Corrected entry: When Quint is being attacked, his machete is in his left hand. When he's dragged into the water, it's in his right hand.
Corrected entry: In the middle of the fight with the shark at sea, Quint tells Hooper 'full ahead', then Brody repeats the command but says 'slow ahead' twice.
Corrected entry: In the scene towards the end of the film, when they are trying to outrun the shark back to land (when Quint says something like: we'll get him in the shallows and drown him) you see a shot from the rear of the boat, and in the distance you can clearly see the shore line. But after that point in the movie, you never see the shore, even when they are swimming back at the very end.
Correction: In many shots land is visible at the horizon, in the distance, as well as in the shot when Brody and Hooper are using the barrels to assist their swim back to shore.
Correction: Just watched it again, and yes, when Hooper and Brody are swimming in at the end of the movie, you do see the land. Look at the very right upper side of the screen.
Corrected entry: During their first attempt to attach a barrel to the shark, Hooper makes a point to include an electronic tracking device. Afterwards, Hooper never uses this device to track the shark. (01:24:50)
Correction: Since the shark doesn't attempt to get away, he wouldn't need to. The tracking device would only be useful if the shark left the immediate area, which it never does.
Corrected entry: When Chief Brody is attempting to pump the water out of the boat, he has the drain hose of the pump lying on the deck right next to him. So, in essence, he was doing absolutely no good whatsoever.
Correction: Probably true, but not the point of the scene. Brody isn't paying attention to pumping the water out of the boat and is only doing it because Quint asked him to. Brody realizes that Quint is overmatched by the shark and wants to get out of there. You can see the frustration on his face as he is working the pump half-heartedly and he then throws the pump on the floor of the boat and begins climbing the ladder to the bridge, presumably to confront Quint (upon which, the shark nearly capsizes the boat when he swims directly under it).
Corrected entry: Another scene that is proof that the film was made in either early spring or late fall is the scene where the mayor is arguing with Hooper and Brody about the existence of a shark in front of the graffiti covered sign. It is supposed to be right before July 4th, yet everyone is in coats and jackets.
Correction: The movie was indeed filmed mostly during the spring, but this scene isn't proof of that. The mayor is dressed in business attire throughout the movie, which makes sense since he's a public official. Hooper is wearing a sport jacket, but this is probably because he's meeting with the mayor and didn't think it appropriate to be dressed in shirt sleeves, and Brody is wearing his uniform jacket, possibly for the same reason. Moreover, the movie is set on an island where it is probably somewhat cooler in the mornings (when the scene is set).
Corrected entry: In the whole movie, the shark eats five people, including Quint, and what appears to be at least half a refrigerator full of meat. If a shark did this in real life, no matter how big it was, it would die from gorging itself, since sharks are cold-blooded and, like snakes and lizards, can take up to six months digesting a meal.
Correction: Sharks have brains the size of chickpeas, and they have one instinct - EAT. A shark will disgorge a partially eaten meal in order to eat a fresh one. During feeding frenzies sharks are seen to swallow huge lumps of flesh, disgorge them, and start all over again.
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie when the shark explodes and we see it sinking to the bottom of the ocean, the ropes connecting the dorsal and the tail fins are visible (broken). You can see the same thing in the shot where the shark jumps up onto the Orca.
Correction: The lines that are visible, both when the shark leaps onto Orca and then when bits of it sink, are the lines connected to the harpoons on both sides of its dorsal fin.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Bruce (the Shark) rams the cage, you can see Hooper with blood coming from a small wound (it is his, I've checked). after a bit of this he swims to the bottom of the ocean. His wound may have stopped bleeding, but couldn't have healed so fast and the shark would have caught his blood trail instantly.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the guys are sitting on the boat, singing "Show me the way to go home" when one of the guys (can't remember who) shushes the other two. The camera goes to a board where the shark is about to hit. The board is already cracked before the shark hits it.
Correction: It's an old, weather-beaten boat, so cracks in the boards are very likely.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Hooper and Brody discover Ben Gardner's boat, Hooper explains to Brody that he owns the boat they're using. If he had access to this high-tech boat with sonar, fish finders, etc, why would they hunt the shark using only that piece of crap Orca?
Correction: They need Quint's expertise. Do you think ornery old Quint would get in the college boy's boat?
Corrected entry: When the shark is attacking Quint, the boat etc., his eyes do not roll back. Great White sharks roll their eyes back when they attack. Sharks that don't roll their eyes back have protective eyelids, but the shark doesn't close its eyes either.
Correction: Sharks only do this with some prey items, seals etc as its eyes are a weakness. The shark due to its size could not have perceived the human as a danger and in fact in reports from survivors of encounters with white sharks they often say they looked into the eyes while being bitten.
Corrected entry: Hooper purposely holds the shark gun outside the cage so he'll lose it when Bruce hits the cage in the next shot.
Correction: The fact that Hooper, holds the poison shark dart with his hand between the cage bars is not a film mistake, not even a deliberate one. Within the storyline this occurrence is reasonable and perfectly plausible. Hooper, who is very nervous and extremely anxious, stands ready to strike at the shark, specifically in its mouth, as he watches the shark swim off to his left. After pulling off the cork he readies the dart gun again as he looks around for the shark, but is quickly startled by its sudden thrust on the cage, behind him, causing him to lose his grip of the shark dart as he falls back.
Corrected entry: Richard Dreyfus is driving the boat, then playing cards, then driving again.
Corrected entry: When the little boy on the yellow water raft is supposedly eaten by Jaws, you see two boys carrying him out of the water when everyone is clearing out.
Correction: When Ellen asks her husband, Chief Brody, "Are you okay?" behind her there are five boys who wear red swimming trunks, that head into the water. Alex Kintner, the boy who will soon be attacked, is also wearing red swimming trunks. After the shark attack, the boy in the red swim trunks being dragged out of the water is not Alex.
Corrected entry: When Hooper sees Ben Gardner's head, he drops the torch, knife and tooth. In the shot from underneath, only the torch and knife are seen sinking to the bottom, the tooth is nowhere to be seen. (00:48:00)
Correction: The tooth can be seen zigzagging around below the hull of Ben Gardner's boat. It just doesn't sink to the bottom as quickly as the torch and knife do.
Corrected entry: On the report Chief Brody is typing up while talking to the coroner, the girl's body is listed as being found late at night. It was during the day.
Correction: It was late at night, even the time is shown on the report when the death occured: 11:50 PM.
Corrected entry: Throughout the film, most notably in the scenes where Dreyfuss is attacked in the cage and the Orca is repeatedly rammed by the shark, the action depends upon the shark swimming backwards. No shark can do this.
Correction: Each time the cage is rammed, it would move. So the shark just has to 'accelerate' from its current position to hit the cage again without reversing.
Corrected entry: When in the shark cage, Hooper drops his weapon twice.
Correction: It does look a bit like he drops his weapon twice, but in fact it looks more like a bar or something from the cage.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Brody is stabbing the shark with the harpoon, he is stabbing the shark's head. But when the shark goes underwater, it shows the harpoon being stuck in his mouth. (01:59:38)
Correction: The shark bites the harpoon and snatches it from Brody's hands.
Correction: The machete does not change hands between shots. Quint is holding the machete in his left hand, then there's a closeup of the shark's snout, and then a closeup of Quint's face as he spits blood, and it's not until the fourth shot we see Quint holding the machete in his right hand, which he had time to do during those closeups.
Super Grover ★