Line #64 WMG/Jaws - TV Tropes


1	[[WMG: The shark in the movie is female.]]
2
3	Why else would it be huge? (Aside from a Juvenile Megaladon). [[InsaneTrollLogic Since it’s female, that means it could have pups, and why else would it attack humans despite not tasting good?]] Revenge towards Humanity for killing its pups.
4
5	* It's not a female: you can clearly see his claspers as he swims to the right of the screen after attacking Hooper's cage for the first time.
6
7	[[WMG: The white shark terrorizing Amity is the same one responsible for the Jersey Shore attacks of 1916]]
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9	[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_shark_attacks_of_1916 in 1916 a series of shark attacks occurred along the New Jersey shore that killed four people and seriously injured one more.]] They are widely crediting with igniting the American public's fear of sharks, and sometimes for having partly inspired Benchley to write Jaws. Brody and Hooper in fact mention it in the film ("Jersey Shore...1916...five people chewed up in the surf!")
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11	The shark responsible was often pegged as a juvenile great white, about seven or eight feet in length. Recent research places the lifespan of the white shark at up to seventy years. If the shark was eight feet long in 1916, it would have been only a few years old, still a juvenile. By 1975, it would have been reaching the end of its lifespan and absolutely massive, perhaps approaching the 25 feet in the film.
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13	In one of the drafts of the screenplay, Hooper reveals that the shark is a man-eater on a global scale, killing swimmers from South Africa to Australia. It's possible it left the eastern seaboard years ago in 1916, and has been cruising the world eating people ever since, only now returning to its old stomping grounds for the grand finale.
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15	[[WMG: The author who wrote the novelization of JawsTheRevenge was as high as a kite when he thought up the VoodooShark thing]]
16	It really would explain everything.
17	* The "voodoo shark" concept wasn't invented by Hank Searls (the writer of the novelisation). It was part of the original screenplay, which Searls used as his source material. It wasn't the first time Searls wrote a Jaws movie novelisation that featured plot elements ultimately removed from the final released film; his novel of Jaws 2 draws heavily on that original screenplay, which was considerably bleaker than the eventual movie and focused on an Amity Island whose economy had been shattered by the shark attacks, with an extensive subplot about the Mafia trying to muscle into property development deals.
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19	[[WMG: Amity has been covering up shark attacks for years.]]
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21	It seems a strange coincidence that the first summer Brody serves as chief of police in Amity would see a rogue shark just happen to wander into Amity's waters. And when Brody's being pressured to report Chrissie's death as a boating accident, the phrase "It's happened before" seems ominous. Also, that tiger shark they catch is a man eater and "extremely rare for these waters"; another coincidence that there were two rare maneating rogues in those waters and they caught the wrong one.
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23	Or was the tiger shark planted to get caught and calm people back down?
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25	Perhaps when the shark first appeared, the town lost a fortune and a number of lives trying to kill it; eventually, to protect tourist dollars, they just developed a cycle of keeping deaths mysterious and then, when that eventually fails, "killing" the shark. It was just the unfortunate combination of a series of unusually high-profile attacks and a meddlesome new chief of police that finally made the system fail.
26	* This sounds a lot like the plot of ''Film/HotFuzz''.
27	* So what you're saying is that the shark was eating the citizens of Amity for the greater good?!
28	** The greater good....
29	*** SHUT IT!!
30
31	[[WMG: The shark was mutated by the Hiroshima bomb.]]
32
33	Exposure to the massive radiation not only gave the shark a prolonged lifespan, but also made it bigger, faster, and ''definitely'' stronger (strong enough to drag flotation barrels underwater). Also, Quint was the only surviving crew member of the USS Indianapolis. Seeing as how the crew were responsible for delivering the Hiroshima bomb, Creator/StevenSpielberg wanted to give Quint a KarmicDeath by having the shark kill him during the climax.
34	* Quint's story did not place him as the ''only'' survivor--nor, I think, did history.
35	* 317 Sailors and Marines survived the loss of the ''Indianapolis'', out of 1196. Additionally, it's a bit of a stretch to call it a KarmicDeath when Quint would have been an 18-year-old Seaman who had no idea what the hell was in that big crate lashed to the foc'sle. Even Captain [=McVey=] had only a very vague idea of what the bomb was. The darker implications of nuclear weapons were very poorly understood at the time; even its designers saw it as just a really powerful explosive.
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37	[[WMG: The shark and all the sharks in the sequels are suffering from a type of slow-acting "fish-rabies".]]
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39	While it's true that sharks have gone on month-long maneating sprees in the past, it's unlikely that so many sharks would be like this. It's possible that, in the ''Jaws'' Universe, a disease somewhat similar to rabies is going through the Great White population, causing them to become highly aggressive.
40	* Hang on, don't sharks have one of the best health records in the animal kingdom?
41	** Most of that health record is exaggerated or came from dubious studies. For instance, sharks can still get cancer and are common targets of parasites (especially species like the Greenland shark).
42
43	[[WMG: The shark is an escaped minion of a ''Film/JamesBond'' villain.]]
44	James Bond thought the shark died when he destroyed the island fortress of the shark's master.
45	* But then where's the [[EnergyWeapon Frickin Lasers]] on their heads?
46	** Budget cuts.
47
48	[[WMG: Martin Brody, the Sheriff of Amity Island, is the nephew of Marcus Brody, the main patron for Indiana Jones in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' and ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'']]
49	No reason other than that it'd be cool.
50
51	[[WMG: The shark is a zombie shark]]
52	To be precise, it's the shark from Creator/LucioFulci's ''Zombi 2''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH2Eh3wEarY This fight]] led to the infection.
53	* To be even more precise, the shark infected there was the tiger shark that was caught earlier in the film. It and Jaws had gotten into a fight offscreen (maybe over the remains of the first victim), and the infection was passed that way.
54	* So, who saved America from the main zombie invasion?
55	** Creator/BruceCampbell.
56
57	[[WMG:The shark doesn't exist. Jaws was an InUniverse propaganda film.]]
58	The purpose of the film was to scare the residents of Amity Island into avoiding the beaches, where an old man lives who remembered life before the government takeover and is willing to tell anyone...
59
60	[[WMG: Bruce is the juvenile form of a shark-based {{Kaiju}}.]]
61	See the Hiroshima thing above.
62
63	[[WMG: The shark is a baby Megalodon, an enormous but supposedly extinct species of shark.]]
64	Which would explain why it's both so large and so strong. In the book Literature/{{Meg}}, a baby Megalodon is mistaken for a great white shark.
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66	They aren't extinct. They just usually spend their time too deep for humans to find. There's a breeding population nearby, and juveniles are taking advantage of the shallower waters near the town until they're big enough to hold their own against the adults. That's why there's enough sharks for the sequels.
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68	* This actually gets (vaguely) alluded to in the novel. Hooper actually refers to the shark in the novel as "Damn near Megaladon." Quints dismisses him as crazy, but Brody is aghast at the very idea that the shark could be "just a baby."
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70	[[WMG:The fifth movie, titled "Jaws 4", will star a PlanetEater sized shark!]]
71	"How the heck are we going to revive the Jaws series?"
72	"We're gonna need a bigger shark."
73	* Onrclaims ''Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws'' has already been made and released. Exactly how, and when, that reached theaters is anyone's guess. But ''Jaws 4'' could be the sixth movie...
74	** Cruel Jaws was just an Italian mockbuster, like ''Snakes On A Train''...though I think that one was Mexican.
75	* Isn't ''Jaws: The Revenge'' already "Jaws 4"?
76	** Sorry, Jaws [[FanonDiscontinuity the]] [[{{Sequelitis}} what]] now?
77
78	[[WMG: The sharks are part of an extortion racket run by [[Creator/HPLovecraft the Deep Ones]]]]
79	They've heard that the island has fallen on hard times, and they are looking to start an outpost there. They organize the shark attacks as part of a ploy to drive the townsfolk into desperation so that they'll agree to their terms while carrying on a blood feud with the Brody family. Their latest plan will involve the aforementioned "bigger shark". This also makes sense, as the film is set in [[LovecraftCountry New England.]]
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81	[[WMG: It will be {{retcon}}ned that the sharks are [[VoodooShark being sent by a clan of shark-people]], some of which live amongst humans.]]
82	They're ticked off, and so they use their non-voodoo Shark Powers to get the humans to keep away from the oceans. Only they [[strike: only have enough power to [[HollywoodVoodoo incarnate one shark-god]] at a time]] only live near Amity and can't control the giant sharks further away.
83	* Oh, they have more power than that. ''Jaws 3D'' put one in a marina. ''Jaws: the Revenge'' had a shark follow Martin Brody's wife to Bermuda.
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85	[[WMG: The shark is actually a robot.]]
86	From the future.
87
88	* [[Film/TheLastSharknadoItsAboutTime Um...]]
89
90	[[WMG: Brody is actually Buddy Rosso from ''Film/TheFrenchConnection'']]
91	Brody tells he used to be a cop in New York and how people got killed all the time. He got fed up with it, but being an undercover cop, he wanted to keep his identy secret and thus changed his name and moved far away to Amity.
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93	[[WMG:The entire movie is the shark having a dream.]]
94	It was hurt by a fisherman once, and so it imagines a nice little revenge fantasy against the land-dwellers. Then it drifts off, starts to sleep-swim, and whangs its mouth painfully on a drainpipe, leading to the "exploding metal tank in the teeth" image just before it wakes up.
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96	And yes, contrary to UrbanLegend, sharks ''do'' sleep.
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98	[[WMG: Only the first film occurred: All the sequels are Brody having increasingly surreal nightmares from the events of the first film.]]
99	That's why the sequels got progressively stupider, the edge to Brody's PTSD is wearing off.
100
101	[[WMG: The shark was a [[Series/DoctorWho Time Lord]].]]
102	Somebody had to say it. Explains how it kept coming back for the Brodys.
103
104	* That is the coolest theory I heard. A shark time lord, I mean how is that not awesome?
105	** Still got fe--FINS!
106	*** Aww, I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger!
107	[[WMG: The Shark is an ancient god that Amity Worshipped before it became modern.]]
108	The Shark is really just an ancient islander god, that Amity worshipped. It provided wealth and resources for them in exchange for sacrifices, specifically ones that would swim in the beach. When Amity became modern, the Island started to disbelieve said god and deny it sacrifices. In revenge, the shark would ruin their July 4th summerfest every year and rather than take responsibility for their actions, the Islanders decided to cover it up like it never happened. Then Martin Brody defeated it, so in addition to it's traditional ruining, the shark goes after the Brodys as well.
109
110	[[WMG: The shooting star seen in the background....]]
111	Is actually [[Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial E.T.'s]] spaceship.
112
113	[[WMG: Jaws takes place in the Franchise/JurassicPark universe]]
114	[=InGen=] geneticists successfully clone their first extinct animal in 1975, the Megalodon, in an experiment to see if large-scale cloning on extinct animals can be exploited to create a theme park. This creature escapes and is last seen terrorizing Amity. Even the source novel speculated that the Great White they were after was really a juvenile Big Meg.
115	* This. Is. CANON. AND NO ONE ELSE SAYS OTHERWISE!!
116	** Now we only have to explain a swimming mosquitoes trapped inside of amber.
117	*** Maybe a mosquito got the blood from a megalodon that died and washed up on a beach.
118	** Maybe [=InGen=] spliced Great White DNA with Megalodon DNA found in fossilized teeth? It wouldn't be the only time they used genetic splicing.
119	** This would also explain why the shark doesn't look or act like a great white; because it isn't.
120
121	[[WMG: The Shark is GaiasVengeance against Quint for killing countless other sharks.]]
122	Quint had been hunting sharks for years by the events of the movie as revenge for what happened after the Indianapolis sank. The Shark from the film is the ocean enacting a little revenge of its own. The Shark is both extremely large and extremely intelligent. It does things that don't make any sense, yet work to its advantage. It isn't a normal shark by a long shot. It dies to Brody immediately after Quint has been devoured by charging at him from the surface. Did it swallow the IdiotBall, or is it letting itself die now that its task is complete?
123
124	[[WMG: The Shark is part of a major Soviet psychological operations campaign.]]
125	They wanted to terrorize Amity into submission, so they could use the island as a beachead for an invasion of the Eastern Seaboard. Brody was a SpannerInTheWorks, however, forcing the Soviets to keep trying, until they gave up in 1987 with the onset of glasnost and the worsening economy forcing them to give up genetic experimentation.
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127	In [[VideoGame/JawsUnleashed 2006]], however, documents relating to the experiments were found by the [[WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers the Planeteers]], who created a new shark and sent it to take out [=EnvironPlus=]. They also had it attack and eat civilians to instill fear in the populace so [=EnvironPlus=] employees would quit out of fear in droves. ''And it worked. It ALL worked.''
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129	[[WMG: If a ''Jaws 5'' ever does get off the ground, the Great White will no longer be the only antagonist..]]
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131	Since most monster films nowadays are usually versus movies, a fifth Jaws movie would most likely follow that trend. (if they don't, we'll probably have yet another sequel that's just a rehash of the first film) the shark this time would not only be after the human protags, but also another super large animal who's stealing it's food. Said animal would be either..
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133	1. A killer whale. It be a nice way to cash in on the classic rivalry between the two species, and also a nice way to reference to [[Film/OrcaTheKillerWhale one of the original films more famous knockoff's.]]
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135	2. A saltwater crocodile. Another way to cash in on the classic rivalry between the two animals, not to mention reptiles are getting pretty popular now.

Context WMG / Jaws