Conference bookie::movies

    Well it's certainly the best of the 4 (?) that have been made.
    
    The last one was the biggest load of B*ll*x that was ever made !!!
    
    The idea was there, to make a movie about one of the most feared
    inhabitants of this planet. It certainly made me jump a few times when  
    I watched it first (all those years ago !!).
    
    I think for it's time this was a very good movie, however now days it
    is going to be cristisized (sp?) because of it's age.
    
    Are you wanting to talk about movie 1 or all of them ?
    
    M. 

  I really liked the 1st one. The acting was good, the story was good, the
direction and effects were good. It's had a major impact on our culture as
well. For ever more people will associate the "bomp BOMP bomp BOMP" music with
sharks. 

  One thing that really made this work was the "Steven King" effect. Like
King's books, Jaws was a horror movie that had a believable effect on the
audience because it was set in "Everytown U.S.A." Unlike Aliens or Friday the
13th in which the horror only exists in a different reality, the horror of Jaws
was something that could happen to you on your vacation.

  First Rate movie, ****
  George

P.S. Didn't see the others

    One particular 'spielberg-ism' about JAWS which I expect is in Jurassic
    Park is the idea that this is both a monster AND an impressive creature
    at the same time.
    
    I remember the end section when they are harpooning the shark with the
    air barrels, and with three of the things in it it still keeps going.
    The film seems to make the point that the shark is really quite an
    incredible creature, in spite of it's eating habits. You almost feel
    sorry for it (almost).

    
     Although Jurassic Park was very entertaining and I really enjoyed it.
    Jaws had a better story and better acting, and direction.
    
     A very fine film. It would still do well if first introduced today.
    
     The other three were not very good films.
    
    Dave
    

    I saw JAWS back (ugh) 17 years ago and I was definately hit by that
    movie.  I loved it and I was scared of it at the same time.  I remember
    it had (and still has) an affect on my swimming habits.  It was big
    time believable!  I also saw JP, and while it had an affect on me, it
    wasn't as lasting as JAWS *is*!
    
    I had a groupie crush on Richard Dreyfuss after seeing Goodbye Girl
    (perfect for a swooning teenager) and I still like him today - he has
    aged well!!  
    
    I must admit I wasn't into quality acting as much as a great flick. 
    That is what caught my attention to the movie.
    
    -sandy
    

    
    Jurassic Park owes a great deal to Jaws.
    
    I think anyone in the industry who thinks about what ought to happen
    when making a very popular book into a very popular movie ought to look
    at what was done with Jaws.  There are things about the movie industry
    that are not to be denied.  With very few exceptions, scripts are
    structured a certain way, movies want to come in under a certain
    length, and popular culture demands that things zip along at a pretty
    good pace.
    
    That's just what happens in Jaws.  The basic elements of the book's
    tale (little seaside town gets terrorized by monster of the deep)
    remain, and all the things that would have slowed it down were taken
    out and tossed, without any significant loss in characterization. 
    Leaving in things like the matters between Ellen Brody and Hooper would
    have muddied the waters, ahem.
    
    Probably my favorite transition of novel to screen after the Three
    Musketeers.  Still holds up well after all this time.  A good example
    of Spielberg before he made too much money.
    
    DFW

    
    
    There was a special on PBS with John Williams and the Boston Pops.
    Behind the orchestra they had a screen and there were showing clips
    of movies that John had written the score for. In one instance
    they showed the scene from jaws where they first encounter the shark
    and harpoon it with an attached barrel, with out the music. Next they
    show the same clip with the pops playing the movie score and the
    difference is incredible. The music adds a whole new dimension to the
    movie. I saw Richard Dreyfuss on Whoppi and he said Speilberg had to
    ask him 3 times before he did the movie. That movie made Richards
    career.
    
    
                   -=-=-R~C~W-=-=-

Just a nit re: -.1 -- 

the show was not a special per se, but rather part of the "Evening at Pops"
series which has been on PBS for many, many years and has been underwritten by
Digital for something like the last eleven years. This particular show was a
special show, however, in the sense that they were doing a tribute to John
Williams since this is his last season with the Pops ;^(>. 

	/jeff

    
    
       This is & always will be my number 1 film of all time,i think it 
       was a film before its time.
       When you think back to the way the movie was made,the fear was put
       into you for the 1st half by the music only,without even seeing the 
       shark. Also a lot of scenes were very well put together,like 
       Brodie's young son copying him across the table,Hooper & Quint
       arguing over,if hooper should go on the boat with them.As Quint
       thinks he's just a spoild rich kid.
       And even the shot of the Orca leaving the harbour,seen through
       Sharks Jaws. The list is endless.
       The only thing which killed this film is the same thing which 
       killed ever good orignal,Hollywood milking it dry with sequels
       Granted there have been good sequels,but they've been a different
       [excuse the pun] kettle of FISH.
    

    
    
    I went to see 'Bruce' the shark at Universal Studios in LA but,
    unfortunately, he was broken...  tch...
    
    What amazes me, though, is that they still have the pool containing the
    blue dye and the sunny day painted back-drop that they tried to pass
    off as the Caribbean in 'Jaws IV:This Time Its Perfunctory' as an
    attraction.
    
    How DID that shark know where to find the Brody family?
    Hmmmmm......
    
    

    RE: .10  by YUPPY::SECURITY 
    
    >How DID that shark know where to find the Brody family?
    
    Cuz by Jaws IV they were beginning to smell?
    

    Cause the director told it where they were....
    
    :) Michael

    My wife and I just watched Jaws on video (first time for me in 17
    years), and were struck once more by what a good movie it is, and how
    very effective at what it sets out to do. We did have two questions:
    
    1) In the sequence when Quint, Hooper, and Brody are getting drunk in
    the pilothouse, Quint shows Hooper a scar of a tattoo which was
    removed, and launches into a painful reminisce about how he was aboard
    the SS Indianapolis when it delivered the A-bomb to Japan in WW2. He
    goes on to describe the torpedoing of the ship, and how hundreds of his
    comrades were drowned or attached by sharks before they were rescued
    several days later. Was this sequence in the movie? I don't remember it
    at all.
    
    2) My wife tells me that, in a later movie (is Jaws 2 subtitled "the 
    Revenge"?), a shark that was merely injured in a previous movie comes
    back to stalk the beaches once more. She thinks it was the original
    shark from Jaws, but the ending shows that shark's head being
    demolished by the exploding air cylinder. The damage seems too great to
    allow that shark to come back, but those Hollywood ressurection men can
    work wonders (Spock, Hobson, Curly, etc). Can someone fill us in?
    
    By the way, the fisherman on whome Quent was based did catch a 42-foot
    great white shark in the early 1980's. I don't think that fish was
    feasting on swimmers, though.
    			Thanks,
    				Jim

    Re .13: 
    
    1) Yes, that sequence was in the movie. Based on fact, too.
    
    2) Not sure about this one; the "justifications" for the various
    sequels were all pretty lame, eventually seeming to fall back to a sort
    of "cosmic avenger shark" that had it in for the Brodies and would pick
    a new avatar when the previous one got destroyed. [I think there was
    some theory - proposed in the movie or off-line, I don't remember -
    that the Jaws II shark was an offspring of the Jaws I shark. I don't
    particularly believe it, but then I don't particularly care, either.
    ;-)]
    
    -b

    And Jaws 2 was just Jaws II...  Jaws IV was actually called 
    "Jaws : The Revenge"
    
    Michael

    Didn't one of the sequels have the offspring of the first great white??
    
    There was a TV movie about the victims of that military mission who
    were stranded in the ocean.  Pretty gruesome thought!!
    
    -sandy