Jaws (film)/Trivia


 * Beam Me Up, Scotty: It's "You're gonna need a bigger boat", not "We're".
 * Creator Backlash: During interviews later in his career, Peter Benchley claimed he came to regret writing the original novel when he learned that the worldwide fear of sharks he felt his book and the film version created had led to massive shark overfishing that was driving several species close to extinction. He became a vocal ocean conservation activist to make up for it, and remained so until his death.
 * His later book The Beast even features the hero ranting in his head about how much damage the film has done.
 * Defictionalization: In 2010 when the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheik experienced killer shark attacks it pretty much used the plot of Jaws as its guide, including denying the problem, resisting closing the beaches, reluctantly closing them after a near shore attack, killing the wrong shark and declaring it the right one despite clear evidence to the contrary, re-opening the beaches with a fanfare declaring them safe, then having more attacks take place. After that the shark simply left of its own accord, perhaps it was Genre Savvy enough to know what came next in film.
 * Enforced Method Acting: Inadvertently done. To simulate the attack on Chrissie Watkins, two underwater ropes were tethered to Susan Backlinie that would be pulled to and fro. Unfortunately, one of the lines was pulled too hard, breaking a rib. Those screams of pain and terror are real.
 * Initially, they weren't getting the reaction shot Spielberg wanted from Susan Backlinie when the shark first grabs Chrissie, so they did a take where they didn't tell her when it was going to happen. That's the take that went into the movie.
 * Fake American: Quint is played by an Englishman.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett Jr., Lea Thompson, and Bess Armstrong in the third movie. Michael Caine and Mario Van Peebles in the fourth film. Also, in the fourth movie, Michael Brody is played by The Last Starfighter.
 * Life Imitates Art: Beach attendance dropped sharply for the summer of 1975.
 * Money, Dear Boy: Michael Caine only appeared in the fourth film because of it. And later regretted being in the Bahamas shooting it instead of picking up his Academy Award for Hannah and Her Sisters.
 * Old Shame: Richard Matheson doesn't like to talk about his experience being one of the screenwriters of the third film. Likewise, Michael Caine generally prefers not to acknowledge his involvement in The Revenge, other than the fact that he was able to build himself a very nice mansion with the paycheck.
 * The Red Stapler: Beach attendance dropped significantly after this movie.
 * Science Marches On: Much more has been learned about shark behavior since 1975. As a consequence, most of the theories Hooper voices, believed to be valid at the time, have since been disproven.
 * Serendipity Writes the Plot:
 * There were problems with getting the mechanical shark to work, forcing the creators to turn it into mostly The Unseen.
 * Also, Hooper was Spared by the Adaptation because when shooting scenes with actual sharks in Australia, there was that great take of the shark rolling on top of an shark cage - but it was empty (the stuntman had fled for his life).
 * Throw It In:
 * "You're gonna need a bigger boat."
 * Also, the shooting star as Brody loads his revolver on the boat.
 * The footage of the Shark rolling on top of the shark cage wasn't planned, but was far too awesome not to use. And is why Hooper
 * Troubled Production: An unusual case; it seems that the more troubled the production of each film was, the better it turned out. The original film barely even got made at all due to the numerous troubles they had with the weather and the mechanical shark, yet is easily the best of the series. The second had a massively problematic start, but things eventually smoothed out during filming, and it ended up a decent film. The third's production problems were mostly limited to the challenges of working in 3-D, and the resulting film was... pretty bad. The Revenge had the smoothest production of all the Jaws films by far -- and yet it ended up the absolute worst film.
 * What Could Have Been: The third movie was originally intended as a spoof, "National Lampoon's Jaws 3, People 0". Ironically, what came out is widely considered a really effective unintentional comedy.
 * Also when it was to be a parody, Rodger Bumpass (best known as Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants) was going to be the lead.
 * Spielberg's first choice to play Quint was Lee Marvin.