Jaws The Sharksploitation Edit

February 2, 2012

This was hilarious and often brilliant. It has a couple flaws, but it’s very entertaining (BIG SPOILERS follow).

Technical quality – 10/10 – can’t really comment on A/V issues as they were supposed to be there.

Editing – 10/10 – just incredible.

Presentation – 10/10 – the cover art was great and the menu was nice. Brody at the theater was a clever and idea and pulled off well.

Entertainment – 8/10 – so brilliant. The added scenes from Jaws 2, the tourists arriving, the redesigned beach attack, the flashbacks during the scar discussion, Jaws shaking the shark cage, that orca whale at the end that took things personally, the new music, and all the other stuff I haven’t mentioned… just brilliant! There are only two things I didn’t like: firstly, sometimes when songs played or even at other times the sound effects were muted. Regardless of whether this is something that is in “grindhouse” movies, it’s very annoying. Secondly, the music during the beach attack. Just didn’t work for me. Otherwise, incredible job. You had brilliant ideas and you transferred them to the screen even more brilliantly.

Overall – 9/10

By its very nature, very hard to rate the visuals + sound. Suffice to say it all works very well.
The added scenes + other films, all add to the experience.
The beach scene with the oriental lady was a work of genius.
Won't mention / spoil the ending, but adds to the experience.
In summary an immensely enjoyable experience.

Audio/Visual Quality: Always an odd one to rate for a grind house edit - picture was actually pretty good, considering the concept. I know that the picture and audio deteriorates during deleted scenes, but I believe this worked in favour of the edit and enhanced the experience. In fact, the only reason I give this a 9 instead of a 10 is due to the fact that at times I felt that the video quality was almost TOO good. IMO it wouldn't have been a bad idea to degrade the footage even more to match the quality of the deleted scenes.

Visual editing: Excellent. Jarring visual cuts are there on purpose and benefit the experience. Titles, SFX etc. are all wonderfully done.

Audio editing: Once again - the jarring edits work. The little jumps/repeats on certain lines are a nice touch as well as the odd added piece of dialogue.

Narrative: Well, it works, and I'm not complaining. There are redundant scenes, but then again - maybe that's part of the point? Pacing could have been better, and I wouldn't have minded some more extreme changes to some scenes, but all in all this is a beautifully degraded alternate version of the film.

Enjoyment: I enjoyed this. I'm not a big fan of the original, but I do like it, and this was a fun alternate experience. I loved what was done with Quints tale, and the ending - I was expecting a grand explosion (which wouldn't have gone amiss), but what followed instead was nothing short of brilliant. DVD was nicely put together as well. Lovely stuff.

So I finally got around to watching this edit. This was a fun edit to watch. I liked most of the music selections. The amount of film "noise" and scratches etc. were not overly distracting and after awhile I didn't really notice it.

I liked the zoom in of Quint at the town hall meeting. The stutter =/repeat frames and audio, was a nice touch, and it was used sparingly and spaced out enough that I felt it wasn't overused. The USS Indianapolis footage was a cool sequence.

The two things that were worth the price of admission, so to speak, were:
1) The inclusion of the deleted scene of Quint at the music store buying the piano wire. I really don't know why they cut that scene from the movie.
2) The ending, I laughed.

I liked the DVD Menu designs and the drive-in theater transitions at the beginning and end.

As others have mentioned the narrative is a bit slow and the movie could have been shorter, but maybe that's just my short attention span and self-diagnosed ADD.

Anyway, I highly recommend this edit!

TMBTM's edits are really quite excellent, aren't they.

I rewatched Jaws the night before watching the Sharksploitation Edit, and was reminded why the original film is so brilliant. But then, along comes this crazy edit and pretty much turns the tone and stylings of Spielberg's masterpiece on its head to great effect.

Congrats TMBTM, this edit was great fun - MOAR SHARK ATTACKS! MOAR BLOOD! And the ending? brilliant work.

10/10