Jaws 3-D
Encyclopedia
Jaws 3-D is a 1983 thriller film directed by Joe Alves
Joe Alves
Joe Alves is an American film production designer, perhaps best known for his work on three of the Jaws films. He directed Jaws 3-D....

 and starring Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...

, Bess Armstrong
Bess Armstrong
Elizabeth Key "Bess" Armstrong is an American film and television actress.-Life and career:Armstrong was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Louise Allen , who taught at Bryn Mawr, and Alexander Armstrong, an English teacher at the Gilman School...

, Lea Thompson
Lea Thompson
Lea Katherine Thompson is an American actress and director. She is best known for her 1990s NBC situation comedy Caroline in the City and her portrayal of Lorraine Baines McFly, Marty McFly's mother, in the Back to the Future trilogy...

 and Louis Gossett, Jr.
Louis Gossett, Jr.
Louis Cameron Gossett, Jr. is an American actor best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman and Fiddler in the 1970s television miniseries Roots...

 It is the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...

.

As SeaWorld
SeaWorld
SeaWorld is a United States chain of marine mammal parks, oceanariums, and animal theme parks owned by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. The parks feature captive orca, sea lion, and dolphin shows and zoological displays featuring various other marine animals. There are operations in Orlando,...

, a water park with underwater tunnels and lagoon
Lagoon
A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

s, prepares for opening, a young great white shark
Great white shark
The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...

 infiltrates the park from the sea, seemingly attacking and killing water skiers and park employees. Once the baby shark is captured, it becomes apparent that it was the mother, a much larger shark who also entered the park, who was the real killer.

The film is notable for making use of 3-D film
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...

 during the revived interest in the technology in the 1980s, amongst other horror films such as Friday the 13th Part III and Amityville 3-D
Amityville 3-D
Amityville 3-D is a 1983 horror film and the third installment in the The Amityville Horror series. It was one of a spate of 3-D films released in the early 80s. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer and the script was written by David Ambrose...

. Cinema audiences could wear disposable cardboard polarized 3D glasses to create the illusion that elements penetrate the screen. Several shots and sequences were designed to utilise the effect, such as the shark's destruction. Since 3-D was ineffective in home viewing until the advent of 3D televisions
3D television
A 3D television is a television set that employs techniques of 3D presentation, such as stereoscopic capture, multi-view capture, or 2D-plus-depth, and a 3D display – a special viewing device to project a television program into a realistic three-dimensional field.- History :In the late-1890's,...

 in the late 2000s, the alternative title Jaws III is used for television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 broadcasts, VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

.

Plot

The film begins with the great white shark
Great white shark
The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...

 moving throughout the ocean as it starts to follow an unsuspecting team of water skiers. The driver, Richie, stalls the boat and manages to get it going again before the shark can attack anyone. The shark follows the water skiers into the park and throws the gate off its rails while it is closing. Meanwhile, Florida announces the opening of SeaWorld's new underwater tunnels.

A man in a wetsuit and a man in scuba gear enters the park in a small rowed inflatable boat
Inflatable boat
An inflatable boat is a lightweight boat constructed with its sides and bow made of flexible tubes containing pressurised gas. For smaller boats, the floor and hull beneath it is often flexible. On boats longer than , the floor often consists of three to five rigid plywood or aluminium sheets fixed...

 to steal coral to sell. The diver slips into the water quietly, but something catches him, leaving only his diving mask
Diving mask
A diving mask is an item of diving equipment that allows scuba divers, free-divers, and snorkelers to see clearly underwater. When the human eye is in direct contact with water as opposed to air, its normal environment, light entering the eye is refracted by a different angle and the eye is unable...

 drifting in the water. The other man disappears also; then something sinks the inflatable.

Katherine "Kay" Morgan (Bess Armstrong
Bess Armstrong
Elizabeth Key "Bess" Armstrong is an American film and television actress.-Life and career:Armstrong was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Louise Allen , who taught at Bryn Mawr, and Alexander Armstrong, an English teacher at the Gilman School...

), the senior marine biologist, and her assistants wonder why the dolphins, Cindy and Sandy, are so afraid of leaving their dolphin pen. Shelby Overman (Harry Grant), one of the mechanics, dives into the water to repair and secure the gates. He is attacked by a large shark and killed, leaving only his severed right arm. The next day, Michael Brody (Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...

) and Kay are informed of Overman's disappearance. They go down in a submarine to look in the tunnels to find Overman's body. Kay suggests the filtration pipe but Mike says that the current is too strong and and that it flows into the lagoon every hour. They decide to go into a piece of scenery, the Spanish Galleon, despite the two dolphins attempting to keep them out. As they search the Spanish Galleon they encounter a small great white shark. The dolphins rescue Kay and Mike but the shark escapes back into the park.

The news of the shark is disbelieved by Calvin Bouchard (Louis Gossett, Jr.
Louis Gossett, Jr.
Louis Cameron Gossett, Jr. is an American actor best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman and Fiddler in the 1970s television miniseries Roots...

), the SeaWorld park manager, although the news is exciting to his hunter friend, Phillip FitzRoyce (Simon MacCorkindale
Simon MacCorkindale
Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale was a British actor, film director, writer and producer. MacCorkindale spent much of his childhood moving around due to his father's commission with the Royal Air Force. Poor eyesight prevented him from following a similar career in the RAF, so he instead...

), who states his intention to kill the shark on network television. Kay protests, arguing that while killing the shark would be good for one headline, capturing and keeping a great white shark alive in captivity would guarantee TV crews and money constantly rolling into SeaWorld. The baby shark is captured and Kay and her staff nurse it to health. However, Calvin, desperate to start the money rolling in immediately, orders it moved to an exhibit as "the first great white in captivity". However, the baby shark dies in the exhibit.

At the underwater tunnel, a girl is terrified when she sees part of Overman's corpse bob up to a window. Forcing Mike and a paramedic to let her review Overman's corpse, Kay realizes that the shark that killed him must be the young shark's mother, and that since Overman was killed inside the park, the mother shark must also be inside the park; the shape of the bite shows that the shark's mouth must be about 3 feet wide and thus the shark about 35 feet long. She captures the attention of FitzRoyce, but she cannot convince Calvin until the enormous shark herself shows up at the window of their underwater cafe, terrifying the customers. Flushed out from her refuge inside the filtration pipe, the shark begins to wreak havoc on the park and attacks water skier Kelly Ann Bukowski (Lea Thompson
Lea Thompson
Lea Katherine Thompson is an American actress and director. She is best known for her 1990s NBC situation comedy Caroline in the City and her portrayal of Lorraine Baines McFly, Marty McFly's mother, in the Back to the Future trilogy...

) and Sean Brody (John Putch
John Putch
John Putch is an American actor, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his recurring role as Bob Morton on the 1980s sitcom One Day at a Time and as Sean Brody in the film Jaws 3-D.-Career:...

). The shark injures Kelly in the left leg and leaves. Sean is unharmed but the shark causes a leak that nearly drowns everyone in the underwater tunnel. FitzRoyce and his assistant Jack (P. H. Moriarty
P. H. Moriarty
P. H. Moriarty is an English actor.Perhaps most well known for his role as Hatchet Harry in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels , he later portrayed Gurney Halleck in the Sci Fi Channel's 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune and its 2003 sequel, Frank Herbert's Children of...

) go down to the filtration pipe in an attempt to trap the shark back inside to kill it. FitzRoyce leads the shark into the pipe but his lifeline rope snaps and the shark attacks him. FitzRoyce grabs a grenade and prepares to use it, but before he can get his other hand to the grenade to pull its safety pin he is crushed and chewed, in the shark's mouth as it swallows him fins first, cylinder and all as far as it can.

Hearing the shark has been lured into the pipe, Michael goes down to repair the underwater tunnel so the technicians can restore air pressure and drain the water, with Kay to watch his back. He welds the repair piece and Calvin orders the pump shut down to suffocate the shark, but all shutting the pump down does is let her break free from the pipe and attack Mike and Kay. They escape thanks to help from Cindy and Sandy, who attack the shark to distract her briefly. They make their way back to the control room with Calvin and the technicians, but the shark appears in front of the window and smashes its way through the glass and floods the room. Calvin manages to swim out and rescue one technician but another technician is killed in the process. Mike notices FitzRoyce's corpse still in the shark's throat with the grenade in his hand trailing into its mouth, and uses a bent pole to pull the grenade's pin, killing the shark. In the aftermath, Mike and Kay celebrate with Cindy and Sandy, who survived their brush with the shark.

Cast

  • Dennis Quaid
    Dennis Quaid
    Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...

     as Michael 'Mike' Brody
  • Bess Armstrong
    Bess Armstrong
    Elizabeth Key "Bess" Armstrong is an American film and television actress.-Life and career:Armstrong was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Louise Allen , who taught at Bryn Mawr, and Alexander Armstrong, an English teacher at the Gilman School...

     as Kathryn Morgan
  • Simon MacCorkindale
    Simon MacCorkindale
    Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale was a British actor, film director, writer and producer. MacCorkindale spent much of his childhood moving around due to his father's commission with the Royal Air Force. Poor eyesight prevented him from following a similar career in the RAF, so he instead...

     as Philip FitzRoyce, 16th Earl of Haddenfield
  • Louis Gossett, Jr.
    Louis Gossett, Jr.
    Louis Cameron Gossett, Jr. is an American actor best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman and Fiddler in the 1970s television miniseries Roots...

     as Calvin Bouchard
  • John Putch
    John Putch
    John Putch is an American actor, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his recurring role as Bob Morton on the 1980s sitcom One Day at a Time and as Sean Brody in the film Jaws 3-D.-Career:...

     as Sean Brody
  • John W. Wilson as 3D Shark
  • Lea Thompson
    Lea Thompson
    Lea Katherine Thompson is an American actress and director. She is best known for her 1990s NBC situation comedy Caroline in the City and her portrayal of Lorraine Baines McFly, Marty McFly's mother, in the Back to the Future trilogy...

     as Kelly Ann Bukowski
  • Harry Grant
    Harry Grant
    Harry Grant was an American auto racing driver. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, driving an ALCO, Grant won the 1909 and 1910 Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island. He then competed in the Indianapolis 500 four times between 1911 and 1915. He had his best showing in 1915, finishing in 5th place...

     as Shelby Overman
  • P. H. Moriarty
    P. H. Moriarty
    P. H. Moriarty is an English actor.Perhaps most well known for his role as Hatchet Harry in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels , he later portrayed Gurney Halleck in the Sci Fi Channel's 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune and its 2003 sequel, Frank Herbert's Children of...

     as Jack Tate
  • Dan Glasko as Danny
  • Liz Morris as Liz
  • Lisa Maurer as Ethal
  • Kaye Stevens
    Kaye Stevens
    Kaye Stevens is an American singer and actress. Stevens's big break in show business came at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, when the headliner for the night, Debbie Reynolds, became ill and Stevens filled in for the night...

     as Mrs Kellender

Production

David Brown
David Brown (producer)
David Brown was an American film producer.-Early life and career:Brown was born in New York City, the son of Lillian and Edward Fisher Brown. He was best known as the producing partner of Richard D. Zanuck. They were jointly awarded the Irving G...

 and Richard Zanuck, the producers for the first two films, originally pitched the second Jaws sequel as a spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 named Jaws 3, People 0. Matty Simmons
Matty Simmons
Matty Simmons is a former newspaper reporter for the New York World-Telegram and Sun, and Executive Vice President of Diner's Club, the first credit card company...

, fresh off the success of National Lampoon's Animal House
National Lampoon's Animal House
National Lampoon's Animal House is a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis. The film was a direct spin-off of National Lampoon magazine...

, was brought in as producer, with Brown and Zanuck taking on executive producer roles. Simmons outlined a story and commissioned National Lampoon writers John Hughes and Todd Carroll for a script. Joe Dante
Joe Dante
Joseph "Joe" Dante, Jr. is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and science fiction content....

 was briefly pursued as a director. The project was shut down due to conflicts with Universal Studios. David Brown later said a spoof would have been a mistake and that it would be like "fouling in your own nest."

Alan Landsburg
Alan Landsburg
Alan William Landsburg is an American television writer, producer, and director. He is founder and CEO of the Landsburg Company and has been involved in producing over 50 movies of the week. He has over 2000 hours of television production experience.- Career :Landsburg graduated from New York...

 bought the rights to produce the film. He attempted to involve experimental filmmaker Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner is an Academy Award-winning American documentary and experimental film director and producer.1967 saw the release of the film Festival...

 in Jaws 3, telling him that people at the Marineland
Marineland of Florida
-External links:**...

 theme park in Florida had seen his 1978 3-D film Sea Dream. Lerner said that his "heart sank" when he was sent the first script of Jaws 3-D, saying "I can't really get involved in this". As the production already had an art director, Lerner, who didn't like the script, declined to be involved in the film.

The film was directed by Joe Alves, who was the production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...

 for the first two films and was the second unit director for Jaws 2. It had been suggested that Alves co-direct the first sequel with Verna Fields
Verna Fields
Verna Fields was an American film editor, film and television sound editor, educator, and entertainment industry executive. In the first phase of her career, from 1954 through to about 1970, Fields mostly worked on smaller projects that gained little recognition. She was the sound editor for...

 when first director John D. Hancock
John D. Hancock
John D. Hancock is an American stage and film director, producer and writer. He is the son of Ralph and Ella Mae Rosenthal Hancock. His father was a musician with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Chicago, Illinois and his mother a school teacher. Hancock spent his youth between their home in...

 left the project. It was filmed at SeaWorld Orlando
SeaWorld Orlando
SeaWorld Orlando is a theme park, and marine-life based zoological park, near Orlando, Florida. It is owned and operated by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, a subsidiary of The Blackstone Group...

, a landlocked water park; and Navarre, Florida
Navarre, Florida
Navarre is an unincorporated community in Santa Rosa County in the Northwest Florida Panhandle. Navarre is about 25 miles east of Pensacola and about 15 miles west of Fort Walton Beach. The community is roughly centered on the junction of U.S. Route 98 and State Road 87...

, a community in the Florida Panhandle
Florida Panhandle
The Florida Panhandle, an informal, unofficial term for the northwestern part of Florida, is a strip of land roughly 200 miles long and 50 to 100 miles wide , lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia also on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is...

 near Pensacola
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...

.

As with the first two films in the series, many people were involved in writing the film. Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...

, who had written the script for Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

's celebrated 1971 television film Duel
Duel (film)
Duel is a 1971 television film about a terrified motorist on a remote and lonely road being chased and stalked by the unseen driver of a tanker truck...

, says that he wrote a "very interesting" outline, although the story is credited to "some other writer". Universal forced Matheson to include Brody's two sons, which the writer "thought was dumb". They also wanted it to be the same shark that was electrocuted in Jaws 2. Matheson was also requested to write a custom-role for Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

, "which I did so successfully that when Mickey Rooney turned out not to be available, the whole part was pointless". The writer was unhappy with the finished film.

I'm a good storyteller and I wrote a good outline and a good script. And if they had done it right and if it had been directed by somebody who knew how to direct, I think it would have been an excellent movie. Jaws 3-D was the only thing Joe Alves ever directed; the man is a very skilled production designer, but as a director, no. And the so-called 3-D just made the film look murky - it had no effect whatsoever. It was a waste of time.


Guerdon Trueblood is credited for the story; a reviewer for the website SciFilm says that the screenplay was based upon Trueblood's story about a white shark swimming upstream and becoming trapped in a lake. Carl Gottlieb
Carl Gottlieb
Carl Gottlieb is an American screenwriter, actor, comedian and executive. He is probably best known for co-writing the screenplay for Jaws, as well as directing the 1981 low-budget cult film Caveman.-Early life:...

, who had also revised the screenplays for the first two Jaws films, was credited for the script alongside Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...

. Matheson has reported in interviews that the screenplay was revised by script doctor
Script doctor
A script doctor, also called script consultant, is a highly-skilled screenwriter, hired by a film or television production, to rewrite or polish specific aspects of an existing screenplay, including structure, characterization, dialogue, pacing, theme, and other elements...

s.

The film did not use any actors from the first two Jaws films. Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...

, who played Police Chief Martin Brody in the first two films, laughed at the thought of Jaws 3, saying that "Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...

 ... couldn't talk me into doing [it] ... They knew better than to even ask". He agreed to do Blue Thunder
Blue Thunder
Blue Thunder is a 1983 feature film that features a high-tech helicopter of the same name. The movie was directed by John Badham and stars Roy Scheider...

to ensure his unavailability for Jaws 3-D.

3-D

There was a revival in popularity of 3-D
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...

 at this time, with many films using the technique. Jaws second sequel integrated the technology into its title, as did Amityville 3-D
Amityville 3-D
Amityville 3-D is a 1983 horror film and the third installment in the The Amityville Horror series. It was one of a spate of 3-D films released in the early 80s. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer and the script was written by David Ambrose...

. Friday the 13th Part III could also make dual use of the number three. The gimmick was also advertised in the tagline "the third dimension is terror." As it was Joe Alves' first film as director, he thought that 3-D would "give him an edge".

Cinema audiences could wear disposable polarized glasses
Polarized glasses
Polarized 3D glasses create the illusion of three-dimensional images by restricting the light that reaches each eye, an example of stereoscopy which exploits the polarization of light....

 to view the film, creating the illusion that elements from the film were penetrating the screen to come towards the viewers. The opening sequence makes obvious use of the technique, with the titles flying to the forefront of the screen, leaving a trail
Doppler effect
The Doppler effect , named after Austrian physicist Christian Doppler who proposed it in 1842 in Prague, is the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to the source of the wave. It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren or horn approaches, passes, and recedes from...

. There are more subtle instances in the film where props are meant to leave the screen. The more obvious examples are in the climatic sequence of the shark attacking the control room and its subsequent destruction. The glass as the shark smashes into the room uses 3-D, as does the shot where the shark explodes, with fragmented parts of it apparently bursting through the screen, ending with its jaws. There were many difficulties in making the green screen compositing work in 3-D, and a lot of material had to be reshot.

Jaws 3-D had two 3-D consultants: the production started with Chris Condon
Chris Condon
Chris J. Condon was the inventor of 3D lens used by his company StereoVision, a cinematographer, and founder of Sierra Pacific Airlines.He was born in North Chicago, Illinois...

, president of StereoVision, and Stan Loth was later added to the team for the Arrivision 3-D. Production began using the StereoVision, but this was dropped after a week for the Arrivision system, "which Alves believed was a superior system because it has a wider variety of lenses". According to Alves, inferior systems lead to ghosting and blurring, leaving audiences with headaches. He says that "the left and right images [in Jaws 3-D] are very well-matched, and the photography is very clean; it's restful to the eye, and though we do have the occasional effects where things do emerge toward the audience from the plane of projection, you come out of the film without a headache." Historian R. M. Hayes says that the film was shot using both the Arrivision and StereoVision single strip-over-and-under units. Both cameras were used in conjunction with each other. This is a means of shooting 3D movies in normal color with a single camera and single strip of film: the Arrivision 3D technique uses a special twin-lens adapter fitted to the film camera, and divides the 35 mm film frame in half along the middle, capturing the left-eye image in the upper half of the frame and the right-eye image in the lower half - this is known as "over/under". This allows filming to proceed as for any standard 2D film, without the considerable additional expense of having to double up on cameras and film stock for every shot. When the resultant film is projected through a normal projector (albeit one requiring a special lens that combines the upper and lower images), a true polarised 3D image is produced. This system allows 3D films to be shown in almost any cinema since it does not require two projectors running simultaneously through the presentation - something most cinemas are not equipped to handle. What is required of the theatre is both the special projection lens and a reflective "silver" screen to enable the polarized images to reflect back to the viewer with the appropriate filter on each eye blocking out the wrong image, thus leaving the viewer to see the film from two angles as the eyes naturally see the world. According to the company that built the underwater camera housings for Jaws 3-D, the underwater sequences were shot using an Arriflex 35-3 camera with Arrivision 18 mm over/under 3D lens.

This kind of 3D effect does not work on television without special electronic hardware at the viewer's end, and so with two exceptions, the home video and broadcast TV versions of
Jaws 3-D were created using just the left-eye image, and with the title changed to "Jaws 3" or "Jaws III". Because the left-eye image only takes up half the 35 mm film frame, the picture resolution is noticeably poorer than would normally be expected of a film shot on 35 mm.

One of the above-mentioned exceptions was a 1986 release of the film for the now-obsolete VHD video disc system (not to be confused with LaserDisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

). This required a special 3D VHD player, or a standard VHD player with a hardware 3D adapter, and a set of LCD glasses that shuttered the viewer's eyes according to control signals sent by the player, allowing the polarised 3D effect to work. The other exception was the Sensio 3-D DVD of Jaws 3-D released in February 2008. The Sensio 3-D Processor is needed for 3-D home viewing.

TV3
TV3 (Malaysia)
Sistem Televisyen Malaysia Berhad or TV3 began broadcasting on 1 June 1984 as Malaysia’s first commercial television station. It is part of Media Prima Berhad group of companies. It now transmits opened broadcasting business private 24-hours a day, 7 days a week since 1 January 2010...

 in Malaysia tried to broadcast the 3D version of the film in 2001. The event was advertised heavily and required viewers to buy or obtain a pair of anaglyph
Anaglyph image
Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with glasses where the two lenses are different colors, such as red and cyan. Images are made up of two color layers, superimposed, but offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect...

 glasses to fully enjoy the movie; this was an anaglyph 3D version of the film created from the Arrivision original.

Music

The score was composed and conducted by Alan Parker
Alan Parker (musician)
Alan Parker is a British guitarist and composer. Parker was trained by Julian Bream at London’s Royal Academy of Music....

, who had previously provided music for British television
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...

 shows including Van der Valk and Minder
Minder (TV series)
Minder is a British comedy-drama about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV...

. It was Parker's first feature score, but he would later work on What's Eating Gilbert Grape
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a 1993 film directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio. Peter Hedges wrote the screenplay adapted from his 1991 novel of the same name...

and American Gothic
American Gothic (TV series)
American Gothic is an American horror series created by Shaun Cassidy and executive produced by Sam Raimi. The show first aired on CBS on September 22, 1995, and was cancelled after a single season on July 11, 1996.-Plot:...

. John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

' famous shark motif is, however, integrated into the score. The soundtrack album was released by MCA Records
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

 which was absorbed by Geffen Records. The soundtrack was later released on CD by Intrada and was limited to only 3000 copies.

Track listing

  1. "Jaws 3-D Main Title" (2:59)
  2. "Kay and Mike's Love Theme" (2:18)
  3. "Panic at Seaworld" (2:07)
  4. "Underwater Kingdom and Shark Chase" (4:20)
  5. "Shark Chase and Dolphin Rescue" (1:22)
  6. "Saved by the Dolphins" (2:05)
  7. "The Shark's Gonna Hit Us!" (2:42)
  8. "It's Alive/Seaworld Opening Day/Silver Bullet" (2:34)
  9. "Overman's Last Dive" (1:18)
  10. "Philip's Demise" (4:59)
  11. "Night Capture" (4:53)
  12. "Jaws 3-D End Titles" (4:06)

Reception

The film opened in more than a thousand screens across the U.S. There were many promotions to accompany the release of the film. As with Jaws 2, Topps
Topps
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...

 produced a series of trading card
Trading card
A trading card is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing and a short description of the picture, along with other text...

s. Television stations were encouraged to broadcast the featurette,
Making of Jaws 3-D: Sharks Don't Die, in a prime-time slot between July 16 and July 22, 1983 to take advantage of an advertisement in that week's issue of TV Guide. Alan Landsburg Productions found itself in trouble for using 90 seconds of footage from the National Geographic's 1983 documentary film The Sharks in the featurette without authorization.

Box office

The film grossed $13,422,500 on its opening weekend, playing to 1,311 theaters at its widest release. This was 29.5% of its total gross. It has achieved total lifetime worldwide gross of $87,987,055. Despite being #1 at the box office, this illustrates the series' diminishing returns, since
Jaws 3-D has earned nearly $100 million less than the total lifetime gross of its predecessor and $300 million less than the original film. The final sequel would attract an even lower income, with around two thirds of Jaws 3-Ds total lifetime gross. However, the film was still drawing huge audiences when it was pulled from theaters; film historian R.M. Hayes says this action "was pure nonsense considering some cinemas were actually turning over more money per screen than the latest Star Wars film".

Critical response

Reception for the movie was generally poor. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

calls it "tepid" and suggests that Alves "fails to linger long enough on the Great White." Although, it has an 13% 'rotten' rating at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

. The 3-D was criticized as being a gimmick to attract audiences to the aging series and for being ineffective. Allrovi, however, says that "the suspense sequences were made somewhat more memorable during the film's original release with 3-D photography, an attribute lost on video, thereby removing the most distinctive element of an otherwise run-of-the-mill sequel." Derek Winnert says that "with Richard Matheson's name on the script you'd expect a better yarn" although he continues to say that the film "is entirely watchable with a big pack of popcorn." Others are disappointed that Matheson and Gottlieb produced this script given their previous success.

Although most critics are in agreement that Jaws 2
Jaws 2
Jaws 2 is a 1978 thriller film and the first sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws , which is based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name...

is the best of the Jaws sequels, some are unsure if Jaws-3-D is better than Jaws: The Revenge
Jaws: The Revenge
Jaws: The Revenge, Also known as, 'Jaws 4: The Revenge', is a 1987 thriller film directed by Joseph Sargent. It is the third sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the final installment of the series....

.
One reviewer says of Jaws 3-D:

Campy performances, cheesy special effects, and downright awful dialogue all contribute to making Jaws 3 a truly dismal experience for just about everyone. It's not only hard to believe that a sequel this downright abominable didn't kill the franchise, but that it actually would be followed by a movie that was arguably worse—Jaws: the Revenge.


Amongst some flaws, some critics describe the film as "marginally entertaining." The sound design has been commended, however. The moment when an infant's cry is heard when the baby shark dies in the pool is particularly praised by one reviewer. Gossett, Jet magazine says, was the "only cast member to survive the generally negative reviews".

In her screenwriting textbook, Linda Aronson suggests that its protagonist, played by Quaid, is a major problem with the film. She says that after taking too long for him to be introduced, the character is "essentially a passive onlooker." There is no hunt until the climax when the shark is terrorizing the people in the aquarium; only then does Mike Brody become centre of the action. She also highlights inaccuracies in the plot. For instance, she refutes the idea of a "mother shark protecting her offspring [as] sharks do not mother their young," and points out that dolphins can attack sharks.

Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...

 calls the film a "road-company Irwin Allen type-disaster film" and notes that its premise is similar to the 1955 sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon
Revenge of the Creature
Revenge of the Creature is the first sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon. The film is notable for being the only 3-D film to be released in 1955; the only 3-D sequel to a 3-D film; and for being the first screen role for Clint Eastwood. The movie was released May 11, 1955, in the United States...

.

Jaws 3-D was nominated for five 1983 Golden Raspberry Awards
1983 Golden Raspberry Awards
The 4th Golden Raspberry Awards were held on April 8, 1984 at Third Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, to recognize the worst the movie industry had to offer in 1983.-Awards and nominations:-See also:*1983 in film*56th Academy Awards...

, including worst picture, director, supporting actor (Lou Gossett, Jr.), screenplay, and newcomer (Cindy and Sandy, "The Shrieking Dolphins"), and received none.

DVD release

The film was released in a standard 2-D format on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 by Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 on June 3, 2003 under the title Jaws 3. With the exception of one theatrical trailer, no bonus features were included.

See also

  • Revenge of the Creature
    Revenge of the Creature
    Revenge of the Creature is the first sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon. The film is notable for being the only 3-D film to be released in 1955; the only 3-D sequel to a 3-D film; and for being the first screen role for Clint Eastwood. The movie was released May 11, 1955, in the United States...

    ,
    a 1955 3-D sequel film, featuring an attack on a Floridian marine mammal park
    Marine mammal park
    A marine mammal park is a commercial theme park or aquarium where marine mammals such as dolphins, beluga whales and sea lions are kept within water tanks and displayed to the public in special shows. A marine mammal park is more elaborate than a dolphinarium, because it also features other marine...

    by a piscene antagonist.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK