Jaws Reimagined
In my review of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, I confessed that I wish the film was darker and featured morally gray characters. It’s an unpopular opinion, but I can’t help it. It’s how I’m wired. I prefer the cerebral and the brutal over the lighthearted.
I’m sure some of you are wondering exactly how I would change this film to make it more in line with my taste. I’d simply change the cast and alter a few plot points. Nothing major.
Here’s exactly what I would do.
Star Power
First, I’d give this film a little bit more star power. Fresh off his leading role in Chinatown, I’d cast Jack Nicholson as Chief Brody. Hooper wouldn’t be the loveable nerd Richard Dreyfuss brought to the big screen. In my film, he would be closer to Hooper in the novel, a slightly snobby, urban professional portrayed by Robert Redford. Quint would still be played by Robert Shaw. And Ellen Brody? That role would go to a young, upcoming Farrah Fawcett.
Act I
The movie would open at night on a young couple hanging out together at sea, Chrissie and Tom. They’re enjoying the moment. Cuddling. Flirting. Looking up at the stars together. And then the shark comes and rams the boat. Tom falls into the water. Chrissie is left groggy and confused. She gets back up and notices a dorsal fin moving towards them. She tells Tom to swim fast and get back to the boat. He tries his best, but doesn’t make it in time. The shark devours him right before Chrissie’s eyes. Then he rams the boat again, knocking Chrissie into the water. She too is eaten.
The next morning, we meet Chief Brody. He wakes up, gets a call about a body on the beach, and leaves to check it out. Ellen isn’t too happy about it. Lately, Brody has been prioritizing his work over his family. On his way out, Brody ignores his kids and rejects his wife’s goodbye kiss.
At the beach, he discovers Chrissie’s body washed ashore and gathers enough evidence to label it a shark attack. He wants to close down the beach. Mayor Vaughn and town officials don’t want to. 4th of July is approaching and Amity Island is a town that relies heavily on the income from summer tourism. They convince Brody to sweep it under the rug and re-assign Chrissie’s cause of death.
Sometime later, the beach is loaded. Brody sits near the shore, watching his surroundings anxiously. It’s killing him inside that the beach is open and dozens of people have no clue they are in mortal danger. That is until the shark appears and kills an elderly man.
Act II
This leads Amity Island to hold a town meeting. Brody is dead set on closing the beach and so are a few other local residents. Mayor Vaugh isn’t quite on board yet. This is where Robert Shaw makes his legendary entrance as Quint. He offers to capture the shark in exchange for ten thousand dollars. He also wants to do the job by himself. Vaugh shoots down Quint’s offer and opts to put a much cheaper bounty of three thousands dollars on the shark’s head.
Dozens of local fishermen begin competing to catch the shark, including the boisterous Ben Gardener. Most of them turn up empty handed. A few others narrowly escape becoming the shark’s next victim.
Matt Hooper is called in from the nearby Oceanographic Institute to help with his expertise. He goes to the morgue with Brody and examines the victim’s bite marks. He concludes they are most likely looking for a great white.
Brody invites him over for dinner that same night to discuss more about the shark. Hooper and Ellen are instantly attracted to each other. Ellen admires his youth, intellect and city slicker charm and Hooper admires her maturity. Throughout dinner the two subtly exchange flirty remarks and glances. Brody isn’t completely oblivious. The way his wife is looking at Hooper is the same way she looked at him when they first met.
Dinner is suddenly interrupted by a phone call. Ben Gardener has been missing for a few hours. Brody and Hooper leave to join the search team. As they scan the water, Hooper asks a few questions about Ellen to pass the time. Brody quickly changes the subject. They come across Ben’s abandoned boat. Hooper gets in the water to check the hull and beneath the surface, he finds Ben’s dead body and a shark tooth.
The next morning, the Mayor stages a fake press conference to convince the public the beach is safe. He claims a local fisherman caught a tiger shark not too far off the coast hours earlier. He gives the bounty money to the fisherman and shares a few words of condolences for the families of the victims. Brody and Hooper are disappointed. They pull Vaughn aside and beg him to be honest and close the beach. But he refuses.
“I can’t have a panic on my hands for the 4th of July,” he says.
Later, Hooper is out exploring the town. He bumps into Ellen on the street. They chat for a bit and grab lunch together. She asks him what it’s like to be an oceanographer and questions him about city life. Hooper asks her if she’s unhappy living in Amity. She admits she hates small town life and confesses she’s unhappy with her marriage as well. After lunch, they sneak off to Hooper’s motel room and sleep together.
The 4th of July has arrived. The beach is packed. Brody and Hooper are on high alert. They’re trying hard to be stoic, but their instincts tell them something bad is about to happen. And indeed it does. The shark appears once again and this time takes out a kid, Alex Kitner.
The mayor is distraught. His reputation is ruined and he’s most likely going to have to resign from office. Quint shows up and taunts him. “Still think my price is too high.” In a last act of desperation he hires Quint to take out the shark.
Act III
Brody convinces Quint to let him and Hooper join him on the hunt. He is reluctant at first, but eventually gives in. Brody drops by Hooper’s motel room to share the news. The blinds are slightly cracked. He sees Ellen and Hooper together through the window. It makes him furious, but he decides to not make a scene. He goes home instead and pretends he never saw anything.
That night, Brody doesn’t talk much. When Ellen talks to him he gives her short, cold responses. He makes a phone call to Hooper and tells him they are joining Quint at sea. Ellen overhears this and isn’t very happy. She urges Brody not to go. She thinks it’s too dangerous. But he brushes her off.
Brody and Hooper board Quint’s boat the next day. Ellen nervously bids them farewell from the dark. At sea, Quint voices his dislike of sharks and admits to hunting them for sport. Brody and Hooper think he’s crazy. But later they learn his craziness is the result of trauma he experienced during World War II. He was on board the U.S.S. Indianapolis, a naval ship that was sunk by the Japanese. Stranded in the ocean, he was forced to watch many of his fellow crew members get devoured by sharks until a rescue team showed up days later.
The men have several close encounters with the shark and almost capture him on a few occasions. Each encounter leaves the men more frustrated than the last. Quint begins drinking heavily and grows more aggressive. Tension mounts between Brody and Hooper as well. They end up having an argument that leads Hooper to confess to sleeping with Ellen. They fight and Brody almost throws him overboard. Quint has to break it up.
Meanwhile, Ellen has become so anxious about Brody’s safety she’s hopped on a boat and journeyed out to sea. She arrives at Quint’s boat, shocking everyone on board. The men urge her to turn back and go home, but she refuses. She tells them she’ll leave if Brody promises to leave too. The shark suddenly appears and kills her. Brody and Hooper are horrified.
The shark returns and rams the boat hard. Quint goes manic. He harpoons the shark, but it fails to do any significant harm to it. He whips the boat into high gear and chases it, blowing out the ship’s engine in the process.
Hooper suggests lowering himself inside the water in the shark cage, where he can poison it with a spear. Brody and Quint lower him in the water. After a few minutes of waiting, the shark appears. He tears his way through the cage and kills Hooper. Then it wrecks the boat further, leaping up onto the deck.
The boat starts sinking. Brody runs into the cabin for safety. Quint does the opposite. He pulls out a hunting knife and charges at the shark. He leaps onto its head and stabs it multiple times, but the shark manages to free itself from his grasp and ultimately pulls him into the ocean to his death.
Moments later, the shark comes back again for Brody. Brody throws an oxygen tank in its mouth and climbs the ship’s mast with a rifle. He fires several shots at the shark’s mouth until he hits the tank, blowing up the fish. Brody is left alone, floating in the water, wondering if he should swim back on his own or wait until someone rescues him.