Preface to The Shark Film Office piece on Sharkwater:

So, why do I write these pieces on shark films? After all, as far as films that are flat-out conceived around sharks as major characters -- and always the villains... as Eddie Izzard pointed out, no one is making a heroic shark film the way they do for dolphins with Flipper -- the only true standout, top-of-the-line film of indisputable quality that has sneaked out of the genre is Jaws, which is, shark politics aside, taking the film as a pure suspense thriller, theme park ride, buddy movie and fishing story (even if I hate fishing), one of my favorite films. Ever. That I haven't written about the film on its own is chiefly due to its legend looming so large, that it is almost besides the point to write about it on its own. Its effect on this relatively small genre of films is so enormous, setting aside for the moment its effect on society as a whole, that I really don't need to add a full review, and just let momentary references to it in the bulk of the reviews serve as my tribute to it as a motion picture masterpiece.

If you think I am doing this because I think most shark movies are swell, you've got another thing coming. Like any movie genre, 95% of shark films, perhaps even more in this genre, are crap. Absolute garbage. You can probably tell this from the fact that most of the films reviewed in the Shark Film Office thus far, and most of those to come (if I ever get back to writing about them with any regularity), are or will be sporting ratings of the sub-5 variety, denoting their below averageness or even worse. Due to the preponderance of crap out in the video depths, there is almost zero chance of my giving most of the films directly about sharks in the Shark Film Office any higher than a four, unless the film goes to great demented heights to entertain me, such as it is with the ridiculous Deep Blue Sea, even if the overall product is still pretty much crap.

The main problem lies in the fact that most of these films are still mired in the Jaws formula. Even though recent efforts have turned to Megalodons and mutant sharks (or both), despite the gimmickry, the films still tend to be predictable -- like most monster fare, I guess -- and hardly a one of them is untouched by the Jaws effect in some manner. There has been one nice thing that has come out of the recent concerns for the environment that also gets reflected in these films, and that is the growth of the evil industrialist, real estate tycoon or mad scientist as the seething co-villain in these productions. It's gone a long way beyond the mayor of a small summer vacation island not letting people know there was a killer shark in the waters. Now, it is more likely that the same mayor is now in on the secret dumping of toxic chemicals into the local waters to create mutated sharks that frighten away tourists to drop real estate prices so that they can more easily build a giant casino resort to create even more tourism in the town. Outside of that, though, there is still the dopey girl swimming at night, girl gets munched, local sheriff investigates (or sometimes it is a scientist who discovers something odd), the investigation gets thwarted by public officials of a higher quality, more munchings occur, and so on, until the sheriff/scientist gathers his courage, tells his betters to screw off and then he (and possibly some form of ramshackle crew) head out to deal with the problem.

The real question should be: Do you enjoy watching all of these crappy shark films? One would immediately assume that I do, since I submit myself to watching so many of them so willingly. But I would have to do honest and say "No, I really don't." The vast majority of them are tedious and really not worth the waste of resources that went into making them, apart from perhaps propping up whatever local economy there is in whichever place each individual film was made. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem, however, with the fact that the continued viewing of such films leads to the solidification in the minds of easily led viewers -- which is most of the world -- that sharks are evil creatures that must be destroyed. Entertainment is fine, but sometimes there are consequences to that which seems harmless. As much as I love Jaws as a movie (though the main reason has nothing to do with films, which I will get to in a moment), there is no way around the fact that this seemingly harmless, big-budget, action, summer blockbuster most likely led directly to the deaths of millions of sharks.

The reason I started doing The Shark Film Office was to provide, not so much of a history, but more of an overall view of shark films in general, though I do have a long way to go concerning these efforts. (In fact, I have gotten waylaid in recent months, and need to get back to it.) The point was to not only point out films which featured sharks, but even to point out dialogue in films which has nothing whatsoever to do with sharks, such as that painter-and-his-nude-models epic (and Mr. Skin mainstay -- look it up) Sirens, or even Poltergeist, to show how deeply the fascination with and fear of sharks have pervaded our society.

Now, the reason for my love of Jaws, outside of its excellence as popcorn entertainment, has to do with how the film had the opposite effect on me. Despite basically just superimposing a giant killer shark onto the typical monster movie archetype, Jaws -- despite how it made the rest of the world behave, i.e. like normal, over the top and stupid -- Jaws made me love sharks. I became truly fascinated by them, read dozens of books about them, watched every television show about them, and even eventually overcame my childhood fear of even touching a picture of a shark without shuddering. It made me watch or record every single week out of 20 years of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, both the good and the bad shows, and that I have now even made that week something of a private vacation time for myself seems to point to this. Shark toys, shark dolls, shark puppets -- not all of them great whites, though they seem to make up the bulk of the available offerings, quite understandably -- filled my home. Sharks became my favorite creatures on earth, land or water, living or extinct, ranking for me well above okapis, elephants, tigers, kinkajous and pangolins (for those of you who require a scale and examples). And the beleaguered great white? My favorite -- and the most beautiful -- of the bunch.

Sure, I still feared them, and since I am a terrible swimmer, let me tell you, I am not about to go all Timothy Treadwell with a great white. Even if I were a stronger swimmer, I wouldn't do that. Because it's about respect. It's about understanding the shark's place in our world, and how important it is that they not be wiped from the face of the earth, which we are perilously close to achieving, mostly out of our own idiocy and greed. While the preposterous "rights of man" that we have created out of our misplaced sense of world ownership would allow me to go take a dive with those sharks, that is not really my place. Because its all about understanding our place in the world juxtaposed with their place. Assuredly, we are equal to sharks in that we are a top predator in our world -- we just go about it in different ways. But most top predators don't wipe out their resources, even if they have every capability to do so. Because most animals don't thrive on greed. We do. Most top predators serve a purpose, which is to provide balance in maintaining the food cycle. Mankind, though he could certainly strive to do better, seems to thrive on the opposite. Thanks to our madness to be as greedy as possible in almost every arena, we are "unbalance" personified. We possess the capability to be gentle stewards of this world, and to treat this earth lovingly like our home, not another mere strip-mining operation.

It's easy to know why so many of these crappy, crappy shark films are made. It's easy money, and that's that. It's certainly easier money than creating mutant sharks to prop up some giant real estate swindle. And the motives for these recent filmmakers basically spewing out new and less shiny versions of Jaws are pretty much the same motives as the filmmakers of the more classic version. Hollywood is all about money, though Spielberg and Co. were also no doubt concerned about making a decently entertaining film, which they did, at least in my book, and in the book of most major film critics and scholars as well. Here's the true formula that jumped out of Jaws, in pretty much the same way the shark jumps out of the water: sharks=easy money.

And it's not just in Hollywood. It's all over the friggin' world. And that is exactly where Sharkwater comes in...