Jaws

Question: In real life, would it have been possible for a fully-grown great white shark to smash through the metal cage that Hooper was in like it does in the movie, or is that just Hollywood nonsense?

Answer: Most shark cages are reliably safe and strong enough to withstand sharks biting the bars or bumping them. Of course, individual cage quality is an issue and there have been instances of sharks getting jammed into the cage and destroying it as they attempted to free themselves. In the movie, the fictional premise is that "Jaws" is an exceptionally large and powerful shark that can demolish a cage other sharks could not damage.

raywest ★

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Mistakes

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 ★

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Quotes

Quint: Hooper! Stop playing with yourself Hooper!

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Trivia

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

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