CinemaDome: Jaws vs Star Wars

These 70s giants may be two of the most influential films of the modern era. One is credited with igniting the summer blockbuster craze while the other launched films as merchandising platforms.



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Come on, man. Star Wars.

This is an odd pairing. The influence of Star Wars on our culture is unquestionable. But the better film? Jaws by a mile.

hotseatgames wrote: This is an odd pairing.

Sometimes to make the contest interesting, we need to compare across genres. What sci-fi flick was Star Wars going to lose to? What creature feature would beat Jaws? These were both monster hits around the same time. Both composed by John Williams. Both launched their directors (Spielberg and Lucas) into super-stardom. Both still influential and hold-up today.

This is going to get tons of incorrect voting. We're voting for best movie right? Not best franchise. Jaws is by far the better movie. I think it's one of the five best movies of all time. It's just so perfect.

...and I look like Richard Dreyfuss a bit.

This pairing is funny cuz these are the two movie franchises I used to go see with my dad. Saw Star Wars in a drive in theatre, fell asleep. Jaws is the reason I have a fear to this day if deep water where I can't see the bottom.

Vote : anything but Hillary, I mean Jaws

Black Barney wrote: This is going to get tons of incorrect voting. We're voting for best movie right? Not best franchise

It's Trashdome. You vote for your favourite.

This is tougher than I expected...

I love the original Star Wars, but a big part of that is all the stuff that came after it. I don't think about it in a vacuum, and I'm not even sure I'm able to. So it's definitely the movie that has meant more to me and has been a bigger part of my life.

But that said, Jaws is one of the best thrillers ever made. It nails all of its lead characters, and the whole back half off the movie spent on the boat is just so taut. It does much more with character work and it generally much more exciting. I also think that its effects have aged better, though part of that is because it is not nearly as ambitious on that count. Steven Spielberg is just a better filmmaker than George Lucas, and I think you do see the disparity here.

In the end though Star Wars is much more elemental, and it resonates with me on a deeper level. This is NOT an easy decision, but I need to go with Star Wars.

My daughter, who is fifteen, recently watched Jaws on a netbook while we were driving 800 miles to Oregon. She said that Jaws is better, because at least it held her attention.

I saw both of these when they came out. 12-year-old Craniac votes for Star Wars as the most mind blowing. Old and bitter Craniac votes for Jaws as the better movie.

So, let's start out by admitting that Star Wars, irrespective of its cultural influence, is a pretty subpar movie from a story perspective. It's a simplistic and completely predictable story with stereotypical characters and bad dialogue ("George, you can type this shit but you sure can't say it!") There are no performances that elevate the material from typical Flash Gordon serial, which is what it was based on, especially given that the one performance that everyone remembers is James Earl Jones' disembodied voice. Harlan Ellison was right when he called it a bad Western with lasers. OTOH, it is an extremely fun movie and the leap forward in terms of special effects set the modern standard by which all other things were measured until the advent of CGI. It's firmly embedded in the culture as a hallmark of modern science fiction.

Jaws is definitely the more interesting case because of the nature of its production. The story is equally simple ("Monster shark terrorizes town.") but I think it reaps the benefits of two things. First, the performances. Robert Shaw created his signature role, despite a lengthy career prior to what he dismissed as a schlock film. Richard Dreyfuss created a career and Roy Scheider continued a solid leading man course. Lorraine Gary, often overlooked, also does really well with very little screen time. One of my favorite sequences in the film is when Hooper (always ringing in my mind in Robert Shaw's elevated growl: "HOO-pah!") comes to the Brody home to talk with Martin about the shark that's been killed. He has hastily-assembled dinner attire (a jacket thrown over a shirt and jeans) and says: "I'd like to talk to your husband." Ellen responds: "Yes. So would i." Then when they get to the table, Martin immediately pops the cork on the bottle of red and fills a water glass with it. Hooper says: "Uh, you wanna let that breathe-!" and then just waves a hand, realizing that it's not worth pursuing. That's an effective scene that maps out those three people and their current emotional state with subtle dialogue cues and basic motions. Star Wars lacks this almost entirely.

Secondly, the failures of the mechanical shark that led Spielberg to hide it in most shots and only indirectly (bodies, blood, dorsal fin) show its effect on the town and its victims turned out to be a master stroke of luck that tells the story better than any direct shots ever would have. It's a more subtle form of storytelling that I think colored his approach to Close Encounters and which also enhanced that story (drawing the parallels to a world just out of reach a la Peter Pan, which becomes a theme within the script.) Even beyond that accidental stroke of good/bad luck, Spielberg was a better and more daring storyteller than Lucas at the time and it shows in too many ways to count.

I'm a Star Wars fan, to a certain degree. Lucas burned a lot of bridges with me with the prequel trilogy and the most recent film was just a remake of the first. I appreciate the possibilities inherent to the universe, but the stories that have been told via the films are, again, pretty amateurish when it comes to what I usually enjoy in my SF movies. I'm also not a huge Spielberg fan. I think his approach since Schindler's List has been a way too "middle America" with intriguing concepts too easily wrapped up with a pretty bow on top (witness Bridge of Spies.) But as hotseat said, Jaws is simply the better film.

I've re-watched Star Wars countless times. I've re-watched Jaws a few. Therefore Star Wars is clearly the better film.

Star Wars.

by Mad Dog's metric, Under Siege is the best movie of all time and Schindler's List is the worst.

Jaws. I was of the age at the time to get all excited about sharks, without the benefit of Discovery Channel's Shark Week.

I'm not sure who's going to take on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Maybe the winner of these two.

I am a pulpy serials, usually in book form. and that is how I run RPGs I game master. I will forever be filled with a childish glee when I hear the TIE fighter whine and the 'brrrrraap' of the laser fire. I love Han Solo's one liners and his role as the cad who goes against his nature of self-preservation to fight for something bigger than himself. The story is simple and familiar, yet enjoyable all the same.

Jaws is the better movie though. The dialog alone, especially the scar comparing scene, seem natural. Like some have said above me, the problems with the shark did lend a less-is-more aspect to the thrills that was fantastic.

Verdict: Jaws.

I've loved Star Wars going back further than I have memories -- a VHS tape with Star Wars, the Popeye movie, and The Great Muppet Caper was my primary babysitter as a toddler -- but Jaws easily wins this. I think it's a perfect movie, and still possibly the best blockbuster ever made.