Factual error: When Hooper sees the hole in the hull of Ben Gardner's boat, he uses his knife to pry out the shark tooth. The tooth is located at the bottom of the hole, with its flat root side stuck deep in the wood and its pointy side facing up. It is completely impossible for the shark's tooth to become wedged in the wood this way, while he takes a nice bite out of the wood hull. (00:49:15)
Jaws (1975)
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Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Murray Hamilton, Lorraine Gary, Carl Gottlieb
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Hooper: You know those eight guys in the fantail launch out there? Well, none of 'em are gonna make it out of the harbor alive.
Question: Instead of going under water and trying to poison Jaws in the shark cage, couldn't he have been harpooned with the poison from the boat just as easy?
Chosen answer: As mentioned in the movie, the posion was in the needle and the shark's hide was too tough for the needle to penetrate. Hooper had to go in the water so that he could get the needle into the shark's mouth, where the flesh was less tough.
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Suggested correction: When Hooper uses the knife to pry to tooth out, it took very little effort, suggesting that the tooth wasn't wedged into that spot, but merely just resting in that spot.
The shark tooth was inserted into the wood by the prop crew with its flat root side down, which would have been impossible to have occurred during the attack on the hull. As to the statement that the tooth was "merely just resting in that spot" then Hooper would not have needed to use the blade to remove it from the wood, plus the fact that since it was underwater it would have floated away during the hours after the attack. But it did not float away, so it must have been at the very least snugly fit into the wood hull. Still impossible.
Super Grover ★
The original mistake says that the root of the tooth was embedded In the wood. Not possible since it should be the sharp end in the wood and the root showing on top (as described in the mistake).
Ssiscool ★