Variation has always been the source of much debate during this much scrutinized era of sequels. Before Jaws 2, sequels were primarily made for two reasons: to continue the storyline that was not initially concluded in the first film (Planet Of The Apes, The Godfather), or in the design of the episodic serial (Frankenstein, Dirty Harry, James Bond). Universal decided to do something that seemed improbable-- make a sequel where most have failed (French Connection II & Exorcist II). This leaves a crew’s work cut out for them.
In 1975, director Steven Spielberg’s Jaws became the most successful picture of all time. The success of the film created a phenomenon that Universal felt somehow had to be continued. Enter Jaws 2, a film that proved more things than the general public knows today or when it was released in 1978. Only this time, no Spielberg and no Dreyfuss, for both were working on Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. So who was going to take over? What was going to make this film special in its own way? French director Jeannot Szwarc was brought on board by production designer Joe Alves who worked with him and Spielberg on Rod Serling’s TV horror show, Night Gallery. Upon winning the director’s chair, Szwarc decided upon a very meticulous and crucial design on how to make this film and what it exactly needed to be.
1) The main character must be emotionally enhanced, more matured, learning from previous film’s events; continuing arc. (you’ll see this later in Aliens, T2, etc)
2) Introduce new conflicts for the characters to face (nobody believes Roy Scheider’s character’s suspicions of a shark).
3) Nostalgia for the previous film must be established giving the character’s history.
4) The story structure and certain elements of the first film must remain in order to keep the audience’s familiarity of why they loved the first film (shark POVS, action elements)
5) Different cinematography or visual look (shooting behind the shark fin, different lighting).
6) Different editing style gives the film a different pace and/or energy.
7) Introduce elements that were not included in the first film or create different situations for the characters (shark is shown a lot to prevent duplicating the first film).
8) Bring back the characters that the audience fell in love with in the first film as long as it respects continuity.
9) Bring back the same musical themes from the original film (John Williams returns to enhance his Academy-award winning themes with new compositions.)
10) Enhance and extend the themes from the original film to bring new life and feelings for the film (Szwarc introduced sophisticated visuals giving an art history appreciation).
A glaring paradox can be noticed. For it all to work, such a film requires to be somewhat similar to its original source of inspiration and yet be different enough to reveal new storytelling possibilities and interpretations. Not easy.
In comparison to Jaws, Jaws 2 is obviously a completely different film. Most film comparisons prove nothing. It is how well the film works on its own. The suspense here is different in its orchestration than in the original. Where as Spielberg uses the unseen presence of the shark mostly marked through John William’s fantastic score and yellow barrels (which apparently saved the film from the crew’s perspective), Szwarc reveals the shark a lot here. This again, is Szwarc not wishing to duplicate the situations of the first film. The theory is since the audience already knew what the shark looked like, to block the audience’s view of it was a form of blinded obviousness. So the new fear and suspense came from the horror of the shark’s actual attack. This would become the formula also duplicated in Aliens to compensate for the ’’inability to scare since the audience already knew what they were dealing with.’’ Specifically also since the audience knew from the original film that this animal or monster could be destroyed, a new conflict would arise in a more dangerous and unpredictable fashion. When finally unseen, it is shocking.
In Jaws 2, most of the characters don’t believe the shark exists, and the shark this time doesn’t leave much evidence or eyewitnesses for that matter of its attacks. Whenever this shark attacks, it creates more of a macabre effect where it exploits the audience’s greatest fears: the horrifying deaths of those who you are close to. An unexplainable force that comes in and destroys human lives, which is very reminiscent to what Robert Shaw’s character in the original film explains happened after the real life sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in 1945. This is further demonstrated with the attacks on the teenagers in the third act of the film. Those scenes also bring out the greatest fear of older men and women: the deaths of their children. It can be argued that this follows a formula very similar to that of teenage slasher films minus the knife, chainsaw, or axe. However, the term ’’teenage slasher’’ didn’t become a pop standard till after Halloween, which was released later that year of 1978.
Even though there were also a number of films before Jaws 2 that also introduced the horror of killing younger men and women, may we remember that the original Jaws also has the killings of two young people in the first act. May we also remember that more adults than younger characters are killed off in Jaws 2. The threats upon the teenagers also do not extend long enough to make it like a teenage slasher film. The threats against teen characters take up traditionally 90% of a teenage slasher film’s story. In terms of new ways to create fear of the shark, the shark is partially burned which gives it a new horrific, unnatural, grotesque look.
Roy Scheider’s performance is also top-notch here fully taking advantage of his character’s new obsessions and paranoia. The entire film he walks in a different way with more of an impatient and jaded personality in movement. Many moments in the film includes Scheider staring out to sea with a new matured and suspicious attitude. With the absence of Richard Dreyfuss’ character from the original film which supplied Scheider’s character with an ally to stop the shark, the odds are heavier here that Scheider’s character is alone in his fight.
Also to compensate for why Scheider could not get a hold of Dreyfuss’ character, a plot point from the original was used and another less helpful marine biologist character is introduced to block Scheider’s abilities creating more conflicts between characters. The relationship between Scheider and his character’s oldest son also created a new conflict here as well. The son does not always obey his father’s wishes and projects disbelief in his father’s suspicions of the shark’s existence creating more loneliness for Scheider and his problems.
All of this is the careful work of creating new conflicts for this continued story, and giving it good reasons for it to continue. In a sense, the film demonstrates that Roy Scheider’s character almost needs to fight another shark in order to rise above his pains his character faced in the first film. This of course was replicated in Aliens in that Sigourney Weaver’s character had to face her fears of the alien.
This design became a model for future successful sequels. For whatever reasons, most sequels (including Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge) had great difficulty following these sequel rules and unfortunately suffer. This film also introduced the now popular and cliché sequel trend of Hollywood. After Jaws 2, a whole slew of sequels were released (The Empire Strikes Back, Rocky II, Superman II, Halloween II, Friday the 13th Part II, Star Trek II). Some were critically successful, and some were not. But Jaws 2 proves itself to be a technically well-made film.