FAQ

Ellen decided to sacrifice herself to the shark, in the hope that the "curse" on her family would be over.

Following the death of her younger son Sean (Mitchell Anderson) at the jaws of a shark, Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary) is invited by her older son Michael (Lance Guest) to come visit him and his family—wife Carla (Karen Young) and their five-year-old daughter Thea (Judith Barsi)—in the Bahamas where Mike is working on his Ph.D. in marine biology. Assured by Mike that Great White sharks are not found in the Bahamas (they don't like warm water), Ellen agrees to come, but her gut feeling tells her that a shark is after her family ...and she's not wrong.

Jaws: The Revenge is the fourth and last movie in the Jaws series, preceded by Jaws (1975) (1975), Jaws 2 (1978) (1978), and Jaws 3-D (1983) (1983), all of which were based on characters created by American author Peter Benchley in his 1974 novel Jaws. The screenplay for Jaws: The Revenge was written by Michael de Guzman. The film was novelized (1987) by American author Hank Searls, who also novelized Jaws 2.

The Brodys are back, with the exception of Chief Brody (Roy Scheider). It's revealed early on that he died of a heart attack. Homage is paid to him in a flashback from Jaws in which Brody is shown making faces with little Sean at the kitchen table. Mrs Kitner (Lee Fierro) and Mrs Taft (Fritzi Jane Courtney) from the first and second movies both make appearances. Polly, the police secretary, also makes an appearance but is played by a different actress. A character named "Lenny" appears in the film, but it is unclear if this is meant to be Deputy Hendricks from the first two films as he is also played by a different actor and the character was referred to as "Jeff" in the second film.

Jaws: The Revenge does not acknowledge Jaws 3 in its chronology, so the question becomes "How much time has passed between 'Jaws 2' and this movie?". In the movie, there's no reference to how long it's been. In real time, it's been nine years, but there is no indication at all, in any of the films, how old any of the characters are or how many years have passed since the previous films. Sean was about 11 years old in Jaws 2, and he's now a deputy on the Amity police force. Michael, who was about 16 years old in Jaws 2 is now living in the Bahamas as a research scientist working on his Ph.D. in marine biology. He is married and has a five-year-old daughter. Thus, a fair guess would be ten years, giving Mike enough time to graduate from high school, earn Bachelor's and Master's degrees, and begin working on his Ph.D.

He's tagging conch (pronounced "conk"), a large sea snail popular throughout the Caribbean as a food source.

That was Junkanoo, a festival, reminiscent of Mardi Gras, that is held in the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands on December 26th and again on New Years Day.

No, they can't, as sharks do not have vocal chords. This occurs in many shark-related movies, but this is a common mistake. However, the Draughtsboard Shark can make noises, but it lives in New Zealand.

When Ellen witnesses the shark attacking the banana boat on which Thea is sitting, she takes Jake's boat and goes out looking for the shark, intending to sacrifice herself to it in hopes that it will leave her family alone. Mike, Jake (Mario Van Peebles), and Hoagie (Michael Caine) fly out looking for her. The shark also follows. Hoagie attempts a water-landing with his plane, and Mike and Jake swim over to Ellen's boat. The shark attacks Hoagie's plane. Plane and Hoagie both go down. Hoagie manages to swim back to the Neptune's Folly. Jake rigs up one of his electrical receivers to implant in the shark in hopes that it can be used to to shock it. He climbs out on the prow and rams the device down the shark's mouth, but the shark bites off the prow taking Jake with it. Mike grabs the transmitter to Jake's device and sets it off. The shark is disoriented and impales itself on the protruding prow. Depending on the version being watched, either the shark dies of its wounds and causes the boat to break apart in its death throes, or the shark suddenly explodes and blows the boat apart. The latter version also reveals that Jake in fact survived his encounter with the shark with relatively light injuries. In the final scene, Mike and family say goodbye to Ellen as she climbs into Hoagie's airplane on her way back to Amity.

Jaws is considered to be the benchmark shark-attack movie but, following Jaws, there have been a number of similar movies. You may wish to take a look at Tintorera: Killer Shark (1977) (1977), Cyclone (1978) (1978), The Last Shark (1981) (The Last Shark) (1981), and Deep Blue Sea (1999) (1999). There is the Shark Attack franchise featuring Shark Attack (1999) (1999), Shark Attack 2 (2000) (2000), and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002) (2002). As well, there are Open Water (2003) (2003), The Reef (2010) (2010), Sharktopus (2010) (2010), Shark Night (2011), Sand Sharks (2012) (2012), 2-Headed Shark Attack (2012) (2012), Sharknado (2013) (2013), and Ghost Shark (2013) (2013).

The TV broadcast is shorter than the theatrical release, but contains two more plot scenes and an alternate ending. One of these additional plot scenes is also covered in the US DVD release by GoodTimes.

In the TV broadcast, the shark is impaled by the boat, killing it. This ending was received poorly by test audiences, so the ending was changed for the theatrical cut and the DVD release. Also, Jake is revealed to have survived. This ending can also be found on the Netflix version.

In the theatrical and DVD release, the shark is still impaled by the boat, but it's head randomly blows up, and footage of the shark's death from the first Jaws movie is shown instead. Jake does not survive in this version.