Jaws

Continuity mistake: When jaws jumps on the back of the boat, Quint falls on the floor and the shark's head is 3/4 submerged - in the next shot the head is fully above the water and submerges again.

Continuity mistake: When the guy is standing on the beach in the opening scenes the sunset is covered by cloud. When seeing the sunset from the woman in the sea's perspective the sky is clear with no clouds. (00:02:50)

Continuity mistake: The seat that Quint sits in with the fishing reel disappears after that scene has finished. These seats are bolted to the deck. (01:25:50 - 01:35:25)

Continuity mistake: When Jaws gets trapped between the cage and the boat the shark is really thrashing about. Cut to the surface and Brody is trying to free the cage - the surface of the water does not match the actions of the shark.

Continuity mistake: When Quint drinks the beer then crushes the can, the sea behind him is all choppy. When Hooper crushes the plastic cup, the sea behind him is virtually calm. (01:13:15)

Continuity mistake: When Hooper cuts open the shark and empties the contents, the amount and position of the fish changes between shots. (00:44:00)

Continuity mistake: When they are chasing down Jaws with the first barrel on, look at the sea. It's calm at the front of the boat and rough behind when we see close ups of Hooper.

Continuity mistake: When Hooper is lowered in the shark cage, his right hand holds a dart while the left holds a cage bar. But as soon as the angle changes, Hooper's dart changes hands as well. (01:52:55)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: As the townspeople make their way into council chambers, we can see Mrs. Taft talking to Chief Brody before she takes a seat. Between frames, her purse strap removes itself from her left shoulder. (00:19:00)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: As Brody sits on the shore with Ellen, a councilman approaches. Between shots, Brody's left hand changes position - jumping from his lap to the back of the beach chair in an instant. (00:15:15)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: When Brody questions Tom about Chrissie's disappearance, Brody turns his head away from Tom between frames, just as they hear Hendricks' whistle. (00:08:00)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: Before Quint meets his fate, we see him lose grip with Brody's arm. But in the following shot Quint is still holding onto Brody's arm despite having let go just a moment ago. (01:57:05)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: When the shark rams Hooper's cage, Hooper loses the spear and when it is shown floating through the water, it hits the sea floor just before it cuts to the live shark footage. Following the live shark footage, the spear is shown hitting the sea floor again. (01:49:45)

mightymick

Video

Continuity mistake: When Quint is up in the crow's nest, Brody tells him "Let Hooper take a turn" (regarding chumming the water). When Quint, while looking down at Brody, says "Hooper drives the boat, Chief", his right arm is across his body and looks to be resting on the safety railing of the crow's nest. When Brody looks up at Quint, his right arm is away from his body and is just holding onto the crow's nest railing with his hand.

Spencer Crouse

Continuity mistake: As Brody flips through his shark book, he pauses to look at a photo of two fishermen and their catch. The photo is on the right page, but in the previous shot where we see Brody stop flipping through, there was no picture on the right page as seen in a reflection on his glasses, just words. (00:25:30)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: In the medical examiner's room, before Hooper splashes water over his face, he rolls up his left sleeve just a bit. His wristwatch is in view, but between shots the watch tucks itself away under his sleeve. (00:32:40)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: Prior to departing on the Orca, Hooper and Quint discuss the anti-shark cage. At the onset, a rigging rests on Quint's left shoulder. But between shots the rigging repositions itself away from his shoulder. (01:09:50)

ryguy_1983

Continuity mistake: When Brody jumps from his seat to get Michael out of the sailboat, he lifts Ellen by her arms. But then, one shot later, he's lifting her by the hips instead. (00:23:35)

ryguy_1983

Factual error: When Hooper sees the hole in the hull of Ben Gardner's boat, he uses his knife to pry out the shark tooth. The tooth is located at the bottom of the hole, with its flat root side stuck deep in the wood and its pointy side facing up. It is completely impossible for the shark's tooth to become wedged in the wood this way, while he takes a nice bite out of the wood hull. (00:49:15)

Super Grover

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: When Hooper uses the knife to pry to tooth out, it took very little effort, suggesting that the tooth wasn't wedged into that spot, but merely just resting in that spot.

The shark tooth was inserted into the wood by the prop crew with its flat root side down, which would have been impossible to have occurred during the attack on the hull. As to the statement that the tooth was "merely just resting in that spot" then Hooper would not have needed to use the blade to remove it from the wood, plus the fact that since it was underwater it would have floated away during the hours after the attack. But it did not float away, so it must have been at the very least snugly fit into the wood hull. Still impossible.

Super Grover

The original mistake says that the root of the tooth was embedded In the wood. Not possible since it should be the sharp end in the wood and the root showing on top (as described in the mistake).

Ssiscool

More mistakes in Jaws

Quint: Hooper! Stop playing with yourself Hooper!

More quotes from Jaws

Trivia: Quint's boat is named Orca. The orca is the only natural predator the great white shark has (besides humans).

More trivia for Jaws

Question: When Quint and Hooper are comparing leg scars, they are sitting near each other with legs overlapping. The shot moves to Brody, then back to Quint and Hooper at the table, sitting apart. Quint is fastening his pants, buckling his buckle, and zipping his zipper. He obviously showed them something that was edited out of the movie. What was it?

Rick Neumann

Answer: Possibly a scar from having his appendix removed, I've been told.

The appendix shot is Brody - he is feeling inferior as the other two share tales of the sea and the only scar he has is from his appendix being removed.

Chosen answer: I just watched this on DVD. As the men were supposed to be comparing their body scars to one another, it appears that Quint had just shown one that was hidden beneath his pants. Whatever this was, it was edited out. When movie scenes are originally filmed, they are usually much longer in length than what is in the final version. After editing, some actions, dialogue, and character movements are deleted either to shorten the running time, for better storytelling flow, or the action was considered unnecessary to the scene. Also, film censorship at this time (mid-1970s) was far stricter than it is today, and it may have been that a review board deemed it inappropriate to have a character unzipping his pants in that manner and insisted it be removed from the final version.

raywest

I believe it was Brody, not Quint that was looking down his pants. And I believe that he was embarrassed that his (maybe appendix) scar was not as big or impressive as Quint and Hoopers.

Watch it again and as Quint is scooting back over to his spot he's fastening his pants, but no explanation is given.

I thought Brody had been shot as a cop in the big city (and that was why he took the job in a quiet, small town) and that in this scene he was looking at the scar and comparing it in his mind to the scars the other guys were showing but not saying anything to them about it.

Answer: After Brody looks down at his abdomen scar (probably an appendix scar) the camera switches back to Quint and Hooper. As Hooper starts talking, watch Quint. He is buttoning his pants and then struggles to zip them up. He leaves his belt unbuckled. I've seen Jaws more times than I can count - starting the year it premiered in 1975 - and I didn't notice this weirdness until a few years ago.

More questions & answers from Jaws

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.