Airplane II: The Sequel

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Airplane II: The Sequel

Airplane II: The Sequel theatrical poster
Directed by Ken Finkleman
Produced by Howard W. Koch
Written by Ken Finkleman
Starring Robert Hays
Julie Hagerty
Lloyd Bridges
Chad Everett
Music by Elmer Bernstein
Richard Hazard
Cinematography Joe Biroc
Editing by Tina Hirsch
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) December 10, 1982
Running time 85 min
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Preceded by Airplane!
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Airplane II: The Sequel (also known as Flying High II: The Sequel) is an American comedy sequel to the 1980 film Airplane!. First released on December 10, 1982, the film was written and directed by Ken Finkleman and stars Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges, Chad Everett, William Shatner, Rip Torn, and Sonny Bono. It is the second of the Airplane! Films.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Airplane spoofs airline disaster stories, such as Zero Hour! and Airport. In the sequel, however, the plot combines elements of the science fiction film genre, drawing specifically from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Airplane II also makes light of the wave of aircraft hijackings that had occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Some of Airplane!'s original cast members play different characters in the sequel, the most noticeable being Stephen Stucker's "Jacobs" character (in the original, he was known as "Johnny Hinshaw"). In addition, Frank Ashmore, who played flight navigator Victor Basta in the original, has a small role as a Houston air traffic controller while Craig Berenson, who was played by Paul Carey (the airline employee sent to pick up Rex Kramer) in the original, has a role as a passenger who shaves in the shuttle's restroom as it descends.

A Lunar Shuttle known as Mayflower One, which looks very close to the Space Shuttle, is being rushed to launch. The head of the ground crew, The Sarge (played by Chuck Connors, and a spoof of Airport's Joe Patroni), does not like what's going on, but defers to the airline's management. On-board is computer officer Elaine (Hagerty), who was a flight attendant in the first movie. Elaine has long-since left Ted Striker (Hays) and is now engaged to one of the flight crew, Simon Kurtz (Everett).

Peter Graves, the captain in the original film, returns as Captain Clarence Oveur. On the flight crew with Oveur and Kurtz are First Officer Dunn (James A. Watson, Jr.) and Navigator Dave Unger (Kent McCord).

We initially learn that Striker has been committed to an insane asylum, having been declared mentally incompetent in a lawsuit brought after the lunar shuttle crashes during a test flight (with Ted as the test pilot). But there is also a suggestion, later, that the lawsuit was used to silence him because he knew as its test-pilot that there were problems with the Lunar Shuttle which made it unsafe. Now Striker is ever more haunted by his actions in "The War", specifically the events referred to as those taking place over "Macho Grande" where he lost his entire squadron. This time around, however, Striker's psychosis is made to appear more related to post-traumatic stress disorder than a fear of flying. Some evidence for this is presented in the story when Striker reads of the upcoming Lunar Shuttle launch: he quickly decides to escape the asylum, and gets a ticket for the flight. Since all the tickets are already purchased, Ted is forced to get one from a scalper.

Mayflower One suffers a short circuit and the computer, ROK, develops a mind of its own, sending the ship toward the Sun. Unger and Dunn try to deactivate the computer room, but end up getting blown out of an airlock. Oveur also tries to stop the computer, but gets gassed to death, all thanks to ROK's self-defense mechanism. Again, Striker gets called upon to control the craft, but first he has to figure out how to make the computer relinquish control.

That is when Steven McCroskey, the air traffic controller (Lloyd Bridges), comes into play. He reveals that a passenger named Joe Seluchi (Bono) had boarded the plane with a bomb, intending to commit suicide so that his wife could collect on insurance money (the policy, it turns out, was for car insurance, and therefore worthless). He was originally supposed to fly to Des Moines, Iowa to get treatment for impotence, but boarded the Lunar Shuttle instead. Striker manages to wrestle the bomb from him and uses it to blow up the computer and head for the Moon as originally intended. Kurtz abandons Elaine and leaves in the only escape pod before they take control in an instance of "premature ejection".

On the way to the Moon, control of the flight is shifted to a lunar base, commanded by Cmdr. Buck Murdoch (Shatner). He has a high level of contempt for Striker because of Macho Grande, but agrees to help anyway. They manage to land the craft on the moon. Ted and Elaine fall back in love and get married at the end.

[edit] Cameos

Pat Sajak has a minor role in this movie as a TV news anchor. The year before, he had been named host of Wheel of Fortune. Other cameos include George Wendt, David Leisure, Raymond Burr, Jack Jones, Hervé Villechaize, Art Fleming, Joyce DeWitt, Richard Jaeckel and John Vernon.

[edit] Production

The original writers and directors of Airplane!, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker were not involved in this film. According to the commentary on the DVD release of the first movie, all three claim to have never seen the film. They had been attached at one point to make this sequel, but decided that they had gone as far as they could have with airplane jokes with the first film and backed out.[citation needed]

[edit] Airplane III

After the end credits, a teaser trailer appears saying "Coming soon: Airplane III" and a scene of William Shatner saying "That's exactly what they'll be expecting us to do!" (implying that there will actually be no such film). Plans did exist to make a third film, but no script was ever written and the project was abandoned due to Airplane II's poor performance at the box office[citation needed]. Most theatrical and home video prints retain the Airplane III teaser; however, some TV airings omit this teaser.

It has recently been stated that Paramount Pictures is interested in making an Airplane III to a direct to DVD movie as a part of Paramount's plan to release 4-6 movies a year under a budget of $10,000,000.[citation needed]

[edit] Translations

  • Bulgarian: "Има ли пилот в самолета 2"
  • Danish: "Vi flyver endnu højere"
  • Finnish: "Hei, taas me lennetään"
  • French: "Y a-t-il enfin un pilote dans l'avion ?"
  • German: "Die unglaubliche Reise in einem verrückten Raumschiff"
  • Hungarian: "Airplane 2: A folytatás (Airplane 2: The Sequel)"
  • Italian: "L'aereo più pazzo del mondo... sempre più pazzo"
  • Russian: "Аэроплан 2"
  • Spanish (Spain): "Aterriza como puedas 2"
  • Spanish (South America): "¿Y dónde está el piloto? 2"
  • Swedish: "Nu flyger vi ännu högre"
  • Polish: "Spokojnie, to tylko awaria"
  • Portuguese (Brazil): "Apertem os cintos, o piloto sumiu 2"
  • Croatian:"Ima li pilota u avionu 2?"

[edit] See also

[edit] Cultural allusions

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
  • An African-American man in a blue jumpsuit vacuums the rear of the cockpit in one scene, listening to "Car Wash", representing a character from the 1976 film of the same name. During the test of the artificial gravity generator, he floats and then crashes to the floor.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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American films of the 1980s
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