Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation (1992)
In 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds, the members of Lambda Lambda Lambda were forced to stand up for themselves after being repeatedly attacked by the jocks from Alpha Beta, led by Stan Gable and his ogreish sidekick, Ogre. The Tri-Lambs, guided by mega-nerds Lewis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowe, bested the Alpha Betas in a series of head-to-head challenges which ultimately led to Gilbert becoming the new Council president. The conflict followed the two fraternities to a national convention in the 1987 sequel, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise. There, in Florida, the nerds again prevailed, and the Alpha Beta’s chapter was permanently disbanded.
Or so you thought.
Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation is such a bizarre and inconsistent film that it may take place in a different universe from the first two films. The story begins with Harold and Ira (the titular “next generation of nerds”) headed off to Adams College. There, they discover the Tri-Lambs now rule the university. Nerds are “cool,” while the Alpha Betas (“permanently revoked” doesn’t mean what I thought it means) are now looked down upon. Shortly after arriving, Harold visits his Uncle Lewis and Aunt Betty for dinner, but learns that Lewis is no longer the nerd he once was. Lewis has grown a ponytail, ditched his pocket protector, denounced his formerly nerdy ways, hides his iconic laugh, and now insists on being called “Lew.” It’s a change in character that completely contradicts the theme of the first two movies, which was “it’s okay to be yourself.” Not only has Lew forgotten where he came from; he also forgets “when” he came from, when he tells his nephew he’s Adams class of ’80. (In the first movie, he was a freshman in 1984.)
Conflict arrives in the form of university president Orrin Price (Morton Downey, Jr.) and his son, Adam. Orrin thinks the Tri-Lambs being treated as human beings is a crime, and devises a scheme to return the Alpha Betas to power. To set his plan in motion, Orrin hires Stan Gable (Ted McGinley), former charter president of the Alpha Betas, as the college’s new dean. Stan has zero experience in being a dean, but accepts the role so he can exact revenge against the Tri-Lambs (none of whom have any idea who he is) and potentially win back Betty (his girlfriend from ten years ago) from Lewis.
Er, “Lew”.
The biggest problem with the Next Generation of nerds is that the next generation of nerds are bland and forgettable. Along with the completely interchangeable Harold and Ira, other Tri-Lambs include an Elvis impersonator from South Korea named Steve Toyota and an overweight kilt-wearing Englishman named Trevor (played by the late John Pinette), whose only real jokes are their accents. The rest of the Tri-Lambs fade into the background as quickly as they appear, and none of them have any skills or personality quirks that add value to the plot or make them memorable in any way.
It’s not until the Tri-Lambs require legal council that they contact local attorney and former Tri-Lamb Dudley “Booger” Dawson and breathe some life into this snooze-fest. Played again by Curtis Armstrong, Booger is the only character that seems to remember anything from the previous two films. He still picks his nose, loves to party with the ladies from Omega Mu, and is genuinely confused by the next generation of Tri-Lambs. “You don’t eat meat, you don’t do drugs… what’s wrong with kids today?” he opines.
And that, of course, is the core of the issue. To say the first two films in the franchise aged poorly is putting it mildly. In the first film, the Tri-Lambs set up security cameras in a neighboring dorm to spy on (and take pictures of) nude girls. Later in the film, Lewis has sex with Betty while pretending to be her boyfriend Stan (see Rape by Deception. In the second film, the Tri-Lambs attract a large crowd to their rally by changing the sign outside their hotel to read “hot oral sex.” The question is, how do you gracefully steer a franchise away from the raunchy, sophomoric 80s humor that originally made it popular, and the answer is, you can’t.
Parading some of the original nerds at the 11th hour is too little, too late to save this tragedy. Mr. Skolnick, U.N. Jefferson, Lamar, Takashi, Wormser and Gilbert (the latter two having been recast) arrive in the closing minutes of a court session to lend support to their friends (and the movie). Their arrival does nothing but scream “we’re could only afford these people for a single day” on this made-for-television film’s $2 million budget.
In the closing scene, Alpha Beta / alpha male Stan Gable admits that he too is a nerd, claiming that he only played sports as a kid because his parents made him. Before all the mean, violent, and downright cruel things the Alpha Betas had done to the Tri-Lambs over the past three films had time to flash before my eyes, Stan had already been forgiven, and made an honorary Tri-Lamb. Forgiving the guy that helped set you up on felony charges and let you rot in jail doesn’t make them nerds. It makes them, like the rest of this movie, dumb.