Hook us up another channel with JAWS....the extended TV cut

When JAWS made its US TV debut, it was gonna need a longer edition, so the extended TV cut of the Steven Spielberg shark classic was born.

With adverts, it was now designed to run for three hours, not that such practice is anything new, with the TV channel wanting to milk more summer dollars out of advertisers.

The same had also happened with the likes of Earthquake (1974), King Kong (1976), Superman: The Movie (1978), Halloween (1978) and another Peter Benchley adaptation featuring Robert Shaw, The Deep (1978).

This doesn't mean they were the definitive cuts of the film, they were still what you saw in the cinema or own at home on every format known to man or fish.

With most movies, a lot more footage is filmed than actually ends up in the final product. This is done to keep activity on a production moving if experiencing difficulties (such as broken down sharks) and also to give the director options in terms of narrative.

JAWS is no exception, with a large number of scenes that were cut, many due to the fact that the mechanical shark rarely worked as planned. Some of these scenes turned up in the ABC television version of JAWS that aired back in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Many more of these “lost” scenes were first available to fans on the 20th Anniversary Laserdisc version of JAWS and have been available on the 30th Anniversary DVD version of JAWS onwards.

So, on the next release of JAWS, wouldn't it be great if we got the option of watching Jaws with these scenes added back in?

Let's be clear, no one is saying it will replace the original version that was released in 1975. It just simply wouldn't, and there is no desire to.

And many of these scenes would have been taken out for timing or pacing. After all, its not as if JAWS editor, Verna Fields, didn't know what she was doing, even taking home the Oscar for it.

JAWS additional scenes from the ABC TV extended cut version

●Ellen Brody feeding the dogs.

●Chief Brody and Cassidy alternate/extended dialogue.

●Mayor Vaughn and Deputy Hendricks extended dialogue during band practice.

●Quint in the Amity Music Shop.

●Amity Town Hall/Quint’s truck.

●Bounty hunters arrive on the island - extended.

●Bounty hunter shark kill frenzy.

●Matt Hooper and Chief Brody scene before the tiger shark autopsy.

It wouldn't replace the original cut, but would be as an optional extra, a bit like having the ability to watch the different versions of James Cameron's Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) or David Fincher's Alien 3 (1992).

And it wouldn't be the first time that an extended TV version of a blockbuster film has been released, that happened recently with the three hour TV cut of Richard Donner's Superman (1978) and also with extended version of both King Kong (1976) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).

It would also be remiss of us to not mention the Richard Donner cut of Superman 2 (1980) and the three hour Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).

All of which - apart from Justice League - still retained the options of watching both versions of the films, but I'm sure I'd speak for all JAWS fans when I say we'd love the opportunity to see them spliced into that extended TV cut. Like the shark being shot by Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) at the end of the film, it would be a real blast.

And whilst we are at it, why not the extended cuts of JAWS 2, the long rumoured longer version of JAWS 3D and the ability to watch both versions of JAWS the Revenge, rather than just the alternate ending.

That's how you celebrate the 50th anniversary of JAWS, so how about it Universal? You know we'd buy them, again.

Words by Dean Newman

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