What if the shark from Jaws had killed these characters instead?

You lucky, lucky people.

The movie ‘Final Destination’ poses the idea that if Death has your card marked, that’s it - you’re out. No second chances - just cold, empty, dark oblivion awaits you - or the afterlife, depending on your point of view.

But consider for a moment if Bruce had attacked different people instead of the ones he did. Not just anyone, what about those who were in the water at the time or who’d just got out? Thanks to a flick of the tail or a turn of the head, Chrissie or Alex survived and someone else took their place on the menu.

How would it have affected the plot?

Victim #1: Drunk Tom

Jonathan Filley, who played Cassidy in Jaws was Unit Production Manager for War Of The Worlds

We all know Tom, he’s the guy who chugs one too many cans of Narragansett at the beach party and tried his damnedest to keep up with Chrissie Watkins as she does a running striptease before going skinny dipping - only to get eaten a few minutes later. Tom wasn’t ever going to catch her though, he was far too wasted and ended up asleep on the shore. But how about if he’d managed it and gone in after her? He was all sorts of drunk so his swimming style would probably be a good deal less than Olympic standard, he’d be doing much more splashing around than Chrissie - stands to reason ‘Mr Whitey’ would’ve homed in on Tom as a tasty breakfast. Chrissie could’ve made onto the buoy or possibly even swum back to shore. Obviously she’d have raised the alarm like Tom did but here’s the difference, she was a witness to the attack, she can confirm that he’d been taken by something - and she’d be able to reasonably confirm it was a shark. Mayor Vaughn could still dispute it (happily dismissing the claims of a teenage girl) but the threat of further attacks would be even greater in Brody’s mind. He’d trust his instincts more and maybe push harder for the beaches to be closed.

Victim/s #2: The Boys Scouts

Hendricks tells the Chief about the kids slogging away out in the channel, while their scout master master shouts at them from a boat, and that he needs to get out there because there’s no phones at that location.

Oh My GOD. Think of the carnage! The shark would’ve had a field day, spoiled for choice as all those legs kicked about on the surface. This would’ve been a truly horrific attack, there’d have been no escape for the scout troop and probably the scout master too (kind of serves him right for all that shouting). In reality, the boys have no idea how close they came to being fed into the meat grinder, luckily Bruce was cruising another part of the island, possibly still digesting his first victim. But he’s be back of course, and as Hooper points out later - he’s more of a night feeder…

Victim #3: Charlie on the jetty

One of the all-time best scenes in Jaws is when Charlie and his pal (who doesn’t appear to have a name so we’ll call him Buddy) try to nab themselves the $3000 for themselves by using Charlie’s wife’s holiday roast as bait.

The scene is terrifying and audiences screamed at Charlie to heed Buddy’s advice and just “SWIM!”

The creepiest bit of the whole thing is when the jetty makes that slow, sinister turn and heads back to shore, sensing there’s something else in the water.

As we know, Charlie’s able to whip his feet out of the water in the nick of time and the worst thing about the evening turns out to be he’s now got to explain why there’s no meat left in the freezer.

But what about if he’d floated just 2 or 3 metres further out? Would he have been able to get back in time? He was wearing thick clothes and anyone who ever had to struggle through one of those Personal Lifesaving Tests at school will tell you, swimming in clothes (even when all you’ve got on are your pyjamas because you’re just doing the Bronze award) is really hard.

Charlie doesn’t exactly come across as one of life’s athletes, he’d maybe have made it to within a metre of the jetty, but the shark would’ve surely got to him first. Perhaps Buddy might’ve been able to grab his friend’s wrists but then it would been a grisly game of tug-of-war with the shark. Charlie screaming his lungs out as the beast bit down and started chewing his way upwards, as Buddy desperately tries to save his friend.

Again, this scene would’ve been a real shocker, a very nasty, brutal, meat-grinder of a thing. Spielberg quite rightly went for the eerie feel of the shark stalking Charlie, almost toying with him - eventually just letting go of the jetty and then gliding off into the deep.

So who’s next then?

Victim #4: Bad Hat Harry

The scrawny old geezer who laughs at Brody’s - quite reasonable, when you think about it - preference to stay on dry land instead of venturing into the surf. You can imagine Harry’s a man who’s lived in Amity all his life. He’s the same guy who makes a complaint about kids karate chopping his picket fence, which surely isn’t the easiest thing in the world for an adult to do - let alone a little kid. Picket fences are made out of pine, not balsa wood.

Harry’s most famous scene of course is when he surfaces, like an aged sea turtle, and does that weird shaky head thing after swimming underneath a fellow bather. Prior to this, Brody of course suspected he might actually be a shark.

But surely Bruce was out there when Harry was duck diving under the lady-bathers? Why didn’t Bruce make a beeline for Harry? Too stringy probably. And if Harry had been dragged down to by the shark we’d never have had Brody’s wonderful line about his hat either.

Now we all love Harry - or at least we can ‘stand Harry’ as Mrs Taft put it - and he’s obviously had a good life, living in Amity. He probably fought for his country in World War II, became a trusted member of the community (he’s on the top table at the town council meeting after all) and is still fit and healthy enough to swim underwater in the Atlantic Ocean, so might it not have been a reasonable sacrifice to have him get eaten instead of Alex - a little kid with his whole life ahead of him? I’m not down on Harry, but he certainly dodged a big 25ft bullet that day.

Victim #5: Pipit

Now ok, I get it, this one is a bit of a ‘WTF’ moment for some people. ‘Man with Dog’ throws the stick into the water, Pipit/Pippet bounds in to get it. She gets grabbed by some guy who then lets her go, but you know something’s going to happen. The scene feels a bit off, like it’s a lead up to the main event.

Now my reasoning for including Pipit/Pippet here on this ‘what if’ victim list (when so many people already reckon she really did get killed) is that it doesn’t fit.

First off, we don’t see it happen. Every other victim (other than Ben Gardner) we are witness to the attack in all its gory glory. But Pipit/Pippet? Nothing. One minute she’s there, the next she’d gone. Her owner keeps calling her but she’d vanished.

Then we see the stick floating in the waves. Oh dear…

Here’s my second problem. It’s not the same stick. That’s a piece of lumber, obviously milled and not the one Pipit/Pippet’s owner was throwing for her.

Thirdly, Steven Spielberg simply would not do such a dreadful thing. He’s obviously a lovely guy so how we can say he’d kill the most adorable character in his greatest film ever is beyond me. He’s had dogs in loads of his movies (some of his characters are even named after them) and they always make it through to the final reel. Alright, so there was that one time in Jurassic Park 2 when the T-Rex allegedly eats the dog in the back yard - but it was off-screen, so did he? I mean really? But fair enough, it’s excusable to accept that this dog was killed by the dinosaur, it’s blatantly signposted after all. There’s a lead and collar left on the ground, covered in blood. Seems pretty open and shut really. As an aside though, wouldn’t the T-Rex have just eaten everything - lead, collar and dog? Is it really that picky? Bruce swallowed swimsuits, bits of inflatables, probably all of Ben Gardner’s body (minus the head) and Quint was fully clothed too, The shark didn’t start picking his teeth to get rid of the non-fleshy bits.

And Spielberg’s an animal lover - his own dogs (Elmer being one of them) even appeared in Jaws as one of the Brody family pets!

If Pipit/Pippet had really been killed in Jaws it would’ve been just too horrible. People can get eaten, that’s fine. But dogs? No.

Victim #6: Michael Brody

Now this one would’ve really changed the movie. Can you imagine if the shark had looked like it was going to eat the guy in the boat but dipped under at the last minute, only to surface next to the sailboat and swallow Michael in its jaws? That would’ve crushed everyone. Martin and Ellen’s life would have been upended, the town would have had its second child victim and the movie would have taken a sudden left turn into a far more bleak area. Brody would have been a man consumed by hate and revenge, he would been almost a carbon copy of Quint. Full of rage and intent on destroying the shark at all costs. He might even make a pact to commit suicide if that’s what was needed, even though he still had Ellen and Sean back on shore. Of all the potential victims that were spared for one reason or another, this is surely the most significant.

Victim #7: Hooper

And so we come to our final entry. Matt Hooper, the man who thought he knew all about sharks, who could predict all their moves and behaviours. He finds himself - literally and figuratively - all at sea when he steps aboard the Orca. Eventually, he resolves to get into his ‘anti shark cage’ in an attempt to lure the monster close so he can inject him in the mouth with poison.

Bruce, naturally, has other ideas.

In the book, Hooper does die. In the movie though - thanks to the footage by Ron and Valerie Taylor where a shark smashed up the cage without anyone inside - the script got rewritten so that Hooper escaped the cage and hid on the seabed.

But how about if things had stayed as they were. What if the shark had muscled its way through the bars and grabbed him? Seemed like quite an easy kill for Bruce.

The cage scene would’ve been a riot of blood and bubbles. Lots of thrashing about and gurgling, a real ‘nature defies the science of man’ moment with everything Hooper thought he knew about sharks turned to jelly.

But to have Hooper die wouldn’t have been right either. Spielberg knew this was a character people liked, with his crazy hair and scraggy beard and his machine-gun chattering - he was funny and bright and people like that shouldn’t die in big summer movies. They don’t have to come back for sequels, but they should still make it to the end credits.

And anyway, it would’ve taken Martin twice as long to get back to shore and we wouldn’t have had that final poetic/comedic exchange to make us smile and breathe a sigh of relief that the danger had passed.

BRODY

What day is this?

HOOPER

Wednesday…No, it’s Tuesday, I think.

BRODY

Think the tide’s with us?

HOOPER

Just keep kicking

BRODY

Y’know, I used to hate the water…

HOOPER

I can’t imagine why.

Words by Tim Armitage

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