Jaws V: The Continuity

"Y'all know me...know how I earn a livin'...by critiquing what others love."

[NOTE: All I wanna do this month is drink heavily and not be bothered by shit. But last night two of you “liked” a comment that was very insulting toward me, and since Substack doesn’t allow a page owner to see who likes what - I can see “likes” but not who left ‘em - if I can’t know which two of you did it, I must assign collective blame. So I won’t be mixing with you folks in the comments anymore. All the same, here’s my July 4th piece about the greatest July 4th movie ever]

You can’t think July 4th movies without thinking Jaws. And yes, it’s a tradition here at Casa Cole to watch Jaws every 4th. I’ve seen the film a hundred times, going back to its initial theatrical release in 1975. It was one of the first Betamax tapes my family bought in 1979. I know the movie by heart.

It is, to be sure, a classic. No one needs to hear me say that.

But there are two things about the film that have always bothered me. Just in that…they don’t make sense.

“This screenplay has a few holes…”

1) Hooper’s Superboat

We see Matt Hooper arrive on Amity in a small craft. Not quite a skiff, but a small craft. We see him dock, and we see him helped up by doomed fisherman Ben Gardner.

The rest of that day plays out in a very linear timeline.

Hooper meets Brody.

Brody takes Hooper to see Chrissy’s remains (“Well this is not a boat accident!”).

Brody and Hooper rush back to the dock, where the “a whaaaaaaat?” fisherman is showing off the tiger shark (“a whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”).

Mrs. Kintner arrives and slaps the tan off Brody’s face.

Brody retreats home to sulk with his kid, but Hooper’s right behind, hungry, in a change of clothes with his hair nicely combed (meaning he had to take time to change and maybe shower, I suppose at a hotel on the island? He did ask about a hotel earlier on) and with wine (meaning he likely stopped somewhere on the island to purchase red and white because “I didn’t know what you’d be serving…is anyone eating this?”).

Hooper tells Brody that the “a whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” guy got the wrong shark.

Brody and Hooper go BACK to the dock (third time that day) to cut open the red shark, I mean herring. Hooper confirms it’s the wrong shark. He tells Brody that they’re gonna sail around to search for the shark (“he’s a night feeder…just don’t tell that to the Kintner boy”).

And now…Brody and Hooper are magically on Hooper’s SUPERBOAT, a massive craft equipped with sonar and beacons and klieg lights and probably an espresso machine.

Where dat boat come from? It’s NOT the boat on which Hooper arrived. It’s also pretty clear, considering that Hooper never met Brody or the mayor before, that Hooper’s never previously been to Amity.

So where the fuck was the superboat this whole time? Docked on the mainland? Almost every minute of Hooper’s day on Amity is documented. The only possible explanation is that in-between watching Brody get slapped and buying the wine and cleaning up for dinner, Hooper beelined for the mainland, to wherever he keeps superboat, and sailed it back to Amity just in time for Brody’s sulky dinner.

That seems unlikely. Hooper would’ve had to race with manic speed, sailing the small craft to retrieve superboat while also, I guess, simultaneously changing into his suit and cleaning up, but that concept only works if superboat is docked right across from Amity and not miles away. So in that scenario, Hooper sailed superboat to the mainland but stopped just short of Amity, and he either had the smaller craft tethered to superboat, or he rented the smaller craft on the mainland, in either event ditching superboat on the mainland to sail the smaller craft to Amity, leaving superboat behind…which makes so sense because why not just sail superboat TO Amity?

Even more unlikely is that after cutting open the shark, Hooper said to Brody “hey, we’re gonna take my superboat to look for the shark (“he’s a night-feeder…just don’t tell that to the estuary victim”), but first we have to take my very small craft to the mainland. As if “fear of water” Brody (“Martin hates boats…Martin sits in his car when we go on the ferry to the mainland”) is gonna be okay sailing shark-infested waters in a tiny craft that’s nearly a skiff.

There’s no suitable answer to the mystery of where was Hooper’s superboat (some smarmy souls have asked why Brody, Quint, and Hooper didn’t use superboat to hunt the shark in the film’s second half, but that’s a silly point; Quint would never sail someone else’s craft, let alone the boat of a city kid with city hands — “been countin’ money all yer life”).

2) Why Was the Second Half Even Necessary?

Why the fuck did Brody, Hooper, and Quint go out onto the OPEN SEA to kill the shark? For EVERY kill, the shark has come right up to the shore. Chrissy’s death happens well within sight of shore. Alex Kintner’s death happens in water so shallow, children are standing just a few yards away. When the two doofuses toss the holiday roast off the jetty, the shark comes RIGHT UP and grabs it. And on the 4th, when the shark fin prank drives everyone out of the water, the shark comes even further inland, swimming into the estuary to eat the “you guys okay ovah dehr?” guy (trivia: in the original screenplay that guy was supposed to be the scoutmaster we see in the background during the car ferry scene training kids for their merit badges).

Bottom line: every single time the shark gets hungry, it comes RIGHT TO SHORE.

Why go out to the open sea — the shark’s home turf — to kill it, when you know that the next time it gets hungry, it will come to YOU.

It’s an overlooked point that the jetty/holiday roast guys DO hook the shark, with minimal effort. They just underestimated the creature’s strength. But the holiday roast scheme WORKED. If that roast had been filled with Hooper’s shark poison, done and done.

All Brody would have to do is keep everyone out of the water and have guys lining the bridge over the estuary (the site of the shark’s most recent meal). Chum the shit out of the estuary. Hell, even put a live goat in there or something to replicate the kicking of swimmers (we know the shark likes small dogs, so why not a goat?). The shark shows up, and the guys on the bridge blast the living shit out of it with a bazooka.

Done!

Or, again, just do the poison roast thing. Put poison roasts everywhere. The shark should take at least one.

Bottom line, if you have a shark that you know will come to you, what sense is going to him, especially in a wooden boat, knowing that the shark sank Ben Gardner’s wooden boat?

Yeah, I get it - the second half of the film is where it switches from horror movie to ripping adventure. It’s where Brody finds his guts and redemption arc. It’s where he male-bonds.

But it just makes no sense. The shark will get hungry, the shark will come right up to the shore, or into the estuary. Be ready for it there, and nobody risks life n’ limb.

The only way the ridiculous “meet the shark on HIS turf (surf)” thing makes sense is if you accept the supernatural interpretation of the film.

This is not my theory! I’m not taking credit for it. Others have speculated about this for years.

The theory is, the shark has come for Quint. It’s been exactly 30 years (July 1945) since Quint’s Navy ship was sunk and the sharks spared him. We know from Quint’s explanation of his scars that he seems to have squandered the years since on drunken brawls and “celebrating his third wife’s demeeeez.” We also know from a deleted scene that Quint bitterly HATES fish (“what do those fish do, eat that stuff?” “Nah, they choke on it”).

30 years earlier, the sharks spared Quint. And he “thanked” them by squandering the gift on a fish-hating life of drunken debauchery.

So, on the anniversary of the miraculous save, a shark has come to Amity to claim Quint. To undo the save. And everything the shark does in the film is geared toward drawing Quint into a one-on-one fight on the open sea.

That’s why the shark lets Hooper (a kind-hearted fish lover) swim away — the shark is there for Quint. And once he gets Quint, once his mission is fulfilled, he swims head-first toward Brody’s gun, air tank helpfully visible. The shark took Quint home; now the shark goes home too. The books are balanced.

As I said, not my theory (though I’ve explained it better than the rub-a-dubs who’ve tried to articulate it elsewhere).

Anyway, that’s my Jaws rant!

Amity as you know means friendship.

But buying Dave a beer shows friendship!

Happy 4th!