'Jaws' turns 40: Five reasons it wouldn't work today

Toronto Sun ^ | May 31, 2015 | Steve Tilley

[rickmichaels]

It might be safe to go in the water now.

Monday marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Jaws, director Steven Spielberg’s tale of a great white shark terrorizing a picturesque seaside town. It’s a bona fide classic, deserving of all the praise it gets.

But it’s also something of a relic, a throwback to a simpler time in moviemaking when we were less cynical and more easily frightened. For all the monster movie remakes being trotted out this decade, it’s actually not surprising we haven’t seen Jaws sequel since 1987’s Jaws: The Revenge (and not just because that movie was astoundingly, impossibly awful.)

As much as we love Jaws, here are five reasons it would fail if it were to be made today.

1. Audiences have no patience

In adapting Peter Benchley’s novel for the big screen, Spielberg took his time creating characters we cared about and a world we could believe in, then slowly ratcheted up the tension and terror. We don’t get a clear look at the shark in Jaws until more than halfway through the film, and that just wouldn’t fly today. There are some exceptions – Cloverfield, Super 8 and last year’s Godzilla come to mind – but for the most part, modern audiences hate waiting to see a monster movie’s main attraction.

2. Less is no longer more

For a movie about a giant man-eating shark, Jaws spends very little time – only four minutes in total – showing the beast on screen. Again, a handful of modern monster movies have gotten away with this, but even last year’s otherwise solid Godzilla enraged some fans with how little screen time its radioactive lizard got. Doing a killer shark movie with only four minutes of killer shark in it would be box office suicide in 2015.

3. Digital effects would ruin it

Spielberg famously had endless problems with his mechanical shark prop, but the final result on screen was an actual, physical presence, giving the actors something to react to. A movie like Jaws wouldn’t be made today without reliance on computer-generated effects, and our eyes would immediately know that what we’re seeing isn’t real, diminishing its fear factor. That’s why you can bet the all-digital dinos of Jurassic World just aren’t going to have the same impact as the massive robotic T-rex in Jurassic Park.

4. No one goes swimming anymore

OK, that’s an exaggeration. But it’s true that summer beach vacations just aren’t the tradition they once were. Parents and kids alike are burdened with more commitments and less free time, and Griswold-style family trips are becoming a relative rarity. A shark terrorizing a seaside resort wouldn’t resonate the same way it did in 1975 – most of us would shrug and say, “Who has time to go to the beach?”

5. Sharks have jumped the shark

Maybe it began with a computer-generated shark making a meal of Samuel L. Jackson in 1999’s Deep Blue Sea, or maybe it was even earlier than that. But sharks have gone from being a primal menace to a punchline. Imagine trying to make a serious, scary killer shark movie in the wake of Sharknado. You’d need more than just a bigger boat.

[TalBlack]

There is no problem with the audience.

An audience falls under the spell of a TRUE teller of tales and will gladly go where he takes them.

The author doesn't seem to realize that the problem today lies with the teller of the tale. If he is a mere technician then no he won't know how to structure his story to bring his audience along.

[Alex Murphy]

Throw in that they can create horrors that are much more scary than sharks these days.

Such as two-headed sharks....

[Alex Murphy]

9. Sharks/zombies don’t eat zombies/sharks.

We need to talk....

[Oratam]

...and the mayor stood to benefit from a real estate developmemt deal. Glad they left that out, too.

[jmcenanly]

Greenpeace and allied organizations would be picketing the movie as being biased against sharks, and promoting the hunting of same, despite what happened to Quint.

[Hatteras]

I saw that OCEARCH alert but I'm thinking there was some kind of tracking error. Not that Mary Lee or other large sharks have never ventured that far into the Chesapeake and it's tributaries... but in this case, Mary Lee pinged in the bay as far north as Tilghman Island just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and then, just 36 minutes later, pinged off the southern New Jersey coast...

But I do have a couple of friends who are heading up for a Bay Bridge swim in a couple of weeks and the alert didn't quite sit well with them. :-)

[left that other site]

CGI has ruined the Superhero genre, Sci-Fi, monster and horror Flicks AND Disney.

I hate CGI.

I would rather watch Star Trek TOS than any of the new Star Treks.

I would rather watch the First (unadulterated” Star wars than any of the Junky “Pre-quels”.

I would rather watch the first “Superman” than the more recent ones.

I would rather watch “Snow White and the seven Dwarves” than “Frozen”.

I love the art of Special Effects and stunt work that made Classic movies so magical.

I hate that every movie that has come out recently is all visual noice.

But that’s just me. I guess I’m just old fashioned, and ymmv.

[Borges]

I saw this comment on social media. Sigh.

“This stupid f** movie has created an irrational fear in the global population of a beautiful apex oceanic predator that rarely feeds on humans. This fear is lending itself to the demolition of sharks for shark fin soup, to the point that the oceanic ecosystem (which produces 70% of your oxygen) is being disrupted.
There is zero guarantee that the new oceanic balance after sharks are eliminated will produce the same amount of O2. So, f** this movie and celebrating it.”

[Oatka]

But sharks have gone from being a primal menace to a punchline.

As in:

or, as a Barracuda get into the act:

"Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda"

where in James Fra

or, coming out this July: "Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf"

And let's not forget the forgettable 1981 ripoff

wherein "James Franciscus tries to save hundreds of swimmers in a coastal resort after a Great White Shark starts terrorizing the area."

[b9]

THANK YOU