The Similarities Between 1975’s Jaws Verses 2018’s The Meg

There are many remakes and reboots of old movies coming out lately, yet we haven’t seen a remake of Jaws from 1975 or another sequel of the cinema classic. While there has been no immediate remake or sequel, the 2018 release of The Meg may have been a test for how audiences would receive a new version of Jaws. Even though shark movies are released annually around summertime, none have been as similar to Jaws as The Meg. There are many similarities between The Meg and the original shark movie Jaws.

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Even with the years between them, the 2018 film has many references to the 1975 classic. Both movies have dogs named Pippin, characters with similar personalities, a false sense of relief making audiences think the shark is dead, and have children of the main characters that are in danger. Even the movie posters are extremely similar. Of course, with The Meg being the 21st-century shark movie, it has to be bigger and scarier because the 70s graphics aren’t as startling as the newest CGI abilities. The Meg has likable characters while Jaws does not.

The Meg is filled with scientists and experts in their area that had relatable qualities. The Meg also used entirely different tactics on how to get the audience on the edge of their seat.

The Different Terror Tactics

Since these movies are so far apart, obvious differences like the setting, the graphics, and the gory scenes are not worth going into detail about. With the forty-three year difference, these are all obviously due to advances in technology and easier ways to use an animal in film. I want to focus on the one difference that makes these movies so different in fear impact: using the camera angle to induce fear. Jaws uses an animatronic shark, which caused problems for the filming process. Reportedly, the first animatronic shark made for the movie sank to the bottom of the ocean (( Griggs, Brandon. “21 random facts about ‘Jaws’” CNN, July 23, 2015. January 28, 2021. )).

Director Steven Spielberg uses the camera angles and suspenseful film score in order to create the tense atmosphere instead of relying on the actual animal animatronic (( Caffrey, Dan. “Steven Spielberg’s Jaws Turns 45: Why Bruce the Fake Shark Adds to the Horror” Consequence of Sound, June 19, 2015. January 22, 2021. )). Because of this, we actually don’t see the shark until the last part of the movie, so the movie relies more on our fear of the unknown than our fear of seeing a shark.

While Jaws uses fear of the unknown to keep viewers tense, The Meg relies on the megalodon and its size to intimidate the viewers into being terrified. Jaws’ villain is slightly larger than a normal great white shark, while The Meg‘s villain is a megalodon. In real life, the 60-80 foot long Megalodon shark has been extinct for 2.6 million years, which I believe takes away the horror factor that still keeps Jaws viewers out of the ocean today (( Bradford, Alina. “Megalodon: Facts about the long-gone, giant shark.” Live Science, February 7, 2020. January 22, 2021. )).

The Meg also shows the CGI shark a lot, which causes the shark to be less intimidating and more cheesy. The main setting of The Meg being underwater provides multiple moments of easy viewing of the CGI sea creatures surrounding the characters, including the megalodon. With everything being CGI, it keeps the effects cohesive but continues to point out the unrealistic animal behaviors.

When The Shark Becomes The Victim

While Jaws started the attack on sharks, The Meg has an environmentalist aspect to the movie. In one scene, the crew comes across a fishing boat that the megalodon has attacked. The attacked boat had been hunting for sharks to use for shark fin soup, which is illegal in US waters, so the megalodon attacked the boat as a vengeance act (( Anonymous. “Shark Fin Trade: Why it Should be Banned in the United States.” Oceana, June 2016. January 22, 2021. )).

On the other hand, in 1975, the environmentalist act happened outside of the movie. Peter Benchley, the writer of the novel Jaws, had a change of heart after he saw the amount of violence towards sharks the movie caused. He was deep-sea diving when he saw shark corpses at the bottom of the ocean. The sharks’ fins were cut off, causing them to be unable to swim, which caused them to drown.

Benchley devoted the rest of his life to showing people that sharks do not “go rogue,” as the movie Jaws suggests. In fact, at one point, he said if he would have written this book again, he would have put the shark as the victim and not the antagonist (( Dowling, David. “How the Creator of ‘Jaws’ Became the Shark’s Greatest Defender.” Narratively, August 15, 2014. January 23, 2021. )). I think it’s commendable that Benchley saw the damage his movie caused to sharks and tried to change peoples’ views on the king of the ocean.

Maybe They Aren’t So Different

There are many similarities between the movie that started the shark horror genre and the newest blockbuster shark movie. The Meg uses the same shadowing and camera view of the shark tactic briefly at the beginning that Jaws uses throughout its own movie. They use the same equipment, have the same moments of relief, and children of the main characters fall into danger.

Both movies use their own versions of a shark diving cage. The crew from The Meg also goes into the water in order to try to kill the shark using the newest technology for each of their versions of a shark cage. Because of Jaws being in the 70s, Hooper only has a metal bar cage while Suyin in The Meg has a fancy, polycarbonate cage that won’t break — but doesn’t mean that the megalodon can’t swallow it. Towards the beginning of the shark hunt in Jaws, a couple of fishermen believe they’ve caught the shark.

Hooper doesn’t find the previous victims inside the shark, revealing that this is not the shark they are looking for. In The Meg, the crew captures the megalodon and hangs it up on their boat. The crew is ready to take it back to the lab and study it when a second megalodon breaches the water and eats the first megalodon. Both of these moments give the crew members in the movies a brief sense of relief that the horror is finally over, only to have it ruined when they learn the shark is still alive. This causes more panic when the new shark is revealed.

Another similarity that causes panic for the characters is that the child of the main character is in danger in very specific moments. In Jaws, Michael, Chief Brody’s son, is in the small alcove in his boat when the shark attacks a man next to him in another boat. Michael falls overboard with his friends, and the shark bypasses him to escape back into the ocean, causing Michael to go into shock. Suyin’s daughter, Meiying, is in danger periodically throughout the movie. She is never in danger to the extent Michael was in, but the megalodon tries to break the underwater lab where she is with his teeth. Meiying also falls into the water with the rest of the crew towards the end of the movie.

There are also all of these small “Easter eggs” that feel way too close to the original. A random kid begs to go back into the water with their float in each movie, either becoming shark food, like in Jaws or coming close, like in The Meg. Both dogs that swim into the ocean are named Pippin, clearly heard as the owner calls for them; only Pippin in The Meg lives.

Our Main Characters

The characters in The Meg have similar qualities to the three main characters of Jaws. Thankfully, a big difference is that women have taken up part of The Meg’s team, a researcher and submarine driver included. The writers of The Meg could have followed stereotypical action movie main characters’ qualities. Still, there are too many similarities between the characters of each film for it just to be a coincidence.

Hooper

Hooper is an oceanographer that has graduated college and was hired by Brody to help catch and identify the shark that is terrorizing Amity island. He’s very sarcastic, and while it doesn’t seem like he has had a lot of work out in the field while in danger, he is still extremely confident in his work. With this confidence in mind, he constantly argue with Quint.

I think Jack Morris and Jaxx Herd are the two characters in The Meg that closely resemble Hooper. Jack Morris is the underwater lab investor, while Jaxx is the engineer and scientist responsible for the shark cage. She is sarcastic and confident, knowing that what she has invented will withstand the pressure of the megalodon even though the creature has never been studied before other than the fossils. Jack comes in with an absurd amount of confidence for someone only sponsoring an underwater lab and not knowing much, if at all, of the science behind the lab.

Quint

Quint is the fisherman that knows he will find the shark and knows his worth. When the reward is put out for finding the shark for three thousand dollars, he counters with ten thousand to find it and kill it. He also questions Hooper’s knowledge and ability to help catch the shark because of his “city hands.” Jonas Taylor from The Meg is an obvious choice for who is most like Quint. He wants to find the crew trapped at the bottom of the ocean by himself. Jonas also volunteers to swim out into the ocean to tag the shark by himself. He constantly pushes back at some of the more knowledgeable people because he believes he knows best and doesn’t necessarily trust the people in charge just because they have a higher job status than him.

This is also why Suyin is also a lot like Quint. She is a head researcher in the lab, making her more confident in her knowledge and loyal to the crew members she puts in danger. She and Jonas have a constant power battle as to who will do the dangerous tasks in order to keep everyone safe. This leads to her being almost swallowed in a shark cage, like when Quint was eaten in Jaws, and the power battle between her and Jonas to kill the final megalodon.

Brody

Being Chief of police doesn’t mean that Brody knows what he is doing in a shark hunt. Originally from New York, he hadn’t dealt with a shark attack victim before, let alone a “rogue shark.” He does the best he can do with what he knows and tries to help out in any way he can.

The Wall and DJ in The Meg are the comedic relief scientists that while they know what they are doing, they have a sense of confusion throughout the movie. DJ can’t swim even though he works at an underwater lab, and The Wall makes juvenile jokes with his coworker at the beginning of the movie. The way they relate to Brody is more from a comedic side. The fact that Brody is clueless during these high-stress situations helps bring comedy to ease the tension within the scene, much like DJ and The Wall joke around with each other throughout the movie.

Did This Hurt Or Help The Meg?

The Meg may have made too many references for my taste, but I still enjoy an action movie. The movie may have been pushing the bigger and badder version of Jaws a lot, considering it wanted to be its own movie.

A good example of a reboot with bigger and scarier animals was the Jurassic World reboot of Jurassic Park. It had its own somewhat different storyline, along with a few calls back to the original. Don’t get me wrong; I love a good call back to an older movie. On the other hand, when are there too many references for a movie not claiming to be a part of the original series?