actually loses his temper and kicks them off the ship. It’s only after Mal’s moral compass is triggered by the nefarious actions of the Alliance that he reverses and is ready to die for them if need be. Firefly earns that level of devotion only after fourteen TV episodes and half a feature film. Of course, Space Raiders doesn’t have that kind of time. But there are ways to accomplish that efficiently. The big-screen Firefly film, Serenity, is designed to still function even if you haven’t seen the show, and it manages to tell what in many ways is the same story much more effectively.

Part of the reason the dynamic doesn’t work is Peter himself. He’s frankly kind of annoying. Outside of that one instance when he saves the ship, and later when he briefly helps out by acting as gunner, he mostly just gets into trouble. After he comes aboard Hawk’s ship, the first stop is Zariatin Station, a hotbed of criminal activity not unlike the Mos Eisley Spaceport in Star Wars (complete with a cantina filled with aliens). Hawk puts Peter in a room and tells him to stay put. Naturally, Peter sneaks out and gets into trouble with a couple of thugs who look like the burglars from Home Alone. After chasing Peter through the bowels of the station, they finally catch him, forcing Hawk and company to go rescue him. But the company robot ship finds the thugs first and blasts them to smithereens. Peter gets away in an escape pod, sees Hawk’s ship in the distance, and actually yells, as if Hawk can hear him. When I was 10, I already knew that sound doesn’t travel in space, and I don’t live in a society where space travel is commonplace. What’s this kid’s excuse? Peter is not exactly a genius, and he’s certainly no Luke Skywalker. Even little kid Anakin had more charm. At least Anakin wanted to help out and save the day. Peter’s great ambition seems to be to get a job in an office and have an average, boring existence. Not quite the stuff that legends are made of.

But the biggest way in which the dynamic fails is in the fact that the movie wants us to think Peter sees Hawk as some kind of Big Damn Hero, but there’s never any point in the film that really shows us that. Peter never displays any kind of respect or admiration for Hawk. He just wants to go home. Yet Hawk even says out loud to a shipmate that Peter sees him as a hero. Where does that come from? Search me. Midway through the film, there’s a mislead where they think Peter has gone home and they’re all moping that he’s gone. But not enough has happened to really make us feel it. If anything, they should be relieved to be free of the responsibility so they can get on with their lives.

If any character in the film has a relationship with Peter that actually makes sense, it’s Amanda, who is played quite effectively by Patsy Pease. She spends almost all of her screen time annoyed by his presence. Really, she’s had enough of the space pirate life and is ready to bail. Hawk understands, and charges her with one last task: see Peter home. She agrees and it is when Peter is under her charge that they fall under attack and Peter has to act as gunner. He’s initially reluctant to take a life, but it finally sinks in that it’s kill or be killed and he manages to do what he needs to do. Amanda is suitably impressed, and it’s at this point that they finally bond. They crash on a planet, the bad guys close in, and she goes down fighting. One of the reasons this works is that it’s not just Peter who’s in danger. The bad guys are after both of them, so Amanda has no choice but to fight. We don’t need to bother with her having any ambiguity over whether she thinks Peter is worth her life. They’re just in it together and that’s it. The element of choice is taken away. Yes, it might have been more interesting to have an arc where she actually is ready to sacrifice herself, but given the tight running time it unavoidably would have felt forced, as it does with the other characters. At least Amanda is believable.

Rounding out the cast are Ace (Luca Bercovici), who is basically a non-character; Aldebaran (Drew Snyder) who has kind of a B.J. Hunnicutt vibe but otherwise doesn’t have much going on; and the alien Flightplan (Thom Christopher). Flightplan is probably the most interesting of the supporting cast, even if he’s something of a cliché. Thom Christopher seems to have been typecast as the aloof, mysterious alien, having played a similar character on Buck Rogers. This time he has psychic powers, which makes it a little different, but such characters are a dime a dozen in sci-fi, so it’s really nothing special. I’m also pretty convinced that Alan Rickman’s make-up in Galaxy Quest was based on this character.

Another aspect of Space Raiders that doesn’t quite work is Zariatin. He has the potential to be a great villain, and he almost succeeds. Played with gusto by Ray Stewart, Zariatin oozes pure evil in every scene. As an interstellar kingpin, it would be easy to dismiss Zariatin as an imitation Jabba the Hutt. He certainly functions in much the same capacity. The degree to which his character was influenced by Star Wars is up for debate. Space Raiders was already in production when Return of the Jedi premiered, so it’s unlikely that film had any real impact. But Jabba had already been mentioned in previous films. We didn’t necessarily know that Jabba was an alien, but we knew that Han Solo owed money to an interstellar kingpin named Jabba. So it would seem that the basic concept was definitely lifted straight from Star Wars. But is it executed well? For the most part, yes. Zariatin mostly works as a villain, even if he doesn’t have a lot of depth. And that’s sort of the problem. Hawk says that he and Zariatin have been friends for a long time, but there’s no indication of that friendship in their on-screen dynamic. Zariatan does nothing but yell and threaten and menace Hawk and everyone with him. When Peter gets kidnapped, Zariatin has what might be the best line of dialogue in the film: “This is why I never liked you, Hawk. You bring out the good in me. Go and get your kid.” At this point, it seems like Zariatin may actually have some depth, but the movie undoes that when Zariatin immediately double-crosses Hawk, not only deciding to take Peter himself to hold for ransom, but also to kill Hawk and his crew. If there had been some explanation for this, it might have made sense. Maybe if Zariatin had made Hawk promise to bring Peter back so they could ransom him and then word gets back to Zariatin that Hawk has reneged on the deal, that might have worked. But there’s nothing. Zariatin just flips and decides to murder everybody. Just cause evil or whatever.

With so many elements not working, it would seem like Space Raiders is an utter disaster. And, well, it kind of is. And yet there’s just something kind of charming about it. For everything it does wrong, it does something else right. Many of the film’s jokes fall flat, but many of them work. In particular, Roger Corman fans will enjoy a cameo by Dick Miller as a fast-talking salesman in a holographic commercial. The aliens in the cantina are a bundle of clichés and played for laughs. At one point, Ace flirts with what he thinks is a hot human blonde, but when she turns around she’s a hideous alien – which Flightplan finds attractive even though they’re not the same species. I guess all aliens are attracted to each other? I dunno. And the sci-fi cantina concept itself is shamelessly lifted from Star Wars. However, the Space Raiders cantina sequence has a food fight. Star Wars can’t boast that. The punchline is a bit much, with the proprietor trying to restore order only to get covered in food, but the scene itself is so over the top that it’s fun in spite of itself. For the most part, the alien masks are pretty bad, ranging from barely acceptable to the sort of thing you’d find in any given discount Halloween store. On the other hand, the make-up for Flightplan is pretty decent and Zariatin looks fantastic – truly alien and frightening. But above all, Space Raiders is fun. Maybe not as fun or immersive as Star Wars, but as fun as a knock-off drive-in version could have possibly been. It may not be Shakespeare, and there may be some gaps in the narrative, but screenwriter Howard R. Cohen certainly understands story structure. He keeps things moving, and even though key character moments are sometimes forced, at least they’re there. Other movies of this sort don’t even bother.

In the end, Space Raiders is unquestionably a knock-off of Star Wars. But given when it was released, that’s pretty obvious. When you go to the dollar store and buy a Transmorphers action figure, you know it’s a Transformers knock-off and you know what that means. You don’t expect Wal-Mart freezer pizza to taste like gourmet pizza from a pizzaria. When you know what you’re signing up for, you adjust your expectations. And sometimes the off-brand product surpasses those expectations. Such is the case with Space Raiders. It’s not Star Wars and it doesn’t have to be. And in a way, Space Raiders finds its niche. While films like Star Crash just recycled what the producers thought audiences liked about Star Wars – space battles and robots – Space Raiders takes a specific element from Star Wars and expands on it. Jabba the Hutt was just a sub-plot, a bit of character development for Han Solo. But it hints at a whole backstory with its own range of possibilities. Space Raiders seeks to deliver on that promise and despite its shortcomings, it mostly delivers.

And that brings us back to our initial comparison between Firefly and Space Raiders. Without a doubt, Firefly is superior. The characters in Firefly are more fully realized, the wit is sharper, the drama is deeper. But Firefly is very much its own thing. It’s not Star Wars, nor was it meant to be. In 1983, we all thought Return of the Jedi was the end of the road for Star Wars. Ten years would pass before the first expanded universe novel. The adventures of Han Solo before he met Luke were left to our imaginations. At the time, Space Raiders was as close as we were going to get, and it certainly scratched that itch. But if it has endured in the era of Star Wars as an institution, it’s because the people who made it cared. Its genesis was to quickly write a story around existing special effects culled from a previous Star Wars rip-off. That should have been a death sentence. But it wasn’t. Space Raiders rises above the pack thanks to the dedication of the people involved. Against all odds, they did the impossible: the took a project that should have been a disaster and turned it into something memorable. So does it matter whether something is a rip-off or an homage? I would say that depends on the quality of the work. Firefly is both an homage and an original work and it’s amazing. Space Raiders is absolutely a rip-off, a technically sub-par low-budget cash-in. But it’s got heart. And that’s enough.

A Standout Sequel: Trajelon

The list of sequels which surpass the original is pretty short. The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather: Part II… that might be it, really. Well, you can add to that list Alyssa Marie Bethancourt’s Trajelon. In her debut novel, Mornnovin, Bethancourt crafted the amazingly detailed and convincing fantasy world of Asrellion. Despite the presence of fantastical elements such as Elves and Fairies, Asrellion is utterly compelling and real thanks to the author’s meticulous worldbuilding. The nations of Grenlec, Telrisht, and Mysia feel like they could really exist. The cultural and geographic differences between these lands is vividly rendered, and the geopolitical struggles have an air of authenticity. Even the fantastic Valley of the Elves, Evlédíen, comes to life in a way that conveys awe and wonder while still feeling like a place that could really exist. There’s even a fully-realized Elvish language as convincing as Tolkein’s. The history of this world is conveyed through detailed descriptions of architecture and wardrobe that never detract from the main body of the story. Rather, they enhance the immersive experience. Against that backdrop Bethancourt weaves a complex tale of a world falling apart thanks to the vengeful manipulations of the evil sorcerer Katakí Kuromé. The result is an epic tale of the clash between two peoples and the Elf princess Loralíenasa Raia who struggles to bridge the cultural divide and stop the world from destroying itself.

If that sounds difficult to top, that skepticism is understandable. Mornnovin is an excellent first novel, a page-turner in which the characters are so lovingly developed that by the end they feel like family. If you haven’t read it, stop reading this review and go do so at once. If you have read it, however, you’re probably eager to read book II. In which case, stop reading this review and go do so at once. Trust me, it’s well worth it. Trajelon not only surpasses the original in terms of suspense and plot twists, it also manages to be more meaningful on a personal level. A word of warning, however: this book is dark. Really, really dark. Seriously, it’s not for the faint of heart. It would be impossible to discuss the book in detail without spoiling some of its best surprises, so if you want to go in blind, stop here, but if you need a detailed content warning, you can find it at alyssabethancourt.com/cw.

Still here? Okay, here we go. I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum.

Trajelon can essentially be divided into two main segments. The first is an examination of depression, while the second is an examination of abuse. Linking the two is a look at how the first primes a person to be vulnerable to the second. The end result is a devastatingly powerful treatise on the emotional mindset of the victims of this brand of trauma; one which emerges not only as a standout entry in the fantasy genre, but as a literary masterpiece of the finest caliber.

The book opens where the first concluded. Loríen is dealing with the fallout from the first book, attempting to secure a lasting peace between Evlédíen and Grenlec. Things are tense, given the violent history between the two kingdoms, and this tension is made all the worse since Loríen cannot even give Queen Alyra news of her brother, Prince Naoise. That’s because Loríen has sent him off on a probably hopeless quest to claim his elven birthright directly from Vaian, the god of Asrellion. Meanwhile, toadies and sycophants vie for her hand in marriage, among them the creepily cunning Neldorí Chalaqar, and the day is fast approaching when she’ll have to make a choice. She can’t wait for Naoise forever. The law of the land says that once she becomes Queen, she must eventually marry, and if Naoise isn’t back by then, she’ll have to choose someone else.

Needless to say, Loríen is none too happy about this situation. She was never all that enthused about becoming the monarch to begin with, and without her beloved Naoise at her side, the prospect seems all the more odious. But her profound sense of duty leaves her with no choice, and as her time runs out, her zest for life goes with it. Gone is the plucky, adventurous Loríen we met in the opening chapter of Mornnovin, replaced with a sad and lonely woman who just goes through the motions and does what’s required of her. There’s nothing for her to look forward to, so joy is quickly becoming a memory.

If this seems bad, it’s nothing compared to the next blow Loríen has to suffer. Just before an important state function, the psychic bond Loríen shares with Naoise is severed, which can only mean one thing. Naoise has died on his quest, and the loss just about kills her. It’s heartbreaking to behold and achingly real. Within the universe, the breaking of this psychic bond, called the Galvanos, knocks a person flat and puts them just this side of death. It’s a poignantly accurate metaphor for the overwhelming grief that hits in the immediate wake of loss. But that’s only the beginning.

This is where the book begins to truly delve into its examination of clinical depression. When most people think of depression, they just think of being sad for a while. It’s something that passes. But clinical depression is something else entirely. It’s something you have to live with every day. It’s always there, like a song that gets stuck in your head, and somehow you have to find a way to keep going, even though there’s this nagging feeling of impossibility that you can’t get rid of. Some days are worse than others and you can barely hold it together, while other days you’re able to tuck it away neatly and almost ignore it. But never completely.

Because of the Galvanos, Loríen is one half of a whole. With one half of herself lost forever, she must go about her days and somehow ignore the swirling void of nothingness where her other half used to be. On top of that is Loríen’s self-blame for sending Naoise away while piled on top of that is her day-to-day duty of running the kingdom. In one of the standout scenes of the book, Loríen must accept her crown in an elegantly-described ceremony steeped in majesty and ritual and yet utterly cold and barren, tainted by a pervasive sense of loss, emptiness, and hopelessness. It reminded me very much of the excellent scene in the film Elizabeth when the Queen formally eschews love forever and “marries” England. It is a richly textured and beautifully filmed scene that captures the regal dignity of the crown while the staging along with Cate Blanchett’s amazing performance subtly convey the isolation of her character. Bethancourt executes her coronation scene with the same expertise.

As the days go on and Loríen’s emptiness grows, she slowly degenerates into self-destructive behavior, turning to drugs and finally to the arms of Neldorí Chalaqar, who shamelessly manipulates her emotions for his own gratification, leading to a particularly steamy (if disturbing) encounter. As repulsive as Neldorí is, he is nevertheless memorable and interesting. It would have been easy for him to be a one-dimensional character, but he’s not. He’s a sleazy cad and a shameless hedonist, an utter waste of flesh who contributes nothing to society and is the epitome of decadence. And yet buried somewhere beneath layer upon layer of conniving self-interest is a nugget of genuine concern for Loríen. Even as he goes about his machinations to possess her, a part of him really does worry for her safety. He wants her to love him, not because he loves her or wants anything truly wholesome, but out of a narcissistic need for worship. In this regard he’s truly repugnant. And yet when things go horribly awry for Loríen, he accepts blame for his part in it and immediately goes to her former guardian, Tomanasíl, to try and set things right. The action is not without a level of self-interest. Neldorí wants an important role in rescuing Loríen, both out of pure vanity and to soothe his own guilt. Yet that guilt is still there. A true sociopath would feel no guilt. Neldorí does. And he also feels genuine affection and concern for Loríen. None of this is enough for Tomanasíl, though, and both he and the book cast Neldorí aside into the irrelevance he deserves.

Speaking of Tomanasíl, he really shines in this book. In Mornnovin, his role was largely antagonistic. Despite being relatively young by elf standards, he is very rigid and set in his ways, and as father-figure to Loríen, he represents the clueless older generation standing in the way of progress. He hobbles Loríen’s efforts to stop Kataki, even throwing her in prison, and it’s not until the end of the book that he softens at all. But here we get to see a more nuanced portrayal of the character. Not that he didn’t have layers in the first book, but in this one he’s allowed to show a more caring and nurturing side. The old rigid Tomonasíl is still in there, and there are moments where his uncompromising nature throws him into conflict with Loríen, but the overwhelming sense this time is much warmer and more sympathetic.

However, no amount of warmth from Tomanasíl or anyone else can alter the devastation that has befallen Loríen. The walls close in on her, and just when it seems like things can’t get any worse, the whole axis of the story shifts. A mysterious message arrives from an unknown sender, written in blood and beckoning Loríen to the distant island of Trajelon with the hope that Naoise may yet be alive. This pushes Loríen to make to dangerously questionable decisions. Driven by desperation, she slips away in secret, unwittingly blundering right into a trap.

By now, readers will have begun to suspect the truth, but I’ll keep that one a secret. Suffice to say that as the book’s second phase begins, the full ramifications of Loríen’s mental state are turned against her. The guilt she has felt for her part in the events of the first book are weaponized against her, taking her to new lows of self-hatred. As she undergoes both physical and mental torture, she loses her perspective and begins to believe the lies her captor is force-feeding her. Constant gaslighting, aggressive attacks, and impossible choices eventually take their toll. Gradually she loses her sense of identity and any sense of life being worthwhile. It’s a starkly accurate portrayal of how abusers exploit the vulnerabilities of their victims.

One of the most heartwarming things about this book, though, is how Loríen’s loved ones snap into action to lend her aid. Tomanasíl leads the charge, but also returning from the first book are Loríen’s sister, Lyn, and her human husband, Cole. The lovably abrasive elf guardsman Sovoqatsu is back too and in perfect form. Together they speed to the rescue against all odds, but whether the cavalry arrives in time or not, it will be up to Loríen to win the real battle: the one for her soul.

On every level, Trajelon is executed flawlessly. With utter precision, Alyssa Bethancourt tackles her subject matter, weaving multiple layers of character and intrigue to deliver a stunningly beautiful and masterfully crafted work. She pulls no punches in delivering the emotional blows and does not shy away from ugliness and tragedy, yet there is beauty on every page in her sweeping descriptions and her agonizingly accurate insights into human emotion. Not a single word is wasted, with every line in service of the whole. Bethancourt does not dally with filler or needless action, nor does she indulge in violence or smut for their own sake. Everything in the story serves a purpose. Every character, even the villains, are given layers of depth. Particularly memorable is the tormented Sekarí, caught between his own conscience and the horrid whims of his master. There is not a single moment in this book that is not executed to perfection.

Mornnovin took us on an epic journey from one end of Asrellion to the other and thrust us into the middle of a vast conflict affecting thousands of lives. Trajelon may be smaller, but the emotional journey it takes us on is far more powerful and its ramifications no less meaningful. In her first book, Alyssa Bethancourt proved her skill at weaving a tale epic in scope. In her second, she demonstrates that she is nothing less than a master of the printed word and a true storyteller. I say without hesitation that Trajelon is one of the best novels I’ve ever read, and I guarantee it will stay with you long after you’ve read it.

Trajelon is available from all major online book retailers and can be special-ordered at brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Full disclosure: I am married to the author, however the opinions I have expressed are my objective and genuine assessment of the work.

Attack of the Creeps

My goodness, Attack of the Clones is terrible. Sure, we all know the prequels suck. But conventional wisdom tells us The Phantom Menace is the worst, right? Wrong. There’s something far, far worse than the maniacal screeching of Jar-Jar Binks. And it’s called The Hot Mess of Anakin and Padme.

I sat down to watch Clones this time around with the same attitude I’ve had watching all the Star Wars films recently. At all times, I would ask myself, “What would little kid Jon think of this?” And usually I figured little kid Jon would be pretty entertained by all of it. But in this instance, I just couldn’t look past the sheer suck of what was unfolding.

Right from the start, Anakin is off-putting. In the elevator car, as he tries to one-up Obi-Wan, there’s an instant sense that this kid is going to be insufferable. The second-hand embarrassment as he fails to impress Padme in their first scene together is bad enough, but we’re just getting started. Padme lays it all out up front: “Anakin, you’ll always be that little boy I met on Tatooine.” This will inform everything that follows.

In TPM, Padme was only sixteen years old, but she’d already been elected to the highest office on her planet. She was smart, capable, and she led her people through a crisis and saved them from the Trade Federation. Granted, Anakin helped with that, and that’s not to be overlooked, but bottom line, it was Padme’s show. It was her plan. She was in charge. Now, ten years later, she’s grown from an already impressive girl into a woman. She radiates professionalism and maturity. She’s the very epitome of grown-up. And here’s this little punk Anakin trying to get into her pants because he has a crush. EEEWW!!!

Every scene they share is awkward. From his confession that he’s been obsessing over her for ten years to his leering at her every chance he gets – which she tells him flat-out makes her uncomfortable. He trash-talks Obi-Wan behind his back, which clearly does not impress Padme, coming off as a whiny, entitled brat. He talks over her during an important meeting just to flex his muscles, which she clearly finds off-putting. And then he starts touching her inappropriately when she’s made it very clear she’s not interested. On their little outing to the countryside when he talks about how great fascism would be, not only does he make himself look stupid with his utter lack of understanding of politics, but this should have been the last straw in which Padme sends him packing and informs the Jedi she no longer needs their protection.

But holy crap, we’re not even done! We’ve got their super-awkward fireside chat in which she’s so uncomfortable she has to move to the other side of the room. And as painful as that is to watch, it’s nothing compared to Anakin confessing that he just slaughtered a whole village of Sand People – including the children – and she just brushes it aside, and then a few scenes later tells Anakin, “I truly, deeply love you.” What the ever-loving God Fuck?!!! There is absolutely no basis whatsoever for her to fall in love with this creep! All along, it has been played as a creepy stalker chasing an older woman with whom he has nothing in common. This should have ended with her making a full report to the Jedi council about what he’s been up to and his expulsion from the order. Certainly not them getting fucking married!!

“You like me because I’m a psychopath. There aren’t enough psychopaths in your life.”

I used to enjoy the set pieces – the chase on Coruscant, the fight on Kamino, the Battle of Geonosis, but all of these fell flat this time around because my skin was still crawling from the scenes between Anakin and Padme. Okay, fine, we’re supposed to see how this guy becomes Darth Vader. But in order for us to be invested in that, we need to see an essentially good man who is seduced by the Dark Side. Instead we get a whiny, creepy stalker sociopath who is completely off-putting. And it undermines the character of Darth Vader. In the original trilogy, Vader was a super-badass. He had his shit together. He whined about nothing. And for his backstory you give us this?!

Not only that, but for us to be invested in the doomed romance of Anakin and Padme, we have to want them to be together. We know going in they’re not going to have a happily-ever-after. But for that to mean anything, for us to follow them on that journey, it needs to be tragic. We need to see them happy up front in order to be sad that it’s not going to work out. Instead, we just want to scream to Padme, “Run! Run as fast as you can!”

This movie sucks. My god, this movie sucks. I wish there were something I could praise, but there isn’t. You could argue that it has nice visuals, but the CGI hasn’t aged well, and compared to any given modern movie, they’re nothing special. You could say it’s got decent action scenes, but if you’re not invested in the story, it’s just shit blowing up and I don’t care. This is easily the biggest botch job of the entire saga. And with the resources at their disposal, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Still more romantic than Anakin and Padme.

Jaws 4 – A Fan Edit

Speaking of Jaws…

A while back, my wife and I decided to watch all the Jaws movies. When we got to Jaws: The Revenge, mid-way through my wife said, “This is really stupid. Sharks don’t have telepathy. They don’t target specific people.” And she’s right about all those things. So I got to thinking… What if there was no supernatural element to this move? What if the shark wasn’t hunting Brodys? What if there were no telepathy and this was just a regular Jaws movie? What would that movie even look like? Would it even make any sense? I decided to find out.

“Thea, dear, did you know your Grandma has psychic powers?”

My first step was ripping the video files off the blu-ray disc, something I’d never done before. I had to google how you do that and download some software, but eventually I had some video files that I could work with. Next step, convert the files to a format my editing software could read, which required another software download. After fiddling with the settings, I was in business and ready to edit.

Digital scissors in hand, I began mercilessly hacking away at the film, removing everything I thought was stupid. Not just every single reference to telepathy or vengeful sharks, but needless padding like Mike and Carla arguing about garbage, a seemingly endless casino scene, and Jake giving Mike a hard time the day after his brother’s funeral. The end result was barely over an hour, really lean and to the point. When my wife and I watched it together, we agreed that it was an improvement over the official version, but it was a little too short to be satisfying. So I went back to the drawing board. In the end, I added back in pretty much all the padding, leaving the original storyline intact, minus the psychic shark stuff. However, I did make a few other minor alterations to two scenes.

The first is Sean’s death scene. When the shark initially attacks him, we see the shark thrashing about and hear the tearing of flesh as Sean screams. Then, a moment later, he pops out of the water looking no worse for wear. I thought that was silly, so I cut that bit, ending the scene with the boat sinking and a shot of the shark’s fin lifted from Jaws 3-D.

Mike Brody prepares to escape the shark by giving himself the bends.

I also recut the sequence where the shark attacks Mike in the mini-sub and then pursues him into a shipwreck. Some of this footage actually wound up in a completely different part of the film. The result is more realistic and more consistent with the tone of the first two films. I don’t want to say exactly what I did, though, because I think you’ll get a kick out of it.

Finally, I fixed the ending. All home video releases of Jaws: The Revenge have featured the ending from the international cut where the shark inexplicably explodes and then Jake pops out of the water, still alive. I got rid of that nonsense and restored the original ending from the theatrical version where the shark just gets impaled and Jake stays dead – except in my version, the shark no longer roars. Oh, and I replaced the main title card, retitling the film Jaws 4 and using the proper Jaws font. And I made a minor tweak to the Universal logo that probably only die-hard Jaws fans will notice.

Yuck! Let’s see if we can do something about that.

The end result is… well, it’s still bad. After all, I could only do so much. But it’s slightly less bad than it was. Like by about 20% or so. If you’re interested in checking out my work, feel free to contact me.

DISCLAIMER:

I want to stress that I do not condone piracy and will not sell my fan edit in any format. The typical way it works is that you will need to send me a photo of yourself holding a legally-purchased copy of Jaws: The Revenge on blu-ray and I will then be happy to share my fan edit with you at no charge.

Jaws: A Lifetime of Memories

The Great White Shark glides into frame – and into my subconscious.
Image credit: Universal Studios

There’s little I could possibly say about Steven Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece that hasn’t already been said. So instead I’ll focus on my own personal memories. My relationship with one of my all-time favorite movies.

My family. Back row from left: my brother, my mom, and my dad. Front row: moi.

My parents were your average middle-class suburbanite couple. They were both slim, fit, and attractive, and their teaching jobs at the local high school had allowed them to purchase a pretty nice house with a great big yard. That house would be my home for the remainder of my childhood. We had just moved in and were still getting comfortable. It was 1980, and I was three years old. I wandered into the family room one evening where my parents were watching a movie. I asked what it was and they told me it was Jaws. For some reason, they let me join them, even though I was easily scared and prone to night terrors. But I’m glad they did, because it was a revelation. I was utterly captivated by what was playing out on screen.

I’m not sure exactly at what point in the movie I started watching, but they were already aboard the Orca. It might have been the scene when they’re comparing scars. I have a vague memory of the planks bending in as the shark attacks the hull and Brody falling down with water under him. I didn’t know what a shark was, so my parents had to explain it to me. I had seen fishing boats on Mr. Rogers, so I sort of understood that. I thought that when they went down through the hatches to work on the engine that they were in the hold where the fish are kept. I also didn’t really know the difference between that and the forward cabin. I just knew they went down into the bowels of the boat to do things. When the boat starts flooding, I didn’t understand that it wasn’t supposed to be that way. I didn’t understand how these things work. I figured they kept water down there for the fish to swim in. You know, so they’d be fresh, I guess. I was three, okay? What do you want from me? When Hooper went down into the cage, I didn’t understand what that was. I thought he was going down into the bowels of the boat again, and somehow the shark had gotten into the boat. Then when it pops out of the water and lands on the deck, I thought it was coming up out of the hold. I wasn’t sure how the shark had gotten into the boat, but there it is.

From that moment on, I was utterly obsessed with sharks in general and Jaws in particular. I talked about both topics constantly, probably annoying everyone. For my fourth birthday, I got a children’s book called Whales, Sharks, and Other Creatures of the Deep. This was my first encounter with many sea creatures, such as manatees, manta rays, giant squid, and others that would also fascinate me for the rest of my life.

The next few years were a dry spell for me. I didn’t see Jaws or any other shark movies for what seemed like forever. Remember, this was the early 80s – before Netflix, before home video. You had to wait for things to come on TV. Finally there was a movie on HBO called Beyond the Reef about a young man and the tiger shark who befriends him. At the time, I found it a bit tedious, but I watched it anyway because there was a shark in it. I saw it several times, but then it disappeared from my life. I would think of it from time to time, but I didn’t see it again until recently – a span of more than thirty-five years. Watching it as an adult, I found it to be a flawed but entertaining film – though perhaps I’m viewing it through rose-colored glasses, filtered through memories of my toddler self watching it with my brother and grandmother.

One day I asked my brother if he’d ever seen Jaws and he told me he’d seen Jaws 2. He had to explain sequels to me. His only memory of it was a woman on a boat seeing a shark fin and yelling, “Uh-uh-uh-SHAAAARK!!!-uh-uh-uh-uh.” He was clearly referring to when Brody and Ellen find a traumatized Tina lost at sea. Somewhere during this period, I must have seen Jaws 2, or at least part of it. All I remember is the shot where the camera follows Brody out to the end of the dock, where Hendricks is aboard the police launch. I guess I couldn’t tell the difference between Roy Scheider and Don Adams, and since I didn’t know the character’s name, I started calling him “Get Smart.” At some point, someone told me they killed the shark with a power line. I thought that meant they just threw the power line onto the shark.

In the summer of 1982, we took the first of many annual vacations to Jacksonville Beach, Florida. I would have been four years old. I have a vivid memory of running out across the vast expanse of sand between our motel and the Atlantic Ocean. The beach was huge, not at all the narrow strip of sand I had been expecting. Because I didn’t know the actual setting of Jaws, I arbitrarily decided that it took place at Jacksonville Beach and that Brody killed the shark from the end of Jackonville Beach Pier. The first time I went swimming in the ocean, I was terrified of getting eaten by a shark. There actually was a day when we couldn’t go swimming because of a shark warning. Despite straining my eyes as I stared at the ocean, I did not see a shark.

It was around this time that I saw a documentary about sharks and learned of the extinct giant shark, megalodon. The host erroneously stated that the shark in Jaws was a megalodon. I took this to heart, and assumed that the shark in Jaws was a hundred feet long.

The following summer, Jaws 3-D was released. By now I was in school, and a classmate saw it and told me about it. I was excited to see it, but missed it in the theater. I didn’t catch up with it until it played on HBO. I think I found the premise a bit odd, a little sci-fi compared to the others, but it was scary and I dug it. I was also surprised to find that it was about a regular great white and not a megalodon. There was still much for me to learn about sharks, of course, and I didn’t understand how utterly absurd it was that this film’s great white was thirty-five feet long. Real great whites grow to a maximum of twenty feet long, so despite calling it a great white, it really was much closer to a megalodon in size. I was too young to realize what a stink-bomb the movie was. There was a shark in it, so that was good enough for me. My brother watched it with me and even though he thought it was stupid, he embraced it for my sake and we obsessed over it together for a while.

Jaws 3-D may have been a box-office bomb, but it was a staple of my early childhood.
Image credit: Universal Studios

We decided, my brother and I, that we were going to make Jaws 4. The neighbor kid, however, told us that they’d already made Jaws 4, so we changed our plan and said we were going to make Jaws 5. The neighbor kid then told us that they’d already made both Jaws 4 and Jaws 5. In my gut, I knew he was messing with us, but my brother believed him, so we changed our plans yet again. Despite knowing perfectly well that there are only four Jaws movies, I still occasionally go searching for part 5 thanks to that idiot neighbor kid. Anyway, we got to work. My brother would write Jaws 6 and I would take on Jaws 7. Probably just to be a jerk, my brother decided that his shark was going to be so big, the only way to kill it was to blow up the world – which they did, with a doomsday bomb. But he left the door open for part 7, saying that Earth had a sister world called Amnesia where the Jaws saga would continue. Sigh. Thanks, Collin.

Writing an entire novel proved to be an overwhelming task for a five-year-old, though, and I eventually gave up. My brother and I briefly talked about using the family’s Super-8 camera to film a Jaws movie, and we approached our Uncle Ron about playing Brody because we thought he bore a passing resemblance to Roy Scheider. But those plans came to a halt when my uncle refused to work without his daily wages. Years later, I would encounter the same problem with professional actors.

For a long time, it seemed like Jaws 3-D was the only Jaws movie I was ever going to get to see. It played multiple times on HBO, and I seized on every chance I had to watch it. It was a Jaws movie goddamn it. But of course, a part of me longed to see the original. I wondered if I would ever get to see it again, and I asked my mom to tell me the story. Initially, she just said a bunch of people got eaten by a shark, but I knew there had to be more than that. I pressed her, and she continued. “The chief of police and an oceanographer went out on a great big boat. Aaand… some people on the boat got killed. And they… shot the shark… yeah, they shot it. And the chief of police and the oceanographer… swam back to shore.”

The VHS release of Jaws, featuring one of the most iconic images in all of pop culture.

1985. Everything changed. We got our first VCR. We drove to a video store called Nite Owl Video to get our first video membership. When my mom and I walked in, I started browsing titles, and there it was. That iconic image of the shark hurtling up under the unsuspecting swimmer. That bold font. Jaws. I grabbed it and showed it to my mom and obviously she had to rent it for me. To my utter disappointment, we couldn’t rent it that day. I’m not sure why – something to do with the process of signing up. But we would be able to next time.

The wait was agony, but finally there we all were – me, my parents, and my brother. By now, my brother had made it clear that he didn’t really care for the Jaws movies, and I had the sense that my parents were indifferent. They were indulging me. I recorded the event with my tape recorder so I could at least enjoy the audio after we’d returned the film. “Jaws,” I said. “Jaws One. Starting.” Duh-dunn. Duh-dunn. The movie began to unfold. Instantly I sensed that this was a better film than the third one. Everyone laughed at the jokes, and the shark attacks were bloodier and more intense than the ones in the third film. I was enjoying what seemed to be to be a pretty good Jaws movie. And then the switcheroo happened.

I knew from my mom’s telling of the story that they would eventually go out on a boat to kill the shark, but I figured that would be at the very end, and I had no idea what the movie was going to pull. The camera dollies in on the jaws of a shark mounted on a window, the Orca visible beyond, heading to sea, as if sailing right into the jaws of the shark, and John Williams was suddenly scoring a different movie. Not a horror movie. An adventure movie. I still get chills every time I watch the movie and it gets to this point. But this was only the beginning. After a while of hanging out on the boat, I began to realize that we were nowhere near the climax. And then the shark pops out of the water. Rather than a horror set piece, suddenly it’s adventure on the high seas! Quint, Brody, and Hooper leap into action as the score builds the excitement. It’s fun, funny, and thrilling, and then… that harpoon comes into view as John Williams delivers six musical notes that would forever change the way I experience movies. Holy. Goddam. Shit. This isn’t just a Jaws movie. This is Jaws.

The rest of the movie played out. There were more exciting chases, more thrills, and then some mind-bending terror. When it was over, my brother and I went upstairs and went utterly ape shit. Later that day, I came up with QBH, a sitcom which I performed live with my action figures in which Quint, Brody, and Hooper get an apartment in New York and have many comedic adventures together, including run-ins with Superman and Lex Luthor, a giant mechanical arm, and a trip to space. QBH became a way of life for me and my brother, dominating the rest of our childhoods.

Due to a great cosmic injustice, there were no Jaws action figures for us to play with, so we had to substitute. For me, Emperor Palpatine became Quint, an ATST pilot with Luke Skywalker’s head was Brody, and a little astronaut figure from my Construx set stood in for Hooper. For my brother, Quint was a Chief Quimby figurine from Inspector Gadget, Brody was Luke Skywalker in his Jedi outfit, and Hooper was a jet pilot. It was the best we could do, and it served us well enough at the time. But we needed a playset, and that’s where Grampap came in.

Grampap shows off the catch of the day on one of our many trips to Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

Grampap was an interesting man. With his high cheekbones and weathered complexion, he was like a wooden Indian come to life. A veteran of World War II, he was full of stories from a colorful past. He was a carpenter, and it seemed as if he could build anything you wanted in his garage. He’d already made numerous wooden toys for both of us, so it seemed only natural to ask him to build the Orca. Working from memory, I drew the boat to the best of my ability and gave it to him for reference. A few days later, I had my first highly inaccurate model of the Orca. Not long after that, my brother spent a week in the garage with Grampap building what he called, “The Ultimate Orca.” The overall shape was wrong, but the details were all there and it was functional. It had a removable fighting chair, removable barrels, and a fold-up shark cage. Many hours were spent on the further adventures of Quint, Brody, and Hooper using this model of the Orca.

“Quint,” “Brody,” and “Hooper” head out to “sea” aboard the Ultimate Orca.

My grandmother was a roly-poly bundle of love who had seen some hard times and had learned the value of family. She was also a hard-core shopper, and if there was something you wanted and it could be found, she would find it for you. So I asked her for Peter Benchly’s original Jaws novel in hardcover. I figured I had set her an impossible task, and in a way I had, since Jaws was not even in print at the time. But she came through, sort of. I don’t know where she found them, but she picked up Jaws 2, by Hank Searls – in hardcover, no less – one each for me and my brother. And she inscribed it on the first page: to Jonathan, from Grandma, “1986.”

I took the book to school and began reading it – my first grown-up book. It was a bit difficult for me, and I kind of slogged through it. Much of the book dealt with gangsters and police work. I felt a bit guilty for finding it so dull, but I kept at it. It took me all year to read it, but I did, reading through the final few chapters in one sitting and with trembling hands. It had been a tough book to get through, but the ending was a good payoff. However, there had been a price for taking it to school. The dust jacket had been ripped to shreds. I was mad about that, holding a plain red book in my hands with no picture of a shark on the cover. I put it on the shelf in my bedroom closet, where it stayed for many, many years.

Jaws 2 may have been tough to get through, but I still wanted to read the original, so my Grandma took me to Nancy’s Fireside Book Exchange, which she thought was our best shot at finding it. Sure enough, there it was. Not hardcover, of course – the mass-market paperback that had flooded book stores in advance of the film’s release. I didn’t start reading it right away, and by the time I did, my brother had already read his copy and spoiled much of it for me. But I read it anyway, zipping through it much faster than Jaws 2. There was much more shark in this one, and even the romance and mafia stuff held my interest. Maybe I was growing up; who knows?

The movie version of Jaws 2 played on ABC, and we taped it. I was surprised at how different it was from the book. It drew me in pretty quickly. The opening attack on the two divers was cool, and the attack on the speedboat was downright awesome. But then it ran out of steam. Talk, talk, talk, talk. Where the hell was the shark? By the time it showed up again, it was time for me to go to bed. I had to wait until after school the next day to finish watching. The second half was much more satisfying than the first. I was a little bored by all the scenes of the teenagers drifting around at sea, but there was enough shark action to hold my interest, and the climax was pretty slick. My verdict at the time was that it was okay, but not as good as one and three. Still, it was the first Jaws movie that we actually owned, so I watched it quite a bit.

And then, on our next trip to Florida, the original Jaws played on ABC and we taped it too. We had to set the VCR to record it automatically, and I recall being really tense for the whole trip, worrying that something had gone wrong and it had failed to record. But I put that out of my mind when we stopped at a motel on the way down and watched the movie in our room. To my surprise, there were several scenes that hadn’t been in the version we’d rented. My brother didn’t believe me, and it wasn’t until the movie aired on HBO several years later that I was finally able to prove that the TV version was different.

The novelization of Jaws: The Revenge, by Hank Searls

One day my grandma informed me they were making Jaws Goes to Hawaii. The title sounded like a joke, and I didn’t know where she heard that. Grandma was very good at the things she was good at, but there were also lots of things she was just clueless about. I figured she didn’t know what she was talking about. Over the course of the next year or so, anytime I brought up Jaws, she reminded me that Jaws Goes to Hawaii was going to be coming out. I took this with a grain of salt, of course. A new Jaws movie would be nice, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up. And then one day we were at strip mall a few miles from home. She was busy hunting bargains when I asked her if I could go over to the drug store to look at the books. She said yes and I headed over. I spotted it immediately: Jaws: The Revenge, a new novel by Hank Searls. Holy crap, it was true! As I’d suspected, the title was not Jaws Goes to Hawaii. The destination, it turned out, was the Bahamas. Still a tropical setting, but not Hawaii, and with a much more sensible title. Needless to say, I got Grandma to buy it for me.

I started reading it at once and was horrified to discover that Shawn Brody dies in the opening scene. Partly because I was so shocked, but also partly because I decided that I didn’t want to spoil the movie for myself, I set the book aside for the time being. Finally the movie came out and my whole family went to see it. The marquee said Jaws 4. So that settled that. There was no Jaws 5 and I could permanently put that matter to rest. (Please wait while I conduct a Google search for Jaws 5.) It may seem strange to you, but I actually enjoyed Jaws 4 quite a lot. Maybe it was just because this was the first time I was seeing a Jaws movie in the theater, or maybe it was just because it was brand new. But whatever the reasons were, I loved it, and it completely escaped my notice how utterly stupid it was. Hey, I was ten, okay? I was still at the age where I was watching He-Man. Cut me some slack, will ya?

Not only did I enjoy it, but I liked it enough that I dragged my poor Aunt Patty to see it just to have an excuse to see it again. Every so often, I glanced over to see how she was reacting to things. She just sat like a statue, not reacting at all. I’m sure she was thinking, “What the hell is this garbage?!” When it was over, she told me she’d enjoyed it. God bless her.

By the time high school rolled around, Jaws was an old friend. I not only knew all the dialogue by heart, I could actually watch the movie shot-for-shot in my head with almost perfect clarity. I’d come around to the notion that the sequels weren’t worth anyone’s time, and I hadn’t watched them in years. My brother had always said his favorite movie was 2001: A Space Odyssey. I had never really settled on a favorite movie. For a while, maybe between the ages of twelve and fourteen, I would often say my favorite movie was Dawn of the Dead. That didn’t quite feel true, though. I loved it, but was it really my favorite? Then one day, my brother said that while he still loved 2001, if pressed he would have to say his favorite movie was Jaws. Whoa, buddy! You don’t get to go claiming that! I’m the Jaws nut in this family! I didn’t say that, of course, but on the spot I decided that Jaws was my favorite movie of all time. That felt much more true than Dawn of the Dead.

In my senior year of high-school, I needed a sound byte for an audio drama I was working on. I pulled out our old copy of Jaws 2 so I could record the sound of the shark being electrocuted, but the audio quality was not that great, so I went down the street to the nearest video store and rented it. I was surprised at how much better the picture quality was on the studio-produced copy. Since I’d paid to rent it, I figured I may as well watch it. To my surprise, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was. In fact, it was pretty good. Not good like the original, but pretty good.

My experience with renting Jaws 2 had convinced me that the taped-off-TV copies we’d been watching weren’t going to cut it anymore. I had to get factory-made copies of both Jaws and Jaws 2. Not 3 and 4, mind you. I still thought of those as crap. But the first one for sure, and the second one, meh, why not?

After all these years, I finally encountered a hardcover edition of the original novel – in, of all places, the high-school library. It wasn’t anything like I’d imagined. Instead of the famous artwork from the movie poster, it was a plain black cover with a basic-looking shark. If this had been what my grandmother had given me, I likely would have been disappointed. It occurred to me that perhaps I could photocopy the dust jacket from my brother’s copy of Jaws 2. But color photocopying was not as advanced then as it is today, and I wasn’t happy with the results. Still, at least my copy had a cover again, albeit an imperfect one.

Many times on our vacations to Florida, we would go deep sea fishing aboard a big party boat called the Miss Mayport. It was fun, but crowded, standing elbow-to-elbow with strangers. The summer after I graduated from high-school, however, Grampap had a surprise for us. We showed up at the dock and my brother and I headed for the Miss Mayport as usual when Grampap called to us. We turned around to see him standing on the deck of a small charter boat. At first we thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He’d done what we’d been talking about doing since we’d first seen Jaws. He’d chartered a small fishing boat like the one in the movie. Usually when we went fishing we’d each come home with maybe one or two small-frys. This time we caught so many fish – big ones, king mackerels – that we had to throw some back. It was the best day at sea I ever had and one of my fondest memories.

Heading out to sea for real – a surprise gift from Grapap.

Life marched on. I did a semester at Cal U, I went to film school, I got a job. I made my first feature film. I got my first grown-up job working as a projectionist at various local theaters. I dated. I had my heart broken. My uncle and my grandparents died. I struggled with creative success. I made friends. I lost friends. My twenties disappeared into a black hole. And I emerged from it all… changed. And kind of tired. I decided that in the interest of looking smart, I had turned my nose up at a lot of movies I’d once loved – sequels especially. After a long time away, I revisited Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge. And God, they were so… awful. By any objective standard, they were prime examples of the worst drek Hollywood had churned out in the early 80s. And I loved them anyway. Every godawful frame of them, I loved it all.

Thanks to the internet, I was able to obtain a new dust jacket for my copy of Jaws 2. Also, Random House released a new edition of the original novel, this time with the cover art from the mass-market paperback. It was exactly what I’d hoped my grandma would find for me all those years ago, and it made a nice companion edition to what she’d bought me. I decided to revisit the novel of Jaws 2 and it was a different experience reading it as an adult. I was able to appreciate the subtle nuances of character development that I’d missed as a kid. The mafia stuff didn’t bore me this time, and I plowed through it quickly. Ultimately, I did decide that the movie was better. In the novel, Brody doesn’t even suspect there’s a shark until the very end, instead wasting his time chasing after a two-bit crook. It makes him look like a fool. His arc in the movie is much more satisfying. But I didn’t care. I was able to enjoy this childhood gift with a new level of appreciation. As I read the final chapters, I trembled with the same excitement I’d had the first time, and when I finished, I closed the book and looked at it for a moment, then hugged it as if it were my grandma.

My hardcover Jaws books – a beautiful set I waited a lifetime for.

One day my brother declared that he’d always suspected that Jaws wasn’t really my favorite movie. He said he thought The Thing was my favorite movie. At the time, I insisted he was wrong, that Jaws really was my favorite movie. But these days, if I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure I really do have a favorite movie. I love Jaws. I also love The Thing. And I love Dawn of the Dead. And Back to the Future. And Raiders of the Lost Ark. And a host of others. I have a lot of favorite movies, not just one. And that’s okay. I don’t think it’s necessary to single out one movie as your tippy-top favorite. There’s room in my heart for more than one movie.

As of this writing, I’m forty-one years old. In many ways, I couldn’t be more different from the little toddler who wandered into the family room to find his parents watching a strange, scary movie about a shark. In other ways, it’s like I’ve come full-circle. Or perhaps almost full, the starting point forever out of reach. I’ve lived this long life full of discovery and change, and now it’s like I’m trying to reconnect with myself. Or maybe I’m just grasping at a simpler time, my fingers closing around water, the reflection dancing and rippling before me, teasing me. But at least I know now that I don’t have to impress anyone. It’s okay for me to like whatever I want, even if it’s bad, and I owe an explanation to no one. When a friend saw blu-ray copies all four Jaws movies sitting on my shelf, he was baffled. He could understand owning the original. He could even understand owning the second one. But the third and fourth? Surely I had better taste than that. Why did I own them? The answer is simple. Because a little boy I used to know likes sharks and wants to watch movies about them.