Jaws (Blu-ray / DVD)

The amount of work Universal and its team put into restoring Jaws is mind-blowing (especially after watching the featurette on it, but we’ll get to that later). No longer are the day-for-night scenes a whitewashed blue; now they’re a deep beautiful blue. The water glistens and gleams in moonlight like never before. It was actually quite shocking to see just how detailed the water looks. I know that’s a strange thing to focus on, but it was the first thing I really noticed about the Blu-ray.

If you are one of those silly people who always say, “The shark looks fake,” well, first of all, don’t speak to me. We will not get along. Secondly, the shark looks fantastic. The transfer to an HD format doesn’t suddenly showcase the flaws of the shark as much as I was afraid it might.

I do have one small gripe, and I’m probably going to reveal more about myself than the film, but, Universal, what the hell? For years I have looked upon Chrissie Watkins’ fabulous bouncy breasts on my worn-out VHS tape doing some sort of soft form of young adolescent mind masturbation. I could just barely make out those sweet gozongas when the shark was coming up from the depths to dine. It is a very awkward feeling for a young boy to have strong sexual urges right before seeing the same source for those urges be ripped to shreds while screaming obscenities at an unhelping deity. Talk about having a murder boner.

So you’d think that in this glorious new Blu-ray edition we’d finally be able to take a good long look at Ms. Watkins’ chesticles.

Nope.

They colored her chest area darker. Now you can’t see anything at all!

So I ask again: Universal, what the hell?

As for the audio quality, the BD passes in spades. John Williams’ beautiful score booms through the soundtrack in a beautiful DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track. The crowd scenes roar to life with all the background screams and splashing sounds. Where the audio really comes to life, however, is in the more somber silent scenes where the atmosphere pours through the speakers–specifically, the scene with Brody and his son mimicking him, which is my all-time favorite scene of any movie. The audio of that scene makes you feel as if you are in the Brody’s home, hearing the creaks of the house, the clinking of the glass on table, everything. It’s quite beautiful.

Now for the extras.

Thankfully with this new release Universal pulled no punches. From the Special Edition DVD we have all the deleted scenes and outtakes (which are mastered in standard definition) along with the original Making of Jaws, From the Set footage and Jaws promotional archives. Nothing exactly new here, but it’s still cool to watch them over again (especially the deleted scenes, which I always get a kick out of).

A new feature exclusively on Blu-ray is the highly anticipated The Shark Is Still Working: The Impact and Legacy of Jaws. I was fortunate enough to see this documentary many years ago and even did a review of it on Dread (which you can read here). It was actually one of the main sources of inspiration for us when making Never Sleep Again and was a perfect example of a film retrospective that gets it right. While the version included on the Blu-ray is very much that documentary, it is sadly not nearly as all-encompassing as its previous incarnation, which is ironically sad to me because in my original review I nitpicked that it was a bit too long. Now I feel it is just a bit too short.

Even so, it’s still an amazing documentary, narrated by the late Roy Scheider, that delves deep into the making of the film. No stone is left unturned here. The filmmakers’ rich and loving enthusiasm for Jaws bleeds through the screen and makes you remember why you’re a Jaws fan. It’s hard for me to really properly review it, though, as I have now seen both cuts and couldn’t tell you for sure what was missing from this new one. That being said, what we do get on the Blu-ray is still nothing short of incredible. And nostalgic… When I first saw the documentary, everyone was still alive. Re-watching it in 2012, I’m reminded that we have lost so many wonderful and powerful artists since 2007: Zanuck and Brown, Percy Rodriguez, Peter Benchley, and of course Roy Scheider himself. More than anything we need to thank these guys for capturing the final word on Jaws from people whom we’ll sadly never get to hear from again.

The other brand new special feature is Jaws: The Restoration, in which we take a 10-minute trip into the vaults at Universal and explore how they were able to take the 35mm original negative (like before they made the day-for-night scenes really look like night), put it through a process called the Wet Gate, which I mentioned above, and then through a rigorous coloring and digital scratch fixing course, all of which was overseen personally by Steven Spielberg. I loved watching this featurette as not only is it shot fantastically (it’s the only true HD bonus feature on the BD), but it’s extremely informative. As a film geek who works in the business, it’s nice to get a featurette on a Blu-ray that actually takes the time to teach you something instead of just the usual “It was so great working with such and such.”

All in all this is an exceptional package. While I wish Universal would change up its BD menus, this release far surpasses previous Universal Blu-rays and makes me look forward to future releases.

No matter how it looks, Jaws will always be my favorite movie of all time. Sure, it’s nice to see it in crystal clarity, but, like with most legendary films that have become a part of the American mythos, it was always the story that attracted me. It made me fall in love with storytelling, filmmaking, characters, horror, marine biology, sharks, essentially all the things that make me…well…me.

I have Jaws to thank for the life I lead. And I truly am thankful indeed.

Blu-ray Bonus Features

DVD Bonus Features: