How reading the Jaws 2 novelisaton will forever change the way you see Jaws 2 the movie

Accompanying movies of all shapes and sizes, film novelizations are a fascinating lot. They are, by and large, a snapshot of the state of their accompanying production–as you likely well know, scripts go through several drafts, and sometimes you’ll get one that isn’t a tight 1:1 measure of what winds up on the big screen, which, in my opinion, is where a great deal of their appeal can be mined from.

Jaws 2 and Jaws The Revenge novelisations by Hank Searls

Add to that the fact that some authors (clearly) had more room to roam on the pages than others in terms of sticking to the screenplay, and the result is a fantastic display of creativity that serves as a supremely interesting companion. In the case of the JAWS series, specifically author Hank Searls’ contributions to JAWS 2 and JAWS: THE REVENGE, one can witness what’s undoubtedly one of the more memorable and outrageous (especially speaking directly to the latter) entries in novelization history.

JAWS 2

The focus of this piece, is unique in that Searls divulges to us a massively interesting (and arguably critical) piece of information regarding the titular character. Before we dig into said information, however: Consider, if you please, what we enjoy about villains, as well as what we’d expect from a shark in a JAWS movie. I heard it said that a villain, simply put, is the hero in their own story, and while we revere anti-heroes and so-bad-they’re-good antagonists, JAWS is different in that the shark isn’t going to pull a T-800 in TERMINATOR 2–it’s just a fish swimming around and terrorizing anyone on the water.

With that in mind, let’s allow Searls’ novelization to inform the motivation of the shark, henceforth referred to as “Brucette”.

Ready? Hope so, because here we go…

The shark is a female, and she’s so pregnant that she’s about to pop.

So, knowing this, let’s see how this piece of information allows the sequel to breathe a little: The film, as it stands, takes the reliable model of the big, mean rogue shark and takes it for a second spin around Amity Island. We’re not gifted with an official explanation for why another behemoth shark makes an appearance, and Scheider’s Brody is basically left, despite his protestation, to “go through that hell again”.

In the novelization, Brucette was impregnated by Bruce before Brody blew him up, and she’s at the point in her pregnancy where the lil’ sharks are writhing around in her belly and driving her to absolute madness with hunger. Her motivation is to feed them to the best of her abilities while also fulfilling her own needs, and that’s some damned unfortunate news for anyone in Amity waters.

Bruce the shark from Jaws — Bruce, the shark from Jaws (1975)

Searls interestingly drifts closer to the Benchley universe than to the Spielbergian one, too, adding another mystifying layer of character comparisons and contrasts. I’ll leave the other differences to the reader’s discovery, and buckle up for that ride, as the book and the film are only slightly recognizable against one another.

Now that we have this information about Brucette in our grasp, it leaves us to do one of three things:

One

Allow this to contextualize and further enrich this sequel. In this scenario, we have two desperate, opposing forces coming to blows: Brody has (a) lost his job, (b) is a social pariah, and (c) is working to keep both of his sons out of the mouth of the shark. On the opposing side, Brucette, as we’ve said before, has babies to feed, needs a place to give birth, and eating those teenagers (along with that helicopter pilot and his tasty chinstrap beard) will most definitely help to get the job done. In essence, our protagonist and antagonist each are fighting to protect their own, and there’s no room for compromise. More so here than in the original movie, Brody faces off against a great white shark with an exceedingly primal and personal determination.

Chief Brody inspects what appears to be boat wreckage in the surf

Two

Don’t do anything and just allow Brody to fight another mean, gigantic fish. Director Jeannot Szwarc’s film stands alone by itself as a fun and entertaining experience; maybe a viewer doesn’t necessarily need their shark villain to have a motivation, much like in the first one. As JAWS is generally agreed-upon to be one of the best films of all time, one might ask: Why mess up a good thing?

Three

Do both! Experience the thrill of switching back and forth at your leisure. It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to change the dynamic of a key component of a film so drastically, right?

Whether or not you choose to incorporate Searls’ shark point-of-view, it’s still evident that Brucette in the JAWS 2 film has some more “slasher-film” kills, ones that are clearly trying to distance themselves from the masterpiece-original and establish its own distinct signature; it’s evident that she makes more of a spectacle to get her food (e.g. chasing down the skier and almost getting blown up by that boat). I’m definitely no marine biologist, but this sort of behavior tracks a little better knowing that that she’s agonizingly full of tiny shark-monsters while under a time-pinch and, within this particular (fictional) universe, we can get a more clever understanding of exactly why a shark would, you know, attack a helicopter.

Chief Brody faces off against the shark in Jaws 2

Words by Nathan Helton

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