Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?

Tools    





Yes the first hour definitely a bit slow, doesn t even look like the movie it is about until the hour mark



Not sure how anybody can consider it slow. The story building and character building is sublime.

I think perhaps people who consider it slow only watch fast paced genre movies.



Those older movies with their talking and the music. So last century. Soon movies will come in pill form and we will be able to view a 2 hour movie in about a minute. Life moves pretty fast.
__________________
We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...



No, because the plot is as much about a father and his son as it is about a shark. It takes time for their character development.
__________________
Movie Eagle



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
A lot of movies nowadays such as The Fast and Furious movies are other blockbuster action movies, will go over 2 hours in their lengths, and somehow they seem more rushed and fast paced compared to Jaws even though Jaws is shorter. I would say Jaws' runtime and pacing is pretty good.

It may have some slow parts compared to nowadays such as showing people walking down a hallway and talking before entering a room, where as nowadays we would just start out in the room maybe for example?

But still good pacing I would say. There is also not as much music in the movie, compared to movies today, so maybe that is one of the reasons why it may seem slower, or more quiet?



Victim of The Night
Absolutely not. Jaws is Spielberg's masterpiece. I don't like Spielberg but he made an essentially perfect film with Jaws. The fact that the narrative always has room to breathe and time is taken for character moments and for good dialogue to sink in with the audience is part of why it's a masterpiece.



Well, by their nature, sharks aren't the brightest species, but it seems pretty cruel to ridicule the poor thing. They did a lot of great editing to work around Bruce's, um, charismatic challenges, shall we call them? But slower sharks are just easier to work with, and he's no where near as slow as that practically catatonic ichthy-diot that played in The Last Shark.


Are you trying to get your name in National Geographic or The Marine Psychologist?



After the opening scene where the girl with the long red hair gets eaten by the shark. I love that opening scene, I think it's absolutely brilliant, but the rest of the film just doesn't interest me, I don't know why.



Not sure how anybody can consider it slow. The story building and character building is sublime.

I think perhaps people who consider it slow only watch fast paced genre movies.
I just went over this. No I don't. Satantango is better than Jaws IMO and it's literally "slow cinema."



Registered User
Jaws is a guy movie, so it deals with things that concern guys. There's Brody who epitomizes the concept of useless. He's a sheriff in a town that has no crime, (in the book, his wife has an affair with Hooper). Then there's the know-nothing Hooper who, despite knowing how to do things like scuba dive and pilot a boat, has mostly lived as a sheltered and pampered girl. Then there's Quint! Quint is a manly man's man. He doesn't use guy liner, or spend much time shopping for skinny jeans at the local mall.

The movie is basically a coming of age movie, where Brody and Hooper learn how to be men. The shark symbolizes a problem that needs to be dealt with, and Quint is the professor who will ultimately teach two boys how men deal with problems. When Brody has time for just one more shot, and he's the only one who can do anything, that's when he became a man.

Hooper... well, he tried.



Too slow? No. I'd say that an awful lot of subsequent movies are too fast. Jaws had a good slow-burn that's missing from fast paced flix.