Outstanding movie, enjoy and appreciate it for what it is

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2017)

This movie has come under a fair amount of criticism for a number of reasons as of late, primarily for its less than accurate portrayal of shark behavior, and some subsequent harm done as a result of that.
OK, it's 2017 now, most of us know that this isn't the way sharks behave. We know the odds of being attacked by a shark are less than being struck by lighting, and we know this is because sharks simply don't attack people all that often. And we also know that as a species we pose a far greater threat to sharks than they could ever pose to us.
With that said, let's talk about "Jaws". I seriously doubt anybody involved in the film had any intention at all of portraying sharks in a manner that would motivate an uneducated mass of people to inflict harm on these creatures. Many involved, including Benchley himself, have expressed regret and remorse at the negative light sharks are portrayed in and subsequent damage done to them as a result of the film.
Their motivation for making this film was to take a popular novel of the time and make it into a movie that would hopefully impact the audience and be a box office success. And oh boy, did they succeed in that. I would challenge anybody to name a movie that had a more profound impact on moviegoers of the time than "Jaws". It frightened a whole generation of people out of the water. I myself was 6 when it came out, and, with the PG rating, my dad thought it would be OK to take me to a drive-in to see it. It literally traumatized me, I was terrified to go into the water for a long time after that. But it also started my lifelong fascination with sharks, and it's the one film that I credit most for the beginning of my love for movies.
Negative critics of this film often take it out of context, inject their own personal feelings into it and project the backlash of peoples' reaction and actions as a result of it back onto the film itself. I submit that by doing that, they are no longer reviewing the film in and of itself.
What "Jaws" is, in and of itself, is nothing short of a cinematic masterpiece. It shows exactly how talented Spielberg is as a filmmaker, overcoming so many setbacks and problems to create one of the greatest movies ever made. Enter the rubber shark...
The rubber shark is undoubtedly one of the films most glaringly bad technical issues. But again, in 1975, this is as good a prop as they could come up with. Most people don't realize that the majority of the rubber shark footage either ended up on the cutting room floor or was never shot in the first place. The prop plagued production of the movie during its entire filming, often failing to work, or creating scenes so bad they were abandoned. This is where Spielberg's talent as a filmmaker shines, he had to come up with other ways to complete the scenes. A brilliant mix of theme music and creative camera work were used instead to imply the presence of the shark, with a stunningly successful effect. By Spielberg's own admission, having to redo scenes like this where the shark wouldn't function made "Jaws" a far better movie than it otherwise would have been had the rubber fish worked as planned.
What "Jaws" lacks in accuracy and special effects strength, it more than makes up for in mood, setting, casting, character development, acting ability, screenplay and cinematography, all of which fall solidly into the excellent category. These elements are perfectly blended, and create some of the most memorable movie scenes ever filmed (Robert Shaw's drunken account of being on the USS Indianapolis is a wonderful example).
Take "Jaws" for what it was...it wasn't a statement of the menacing danger sharks pose to us...It was a chilling, thrilling roller-coaster of a movie intended to delight and frighten audiences. It started the phenomenon of the summer blockbuster and impacted moviegoers in a truly profound manner that so few movies ever manage to do. A benchmark film in cinematic history and one of the greatest movies ever made.