Spielberg greatly improved on the book which was disappointingly poorly written.
I was looking forward to Hooper being eaten by the shark. Talk about disappointment!
I’ve never read the novel Jaws, but wasn’t Hooper getting eaten by the shark still a happy ending? He was sleeping with Brody’s wife, so having him get killed seems like a win for the novel’s protagonist.
I haven’t read the book since July 1975, but I remember Brody being disturbed by Hooper’s death. (Sort of “So what if he banged my wife, it’s all in the past now.”)
Spielberg threw out the whole adultery subplot to (a) keep the main story moving along and (b) not give the audience a reason for disliking Hooper.
Another thing that disappointed me greatly was how the grieving mother confronted Brody and the Mayor. In the book, she was angry as hell; in the movie, just suffering nobly.
Book Hooper didn’t have any redeeming qualities other than being rich.
I just finished the audiobook. I was seriously considering starting a thread about how awful that book is.
She spit in Brody’s face. That’s a pretty good indication of anger to me. A merely grieving mother would not have done that.
She was much more subdued in the movie than in the book.
I thought Garden State would have been much better if Andrew stayed on the plane and didn’t run back to Sam. They met at a messed-up part of both their lives and their brief fling helped them see life more positively. They could take their experience, go their separate ways, be sad but grow to become better, more self-sufficient people. Instead they are bound by trauma and will both hold each other back from what they could have been.