Editor Reviews:

Description:
Steven Spielberg retrospective on the "Making of Jaws" with exclusive footage, behind-the-scenes and rare interviews

Jaws Archives: Photos, storyboards, and production drawings

Original theatrical trailer and teaser trailer

Digitally remastered

Special Silver Foil Packaging

Amazon.com essential video:
In the vastly overrated 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind puts the blame for Hollywood's blockbuster mentality at least partially on Steven Spielberg's box-office success with this adaptation of Peter Benchley's bestselling novel. But you can't blame Spielberg for making a terrific movie, which Jaws definitely is. The story of a Long Island town whose summer tourist business is suddenly threatened by great-white-shark attacks on humans bypasses the potboiler trappings of Benchley's book and goes straight for the jugular with beautifully crafted, crowd-pleasing sequences of action and suspense supported by a trio of terrific performances by Roy Scheider (as the local sheriff), Richard Dreyfuss (as a shark specialist), and particularly Robert Shaw (as the old fisherman who offers to hunt the shark down). The sequences on Shaw's boat--as the three of them realize that in fact the shark is hunting them--are what entertaining moviemaking is all about. --Marshall Fine

Rating : - More than a nibble
I don't need to evaluate the merits of the first great summer blockbuster; "Jaws" is a tremendous film, far better than most of the huge, expensive productions that Hollywood studios produce for general audiences these days. I'm happy to see that this edition looks and sounds so good. The print is clean, but not pristine - it looks like film, and not as though it were shot yesterday. It's not too grainy, but the colors are vibrant and the contrast is distinguished by those beautiful, natural hues that only good film stock can reproduce. The soundtrack is good, too; I played this through the little speakers of my TV and then on a friend's absurdly expensive surround sound array, and it sounds great on both.

The ominous expanse of the ocean - and the clanging buoy that marks the location of the story's first feeding - serve as the background of the main menu. The scene selection menu is what you'd expect, nothing more or less. Captions for the hearing impaired are available in English, as are French subtitles. However, no Spanish subtitles are available, which seems a rather severe omission in my opinion.

"Spotlight on Location" featurettes are produced for inclusion on many of Universal's DVDs, but they're rarely as long or detailed as this one. Interviews with the principle cast and crew, exclusive footage of deleted scenes and a wealth of photographs all yield more than a few intriguing stories pertaining to Benchley's book, the trials involved with the film's grueling and technically demanding shoot and its record-breaking reception. One of the most interesting aspects of the screenwriting process involved Quint's unforgettable U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue, which was first scripted by Howard Sackler as a short paragraph, extended by John Milius (who, given his political leanings, surely added that hint of patriotism) and finally revised extensively by Robert Shaw shortly before he performed it. I usually don't care for behind-the-scenes featurettes, but this one is so well-edited and provided so much substantial information that I found myself enjoying it.

Despite a few embarrassing exceptions, most of the deleted and alternate scenes are as ably shot and acted as anything that was retained for the theatrical cut. In a particularly humorous sequence, Robert Shaw harasses a young musician in a music store with the most overbearing variety of encouragement. The best of these provide some new perspective to the story, but they're all ultimately extraneous. As good as many of them are, there's no reason why they should have been retained, especially considering how lean the movie is at just over two hours. A couple of inadvertently amusing outtakes from two crucial scenes are also included.

The production photo gallery is enormous, including literally hundreds of photos of the cast and crew, equipment, settings and boats, as well as film stills, promotional photographs, advertisements, movie posters, lobby cards, book covers, articles concerning the film, and quite a lot more. Most of these pictures are interesting, but the lack of navigation in this feature is a major flaw. It's bad enough that a viewer can't scroll back and forth as they please, but we're also prohibited from fast-forwarding or rewinding through the selections. The gallery moves along at a sluggish pace and will loop infinitely until the 'menu' button on your remote control is pressed. With a flexible interface, this feature could have been so much more enjoyable.

The rest of the disc's features are negligible, but nice enough. A cute trivia game allows the player to view footage from the film to aid them in selecting multiple-choice answers, and "Shark World" serves as a primer for basic information about the species. Oddly enough, the special features listed on the keep case's paper sleeve include theatrical trailers (which are not included) and a screen saver (?).

Overall, this is quite a good DVD. I'd like to think that its few flaws were attended to for the production of the 30th Anniversary disc, but I haven't seen it. If not, maybe they'll get around to that when they release a 35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. I'm not really joking.