Customer Reviews

Just When You Thought It Was Safe: A JAWS Companion

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Picked up this book at "The Shark is Still Working" movie premire. Not only is this a fun and informative read about the original Jaws, it makes no apologies or exceptions for all of its sequels. Great production photos as well as interviews with all four of the Jaws directors. Thanks Peter!

I had this book recommended to me by a "Jaws" fan. I saw the movie and its sequels years ago, but wasn't a huge fan. However, I found that I couldn't put this splendid book down. It is engagingly written and extremely readable with interviews of people involved in all aspects from victims to shark builders. There are concise story outlines for each sequel and "rip-off" - no matter how ridiculous! It also talks about the might have beens, including what sounded like a really good Jaws 2, that was not filmed. The only downside is that this made me watch the original again, so da-dum, da-dum...a summer staying out of the water!

Not crazy about this book, while I am crazy about the movie Jaws. All it does is praise the original film, re-hashing a lot of stories from the Universal documentaries and spend the rest of the time bashing the other JAWS movies including the underrated JAWS 2. It has it's moments with interviews with John Hancock and Lance Guest, but I would recommend Carl Gottlieb's The JAWS LOG over this any day.

Just finished reading the book, and since I'm not on the publisher's payroll, I decided to put in my two cents worth.

It's an interesting read, the author seems to have written his chapters out individually but then not paid much attention to how they were assembled. The first section, on the first film, seems to jump from production guy to actor to cinematographer, which can be a little confusing.

There are also a few errors in the book, a couple of typos and a couple of rather glaring errors about the first film. The author presents a timeline of "Jaws" but doesn't get a couple of the events in their proper order, and Meadows' character is named 'Harry' as it is in the book, but in the film, his name was Ben. Probably minor points, but...

In short, any book about the greatest movie of all time is quite welcome. I wish the publishing media paid as much attention to Jaws' legacy and longstanding popularity as it does some of the other garbage films out since then. (for example, every time a Bond movie is released..do we really need another Bond book?)

I am a big fan of the JAWS franchise with a strong interest in film production history, so when I heard that this book was going to cover the entire JAWS series--all four movies and then some--I decided to pick up a copy. Unfortunately, the book falls far short of providing, as the book itself puts it, "an incisive look at the amazing story of the entire JAWS franchise".

At around 200 pages (not including the small appendix), the book is divided into two major parts: The first 100+ pages are devoted to the first JAWS film, while the remainder of the book covers the three sequels and other JAWS-related stuff. The author really doesn't like any of the JAWS sequels and he makes no secret of it in the book. Unfortunately, his attitude carries over to HOW he writes about the sequels: The already meager details he provides about the productions of the sequels get increasingly sparse with each successive sequel (with much more hearsay than facts provided by the time he gets to the last film), and each chapter devoted to the sequels is split between details about the movies (some of the key facts he gets wrong, no less) and the author ranting about why he doesn't like them--something that I really wasn't interested in reading about in the first place. I'll be the first to admit that the JAWS sequels aren't as good as the first movie and that each sequel gets progressively worse, but the author clearly believes that because he doesn't like the sequels he can be sloppier and much less thorough when writing about them. It's a very unprofessional attitude for him to take, and the book suffers terribly for it.

His book lacks in other areas as well. He makes brief mention of the JAWS theme park rides in California, Florida and Japan, but he didn't bother to interview anyone who was involved with the design and production of those rides. Likewise, he writes a few sentences about the JAWS UNLEASHED video game, but he didn't think to contact anyone who was associated with the game's production. Another considerable omission from his take on JAWS history is his lack of mention of Hank Searls, the author of the other two JAWS books--the novelizations of both JAWS 2 and JAWS: THE REVENGE.

Had the author put in as much effort into the second half of the book as he did the first, it would've been a very special book. As it is, I honestly can't recommend it to any serious JAWS fan. The definitive book about the JAWS franchise in its entirety has yet to be written, so it's best to save your money for that instead.

Other than Carl Gottlieb's "Jaws Log" the only "Jaws" companion you'll ever need. Full of facts and information even I, a hard core "Jaws" fan-atic, had never heard. One of the best books I own, and something I will treasure and read over and over. Highly recommended!

I am a Jaws fanatic and have read every book associated with the making the movie. I did not learn a lot of new things about Jaws but did learn a lot about the sequals and rip-offs that were interesting. This book pointed out the original direction of Jaws 2 and I thought it was interesting enough to read the novelization of the original script; which would have made a much better movie. The interview with John Hancock and Dorothy Tristan was very open and shed some lights on the politics involved in the making of the Jaws2. The where-are-they-now section is worth the price of the book alone. Enjoy.

I purchased this book for my husband's birthday. He's a big JAWS fan and collects most everything based on the movie. Here are his words: "I've just begun reading the book and so far so good. It's very informative with facts on all four movies, not just the original classic. If you're a JAWS collector, this is definitely one to add to your collection."
Laura & Jay Shinn

Came across this as a fluke while browsing on Amazon-- was thrilled to find another "JAWS" item,and ordered right away. Lots of good stories in this one, and ample space is given to the sequels (and ones that never came to be). The fun parts were the interviews with the "lesser-knowns" who played parts in these films (in front of or behind the cameras). This is a quick read; not a technical or scholarly work (as some of these books are)... Instead, its engrossing yet lightweight. Highly recommended for fans!!

I have to admit that I'm a Jaws freak, especially the first film. This book takes you through a great deal of the details from film one through the last horrible Jaws, the Revenge. There's some intersting trivia and it is a fast read as well. If you like the genere you like this book. The only problem was that when I finished it I immediately had to re-watch the film to find all the nuances and details i had learned from reading the book.