Jaws: Posting Stuff While I Watch

[Snowflake]

Fvckin-A Brad! I missed this yesterday, how totally a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

Loved every bit!

[Gemini Cricket]

The Jaws Mythbusters is on now. It's a cool episode.

[lindyhop]

I didn't see this thread before. Very cool, Brad.

I never saw the movie either, I'm not good with scary movies. I did read the shark parts of the book and I was disappointed that the Richard Dreyfuss character didn't get eaten even though he did get it in the book (didn't he?). Not sure why (since I love, love Close Encounters) but I wanted to see Richard Dreyfuss get eaten by a shark back then.

[Gemini Cricket]

I think we have to wait until 2010 for Steve's Close Encounters version of this thread.

I can't wait.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by lindyhop

I didn't see this thread before. Very cool, Brad.

I never saw the movie either, I'm not good with scary movies. I did read the shark parts of the book and I was disappointed that the Richard Dreyfuss character didn't get eaten even though he did get it in the book (didn't he?). Not sure why (since I love, love Close Encounters) but I wanted to see Richard Dreyfuss get eaten by a shark back then.

In the book

Spoiler:

Hooper does indeed get eaten, and it's hard not to see it as a moral comeuppance for Hooper having had an affair with Chief Brody's wife. This whole subplot was wisely left out of the movie. If Richard Dreyfess' character had died in the movie, it would simply have been a random tragic event. It would have made Brody the lone survivor, a la Moby Dick, but I suspect the movie wouldn't have been as popular. I still would have liked it of course.

[flippyshark]

Worth noting also that in the novel

Spoiler:

Quint is not eaten, but instead gets caught up in a rope and dragged out of the boat by the shark, in a direct homage to Captain Ahab - so Moby Dick was bigtime on Benchley's mind when he wrote his book. If in fact the shark were to have eaten both Hooper and Quint in rapid succession, it would have seemed a little ridiculous. This problem comes up in Jaws 2, with the number of teens eaten in a single afternoon suggests that this shark is literally unbelieavably hungry.

[lindyhop]

Spoiler:

I still think it was cheating not to feed Richard Dreyfuss to the shark. I figured it was just because he was Richard Dreyfuss that he survived. Not a good reason in my opinion.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by lindyhop

Spoiler:

I still think it was cheating not to feed Richard Dreyfuss to the shark. I figured it was just because he was Richard Dreyfuss that he survived. Not a good reason in my opinion.

Actually, at the time, he wasn't all that well known. His only previous credits were American Graffitti and the critically lauded but little-seen The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. JAWS made him a star.

Spoiler:

I suspect he lived because his character was re-envisioned to be a likable comedic foil to Shaw's hard-bitten Quint, as opposed to the smug preppie boy that Hooper was in the novel. So, too lovable to kill, basically.

You really haven't seen JAWS yet? what are you waiting for!?

[flippyshark]

For what it's worth, Lindyhop, MAD Magazine agreed with you. In their movie parody Jaw'd, the shark dies from getting sick to his stomach due to

Spoiler:

the saccharine lack of that character's death.

[flippyshark]

It also occurs to me that all these spoiler tags are pretty pointless for anyone who has read this entire thread.