Was about 12 when I first saw it with my Dad. While we where on vacation in Florida. Preparing to test out our new open water SCUBA licenses. :gulp:
I saw it on the big screen with my sister when we were–what?–12, 14. It was the first PG movie we saw, and we spent a whole lot of it up in the lobby just outside the theater doors listening to see if what was going on inside was too scary to watch or not.
A friend and I snuck into the theater to see Jaws when we were about seven or eight years old. When the head popped up I jerked so hard that a handful of candy went flying about 20 feet in the air. So about a half second after everyone started screaming at the movie, you had a secondary scream as various people started getting hit in the head by flying jujubees. I like to think I enhanced their viewing experience that day.
Ah ok, thanks.
Other than the basic plot the film is pure Spielberg. Benchley’s novel is not really all that great, it’s rather tawdry and full of boilerplate pulp fiction cliches (Hooper has an affair with Brody’s wife, the mob pressures the mayor to keep the beaches open etc.) Although Benchley got a screenplay credit for the film most of his script wasn’t used.
The film is an American classic. The novel, not so much. Notice that Benchley never really went on to do much else (other than keep rewriting Jaws-like novels, The Deep, Beast etc.) whereas Spielberg’s talent flourished.
I haven’t read the book in decades but I remember a main theme being Brodie as a “fish out of water” in New England, while (unlike the movie) his wife was from the area. The affair with Hooper was part of this, as he was another native New Englander and she had more in common with him. The book’s tension was less about the shark and more about which of the two men would sieze the opportunity to eliminate the competition.
Sounds cheesy? Yep, it is. “Jaws” is always the first book that comes to mind when people discuss movies much better than the books they were based on.
My dad took me and my sister to see Jaws right after we came out of the theater showing Bambi.
I was 6.
I was so scared I spent quite a lot of time in the bathroom. As a result I didn’t even know about the scene on the docks (with the 2 local Shmoes and the roast) until YEARS later when I saw it on TV.
Oh, and my parents took us to Daytona Beach that year, and I got put onto the EXACT same raft that the Kintner kid got 'et up on :eek::eek:
Good Times.
Did you have nightmares about shark-bambis? Little fawns with large, razor-sharp teeth?
I saw it the first time on the big screen, too. I only saw the first attack. After that scene, every time the shark music would start I would leave and hang out in the lobby until it was safe to return.
It was only years later, when it was shown on television, that I saw the complete movie and all the other attacks.
To me that first attack was the worst. We might not all have been on a small boat out of sight of land but we all have been in shallow water just a few yards from shore and that girl getting hit, realizing with horror what was happening and dragged back and forth, sometimes lifted near out of the water, panickly yelling Oh God, Oh God!, realizing she was about to die and being completely helpless to stop it and then her voice suddenly snuffed as she was pulled under and eaten…
Ooof.
Good Lord, it has been 40 years, hasn’t it?
I was 21, visiting my uncle and aunt in the middle of Kansas with my family, and my uncle dragged us to see Jaws. So it was like a personal shout-out when the boyfriend of the shark’s first victim says he goes to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut - where I’d just finished up my junior year - because other than my family, I was probably the only person in the theater who even knew Trinity existed, let alone had a connection to it.
Great movie. And while I later read the book for the hell of it, I agree that it’s nowhere near as good as the movie.
The movie came out* just* before I left for a six-week tour of the Soviet Union with my language school, so I wouldn’t see it until August. Someone in the group had brought the book along with them, and I read it over the first two weeks we were there.
The day after I finished the book, we went to the beach outside of Riga, on the Baltic Sea. I refused to go anywhere near the water! I still hate swimming in the ocean, not knowing what’s under or behind me.
Oh, yeah…
Hooper dies in the book, eaten by the shark. His death is described in gory detail! 
Actually, I never thought the movie was all that scary. Plus, like in Jurassic Park, Spielberg changed the ending completely for cheap thrills.
I just finished watching Jaws for the very first time. I got a nice HD copy and I was really looking forward to it. It’s the 40th anniversary, so I figured I better get around to actually seeing it.
I have to say, the first hour didn’t pull me in all that much, but the second hour was amazing. The entire time on the boat with the three guys and all of the final 30 minutes were amazing. I do see how it impressed people 40 years ago. I jumped when Dreyfuss has that body show up in the hole in the boat.
Once they get Quint and they go on his boat, the movie became awesome. I was impressed. I didn’t even think the shark looked all that fake. It was an impressive prop.
Anyway, I’m glad to finally see it and hope everyone enjoys it in the theater.
Jaws is such a masterpiece…
Just got back from a showing. I watch this movie every year, and can recite the entire Indianapolis speech from memory, but damn, there’s something about watching it on the big screen that still gives me chills. Great way to spend Father’s day with (some of) my kids.
It was the 4k restored version. The diagonal lines on Mayor Vaughn’s nautical sport jacket were crisp and clean, and you could count every whisker on Quint’s face.
Some of the scenes were a bit grainy. I put it down to the film stock for low-light conditions they were using 40 years ago.
I was able to see details I hadn’t before. I can’t remember them now, except that there was a lamp in Brody’s house made out of a liquor bottle. Never noticed that before. I did look for a moire pattern on Vaughn’s cheesy jacket.
Very fun to see it on the big screen. Only, why was I the only one laughing at the funny lines?
Very cool. Glad you got to see it in such high quality.
Getting to see this on Father’s day was a real treat. Even better was bringing my son along. He’s 7, and didn’t have any idea this was an old movie, just a movie set back in the '70s.
Interestingly enough, he was enthralled by the Indianapolis story, even though he didn’t really understand it. That is quality film making right there.
Whispered line of the night - “Daddy, they should have closed the beach.”
My husband and I went to see it last night as well. He saw it in the theater as a kid, I didn’t, so this was my first theater showing. I felt it quite lived up to the hype, even though I’ve seen the movie several times on TV. The quality of the print was excellent, and the sound was better than we expected. We both thoroughly jumped when the head appeared. Good stuff!
Smart kid!