Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)

Fin.

Okay, first things first. if you haven’t seen Jaws, close your browser, check out the streaming vendors below or go to the library or a video store if you have one of those or [REDACTED], and watch it. And after that, if you want to read my blatherings, feel free. Second, this is the first installment in my new six-film series, Animal Apocalypses. Prophecy was supposed to be first, but in true Kent fashion, I couldn’t get it done in time. As of this writing (7/2/25) I’m not even sure if this will be on time. Anywho, if all goes to plan, you’ll see Prophecy this coming Monday, the 7th.¹

What is it? Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, based on the novel by Peter Benchley, and starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton and introducing Lee Fierro as Mrs. Kintner.

First viewing? Lol. In the Letterboxd era, we have: 4 July 2016, 4 July 2018, 4 July 2020, 4 July 2021, 4 July 2024 and 4 July 2025. Is there a pattern there? I’ll never tell! Previous to the Letterboxd, probably double that amount, it’s hard to say.

What’s it about? A shark is eating people off the coast of Amity Island, and three men — police chief Brody (Scheider), ichthyologist Hooper (Dreyfuss), and fisherman Quint (Shaw) — form an uneasy alliance to kill it.

What are your thoughts about it? What is there left to say about Jaws? By my estimation, very little. It’s not hard to find books and documentaries and articles and blog posts and podcasts about how the film was made, the effect it had on the industry, its artistic merit. It’s my favorite movie of all time, full stop. You’d think that would mean I’d have something particularly astute to say about it — you’d think that would mean I can’t shut up about it — but truthfully, I have nothing. It’s a film that’s beyond criticism for me. In fact, I had no intention of ever writing a post about it here, but since it’s part of the Damnation Decade inspiration list, and I want to cover all of those, I felt impelled to weigh on on some aspect of it. But what? After some brainstorming, and some cursory googling, I discovered one part of the movie that’s had little, if anything, written about it.

The end credits.

2:02:36

A stationary shot of a beach. A wide strip of sand begins in the lower left and cuts across the frame to the horizon at the top. To the right, grass-covered dunes. On the horizon is a lighthouse and a couple buildings, silhouetted, no discernible details. To the left, the sea, waves breaking against the shore in white foam. Then, in the upper middle, two black dots, bobbing up and down in the water. They’re difficult to see, and almost immediately, the credits begin to appear and disappear, the white text at times completely blocking the dots from view. From context, it’s clear these dots are Brody and Hooper. Throughout this, we hear John Williams’ composition “End Titles” played. (Technically, it starts in the previous shot.) Despite having saved the day, the theme here isn’t one of triumph, but slightly melancholic; the feeling is one of exhaustion and completion, of returning from a world of an excitement and terror to one of mundanity, but also safety.

2:02:43

The end credits raise a number of surprising questions. Who conceived it? Who shot it? Where exactly was it shot? Who are the actors in the water? What were the circumstances around the shoot? Why does it take them so long to cover what looks like a short distance? What guidance, if any, was John Williams given to score it? And maybe most importantly, why does it exist?

2:02:48

Interestingly, the two dots, the two swimmers, are positioned so that one is closer to the beach than the other, one ahead of the other. In the shot previous, the contextual assumption is that they are heading towards shore side by side. It also takes them an agonizingly long time to cross the distance, almost as if the sea doesn’t want to let go of them.

2:02:55

Let me tell you about the one time I swam in the ocean. Not just got in to my knees or even my waist, but actually got out there, seven or eight feet deep, maybe more. I was on my honeymoon in Hawai’i, and we were driving around one of the islands — I believe it was Maui — and we stopped at a beach that was apparently popular. Not crowded, but quite a few people there, on the sand and in the water. There were signs everywhere making it extremely clear there was no lifeguard on duty, so caveat emptor. But there was enough people to make it feel safe, and I’d never swam in the ocean before, so with my wife’s blessing I went out there in my shorts.

I got out there a little ways from shore, dunked my head and opened my eyes. Of course, it was difficult to see anything, but I didn’t need to — I became exceedingly aware just how fucking vast it was down there. Looking back at the land, I could see my wife there, watching me, and I really wasn’t that far away. But at that moment I realized that if something should happen right then and there — if a current got a hold of me, if I got tired and began to drown, or if some thing swam up from under me — I was fucked. I started to swim back, and you know, that was the time I was most frightened. Because that’s when I truly felt the force of the sea. I swam in a straight line towards the beach, and once I had the sand under my feet, I walked. But while swimming, and even while walking, the power of the current pushed me to the left. When I finally emerged from the water, I was a good fifty feet from my starting point. My body, my strength, my intentions, my desires, all meant nothing to the water.

I’ll never swim in the ocean again.

2:03:04

From what I’ve gathered, Spielberg actually left Martha’s Vineyard with several days of various pickup shots left to others to complete; production designer Joe Alves directed the shark explosion, and legendary editor Verna Fields even directed a bit. So I doubt Spielberg directed this, and there’s no reason to believe that’s Scheider and Dreyfuss out there. If there’s any information to be found, it’s probably in Jaws: Memories from Martha’s Vineyard by Matt Taylor. It’s an enormous tome, and based on the number of pages and the density of the text, has to be the final word on the making of the film. (It has a lengthy sidebar on doomed dog Pippet, for chrissakes.) Unfortunately, I picked it up too late in the writing process to read it cover to cover, and as it doesn’t have an index, I did my best to skim for info. Skimming didn’t reveal anything, but there could still be something there.

2:03:13

Here’s one thing I did find, though: that final shot wasn’t supposed to exist, at least not in that form. From Edith Blake’s book, On Location on Martha’s Vineyard (The Making of the Movie “JAWS”):

Rick Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider did the final scene while Steve Spielberg read off the imaginary credit crawl to time it, and it was — fini!

A behind the scenes photo of Spielberg and crew filming Dreyfuss and Scheider using the barrels to kick their way back to land, from the book ON LOCATION ON MARTHA’S VINEYARD. The caption reads, “At last filming the final scene!”

That shot was intended to be the end credits sequence. That makes sense, right? There’s something odd about the composition, both the large negative space of water at the bottom (for the credits, presumably) to just how our leads leave the film with their asses pointed at us. The shot previous established that Hooper survived, Brody updates him on what’s happened (shark and Quint dead), everything is wrapped up, all they have to do is get back home, which we see them do as they kick away from the camera. It’s obvious now, but only while composing this I realized that their dialogue here (“Hey, what day is this?” “It’s Wednesday… eh, Tuesday, I think”) is dubbed in. If this shot was intended to be for the end credits, but got repurposed, then of course it was.

When the horizon is at the top, it’s interesting. When it’s on the bottom, it’s interesting. When it’s in the middle, it’s boring as shit! Got it?

So, to quote Fred Willard, wha’ happa’? Why was a new end credits sequence created? I can think of plenty of hypothetical reasons. Maybe they couldn’t get the shot to last long enough to incorporate all the credits. Maybe they got the shot to last long enough, but there were last-minute credits that needed to be added that messed up the timing. Maybe something happened in the lab that ruined the shot and it had to be truncated. Maybe it all worked fine, but just didn’t feel right for some reason. Maybe… maybe it just wasn’t the proper image to end on.

Don’t look back Charlie.

Jaws has great, memorable characters, but it’s not really what one would call character-driven. The story is about Brody, but his character arc is, frankly, a little thin: he’s afraid of the water, and at the end, quote, “I used to hate the water.” Spielberg recognizes this, and so doubles down hard, using every trick in the book to make Brody’s fear our fear. Water is death, and if you have a single toe dipped, you are vulnerable.² If the camera is half-submerged, splitting the image between white-grey sky and aquamarine water, you got about five seconds to get out. If the camera is the roaming underwater POV of the shark, it’s too late. The only, only safe place is on hard, dry land.

2:03:23

And so if we’re paying attention, we’ll see the tiny forms of Brody and Hooper float slowly towards the beach, and finally, after seventy-six excruciating seconds, stand on the ground. They’re not completely safe; no one ever is. But now they’re back in Amity for real, not left in some kind of oceanic limbo, forever kicking.³ I don’t see the iconic fence from the first scene, but for all intents and purposes, that’s where they are. Everything has come back full circle.

2:03:50

As I post this, it’s now July 4th, and that means it’s time to watch Jaws again. Even after all these viewings — more than twenty? perhaps — I still see new things each time. Sometimes I think the entirety of the human experience can be found within its frames. I know that can’t be right, but the feeling persists. Right now, I’m thinking about governmental corruption, the sacrifice of public safety for dollars, and community, how it can be fragile and yet also durable.

What will I find today? Only one way to find out.

How many stars out of five? It’s the best movie ever made. Five isn’t enough.

Where can I stream it? As of this writing, you can rent it from Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Microsoft Store, and Spectrum, and buy it from those same vendors, save Microsoft Store.

What can we take from it? I could just drop some giant shark stats here for the Cypher System and call it a day. I’m sorry, what’s that? The Cypher System Rulebook 2nd Edition doesn’t have giant shark stats? Well, that’s weird. Ah, but according to the Cypher System SRD (System Reference Document), a regular shark is level 3, attacks as level 4, has 15 health and armor of 2. So, for the shark in Jaws, I’d probably raise that to level 5, attacks as level 6, 25 health and armor of 3. Bada bing bada boom.

But let’s try something different. What if instead of the giant shark from the film, we did the constantly-broken hydraulic robot shark that was used to make the film? What if that shark went haywire and started attacking people? I think… it’d go… a little something… like this. (Special thanks to the Bob’s Burgers episode “The Deepening” for the inspiration here.)

BRUCE THE ROBO-SHARK

Level: 4. (Tougher than a real shark, not as tough as the one in the movie.)

Description: Bruce the Robo-Shark is a mechanical special effect that has gone haywire and is acting erratically and dangerously. It’s about twenty-five feet long, and is mounted on a moveable, rotatable pylon, which is attached to a wheeled platform. It looks like a shark but, unless obscured by water, would never be mistaken for a real one.

Motive: It has no motive; it’s just a runaway machine. When necessary, roll a d6 to determine its action. 1: Spin around in a circle 2: Move short distance away from the nearest character 3: Move short distance towards the nearest character 4: Bite anything in front of it 5: If underwater, rise to the surface; if on the surface, dive under the water; if on land, move straight ahead a short distance, crashing into anything in front of it 6: Move a long distance in a random direction

Environment: Anywhere where a shark movie utilizing a robot shark special effect might be found: off the coast of a quaint island tourist destination, the backlot of a movie studio, part of a theme park ride.

Health: 20

Damage Inflicted: 4 if from being slammed by the tail or run over; if a bite hits, it does no damage — the teeth are just foam rubber — but the victim is trapped in the jaws until freed or it tries to bite again. A character trapped in the jaws might take damage if the Robo-Shark moves forward and hits another object.

Armor: 4; it’s made of pretty tough material. However, see Combat below.

Movement: Short, on both land and sea

Combat: Bruce the Robo-Shark is constantly spinning, thrusting, lunging, biting and otherwise moving completely randomly. PCs and NPCs can be struck by any part of the Robo-Shark at any time. If a PC gets a major success on an attack roll against the Robo-Shark, a panel falls off from its side, revealing the circuits and mechanical parts inside. From this point on, PCs can target the circuits, which is hindered by two steps. A successful hit ignores armor.

Interaction: The Robo-Shark can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever! Until it runs out of energy, I guess, what the hell kind of batteries that thing have anyway.

Use: A disgruntled theme park attraction inventor who specializes in robotics uses Bruce to take revenge on those who wronged him. A disembodied alien intelligence sets Bruce on its path of destruction. Bruce was intended to be displayed, but some kids messed with the controls and now look what’s happened.

Loot: Bruce the Robo-Shark does not have any loot, but it could be dismantled into 1d3 cyphers.

GM Intrusion: The Robo-Shark suddenly breaches the surface of the water to attack. The Robo-Shark strikes a nearby building, causing structural damage and threatening pedestrians. With a victim in its jaws, the Robo-Shark dives back into the water.

NEXT TIME, ON AGAINST THE ’70S: Prophecy (1979, John Frankenheimer), for real this time