I’m writing this early in the morning on 20 Jun 2025.   That date is significant because 50 years ago to the day (20 Jun 1975) was the release of the original Jaws movie.  Bruce the shark is bloody 50 years old now. It doesn’t seem like a film that should be that old.  When I stop and think about my life and events, sure it’s that old.  But it doesn’t FEEL like it.  Some things from decades gone by have a feel from a different era, but this doesn’t. Oh sure a few things in the movie date it – the cars in use at the time for one.  But when you watch it, the base drama of the piece is just as fresh now as it was back then.

When my daughter was much younger, I came up with this idea of an “education” list of films I thought she should see.  Even if she didn’t like them, probably should see them to get what gripped people in times past, and perhaps stuff she’d like?  The list was stuff created by her parents also partially to give her insight into her parents and what they liked,  Anyway, one of those films was Jaws.  She quite liked the film too.  So that pleased me.  Not everything we showed her from this list she liked, but she liked this.

This brings up a memory of my own.  The first time I ever saw Jaws was in a place I doubt many share the same experience of.  The first time I saw Jaws was in a middle school assembly.  The Philadelphia school district in the late 70’s would have the entire school assemble in the main auditorium and show them theatrical movies – ON FILM with an actual projector.  That’s what happened here.  Now I don’t recall the exact date, but given when I graduated High School this likely would have been 1978 or 1979, only about 3-4 years out of the original release.  Now those with kids these days, think about that.  I can’t see current schools showing students current theatrical films. The $$ would be off the charts I’m sure, and then of course it being a film like Jaws.  When I look back on that event, I wonder how they pulled that off.  Different times for sure – different times.

One fun thing about that old middle school viewing.  As I mentioned it was an actual film print we watched, and because of that, and given it was the 70’s, it was older tech.  Right when you get to the end of the film, and Quint got chomped by Bruce, the film got stuck and melted.  Was a mixture of laughing and frustration.  What I can’t remember 45-ish years out is if we moved past the burnt spot and finished the film, or it ended there, which would have had us not see the shark dispatched.  I remember laughing at that – it was also the first time I’d seen film melt in a proper showing.  The most recent time I recall that happening was my OG showing of Star Wars Episode III on opening night. :)  Anyway, I digress….

Much has been written over the decades on this film, and I’m not going to write a ton here about the movie itself, but I loved it then, I love it now. The film itself is a masterclass in drama.  There’s so many parts of this that are brilliant.  But I’ll point out a few.  Robert Shaw as Quint was amazing.  He’s the captain of the boat that our other main cast go after the shark with.  I’ve seen him in several other things, but two others that stick out to me are Red Grant in the 007 film “From Russia With Love” (1962) and “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” (1974).  Pelham is on my top 10 list of films I’ve ever seen – that was two bangers in a row there for Shaw, who sadly died a few years later in 1978, he never lived to see how massive this film became.  Spielberg’s directing was of course amazing.  That he had to counter the faulty physical shark prop worked to the film’s benefit – Bruce himself was definitely a “less is more” thing.  There’s also what I think is one of the strongest parts of the film and that’s the music.  This is of course one in a long long LONG line of brilliance by the legend John Williams.  I could write a whole blog series on Williams stuff itself, but his theme to Jaws here is has to be one of his top 10 musical moments of his career, and there’s a HUGE list to pull from here (Superman 1978, ET, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and of course…  Star Wars). All of those things I mention above (and many more, it’s not JUST those couple) made one of the most brilliant pieces of cinema around.

Another short sidetrack. Some years back a fan produced an unofficial making of for the OG Star Trek episode “The Doomsday Machine”. In that he draws a parallel between Sol Kaplan’s score for that episode and the Williams main score for Jaws and how similar they are.  He even includes clips from both Doomsday Machine and Jaws to show how similar they are.  Here’s a link to the video (the relevant bit starts at 8:48 and lasts about 30 seconds).

I know this film was based off a book, but I’ve never read it.  Part of the experience of reading a book is that you create visions in your head over what you’re reading should look like.  Given I think MOST people (not all obviously) would have seen the film before even knowing it was a book first, I opted out because anything I could conjure in my mind when reading it would either just be recalling what happened in the movie, or I’d go “Hang on, that’s different”.  I have to imagine I would be unable to immerse myself in the book because I’d be constantly comparing it to my mind.   The book is still very much in print – so much so it was re-released in a 50th anniversary reprint which is available now on Amazon.

I don’t count that middle school showing as theatrical.  It was the one thing that had eluded me over the years.  A theatrical showing. Oh, I’d seen it on TV a few times, had the VHS back in the day.  I even bought it on Blu-Ray in 2012.  I know the film very well, but I never saw it in theatres.  That is until 2022 when the film was put back in theatres in 2022 – in IMAX.  I absolutely made sure to grab a ticket to that.  Why they did that for the 47th anniversary is an odd choice (unless it was planned for 2020 for 45th and covid?) – you’d think they’d wait a couple of years more until now for the 50th to put it back in theatres.  Still, I enjoyed the hell out of it.  It looked bloody amazing on the big screen.  Actually as I sit here writing this, I really do wish they would have put it back for the 50th.  I would have gone to see it again.  UPDATE: About an hour after I posted this article, I found out it is indeed coming out in theatres again for the 50th, but for a limited run – just one week from Aug 29 through Sep 4 – Labor Day in the US basically.  I’ll be there.

Once again, as I write this on the actual 50th anniversary, later this evening on NBC here in the states, they’re running Jaws on conventional terrestrial television.  Given my past with this, I’ll definitely tune in.  They’re going to have an intro from Spielberg himself talking about the film.  He rarely talks about his own films in detail – none of his on Blu-Ray have audio commentaries – he doesn’t do them.  So to hear him say anything will be a treat.   This version of Jaws (they’re calling Jaws 50) will also be on NBC’s streaming service Peacock TV if you have that, so you can watch it there, too.  National Geographic has produced a new look back special for the film, it’s called “Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story“.  That special will be on Disney+ and Hulu.  It will also be on a new 4k 50th anniversary Blu-Ray release of the film which is available now (details on that release here and here).  It appears the intro for NBC/Peacock was recorded when they were producing the NatGeo documentary.  I’m most looking forward to that, since it’ll be NEW Jaws stuff.

There were three sequels to the movie, but with diminishing effect.  The second is “ok”.  The third was pretty darned bad, and the fourth is downright awful (I have those too – haha).  The original came with a digital code, that I redeemed on iTunes, and Apple later upgraded that to a 4k version, so that was nice.   But it looked best in theatres when I saw it on IMAX.  If they re-release it again in theatres, go see it.  The original summer blockbuster still carries a punch five decades later, and is best experienced in a movie theatre.  Not a home video format, even if you’ve spent a crap ton of cash on a true home theater. :)

P.S.  After I posted this, my daughter woke up, and saw the “bigger boat” graphic on my computer.  She said “yeah, I know – Jaws is 50 today, you told me”.  I then added that I banged out 1,500 or so words this morning first thing when I woke up.  She added “Not like you’d eat breakfast first like a normal person, Dad!”