The Jaws Thread

So I can't seem to find this anywhere which prompted me to make my first ever thread. First off, Jaws is my favorite film of all time. I adore this movie to death. Would love to find like minded people who are fans of this amazing movie.

This can be a chance to discuss the Jaws films, related media and potential discussion on the movie's legacy overall, including the chance of this getting a remake (a probability in all honestly.)

To start things off, what are some of your favorite moments that you appreciate? For me, one of them is the scene where Hooper and Brody talk to the Mayor in that awesome long take where they discuss "The eating machine." Such a great scene.

Jaws made me love movies. You can see the flaws and it still works 100% dynamite as a total object. Which seems to be a trend for Spielberg.

On a moment-by-moment basis, people have thoroughly taken it apart, so I'll point to my favorite sequel moment(which isn't even really one, since it got deleted); the town council voting to fire Brody in 2 and Mayor Vaughn being the only one who sticks up for him.

More sequels would feel worth the time with little characterization moments like that.

Honestly the way that Mayor Vaughn is written in Jaws is just so extremely subtle and brilliant. He's kind of a greedy politician who is aloof but he's charming and likable. He is not a jerk, just self absorbed. He tries to be nice to Brody and hardly raises his voice, he seems to have the towns best interests in mind and he isn't ever so over the top he's unbelievable. He feels like a real person, who happens to be wrong in universe.

And I feel like this is something that modern movies would probably get wrong. Because when you look at the Mayor you think "Oh, he's the villain who is greedy and he should be cartoonishly evil and exaggerated." But that isn't the case here. The mayor is an accidental antagonist. He is a nice likable guy who just focuses on the short term and has no understanding of the long term, prioritizing immediate pressures over long term challenges or the deeper implications of what he does.

This movie taught me more about how politicians operate when I was a kid better than almost every piece of media I was watching at the time.

I love that deleted scene too from the first sequel. Such layer to it and it gives him the nuance he had in the first movie. The mayor is the antagonist movies deserve to have more of.

Which shows a lot of restraint from Spielberg since it's clear based on behind the scene info, he and his crew really do not like Richard Nixon. It would be easy to make the Mayor into a Nixon-figure.

Speaking of behind the scenes, it's honestly a miracle that Spielberg managed to make this film at all. Even though Jaws' Troubled Production made him work around the shark's presence with Nothing Is Scarier in the first half of the film... it's clear that the rest of the troubled production required the shark to work. After all, delaying the shark's appearance could only hold the audience in suspense for so long before they start piecing together that the real reason why they don't see the shark is because Spielberg had no shark.

It's ironic, really. The film lives or die with the shark finally working.

The troubled production of this movie is so fascinating it's almost as epic as the film itself. This Troubled Production is legendary in how insane and difficult it was.

And it makes this film what it is. It pushed Spielberg to his limits and pushed the crew to theirs. It made them go from putting 50% to 150% into this B film's production. It could have been a generic B movie and instead they gave it the A movie treatment and wanted to make this "stupid shark movie" as awesome as it could be. It was the awesome result of talented and skilled artists working together. The actors. The film editors. John {I'm gonna change music forever) Williams! The directing. The cinematography. Everyone was firing on all cylinders.

And damn did it pay off. The Blockbusters of today? They began with Jaws. The film that went above and beyond to become one of the greatest films ever made. Period.

It's just amazing.

Edited by Patar136 on Oct 4th 2023 at 8:17:51 AM

Found this article here.

Hearing the story of Ian Shaw is just so fascinating to me as he tries to live up to and surpass his father's legacy. Also not sure how I feel about the idea of a Jaws themed musical but I suppose that anything is possible. Especially because its all about the production of the story more than a parody or anything and because I find the production so interesting I find this idea somewhat novel.

R.I.P. Robert Shaw. Your son has made something special.

Funny thing is, in the book the mayor has mob ties.

I am aware. And I'm sure some people like that the Mayor is written as a guy with Mob connections but I don't. Because it doesn't really add to the story. It makes him more slimy in that he has a troubled past but it doesn't exactly make him sympathetic which is what the story seems to imply.

Hot take, the Jaws novel kind of sucks. The movie is the 100% better story.

The Jaws Novel is less about the shark and more about how a town who is heavily dependent on a seasonal event reacts when something disrupts that seasonal event and won't go away. Been reading the novel, and it comes across as more of analysis of how politics works in a community rather than a straightforward "Let's hunt the shark."

Meanwhile Jaws is the awesome mix of a horror story involving an island hero trying to figure out how to stop this looming threat he can't understand before it becomes this epic adventure at sea full of peril and danger.

The first half of this film has the tone of a horror movie with Hitchcock vibes while the second half is the nautical adventure story about a band of three heroes going off to hunt down a monster.

I respect the novel for being different but the movie is the entertaining story I come back to every year. Whenever I see this film on the big screen it's amazing. This movie just belongs in the theater.

Funny you should say "hot take" since I've never heard anyone say the book is better than the movie.

I used to watch it sometimes, but I have a hard time watching it now due how the movie played a part in the modern negative perception of sharks and the lack of protection they get.

Eh, I think it's a bit overblown to say that. The biggest threat to sharks isn't public hatred, but public consumption of fish. Lots of people want fish as food, and shark eat fish. Naturally, they end up being caught in the nets where they die since most sharks need to keep moving to stay alive. Shark decline is inevitable even without Jaws.

In fact, sharks already had a bad reputation prior to Jaws. There's a reason why Brody is holding a book detailing real shark attacks or why the Indianapolis and Jersey Shore Attacks of 1916 were even mentioned in the film. The only thing that Jaws did was cement the image of a killer shark into a singular premise that everyone wants to rip off, but it also paradoxically create a lot of love for sharks. Especially for marine biologists and conservationists who cite Jaws as their inspiration for their field. Jaws made sharks awesome as well as scary.

It's like Jurassic Park. Sure the dinosaurs were meant to be scary and monstrous (particularly the raptors), but these attributes also led to a lot of public interest into dinosaurs as a whole. We want to be scared, we want to be thrilled, we want to be awed. And in time, a killer shark would be celebrate alongside other horror icons once deemed scary but now celebrated like Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.

Sharks didn't have the best reputation before the movie, but it became even worse once it hit, essentially making the public view them as mindless death monsters. It didn't make more people actively persecute sharks, but it did make them care less about preventing them from being killed either through hunting or as by-catch, which is why its still difficult getting people interested in shark conservation.

It's already a known fact that the writer of the original book grew to regret making for this reason and became a conservationist. I think I remember hearing that Spielberg regretted making the movie for the same reason.

At the same time, it spiked a lot of interest to marine biology in a time where knowledge about sharks is limited (hence why a lot of shark myths pop in the novel and film). And many in the marine biology became shark conservationists. It's the paradoxical nature of monsters. They start off as scary, horrifying monsters... but then they become worshipped and beloved as icons. The legacy of Jaws is a complicated one that can't simply be stated as the film that started an anti-shark craze.

If there's anything that Jaws did damage in terms of shark conservation, it's that the public summarize all sharks to be Great White, and thus that's the species that gets the most attention for preservation, overshadowing lesser known species that are currently endangered such as the Oceanic White Tip or the Sand Tiger Shark.

Isn't the Jaws thing just a myth.

Theirs genuinely no evidence the film actually affected shark populations if you check actual data. The truth is sharks die from shark fin soup or by catch nets mostly.

Hell a large reason the great white IS protected to such huge extent it is today is because of this film showcasing it to the public . Because people became fascinated by it.

As shado states correctly. Other shark species don't get that luxury in terms of protection Because unlike this film they don't know what they are.

Edited by miraculous on Oct 24th 2023 at 2:56:27 AM

Benchley's own widow said that he took no more responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia. Benchley regretted depicting an inaccurate version of sharks playing into bad myths that contribute to the "man-eater" image sharks have, and he said he wouldn't have written it in the modern day given what had been learned since Jaws's publication, but the regret he felt has been exaggerated heavily.

I gotta admit that Jaws was actually one of the first pieces of media that helped me realize I have a massive interest in marine biology. When I was a kid, I cried when the shark died apparently.

I don’t blame Jaws for the misconception of sharks, which existed beforehand. It’s also worth noting that the film actually has a subtle love for sharks. Hooper said he loved sharks and even describe the shark here as a “rogue.” And rogue animals are absolutely a thing.

Plus Hooper seemed more excited when he first saw the shark on the boat “Come here darling! Come here darling! You’re beautiful!”

Actual quote. And I love it. Admiration of the monster.

Arguably the most quoted line of all time.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Edited by Patar136 on Oct 25th 2023 at 10:05:44 AM

Spielberg, however, does genuinely regret the film's portrayal of sharks.

Maybe the sharks resent him for claiming they're all Latinx.

When watching Nope, I was wondering if they would quote it (maybe about a bigger horse or something).

I love Quint as a character. This charismatic wiseass son of a bitch who just oozes charm while also being a dick. Hard to pull that off but Robert Shaw found a way.

His contrast to Hooper was perfect.

Quint: You have city hands, Mr. Hooper, been counting money all your life!

Hooper: Alright hey, hey, I don’t need this! I don’t need this working class hero crap!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-dreyfuss-broadway-the-shark-is-broken_n_653c79a5e4b032ae1c9b0ca5

Apparently, Richard Dreyfuss doesn't like his portrayal in this broadway play. Saying the feud between him and Robert Shaw was overexaggerated. I know they did feud a bit but I never got the impression it was violent in my hearing of the backgrounds for the characters involved.

Not gonna lie this video makes me laugh a lot. The idea that Quint just randomly went fishing and got killed by a shark for no reason. And then you have Hooper just being a delightful asshole.

Be interested to see if there was an attempt to try to make a legit Jaws sequel sometime. Haven't seen the actual sequels, but based on just reviews of the third and fourth ones—especially the latter…woof.