Face-Off: Jurassic Park vs. Jaws

Roy Scheider. Richard Dreyfuss. Robert Shaw. Lorraine Gary. This group of main characters sprinkled with the various supporting brought to life a certain element that Spielberg knew would work. He made it a point to avoid casting big stars to keep an “everyman” vibe to Jaws, and he succeeded. I loved the great chemistry and believable love between Scheider, Gary, and their children. I loved Dreyfuss with all his knowledge and willingness to get down and dirty. I loved Shaw as quint with all his mystery and his hardened outer shell, the man has earned his scars. The famous troubled shoot began to be evident on the actors faces, especially during the third act and it made things that much more intense. I’ll say this as a bottom line, how great these actors and characters meshed with each other, it gave Jurassic Park a lot to live up to.

Bruce, the nickname for three mechanical sharks built for the film…gave them all hell in the film and behind the scenes. I loved the creative decision to keep the shark hidden for most of the film, as it was definitely the most effective way to go and pretty much stays damn true to life, it’s this strategy that scared the sh*t out of viewers for its initial release. I mean for most of the duration of the film, all we see is a damn fin, I wish I could have been around when this film was first released before we became so desensitized to terror that modest. But it worked.

The famous opening scene that tells us apparently skinny dipping in the ocean is bad for your health, then there’s that poor guy who meets his end right in front of Brody’s kid. Now I’ll talk about the two deaths that have to give Jaws the edge in this category, one being the audacity these folks had for doing away with that young boy during the beginning with that terrifying scene of the boy disappearing in a flash with nothing but a pool of blood to let us know what happened. The other being Quints death, being already half swallowed by Bruce with the screams of sheer pain and the look of terror on his face…not something that quickly leaves you.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”


“Smile you son of a BITCH.”


“That’s some bad hat, Harry.”


“”Slow ahead.” I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit.”


” Ha, ha – they’re all gonna die.”


“Boys, oh boys… I think he’s come back for his noon feeding.”


“This was no boat accident.”


“*Quints entire “Indianapolis” speech*.”

The famous tidbit is that when Williams first presented this iconic score to Spielberg, he initially thought it was a gag. The rest as we say is history, terrifying musical history. There are great moments when the music sports a methodic pace to let us know of the sharks presence, the terror built up brilliantly. Other moments there was no music to slowly make us aware of the sharks presence, he surprised us and it was then Williams brilliance kicked in with a vengeance. In the Making of Jaws special, Williams has stated his favorite musical cue is in the scene where Hooper harpoons the shark with that line to the flotation barrel.

Apart from it being the film with the most success until Star Wars came along and knocked if off its mantle, it seems that, at least for its time Jaws influence surpassed the world of filmmaking and hit the general public in a way that not many films do. Beach attendance took a hit after the release of Jaws, that’s power. The film is also noted for changing studios projections for great Box Office success from the previous winter timeline to the summer for typical high budgeted pictures. Another interesting aspect of the film is the negative stereotype its perpetuated about the behavior of sharks, the author of the original novel stated he would never have written the book if he had been more knowledgeable about their habits. All that aside, Jaws gave opportunity for films like Jurassic Park to be made…the reigning Godfather of the monster film if you will. All the elements came together to pull off a true classic.