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Jaws Explained Badly

In 1975, Steven Speilberg and his crew worked through disaster after disaster to bring Jaws to the big screen. The summer blockbuster is considered a classic among moviegoers alike, including me. Welcome to Explaining Plots Badly, where I make even the scariest of movies kinda funny.

Meet Chrissie Watkins, our first kill, a frisky young woman who attends a party in which there is a lot of smoking, drinking, and, well, sex. She leads an impressionable (and absolutely wasted) young man to the ocean, where she begins to...strip. As she jumps into the water, her boy toy promptly passes out on the beach.

Chrissie begins to do her swimming workouts, not noticing that her ~lover~ is absolutely unconscious. All of a sudden, she is jerked underwater. Her scandolous skinny-dipping is cut short as she is dragged around, screaming for her life. Finally, she is taken under the water, leaving nothing but the still water behind her.

In the morning, the forementioned boy reports Chrissie missing to the chief of police, Martin Brody (he's pretty important). As they wander the beach, they find an arm with bangles and rings on it - presumably belonging to Chrissie Watkins.

The arm is determined to belong to Chrissie, and it is ruled as a shark attack by the coroner. Brody, being a responsible cheif of police, attempts to close the beaches. But the mayor (Larry Vaughn), who is a greedy money hog concerned for the towns economy, denies the offer. He says that most of Amity's revenue comes from summer tourists, and closing the beaches will leave the town struggling. Brody doesn't really trust his descision, especially since Vaughn is wearing tiny anchors on his shirt.

Suspiciously, the coroner now agrees that Chrissie died in a boating accident. Brody is outrulled, and the beaches remain open.

Later, another fatal tradgedy occurs. Alex Kitner is killed in front of a multitude of spectators. People watch in horror as his bloody raft washes on the shore.

Mrs. Kitner, the boy's mother, places a bounty on the shark, offering $3,000 to anyone who can find and kill the shark. Bartholomew Quint, rugged fisherman and part time shark hunter, offers to kill the beast and bring it back to Amity. He is promptly laughed away.

Now, enter Matt Hooper, an oceanographer who has come to save Amity from the crisis its in. He goes to examine Chrissie's remains, where he determines that she was not only killed by a shark, but a huge shark.

As the chief and scientist emerge from the morgue, they find that a group of fishermen has found a tiger shark and are celebrating their catch. But Hooper finds that the measurements don't line up. He concludes that the only way that they can be sure is if they cut the shark open to see what's in ot's stomach. The mayor immediately vetoes it, and they all go home.

That night, Brody and Hooper go to cut open the tiger shark. I'll spare you the gory details. When they find nothing, Hooper takes Brody out onto the water to look for the actual shark that killed Chrissie and Alex. Here we learn that Brody has a phobia of water, even though he lives on an island. But he's very drunk, so I doubt he cares.

They find a boat that is absolutely wrecked, and Brody identifies it as Ben Gardener's. Hooper gets into his wetsuit and takes a dive. He finds a massive tooth, and the disembodied head of Gardener. Like a clutz, he drops the tooth and scrambles back onto the boat.

Hooper claims that the tooth belongs to a great white shark. The two tell Vaughn that he has a lot more to worry about than money, but the mayor still refuses to close the beaches or get the coast guard involved.

On the Fourth of July weekend, two kids pull a juvenile prank on the people who were hired to look out for the shark. After the two almost get their heads blown off and people are evacuated, a woman starts screaming that a shark has gone into the pond. But uh oh! Brody's son Michael is in the pond with his friends because Brody thought it would be safer there!

The shark rips the leg off of another boater in the water, but he's not really important. Also, at 1 hour into this 2 hour movie, we finally see the shark that's been terrorizing Amity. Michael goes into shock after seeing such a gruesome scene, and Vaughn FINALLY agrees to shut down the beaches. Brody also manages to convinve him to hire Quint, the shark hunter from before.

Quint, Brody, and Hooper then set sail on the Orca, a rugged fishing boat for a rugged fisherman. As Brody lays down a "chum line", the beast appears right behind him, leading to this iconic line:

Quint estimates that the shark is 25 feet long, which, if you're not American, is pretty big. As Hooper struggles to get a good photo of it, Quint attaches a barrel to it so that they can know where it is and it (supposedly) can't go underwater. Spoiler: it goes underwater.

That night, Quint and Hooper exchange stories about their scars (hey are absolutely hammered btw). Quint recalls his time on the USS Indianapolis. If you didn't know, the Indianapolis was a WW2 ship that got torpedoed by the Japanese. As the men floated in the water, sharks came and picked off most of the surviving men. Of 1,195 crewmen, only 316 survived. This gives Quint his reasoning for killing sharks: because they killed his friends so many years ago.

When storytime is over, big ol' sharky rams into the Orca and shuts off the power. Brody's bigger boat seems like a good idea now. The men work to repair the engine.

In the morning, Brody attempts to call the coast guard. Determined to hunt and kill the shark on their own, Quint smashes the radio. They really are isolated now.

With the Orca steadily sinking, the men are stuck. Hooper puts on his scooba gear and goes in his shark-cage to inject the shark with strychnine, which will kill it. The shark absolutely destroys the cage, and butterfingers Hooper drops the hypodermic needle. He manages to escape into the seabed.

The shark then attacks the boat and full on EATS Quint. It's gruesome, it's bloody, and I love it.

Brody and Hooper reunite and begin to paddle back to shore, ready to tell the town how they killed the beast.

Quint manages to harpoon another barrel into the shark. The line is tied to the boat, and the shark drags it backwards, flooding the engine room. The shark breaks off from the boat and goes back underwater. Quint tries to lead the shark back to shore, but the engine fails, and the boat is stuck.

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Brody is trapped now. He is absolutely useless and out of his element. In a last attempt to save his life, he jams a pressurized scuba tank into the shark's mouth and climbs on the top of the boat. He manages to shoot the tank, and the shark explodes. It's gruesome, its bloody, and I love it.

Final Thoughts

I love this movie. It as everything a good story needs. Likeable characters, a great plot, and realistic dialouge. Also, the score and cinematography is superb. My favorite part, however, is the mood. Unlike most horror movies, the ending fight isn't in a dark setting, its a beautiful day on the ocean. And the suspense is awesome. You don't even see the shark for half the movie, but it's still scary. And while the technology might be outdated, the movie is still a 10/10 for me.

#jaws #matt hooper #martin brody #quint #explaining plots badly

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