Review Detail

Summer time is here, and if you're craving beaches and theme parks, it's a perfect time to live vicariously...through Jaws 3: Monster! My gold-standard is: does this replace or at least equal the original film? Well, since the original is a pretty schlocky threquel that seemed to be made with no thought to what it would look like NOT in 3-D...yes! This is definitely a better way to watch the film.

I agree with much of what Quickcut said in the first review for this:
Pluses- The trims to the story make it move a lot quicker. I can see where the original would've felt glacial. The 3-D effects would've looked horrible on video, so the replacement footage is very welcome. The ending of the film is famously cheesy, too, so the alternate ending here is refreshing. And I appreciated all the song additions, which fit the film so well that they're not even noticeable edits if you're not paying attention.

Minuses- As Quickcut said, the end goal of the film is a bit murky. LS said he wanted to lean into the B-movie quality of it, but honestly with films out there like Sharknado or Snakes On A Plane, it just feels like this doesn't go nearly far enough. Dennis Quad, Bess Armstrong, and Lea Thompson are all pretty good in this, and they're playing it straight. The story has a lot of ridiculous logic, often just using the monster(s) to move the plot, regardless of how real sea creatures operate. But the humans mostly make understandable decisions and have straightforward lines, so it doesn't have the delicious cheese that makes for a great bad movie like Army of Darkness or Killer Klowns From Outer Space. I also would've liked more footage and more buildup of the other Monster to bolster the film. There are also a lot of camera shots that were obviously intended for 3-D that are really impossible to remove from the film.

Extras- There are a plethora of extras included here, I think more than for any other fanedit I've seen! There are deleted/alternate scenes which show some interesting ideas that were dropped, some of which worked well (like the alternate opening 2) but mostly were happily abandoned for a better final edit.

There's a "Ghost Shark" short film that's essentially a micro fanedit of Jaws IV. It’s a bit odd because you’re steadily introduced to all these characters, and their goals, then we don’t really see any of them pay off. Instead, we see a stranger get eaten, then a new character show up and get attacked.The end. Is it any better than the actual Jaws IV? I don’t know, I heard that was horrible and the plot of it (and this one) is patently ridiculous, so I’ve got no urge to compare. The acting was surprisingly good in this, though!

There’s also a documentary that goes into depth on the making of the original film, its release and legacy, and the process of making the fanedit. This all could be seen as taking itself a bit too seriously, but it's very well done so I enjoyed it quite a bit. It gave me a new appreciation for the passion and effort which went into creating this fanedit.

I feel like the way to watch Jaws 3 would've been at a drive-in with 3-D glasses in 1983. Or at a retro 3-D theater now. Outside of that situation, the faneditor can only make it so good. I'm not nearly as passionate or forgiving of the film as he, but this fanedit is still enjoyable enough to watch once.