Rewatchables Reference

• Bill: The kids getting together and going sailing with the happy John Williams music. Eddie getting eaten (the wood breaking, getting pulled down). The first big sailboat attack where Mike almost dies.
• Sean (winner): The woman pouring gasoline all over herself and the boat before lighting a flare and exploding. 'My favorite thing in the movie. I will watch that for the rest of my life.'
• CR: The doomed sailing trip / last 50 minutes. The helicopter attack. Also Eddie getting eaten.
• Bill: Brody in the shark tower freaking out and shooting at the bluefish. Brody showing them the shark picture ('I know what a shark looks like because I've seen one up close').

• Bill: Letting kids hang out in a bar – 18-year-olds smoking and drinking.
• Sean: Len talking to Martin Brody about his wife: 'She's a hell of a woman, sir.' Bill vowed to start complimenting friends' wives over July 4th weekend.
• Bill: Donna Wilkes's very late-70s-specific hair – bangs popped out on the side, only existed for about two years.
• Bill: Kids hanging out at the beach with a guitar – very '70s.

• CR: The teenage behavior – stashing beers in a garage that have been cooking all summer. Having a code ('nine-oh-eight') for 'get me out of here.'
• Bill: The late-'70s summer beach montage (kid putting mustard on hot dog, someone flying a kite) leading to Brody in the shark tower.
• CR: The cruising/sailboat culture as a replacement for car culture (American Graffiti on the water).

• Bill: Eddie getting pulled down into the water. Also the sunset scene when Brody picks up the poison bullets.
• CR: The water skiing wide shots of her going back and forth across the ocean.
• Sean: The long crane shot at the gala event that goes all the way to the swimming pool and down – 'that's Jeannot in his bag.'

• No 70s songs thrown in. It's all John Williams ('J-Dubs just killing it'). There's stuff on the radio but nobody could determine what it was.
• The kids don't sing anything memorable – 'I've been working on this riff.'

• Bill: The first hour – it's just slow.
• CR: The incredulity of the town council. They have enough evidence to listen to the hero of the previous movie, but nobody gives him any credibility.

• Bill: Larry Vaughn Jr. should have been killed by the shark – he's not needed in the last 20 minutes and it would have been the natural payoff.
• CR: The enormous group of 22+ teenagers – hard to keep track of who's who. 'I feel like 6 of them are named Eddie.'
• Sean: No Black people in the movie. 'I don't understand why there aren't any Black people.' Bill: 'The Van Lathan Award: Did this movie need more Black people?'
• Bill: Mike Brody – terrible actor. 'He gets knocked unconscious and he's giving the same performance unconscious as he was during the first hour.'

• Bill: Donna Wilkes – 'screams like an absolute maniac for the last 10 minutes.' Both realistic and pretty annoying. The classic '70s move where a guy tells her to calm down with a borderline domestic violence shake.
• CR: Anne Dusenberry as Tina Wilcox (Miss Amity) – 'she really chews the scenery every time she gets it, runs up to the camera.'
• Sean's flex: Murray Hamilton giving simultaneously the worst and best performance – 'the greatest acting I've ever seen.' He's dead-eyed and barely giving a performance because of his wife's cancer scare, but it weirdly works for the character of a politician who's sold his soul.

• Bill: Mayor Vaughn keeping his job after 'Jaws' 1 is the biggest reach in movie sequel history. He shouldn't be allowed to live in Amity, let alone be mayor.
• CR: If Cousin Jackie never shows up in Amity, there's a much lower body count because all the guys are 'trim struck' by her – she's driving all the reckless sailing.
• Sean: This is actually the movie that killed the New Hollywood – a mediocre sequel making $78M proved you could print money with sequels regardless of quality.
• Craig: People used to have sex on sailboats – 'that didn't make sense to me because if it doesn't go well, then I'm stuck at sea.'

• Roy Scheider was supposed to do The Deer Hunter (the De Niro part) but had a conflict with Universal and ended up contractually obligated to do 'Jaws 2' instead. Sean: 'It's kind of similar to Sorcerer – he wanted McQueen and went with Schneider, and I think it's better that he went with Schneider.'
• Richard Dreyfuss demanded his character have an affair with Mrs. Brody (from the novel). They said no. He made The Big Fix instead.
• Ricky Schroeder was originally cast as Sean Brody but got replaced.

• Bill: Jeffrey Kramer (Brody's sidekick) – went on to do 'Halloween' 2.
• CR: Joe Mascolo as Len Peterson – was on Days of Our Lives for 34 years.

• Keith Gordon as Doug Fetterman – the only kid who stands out. Gets the Captain Bligh moment.
• CR: The unseen character Grace Kinney, who's teasing the old guy's son through the window.

• Scheider got $500K and points, was miserable most of the time, but it worked out – had All That Jazz the next year.
• Scheider faked a nervous breakdown and trashed the Beverly Wilshire hotel room to try to get out of the movie. Didn't work.
• The Brody front porch has a barrel from the first 'Jaws' painted as a flower planter.
• The cable junction set started floating away during shooting. The fiberglass rocks were slippery.
• The original director John D. Hancock was fired; Jeannot Szwarc was brought in.

• Lorraine Gary: 'Jaws': The Revenge, actually.
• Donna Wilkes: Angel (1984) – 'high school student by day, hooker by night.'
• Water skiing murders: Yes. This plus Fonzie jumping the shark on Happy Days = apex water culture.
• Making-of documentaries about a movie: A good one, enjoyed by the hosts.
• Murray Hamilton: Definitely not.

• Bill: The woman pouring gasoline on herself – what was the plan? 'It's like what would happen in a Naked Gun version of this movie.'
• Bill: After they save Sean, Mike's friend keeps kissing the 8-year-old on the cheek over and over. 'Don't you kiss my son on the cheek like that.' Andy is 'a little familiar with Sean.'
• Bill: Mike bringing his 8-year-old brother along for the let's-get-drunk-on-sailboats trip. Terrible big brother move.
• CR: Only one nitpick – there are way too many kids (14+) and it's impossible to keep them straight.

• Bill: Obviously prequel – the USS Indianapolis movie. Sean pitched a Chris Nolan version: 'Oppenheimer could have ended with the USS Indianapolis leaving.'
• CR: What if Brody rode the wave to mayor and found himself in Larry's position – resisting reports of a new shark due to financial pressure?

• Sean: Who is funding Mayor Vaughn's campaign? (Len Peterson – he bought the election.)
• Bill: What did the final three of the Miss Amity contest look like? Was Tina like a mafia boss with no competition?
• Sean: There's no proof of what Brody did in 'Jaws' 1. No iPhones, no cameras. Hooper just says 'yeah, it was incredible.' Is the entire 'Jaws' series a Martin Brody fever dream?
• CR: If you live in Amity after 'Jaws', how long before you get back in the water?

• Sean: The gasoline canister. 'I would display it prominently.'
• Bill: The Martin C. Brody 1975 Man of the Year Award plaque.
• CR: The barrel planter from the Brody front porch.

Bill: Maybe believe the guy who was a prophetic hero 3 years ago that something might be going on again. Trust him for a split second.

• Bill: 'Jaws' 1 then 'Jaws 2'. Also 'Jaws': The Revenge ('makes 'Jaws 2' look a little bit better').
• Sean: 'Jaws' 1.

John Williams. 'Just give this to John Williams and 30 of them.'

• Bill: Universal won the movie (the studio – it proved sequels could be enormously profitable).
• Sean: Jeannot Szwarc – 'he saved this dog baby. This thing was headed for disaster.'

Craig's review: 'In a vacuum, pretty good. If this was the first one to come out, it would be a quality shark slasher movie. You could make the case that without 'Jaws' 1, there's actually a larger 'Jaws' franchise.'