In the beginning of Jaws, where Matt Hooper is doing a preliminary examination of the first shark victim, he lifts an arm out of a basin and says,
“This is what happens.”,
somewhat out of context or connection to what he dictates into the dictaphone before and after.
It seems to be a mis-edit from the editing room, like we only hear half of the sentence.
Your thoughts?
Right after he says “this is what happens” he explains that’s what happens when a shark feeds on something. I saw the movie just a couple of weeks ago (for the first time) and it was clear that he was saying this happens when you’re attacked by a shark like he thought, not the victim of a boating accident.
I just saw the scene like 30 minutes ago, and it seemed to me like the OP describes it, completely disjointed from the dialogue before and after.
I’m watching in on broadcast TV, so maybe there was a gorier shot of the hand cut? I haven’t seen the flick uncut in a while.
Weird. I replayed my copy before replying, and it doesn’t seem disjointed. There’s a half second pause as they stare at the arm, but then he jumps right into talking about squalmus(sp) feeding habits.
Here’s the clip, at 4:45:
This appears uncut, and still seems disjointed to me.
It’s very disjointed. I wonder if this isn’t taken from a TV cut?
It must be from the TV cut, since the scene of the night swimmer going for her little ride isn’t there, and they go directly from the title to Richard Dreyfuss getting off the boat that brings him to Amity Island.
And I’m very amused by how many people feel they need to use the word “disjointed” about the scene where he pulls the leftover arm out of the tray. 
Its not the TV cut, I’ve always noticed it in that scene. I think the reason is simple. That exact bit, with lifting the arm, was an effects shot and was filmed months after principle photography. It’s probably not the same set and definitely not Richard Dreyfuss lifting the arm. Consequently Dreyfuss’ line was looped (i.e. recorded & added in later). And in this case, added in rather badly (this was the 70s). The acoustics of the added line’s audio don’t match the rest of the scene at all.
I haven’t scene a recent DVD of it, it may have been cleaned up. But it was definitely funky in the original print.
I think that YouTube video is just something someone put together to highlight the Dreyfus character. Kinda weird that they put the title there, though.
I dunno. I once tuned into Amadeus on TNT, and right after the opening credits, I saw Salieri showing up a Mozart’s house to commission him to write the Requiem.