Why Matt Hooper from Jaws is the Greatest Movie Scientist of All Time

Science is awesome. And Scientists are like superheroes (in fact, some of them sort of are superheroes) but what sets everyone’s favourite shark-mad boffin apart from all the rest? Well, let’s look a selection of other famous movie scientists to see how they compare.

Dr Emmet Brown (Back to the Future 1,2 & 3)

Doc Brown is the archetypal wild haired ‘mad’ scientist. Played with all the swivel-eyed abandon Christopher Lloyd could muster and based on a combination of Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski, Doc is a solid representation of the stereotype. With the wiry hair, the SHOUTY delivery and a love of flashy 1980s automobiles, Doc was brilliant. He gabbled explanations of flux capacitors and the risks of messing with the space-time continuum and waved his arms around with such conviction, the whole premise of driving at 88mph and travelling in time to 1955 sounded perfectly reasonable (and lots of fun). It doesn’t matter if he’s a cliché, the part was beautifully written and performed. Everyone loved Doc Brown. But he was still stuck in that ‘science guy’ mould and stuck with the formula.

Dr Victor Frankenstein (book and various movies)

Probably the most famous of all fictional scientists. The tortured genius who gave the world ‘The Monster’. Victor harnessed the power of lightening, sewed together some body parts and before you could say ‘Boris Karloff’, all hell was breaking loose and the villagers were revolting with their pitchforks and torches. It’s a sad tale of loneliness, despair and one man trying to play god. Frankenstein’s been adapted and filmed countless times but for me it’s Gene Wilder as Victor Fronkensteen (not Frankenstein, as he is at pains to point out) in Mel Brooks 1974 classic ‘Young Frankenstein’. With any telling of the Original Gothic story, you get everything you need from a movie scientist: lots of buzzing and humming equipment, wild flailing gestures, crazy hair, and a lots of excited babbling. Victor (and his grandson Fredrick) was where the blueprint for scientist in the movies was drawn up. Once again though, we get the madness behind the eyes and all-round jitteriness.

Tony Stark (Iron Man Trilogy, MCU series)

Making a break from all the ‘crazy guy in a lab-coat’ image, we have Robert Downey Jnr as Marvel’s smart mouth scientist in chief. He has the neatest of beards, the sharpest suits (not the gold and red ones) and some really nice cars. Tony remoulds the idea of the Megamind for the Marvel Generation. Not only was he so smart he built a miniature reactor that kept him alive but he did it all in a cave! Then went on to construct his first shell-head suit out of scrap. When he’s not fighting bad guys, he’s swanning about looking sharp and suave like 007. He’s a cool nerd, a hero-geek. And audiences loved him for it. He showed a man of science didn’t need anyone else to fight his battles. Stark’s Achilles heel is his overwhelmingly arrogance. He doesn’t care who he upsets, telling the world how clever he is, that he’s never wrong and if anyone disagrees with him? They get smacked down by a one liner. He might be the cleverest Avenger but he’s really a team player.

Dr. Holly Goodhead (Moonraker)

I wanted to include this character for two reasons. Firstly, because (as the lead character in the film so astutely points out) she is “…a woman…” and secondly because I think there’s a need to highlight just how pitiful the depiction of women scientists is on screen. Dr. Goodhead is played by Lois Chiles and appears in one of the most ridiculous (but for me one of the most enjoyable) Bond movies ever - ‘Moonraker’. She’s a scientist and an astronaut who’s also working undercover for the CIA. Or put it another way, she’s a Boss Level multitasker and no slouch in the brains department. All James Bond has to do is wander around in his Farah slacks, shoot a man out of a tree, wrestle a snake and raise his eyebrow once or twice. Dr Goodhead shows that without her, the mission would’ve ended before it’d begun as she’s the only one who can fly a space shuttle - pretty important if you’ve got to fly into into orbit. The movie is brilliantly daft with dear old Roger Moore dressed in a natty little space suit and Lois rolling her eyes at his hackneyed puns. But I still maintain, despite her less than subtle name and being derided by 007 purely because of her gender, she’s a strong character - in a very silly film about orchids and spaceships. ‘Moonraker’ came out in 1979 as a response to ‘Star Wars’ and for the 70s, Dr Goodhead is a pretty reputable scientist/action hero.

Matt Hooper (Jaws)

So, finally we arrive on the shores of Amity Island. Hooper has the wild hair and the disheveled appearance of Doc Brown or Frankenstein but he’s also got a few high tech toys like Stark (and a touch of the arrogance). His boat’s pretty cool and he’s also rich and he got a beard (bit less refined but this was the 70s so he gets a pass). But underneath all the money and gadgets, Hooper understands the real world. He can easily “pass basic seamanship” with his knot tying, doesn’t worry about fancy duds (it’s double denim for Hoop - he don’t need no for a lab coat or silk suit) and is even quite at happy getting plastered with Quint and comparing scars. Hooper gives Jaws its scientific exposition, telling the audience everything they need to know about what this monster from the deep could do if it set its mind to it. He’s the Common Man Scientist - even though he comes from money.

The imaginations of writers are fuelled by the possibility of the unknown or the monstrous. Inventing demons for humans to do battle with.

The Greeks had Heracles fighting the Hydra when it rose from the depths to attack the world of men. Theseus entered the labyrinth to smite the Minotaur and with help from Ariadne he took it down. Actually, Ariadne was the brains of the operation, so she fits in well with the idea of the ‘scientist type’. She insisted Theseus have not just a sword but a ball of thread so he could find his way out of the labyrinth. Without her mind, all the brute strength in the world would have been for nothing.

In more modern literature we’ve become attracted to these cerebral heroes alongside the traditional physical ones. Sometimes we need more than just a straight fight to keep things interesting.

Victor Frankenstein battled his inner demons and through his scientific knowledge created one in his laboratory. Eventually of course, his world would come crashing down and his works would bring him nothing but pain.

Doc Brown was forever chasing ‘an invention that works’. When Marty showed him he’d finally done it (“You bet your ass it works”) his character arc mirrored Frankenstein. Doc Brown too says he wants to destroy the DeLoreon before it erases his friend’s family.

Victor realised there was nothing else to be done, he had to kill The Monster he’d created too.

In both stories of course this doesn’t actually happen.

Neither the Time Machine or The Monster is destroyed. ‘Back to the Future 3’ sees the Deloreon being smashed to pieces by a train but Doc still turns up in a new steam powered version.

At the end of Frankenstein The Monster doesn’t let Victor kill him, choosing to takes its own life instead.

In the ‘Iron Man’ story, Tony Stark is constantly at war with himself, dreaming up all manner of lethal hardware, to prove to himself he’s at least as smart as his father, Howard. But he never really taps into his superior intelligence. If he thought about it just a little bit longer, he could probably have redesigned the Arc Reactor and solved the world’s energy crisis - thus ending climate change almost immediately. But instead he makes more suits bristling with military-grade weaponry. And even though it makes for some exciting movies, ultimately Tony never wins the biggest battle of all.

Dr Goodhead is the most balanced of the lot. She keeps a cool head and an unnerving ability to operate under extreme pressure and not let her ego get the better of her - she leaves that to 007. She knows there’s no point trying to compete with Bond, it’s his story and it’s doubtful he’d be able to deal with it. So she lets it go, knowing deep down that she’s actually calling the shots.

Hooper’s much more grounded than all of them, mainly because of the story he’s in. He’s not a fantastical scientist, he’s just dealing with aliens or monsters or super villains trying to take over the world, he’s studying sharks. And more than that, he’s in awe of them. There’s no hatred and certainly no ego, he just wants to learn as much as he can. For him, education is key.

He calls the shark a “…perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution…” He respects the science and the way nature discards anything superfluous to arrive at the ultimate water-based predator.

As a scientist, you also need to be a realist. Hooper certainly is that. He knows it’s madness keeping the beaches open, he doesn’t want people getting hurt and understands the shark might have to die if no one’s prepared to properly protect the inhabitants of the community.

Onboard the Orca, he calls the shark beautiful and “darling” when he sees it, stunned by its size and power.

He’s a fanboy.

Hooper is the greatest movie scientist because the character borrows from others but also brings something much more real. We still get the scatter-gun delivery of lines and the wild hair (with added Beatnik beard) but he’s young, rebellious and ferociously intelligent. Spielberg was just 26, he wanted to attract a young crowd and with Hooper he saw his way in.

In the novel, Peter Benchley dresses Hooper in jeans and shoes with no socks but he couldn’t resist advertising his upbringing by having the Oceanographer wear an exclusive Lacoste shirt.

Movie Hooper doesn’t bother with that, he slips by unnoticed - like a shark in the shadows - he doesn’t flaunt his wealth.

But one thing Spielberg does do is show that Hooper’s got a certain level of refinement.

At the Brody house, Hooper arrives armed with both red and white wine - “I didn’t know what you’d be serving”.

Turns out Brody doesn’t care, cracking open the red and pouring a himself a generous glassful.

Then I believe Spielberg sneaks in a little homage to one of his favourite movie franchises. It’s that man 007 again.

Or rather Red Grant - played by Robert Shaw - in ‘From Russia With Love’. Grant slips up by choosing red wine with fish, thereby alerting snobby 007 that this chap’s nothing more than a knuckledragger.

Spielberg’s a huge Bond fan, maybe he wanted one more twist to the idea of the hero.

Have Hooper as ‘Bond’ with his knowledge of ‘the right wines’ but also cast him as the science nerd. Then show Brody guzzling whatever drink he damn well wants, cuz who really cares about all that stuff? A drink’s a drink.

The director had his New England old-money scientist and a New York blue collar cop joining forces, switching the idea of hero back and forth and mixing up the conventions along the way.

Brody might’ve been the one who fired the final shot but it was Hooper who got him there - and got him home again.

Science wins.

Words by Tim Armitage

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