Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016), Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017), and The Last Sharknado: It's About Time (2018)

Sequels can be a tough beast to tackle. People enjoyed the first enough to warrant a second, a third, or beyond. They want more of it. But they also don’t want more of the exact same. Some changes need to be made. There needs to be some growth in the franchise. Or, at the very least, some variety. It needs to be similar enough to warrant being a sequel, but different enough to not be the same exact thing as what came before.

This kind of thought process gets tougher the further into a franchise a movie is. If a franchise keeps trying to outdo the previous entry, there will be a point where things go too far. Characters who shouldn’t be in space end up in space. Other characters become unkillable in a ludicrous fashion. The stakes stop being stakes. Audiences no longer care about what the characters go through because the universe of the movies has become unhinged. The growth went too far.

A perfect example of this, and the topic of this week’s post is the Sharknado franchise. I’ve covered the first three before. The growth in those movies was simple. It allowed them to feel like more of the same while also feeling like they presented something a little different. The first film was about a sharknado that ravaged Los Angeles. When they went to New York in the second film, the sharknado was colder. The third film expanded the sharknado so that it covered the east coast of the United States. It was a steady enough growth. Tornado with sharks to cold tornado with sharks to storm system with sharks. And then things went off the rails.

Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens picked up five years after the third film. In setting, not in release. Aston Reynolds (Tommy Davidson) was a tech billionaire who set up a sharknado prevention system. It worked well against the standard sharknados, but when the sharknados began to be filled with other things, his system couldn’t keep up. He needed the help of Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering) and his family to keep the country safe from three sharknados that were speeding through different major cities. Meanwhile, Wilford Wexler (Gary Busey) was helping his daughter April (Tara Reid) recover from injuries she had received five years earlier.

After three films changing the size and severity of the sharknados, Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens took a major step over the steady growth line. The next logical step would have been for the sharknados to go international. That wouldn’t happen yet. In this case, the sharknados became infused with other dangers. One of the sharknados was formed as a dust devil in the Nevada desert. It picked up rocks along the way, being dubbed a bouldernado. Then it would light on fire, hit an electric transformer, and destroy a nuclear power plant. These would turn it into a firenado, lightningnado, and nukenado. There were two other sharknados as well, one being a hailnado, and one being a lavanado. The sharknados were transforming beyond typical tornados with sharks in them.

Another area of growth that Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens brought was in the characters. Specifically, there was growth in April. You see, at the end of the third film, April was crushed by a falling piece of a space shuttle. The movie technically ended right before she was crushed and, in the television broadcast, a card was put up asking viewers to vote on if she lived or died. Well, it turned out that she died. Her father brought her back to life as a cyborg. She basically had superpowers from this point, which I think is a big reason that the growth didn’t fit right. If it weren’t for cyborg April, I would probably like the final three entries much more than I do.

Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens grew in one other way. It became much bigger in terms of location. The first movie was set in Los Angeles. The second movie was set in New York. The third movie grew a little bit, opening in Washington D.C., while the majority was set in Florida. Specifically, it was set at Universal Studios and then the Kennedy Space Center. The three movies felt small enough that the landmarks, stereotypes, and weather of said areas could be utilized. The way New York was utilized in Sharknado 2: Oh Hell No! showed what could be done. The taxi driver, the way the streets flooded, the trains, Citi Field, the ferry, the Statue of Liberty, the police and fire departments, the Empire State Building, Citi Bikes, Fin saying that New York was a tougher city, Times Square, pizza joints… Everything in the movie played up that it was set in New York. The third movie did the same for D.C. and for Universal Studios. Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens sped through so many locations that it never felt like any of them got enough attention. Las Vegas, Chicago, and Niagara Falls all felt like missed opportunities.

What was it about this growth that didn’t work when it did through the first three movies? First, there were too many dangers in the sharknados. For a franchise that had, up to the point of the fourth film, only dealt with size and temperature differences, it felt like they were taking too many steps forward for one movie. They tried too many things when all they had to do was one, maybe two. Second, though the situation was ludicrous, the characters had always been grounded in some sort of reality. They were real people thrust into a crazy situation. They didn’t have special abilities. Aside from April’s prosthetic hand, I guess. They were just skilled shark fighters. April becoming a cyborg changed that. Finally, growing the number of locations took away from the care that was put into featuring any of them. Instead of a deep dive into what would happen if a sharknado threatened a specific place, everything became very basic and surface level. The locations didn’t have that same lived-in feel of, specifically, the second and third movies.

By the time Sharknado 5: Global Swarming came around, things had gone completely off the rails. Fin (Ian Ziering), April (Tara Reid), and their youngest son Gil (Billy Barrat) were on a trip to London, England. Nova (Cassandra Scerbo) was nearby, raiding a tomb under Stonehenge. She recruited Fin to help her get some sort of shark stone (I’m going to call it an amulet), which then set off a location-hopping sharknado. Gil got sucked into the sharknado. Fin, April, and Nova took a trip around the world to save him.

You can see the main two ways that the Sharknado franchise grew through Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. The first and foremost was the location growth. It was in the title of the movie. Things went global. Rather than staying in the United States, the characters went to London, Sydney, Rio, and Rome. Again, I had an issue where there wasn’t enough done in any of the locations. There was enough time for maybe one quick landmark hit, and maybe a stereotype. But there wasn’t nearly as much focus on any location as in the early Sharknado movies, which was kind of what made those early movies special. It was the right step after Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens to make things a little bigger. It just might not have been what the franchise needed. It might have needed to scale back a bit and focus on only one of the international locations.

The other big way that the Sharknado franchise grew was by changing up the sharknado once again. It didn’t burn or go nuclear this time. Instead, it was able to hop through space. The sharknado was no longer travelling like a normal tornado would. It could be in London in one moment, then in Rio the next. Something about the stone from beneath Stonehenge gave the sharknado new powers. The franchise had gone full science fiction by this point, straying from its straight disaster roots. The disaster angle was still there, but there was science fiction underlying it from the teleporting sharknado to the characters teleporting through it to April being a full-on cyborg. It was no longer a disaster grounded in a goofy shark-filled reality.

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming grew the franchise in other ways, too. Nova returned, after being absent for the fourth film. She tried to protect Gil in London, but couldn’t hold on when the sharknado sucked him away. Through her travels with Fin and April as they tried to track down Gil and the sharknado, it was revealed that Nova had created a sisterhood of sharknado fighters. Their headquarters were in the Sydney Opera House. Fin’s cousin, Gemini (Masiela Lusha) was a part of the sisterhood. This was a global operation that was working underground. It added a new layer to the fight to stop sharknados.

The final bit of growth came with the ending of Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. Fin lost everyone. By everyone, I mean absolutely everyone. They couldn’t save Gil. The escalation of the sharknados led to Nova dying while trying to save Gil. Fin and April tried to stop the sharknado in Egypt, but only made things worse. As the sharknados built to a world-covering storm, Gemini was killed on a beach off the South China Sea. Matt, Fin and April’s oldest son, died at home in Kansas. Claudia, their daughter, died in Washington. April, in an effort to stop the sharknado, used all her cyborg energy against it. Her sacrifice finally stopped the storm, but it was too late. Fin was seemingly the only human left. He wandered a post apocalyptic world alone and lonely.

All the growth in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming was a continuation of the exponential growth seen in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens. There were still a whole bunch of storms, this time becoming a worldwide system. There was even a sharkzilla in Japan, wreaking havoc like a kaiju. The destruction was far bigger. By the end, the entire world had been destroyed. There were new agencies and April had sharknado stopping powers. Everything was bigger. It made sense after the jump from Sharknado 3 to Sharknado 4. It also made sense that it was setting up a finale for the entire franchise. It had to end on a down note not seen in any of the other movies, so that Fin could not just save his family, city, and country. Fin needed to save the world from assured destruction. More than once.

The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time was that heroic vindication for Fin. Gil arrived in the post-apocalyptic wasteland and sent Fin (Ian Ziering) back in time to the age of dinosaurs. There, he met up with April (Tara Reid), Nova (Cassandra Scerbo), Bryan (Judah Friedlander), and Skye (Vivica A. Fox). Gil traveled through time to right before each of them died and sent them all back to stop sharknados that popped up throughout history. They stopped a prehistoric sharknado, a medieval sharknado, an American Revolution sharknado, a 1960s sharknado, and the one from the first film. It was all an attempt to reset the timeline and save everyone that Fin held dear.

Once again, the sharknado grew in intensity as the franchise moved into another entry. That’s not entirely true. The characters gained the power of time travel. It just so happened to be that every jump through time led to another sharknado. Instead of fighting off the sharknados around the world, Fin and his companions fought off sharknados through time. They had fought off sharknados in every place they could, and now had to fight them off in every time they could. That was the growth.

Another way the franchise grew through The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time was through the characters coming back to life. April had already been resurrected in cyborg form in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, but the final installment truly showed that dead didn’t mean dead for the franchise. Skye, Bryan, Nova, and April had all been saved from their deaths and brought to the past. Taking out all the sharknados through time led to everyone being resurrected for the final scene, as time reset itself to how things would be without sharknados. Everyone who died by the end of the fifth movie were once again alive at the end of the sixth. Even John Heard was brought back to life through archive footage and body doubles.

Finally, the characters actually grew a bit in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. Fin was confronted about his hypocrisy when it came to saving his family. He would risk the entire world for anyone he loved, but he wouldn’t let Nova interfere with her grandfather’s untimely passing at the jaws of a shark. Any time Nova tried to prevent her grandfather’s demise, Fin stopped her. She called him out on how he would interfere as much as possible when it came to April or Gil. This conflict added some much-needed depth to the characters and their relationship, even if it was only a basic conflict. It was brought up in Shaknado 5: Global Swarming, but really blossomed in the final film as both characters acted on these familial desires.

Over six movies, there was a lot of growth through the Sharknado movies. The first three felt more natural in their progression. Sharknado had a tornado filled with sharks ravaging Los Angeles. Sharknado 2: The Second One brought the shark-filled tornados to New York and combined them with a colder climate. Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! turned the entire east coast into a sharknado alley, with the potential combination of the entire system being called a sharkicane. It was pretty standard changes that grew the franchise in a way that didn’t feel like too much, too soon.

The later three entries in the franchise tossed aside that natural progression and went as far off the rails as possible. Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens combined the sharknados with other disastrous dangers, while also introducing cyborg technology and weather controlling abilities. Sharknado 5: Global Swarming introduced teleportation and ancient sharknado mythology. The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time brought in time travel and nailed home the importance of family to the series in a way it hadn’t up to that point. Everything grew at such an exponential rate that the later three Sharknado movies almost felt like an entirely different series. The growth was no longer natural. It was a “let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” scenario where they used everything they threw.

As a studio or filmmaker gets further into a franchise, their ideas become more desperate. Things will be included in the movies that never would have been considered early in the franchise’s lifespan. Characters will go places that weren’t even imagined in the beginning. Unbelievable obstacles will become the norm. The natural progression from one installment to the next might go away because there’s a need to always top what came before. Go big or go home, they say.

Sequels can be a daunting task for anyone. They need to continue a story that, hopefully, was wrapped up well in the previous entry. The conflict should be bigger. Any spectacle should be more spectacular. There must be some sort of growth and forward trajectory to justify why a second entry is necessary. Audiences need a reason to see another movie in the franchise and it can’t only be that they’re getting more of the same. Changes must be made. But the changes should also feel natural, so the franchise doesn’t go off the rails.

And now to get to the notes, which will be long:

• Anthony C. Ferrante directed all the Sharknado movies. He also appeared in Attila (week 321).
• Mindy Robinson popped up in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, marking her eighth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance. Her other appearances were The Coed and the Zombie Stoner (week 102), Chicks Dig Gay Guys (week 145), Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (week 241), Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong (week 347), Evil Bong 420 (week 388), Evil Bong: High 5! (week 434), and Evil Bong 666 (week 482).
• Lloyd Kaufman had a small role in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens. His other roles included Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned (week 45), Big Ass Spider! (week 61), Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (week 84), The Toxic Avenger: Part II (week 110), Citizen Toxie: Toxic Avenger IV (week 110), and Orgazmo (week 363).
• Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens featured a cameo appearance by Steve Guttenberg. He was the star of Lavalantula (week 290) and 2 Lava 2 Lantuala (week 290). He was also one of the stars of Police Academy (week 400), Police Academy 2: Their FirstAssignment (week 400), Police Academy 3: Back in Training (week 400), and Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (Week 400).
• Tara Reid was one of the stars of Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. She was also in Sharknado (week 190), Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190), and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190). The one other movie she appeared in for Sunday “Bad” Movies was Alonein the Dark (week 152).
• Ian Ziering was also in Sharknado (week 190), Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. His character popped up in Lavalantula (week 290) as well.
• David Hasselhoff was a major part of Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens. He was previously a part of Starcrash (week 1), The Christmas Consultant (week 55), Anaconda: Offspring (week 80), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), and Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (week 284).
• Gary Busey appeared in both Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. They weren’t nearly his first appearances in Sunday “Bad” Movies. He had already been in The Gingerdead Man (week 69), Drop Zone (week 132), D.C. Cab (week 293), and Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong (week 347).
• A stuffed possum named Petunia appeared in all the Sharknado movies.
• Benjy Bronk, Brady Latt, Moise Latt, and Al Roker rolled into the five-timers club this week with appearances in Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190) through The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. Five Sharknado flicks each. The same five.
• Chris Kattan played the British Prime Minister in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. He was also in Foodfight! (week 143), Delgo (week 148), Santa’s Slay (week 263), and The Ridiculous 6 (week 344). That makes him a member of the five-timers club.
• Bo Derek has been in two Sharknado movies: Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. She was also in Orca (week 144), Tarzan the Ape Man (week 273), and Bolero (week 456).
• Gilbert Gottfried played a weather reporter in the final three Sharknado movies. He previously worked on Thumbelina (week 286) and Never on Tuesday (week 387).
• The final new five-timer was Cassandra Scerbo, who played Nova in Sharknado (week 190), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. Her other movie was Not Another Not Another Movie (week 402).
• Audrey Latt was in four Sharknado movies. She was in Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Bai Ling made a fourth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. Her other three appearances were in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (week 241), Wild Wild West (week 296), and Southland Tales (week 428).
• Another fourth appearance came in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. Dan Fogler showed up, after being in Free Birds (week 209), Balls of Fury (week 349), and Don Peyote (week 445).
• Diana Terranova was in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens. She had already been in 8213: Gacy House (week 60), Leprechaun in the Hood (week 120), and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190).
• Robbie Rist showed up in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time after appearing in Sharknado (week 190), Iron Eagle (week 90), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (week 184).
• Vivica A. Fox returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. She was already in Batman & Robin (week 138), Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190), and Independence Day: Resurgence (week 449).
• Ryan Whitney was in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), Zoom (week 457), Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Dolph Lundgren played Gil for about a minute in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. He was in Skin Trade (week 146) and In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (week 220).
• Jena Sims popped up in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, after appearances in 3-Headed Shark Attack (week 165) and Best Night Ever (week 285).
• The late Nichelle Nichols also made her third appearance in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, following her roles in Snow Dogs (week 322) and Scooby-Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster (week 390).
• Tony Hawk played himself in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. He showed up in Parental Guidance (week 27) and Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (week 400) as well.
• The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time featured Shad Gaspard, who was already in Sandy Wexler (week 231) and Officer Downe (week 242).
• M. Steven Felty was in Attila (week 321), Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (week 410), and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time marked the third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Debra Wilson, who had been in The Emoji Movie (week 373) and Dead 7 (week 442).
• Downtown Julie Brown returned to the Sharknado franchise in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming after previously appearing in Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190). She was also in Sandy Wexler (week 231).
• Kathie Lee Gifford was in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) before her appearance in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. She also popped up in Dudley Do-Right (week 336).
• Judah Friedlander was in Date Movie (week 164), Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190), and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Tammy Klein is an Asylum regular. She was in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time, and Little Dead Rotting Hood (week 202).
• Chris Owen played Gil through most of The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. He was previously in Dorm Daze (week 40) and Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea (week 40).
• Edward and John Grimes (Jedward) each appeared in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, and Sharknado 5: Global Swarming.
• Mark McGrath was an important part of the Sharknado franchise, appearing in Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190), Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Juliana Ferrante was in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190), Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Finishing off the three-timers is Masiela Lusha, who was in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Stacey Dash made a cameo appearance in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens. She was in View from the Top (week 83).
• Steffanie Busey was in Miss Castaway and the Island Girls (week 208) before Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens.
• A couple people from Sandy Wexler (week 231) appeared in the late half of the Sharknado franchise. Drew Pinsky was in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens while Clay Aiken was in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming.
• Corey Taylor appeared in both Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens and Officer Downe (week 242).
• Roy Nelson has been a part of two fourth installments in Sunday “Bad” Movies franchises. He was in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, as well as The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power (week 380).
• DeMarco Davis was in I’m in Love with a Church Girl (week 436) before Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens.
• Carrie Keegan was one of two people to make their second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in a Sharknado movie after first popping up in Dead 7 (week 442). She was in Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, and Chloe Lattanzi was in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming.
• Jillian Barberie showed up in both Alvin and the Chipmunks (week 470) and Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens.
• Adrian Zmed made a quick turnaround, appearing in both Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens and Grease 2 (week 508).
• Sharknado 5: Global Swarming was the second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Jeff Rossen, who was previously seen in The Craigslist Killer (week 17).
• Sharknado 5: Global Swarming also saw the return of Sasha Cohen, who was in Bratz (week 63).
• Olivia Newton-John had a part in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. She was one of the stars of Xanadu (week 216).
• Charo entered the Sharknado franchise in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. She previously did some voice work in Thumbelina (week 286).
• Yoshie Morino has fought sharks twice in Sunday “Bad” Movies in Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (week 300) and now Sharknado 5: Global Swarming.
• The great John Hennigan wrestled a couple sharks in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. He also wrestled a dog in Russell Madness (week 382).
• Geraldo Rivera was in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. He was also in All About Steve (week 409), a movie that featured Paul Beller from The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• You might have noticed Margaret Cho in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. One of her earlier roles was in Ground Control (week 474).
• Both Sharknado 5: Global Swarming and Amityville: A New Generation (week 500) featured David Naughton.
• Now we’re into The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time with Kim Little, who was in Rise of the Zombies (week 16).
• Kato Kaelin had cameos in both Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea (week 40) and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time had an appearance by Leslie Jordan, who was in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (week 85).
• Dean McDermott was in Iron Eagle IV (week 90) and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Chris Ridenhour returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. He was in Transmorphers (week 130) before that.
• Getting some Asylum synergy in there, Marina Sirtis was in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time and Little Dead Rotting Hood (week 202).
• Ben Stein is one of the most recognizable people in film. He was in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time and Son of the Mask (week 207).
• Roxanna Bina was in both Attila (week 321) and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• If you know movies, you know James Hong. He was in Balls of Fury (week 349) and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Now it’s time to get into the returns within the franchise. Andrew Graczyk was in Sharknado (week 190) and Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens.
• Four actors were in Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190) and Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens. They were Mario Fernandez, John Jurgens, Raul Reformina, and Edward Ryn.
• Finishing off Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, we have all the people who were in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) and returned for the fourth movie. Christopher Belino, Doug Burdinski, Natalie Morales, and Brian Watson made those two appearances.
• Sharknado 5: Global Swarming featured eight actors from Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190). They were Tiffany Kristie Cruz, Sara Gallardo, Michael Hardman, Maeve Harris, Oliver Kalkofe, Hoda Kotb, Andi Royer, and Peter Rütten.
• Two actors from Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens popped up for their second appearance in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming. They were Sarah Knappik and Cody Linley.
• Four Sharknado (week 190) actors returned for The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. They were Marcus Choi, John Heard, Israel Sáez de Miguel, and Charles Hittinger.
• There were also four actors from Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) who reappeared in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. They were Thunder Levin, Jeff Newman, Brendan Petrizzo, and Anna Rasmussen.
• Finally, two people from Sharknado 5: Global Swarming made their second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearances in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. They were Ana Florit and Courtney Quod.
• Have you seen the Sharknado movies? What did you think of them? Let me know your thoughts on Twitter or in the comments.
• You can use Twitter or the comments to suggest movies that I should be checking out for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’m open to most suggestions.
• Visit Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram, too.
• Next week will be this week, since it took me an extra week or so to get this up. I’m not skipping the post. I’ll just toss two up at around the same time. I’ll be checking out Cold Vengeance, also known as Sometimes a Hero. It’s a mid-range Canadian action/crime movie. I got it from the cheap section of the local video store when they were still open. Anyway, that’s what you can look forward to. See you next time!

Hollywood Safari (1997)

When I went through film school, I learned that there were three ways that a story was told for every movie. The first was through the writing process. A writer took their thoughts, put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and hammered out a script that told a story. The second was through the direction. A director took what they read from the script, got the parts together, and filmed the story with their own touch. Unless the director and writer were the same person, some changes were going to be made along the way to the overall vision. Finally, there was the editing. Some things that were filmed would be left on the cutting room floor. Not every shot or every scene would make it into the film. In most cases, that is.

I want to focus on the third way that a story is told in a movie. Editing has become an essential part of the filmmaking process. Back when motion pictures were first taking off as a form of entertainment, editing wasn’t always key. The camera was mostly stationary. The shots were similar to one another, with the main difference being the horizontal angle as the camera focused on a different character. It took a few years for directors and cinematographers to figure out the power of individual shots. High angles, low angles, movement, zooms… All of these techniques would evolve as the years went by, leading to more compelling storytelling.

Editing would grow, thanks to the varied shots. Putting together a movie was no longer about cutting from one character to another so audiences could follow the dialogue and action. Editors were getting a variety of shots that provided different emotions. They needed to carefully thread them together to convey what the director wanted to get across, in the best way possible. If a director wanted the audience to feel like they were in the middle of a fight, getting tossed around as much as the characters, an editor would need to cut from shot to shot a little quicker. If they wanted audiences to feel creeped out, maybe one shot would be lingered on a little more than others while off-screen dialogue was spoken. L-cuts and J-cuts became more common (where sound from one shot overlapped the visuals of another). Most importantly, editing could be used to adjust the pacing of a movie.

As the years went on, cinematography and editing would each refine their techniques and experiment with new ones. There were numerous ways to tell stories. Many of the refined techniques were good and allowed for great storytelling success. Sometimes, however, the people telling the story would fumble. The director wouldn’t have a clear vision of their story, rushing into a project without doing the groundwork. Or the editor would cut in a way that was detrimental to the pacing. Nobody is perfect. Storytellers aren’t perfect, either.

I don’t have time to get into the entire history of editing. Instead, I want to focus on a 1997 movie called Hollywood Safari, which suffered from many storytelling issues. A lot of it came down to the editing, but I’ll also touch upon one thing that didn’t. Here’s the basic story. Troy Johnson (David Leisure) was a Hollywood animal trainer. While on route to a movie set, his mountain lion got loose. The police captured it when they were hunting for a mountain lion that attacked a local boy, and planned to put it down. Troy’s kids, Josh (Ted Jan Roberts) and Peter (Ryan J. O’Neill), headed out into the Hollywood Hills with a tranquilizer gun to try and find the mountain lion that was really behind the attack.

Hollywood Safari was a movie that dealt with animals through most of its runtime. This meant that things didn’t go exactly as planned while filming. Even the most well-trained Hollywood animals can be unpredictable at times. The cameraman might be predicting the animal to move one way, when it doesn’t. Or they might predict the animal to stay still and it runs off screen. Part of the editor’s job is to find the shots where this sort of wrong prediction doesn’t occur and put those into the movie. Unless the emotion conveyed in that specific shot said otherwise. Cutting for emotion is very important and can help people overlook things like continuity errors or bad shots.

The editor for Hollywood Safari didn’t seem to think about that when compiling the footage into a compelling movie. The unpredictability of animals was shown frequently, especially when it came to the family dog. Josh and Peter were joined by the dog when they went out to find the mountain lion. The dog picked up a scent and they followed. At one point, the camera was on the dog as it barked in a certain direction. The camera panned over without the dog moving forward. My assumption is that the cameraman thought the dog was going to move, since it did a sort of stutter-step. But then it stayed in the spot it was standing. Yet the camera moved. You would think that they would want to redo the shot, maybe without the jerky camera movement that followed nothing. Somehow this shot ended up in the final edit.

As for the rest of the animal footage, a lot of it was highly unnecessary. It felt like filler to get Hollywood Safari up to feature length. Many times, the animal footage didn’t add anything to the movie. It was superfluous. There were no added stakes. There were no character beats. The story wasn’t driven forward. They were simply there to show trained animals doing trained animal things. The scene I keep going back to was the one where Peter, I think, was getting the tranquilizer gun for the mountain lion hunt. There was a monkey in the house that took one of the tranquilizer darts and began playing with it. It took about five seconds for Peter to get it back. All he had to do was ask for it and the monkey handed it over. Five seconds of monkey antics that added nothing to the movie. It could have easily been removed from the movie without changing anything. There were a few scenes that felt like that.

The weirdest part of Hollywood Safari wasn’t that these things were left in the movie. That was weird, sure, and they could have easily been removed or substituted for other shots without changing the trajectory of the story. Removing them would have actually cleaned up the pacing. But the strangest thing was that they were included in the movie while other important scenes were left out entirely. I’m about to spoil the ending of Hollywood Safari, so if you’re interested in going into a late 90s family movie you’ve probably never heard of without any idea of what the ending will be, you should probably skip ahead.

Hollywood Safari involved an acting sheriff named Rogers (John Savage) who was out for revenge after a mountain lion attacked the son of one of his friends. Josh and Peter were out searching for the mountain lion because Rogers was pushing to kill their mountain lion. Their mom was fighting in the jail, getting herself locked up in the process, because Rogers wanted to kill their mountain lion. When the animal control guys said they would put the family’s mountain lion down on Monday because they didn’t have time to get a new bottle of poison before their shift was over on Friday, Rogers basically held them hostage and forced them into it that day. He was the villain of Hollywood Safari.

The problem with his story arc was that there was no scene showing his defeat. When the Johnson family showed up with the mountain lion that really attacked the boy, Rogers was nowhere to be found. Everyone arrived at the jail in time to stop the animal control people from putting down the Johnsons’ mountain lion. There was a deputy that helped them bring the mountain lion in. He asked where Rogers was. Someone informed him that Rogers went outside to tell everyone they were putting down the Johnsons’ mountain lion. The deputy went to spoil his fun. But that was never shown. Either there wasn’t a scene filmed to show Rogers’s reaction to finding out about the mountain lion, or it was cut from the final edit. That scene was missing, whatever the reason.

To make matters even worse, there was nothing to show what happened to Rogers after disobeying direct orders from the real sheriff. The sheriff had been there for the original hunt and had stopped Rogers from killing the mountain lion. He then had to go on vacation and left Rogers in charge, saying that a decision on the mountain lion was not to be made until he returned. Rogers immediately disobeyed the order and planned to put the mountain lion down. The sheriff wasn’t in the rest of the movie. It would have been nice to see the deputy confront Rogers in front of the media or have some sort of punishment from the sheriff because of his disobedience. Without either, it felt like Hollywood Safari was incomplete.

The point of editing is to make sure the story of a movie is told in the most emotional and compelling way. An editor should find the best shots that convey what the director wanted to convey. They should remove any superfluous material that doesn’t add to the story or the character development. An audience can tell when there’s stuff in a movie that doesn’t belong there, and it’s an editor’s job to reduce that feeling as much as possible. The editor for Hollywood Safari didn’t do their job to the best of their abilities, making the movie feel needlessly longer than it should have.

Editing is only one of the three ways that a story can be told through movies. The writer came up with the story and put it onto pages for people to read. The director used that written work and got it filmed so people could watch it. Then the editor came in and put the pieces together to tell the most engaging story possible. Three different stages of storytelling where the story changed each time. Each stage as important as the last to what the final product would be. And the final movie is only as strong as the weakest link.

Now let’s toss some notes in here and get out of this place:

• Nils Allen Stewart made a third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Hollywood Safari. Their other appearances were in Cop and ½ (week 340) and The Scorpion King (week 380).
• J.C. Brandy was in Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (week 48) and Hollywood Safari.
• Hollywood Safari was the second time John Savage was in Sunday “Bad” Movies, with the first being Bermuda Tentacles (week 96).
• Don Wilson popped up in both Hollywood Safari and The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power (week 380).
• Finally, David Leisure returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Hollywood Safari, after first appearing in 3 Strikes (week 459).
• Have you seen Hollywood Safari? What did you think of it? What are some of the editing things that bother you most in movies? Share your thoughts in the comments or find me on Twitter.
• You can use Twitter or the comments to suggest movies I should be checking out for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’m always up for suggestions because I don’t know every movie ever.
• Pop on over to Instagram to check out Sunday “Bad” Movies for more bad movie fun.
• And now we’re into a big week. It’s a franchise week coming up, which means I’m going to be checking out at least two movies. I’ll actually be checking out three movies, finishing off a series I started a long time ago. It’s time for me to finish off the Sharknado series with Sharknado: The 4^th Awakens, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, and The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time. I’ll see you soon for a post about those movies.