The Jaws Thread

It is quite hilarious. You know what, nobody else is gonna talk about Orca: The Killer Whale so we might as well do it here. It is a Jaws Knock Off after all.

This is certainly the most unique of the Jaws knock offs because it actually does something kind of interesting in that it paints the Orca in a favorable light as an agent of vengeance. Something that is rather hard to do for a shark, especially in 1977 just two years after my favorite film of all time came out. But an Orca going about seeking vengeance on humans is certainly a premise that stands out to me. And given the way that Seaworld has basically been invalidated by popular media it certainly paints this movie in a far different light. Even without that though, the idea of "save the whales" is still present enough where the idea of making a killer whale the villain, a very sympathetic and tragic villain, is an excellent approach when tackling the idea of a Jaws knock off. It gives it something of an identity.

And this isn't coming from nothing, this film has Killer Whales kill a Great White Shark in the opening act. The intent to both acknowledge and differentiate is obvious.

Anyway what makes this rather interesting is that it actually does attempt to both have a humanized Orca as a villain without trying to make the humans too evil, even though in modern context the idea of a human trying to capture a Killer Whale for an aquarium.... let's just say that comes across as far less acceptable today than it was 50 years ago.

The story plays out as a tragedy with this Orca consumed with vengeance as you watch the human responsible for it being enraged, it killed its pregnant mate (yes, this is real), and you watch as the human ends up getting killed off dramatically. This film has some issues but hot damn does it leave an impact in a way you would have never suspected.

See this for a more in depth review.

I remember Orca being described less as a Jaws knockoff, and more of a marine Punisher movie.

The long post I just added makes it seem like an underrated masterpiece, but this film is full of issues. For one, the humans are very very stupid in this movie.

You have a female marine biologist spouting off false facts about Killer Whales "like that they have super strong bonds between mates and that they are motivated like humans by vengeance (not true by the way)", then trying to bend over backwards and say that this isn't the case and that it was superstition that came true, to actually forming a romance with who is essentially a whaler who disagrees with her world ethics.

You have a native American stereotype, not an Icelandic caricature strangely, who believes in 70s eco guilt environmentalism and has a very unnatural relationship and understanding of nature and the balance of nature.

And of course, the whale itself defies reality by knowing how to operate gasoline to start fires, somehow, and knowing how to find a human's address (somehow).

This isn't exactly great, or even.... good... but it is unique.

Well, the vengeance part may be somewhat true, given the orcas attacking boats off the Iberian Coast.

It's certainly acceptable. It's a B movie. You throw it on, you'll probably find it reasonably entertaining. But not anymore than a 6/10 for me, at best.

Yeah, Orca's only similarity is "Big animal attack and fights boat" but the whole thing is more revenge tragedy than horror + epic