The first Revenge of the Nerds movie realeased in 1984 was a wonderful sleeper comedy where the nerds beat the bullying Alpha Betas at their own game and won control of the Greek council at Adams College.
The second movie released in 1987 was not as good nor as funny as we saw the nerds continuing their battle against the alphas on a national level at the national fraternity convention at Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
The remaining ROTN movies were low budget TV affairs, and the decline in quality continued, but at least this third movie attempted to be the rightful successor to the original movie with the return to Adams College as well as the return of some of the original antagonists.
It is now 1992, eight years after the events of the original movie. Chief nerd Lewis Skolnick is now head of the Computer Science department at Adams and is now married to Betty, the sorority cheerleader whom he had sexually assaulted in the first movie and cheated on in the second.
Whilst Lewis and Betty's fortunes had improved over the last eight years, the fortunes of Head bully Alpha Beta Stan Gable had certainly declined. He is now a run down motorcycle cop with the Highway Patrol. He's still entrenched in his hatred of nerds and saddened by the fact that nerds have now taken over every facet of life at Adams College having seemingly learned nothing from his past experiences.
A new generation of nerds arrive at Adams including Lewis' nephew Harold and his best friend, drawn to the college not just through familial ties, but because of Adams nerd friendly atmosphere.
Also arriving on campus is Orrin Prince an old Adams alum and former Alpha Beta who has now enrolled his son Adam into the college. They are both appalled at what he sees and the decline of Alpha dominance.
Prince finds a natural ally in Stan Gable whom he meets at rush week. Prince is not without influence as he is President of the college and uses that influence to install Stan as the new Dean of Students so he can usher in a new era of Alpha dominance and introduce a new reign of anti nerd policies using the remaining Alpha Betas as his boots on the ground.
To deflect from his true intentions, Stan feigns a friendship with Lewis with also the ulterior motive to try to win Betty, his ex girlfriend, back again.
Prince uses the Alpha Betas to plant drugs in the Lamda, Lambda, Lambda house and all the tri-lambs get arrested. It is an action that Stan is not made aware of beforehand and even he thinks that this is a step too far, but despite his misgivings he remains silent.
In protest at the arrest, Lewis leads a workers strike all over the Adams campus and the tri-lambs call in an another Lamda alumni to defend them in court, none other than original Adams College nerd Dudley 'Booger' Dawson who is now a shyster lawyer.
The strike sees a complete shut down at Adams college with the gas stations, phones and electricity all being cut off. This makes Stan the laughing stock of the community. Prince has one last ace up his sleeve. He has been misappropriating college funds and unbeknownst to Stan, he has been having Lewis sign papers that incriminate him for the crimes.
This leads Stan for the first time to have genuine concerns that these allegations could completely ruin Lewis' entire life and that the nerd persecution has long since moved on from being simply college hijinks and has now become something a lot more malicious and sinister.
Lewis is arrested and put on trial and Stan is called as a witness, but when he sees all of the old original nerds arrive in the courtroom to give Lewis their support, he has his epiphany that his old enemies were never enemies at all and his 'friends' have been his real enemies his whole life. He makes an unprecedented statement to the court declaring Lewis innocent of all charges as well as the tri-lambs being innocent of the drugs charges.
Whilst the movie isn't brilliant, the fact that it feels more like a direct sequel to the first movie than the second movie did goes in its favour and therefore, I will happily declare it my favourite of the sequels.
The new nerds and alphas are instantly forgettable and not likeable at all and it's difficult for the viewer to invest themselves in an entirely new set of characters this far into the series.
Whilst not a patch on the original it's a fun watch, but being a made for TV movie, don't expect the T&A and F bombs that had been so prevalent in the first two films. Like the Police Academy movies, this nerd saga had lapsed into family friendly territory by this point and would sadly remain so for the fourth and final film.
Enjoy!
The second movie released in 1987 was not as good nor as funny as we saw the nerds continuing their battle against the alphas on a national level at the national fraternity convention at Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
The remaining ROTN movies were low budget TV affairs, and the decline in quality continued, but at least this third movie attempted to be the rightful successor to the original movie with the return to Adams College as well as the return of some of the original antagonists.
It is now 1992, eight years after the events of the original movie. Chief nerd Lewis Skolnick is now head of the Computer Science department at Adams and is now married to Betty, the sorority cheerleader whom he had sexually assaulted in the first movie and cheated on in the second.
Whilst Lewis and Betty's fortunes had improved over the last eight years, the fortunes of Head bully Alpha Beta Stan Gable had certainly declined. He is now a run down motorcycle cop with the Highway Patrol. He's still entrenched in his hatred of nerds and saddened by the fact that nerds have now taken over every facet of life at Adams College having seemingly learned nothing from his past experiences.
A new generation of nerds arrive at Adams including Lewis' nephew Harold and his best friend, drawn to the college not just through familial ties, but because of Adams nerd friendly atmosphere.
Also arriving on campus is Orrin Prince an old Adams alum and former Alpha Beta who has now enrolled his son Adam into the college. They are both appalled at what he sees and the decline of Alpha dominance.
Prince finds a natural ally in Stan Gable whom he meets at rush week. Prince is not without influence as he is President of the college and uses that influence to install Stan as the new Dean of Students so he can usher in a new era of Alpha dominance and introduce a new reign of anti nerd policies using the remaining Alpha Betas as his boots on the ground.
To deflect from his true intentions, Stan feigns a friendship with Lewis with also the ulterior motive to try to win Betty, his ex girlfriend, back again.
Prince uses the Alpha Betas to plant drugs in the Lamda, Lambda, Lambda house and all the tri-lambs get arrested. It is an action that Stan is not made aware of beforehand and even he thinks that this is a step too far, but despite his misgivings he remains silent.
In protest at the arrest, Lewis leads a workers strike all over the Adams campus and the tri-lambs call in an another Lamda alumni to defend them in court, none other than original Adams College nerd Dudley 'Booger' Dawson who is now a shyster lawyer.
The strike sees a complete shut down at Adams college with the gas stations, phones and electricity all being cut off. This makes Stan the laughing stock of the community. Prince has one last ace up his sleeve. He has been misappropriating college funds and unbeknownst to Stan, he has been having Lewis sign papers that incriminate him for the crimes.
This leads Stan for the first time to have genuine concerns that these allegations could completely ruin Lewis' entire life and that the nerd persecution has long since moved on from being simply college hijinks and has now become something a lot more malicious and sinister.
Lewis is arrested and put on trial and Stan is called as a witness, but when he sees all of the old original nerds arrive in the courtroom to give Lewis their support, he has his epiphany that his old enemies were never enemies at all and his 'friends' have been his real enemies his whole life. He makes an unprecedented statement to the court declaring Lewis innocent of all charges as well as the tri-lambs being innocent of the drugs charges.
Whilst the movie isn't brilliant, the fact that it feels more like a direct sequel to the first movie than the second movie did goes in its favour and therefore, I will happily declare it my favourite of the sequels.
The new nerds and alphas are instantly forgettable and not likeable at all and it's difficult for the viewer to invest themselves in an entirely new set of characters this far into the series.
Whilst not a patch on the original it's a fun watch, but being a made for TV movie, don't expect the T&A and F bombs that had been so prevalent in the first two films. Like the Police Academy movies, this nerd saga had lapsed into family friendly territory by this point and would sadly remain so for the fourth and final film.
Enjoy!