Rural Dictionary

Jaws

A classic film released in 1975, about a Great White shark that stalks a summer beach community. It stars Roy Scheider as Chief of Police Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as icthylogist Matt Hooper and Robert Shaw as Captain Quint. It was directed by Steven Spielberg.

In the movie, after the brutal attack on a skinny-dipping woman by a shark and later on the same fate of a little boy, Brody and Hooper try to convince the mayor Larry Vaughan (played by Murray Hamilton) to close the beaches in the interest of people's lives. However, Mayor Vaughan continuously refuses to do so because he's interested in keeping the town's public image good and making money. After an attack on the beaches on the Fourth of July, Brody and Hooper join Captain Quint, an Ahab-like shark-hunter to venture out into sea to kill the shark.

It is adapted from a Peter Benchley novel of the same title. However, the film is often considered better the book, because Peter Benchley has admitted that he only needed the story because someone offered him money to put the idea on paper, because of his financial problems at the time. I personally think the novel is pretty decent. However, many critics claim it is unprofessionaly written and that it doesn't focus enough on the story of the shark and the community.

The film won many awards, and it considered one of the greatest films ever.

Three sequels were made to Jaws, Jaws 2 in 1978, Jaws 3 (or Jaws 3-D, as it was released in 3-D) in 1983, and Jaws: The Revenge in 1987. Jaws: The Revenge and Jaws 3-D are considered to take place in alternate scenarios, as they have been said to contradict each other. Also, Jaws: The Revenge is frequently voted as one of the worst films ever made, although it does have Michael Caine and Mario Van Peebles.

Also, Jaws took two years to make, and is definitely one of the hardest films ever made, or to make. The mechanical shark failed often, actors would get stressed out, but the film came out as the ultimate classic nonetheless.

Jaws is definitely a classic, but Jaws: The Revenge, the fourth in series, is listed on such sites as IMDb and move polls as one of the worst films ever.

by TheLiberalWhoIsACatholic March 25, 2009

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