By Mark Wensel
JAWS is 50. Wow. That means I’m about to be 50. Ugh. While I’ve aged alright, JAWS has aged perfectly. That John Williams score still hits us in just the right spot to be foreboding even without the image of a shark fin coming towards us. The shark that gave the crew so many problems still looks like the perfect engine…an eating machine.
But we’re not here to talk about the movie. No, no. We’re here to talk about a slightly smaller phenomenon, but a phenomenon nonetheless. JAWS: The Ride.
What started as just a small (but very popular) part of the Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood just one year after the release of the film, eventually turned into its own ride at Universal Studios Florida in 1990. The park had an entire section devoted to Amity and its most famous resident.
Unfortunately, the ride was plagued with problems and was closed off and on throughout its run. Many renovations, refurbishments, closures, and one lawsuit later, the attraction was finally closed permanently in 2012 to make way for a second section of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. All that remains are a couple of signs and the hanging shark prop.
BUT, the ride lives on at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka!
Opened in 2001, the ride hasn’t had nearly as many issues as its parent ride in Florida had.
Having no experience with any version of this ride, I was excited to finally get to get on the boat and see the shark. I also had never really read anything about what the ride consisted of, so I wasn’t ready for an entire Amity village. Yes, you still feel like you’re in a theme park, but that doesn’t matter. You’re in Amity. I saw that big hanging shark (Not THE shark, but A shark) and immediately ran over for a picture with it. Unfortunately, the line was incredibly long, but I came back later and got one.
The queue for the ride is fun with shadow boxes of things to do and places to stay in Amity. There’s also, of course, a lot of maritime paraphernalia. Some of it makes it obvious that this ride takes place after the movie.
It’s more based around JAWS 2.
But the main attraction is the shark. I’m here to get on that boat and look into its lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. A group of us get on the boat and are told…something…by the cheerful skipper. (Unfortunately, I don’t speak Japanese, so I can only follow the story by the way the skipper reacts. Luckily, she was a pretty good actor.)
The first part of the ride reminded me of the Jungle Cruise at Disney. We ride around Amity with the skipper telling us about all of the sights. If the story is as similar to the Florida ride as the internet says, which I’ll assume moving forward, she’s pointing out shark attack sites. Things start to go sideways when she gets a call from the dock. One of her fellow skippers is in trouble! We go into a closed off area of the harbor and that’s where the shark antics start.
Because the Japanese are so fastidious with maintenance and cleanliness, the shark still looks great. Because we’re so close to it and it’s not on a movie screen you never truly feel like you’re in danger from this mechanical shark, but suspension of disbelief is much easier than if the shark was falling apart.
The shark attacks us in different places around the harbor, the skipper shoots at it and misses a bunch, we go into a boathouse for safety, but it follows us in there, and eventually it electrocutes itself on a stray cable, just like in JAWS 2.
The ride was every bit as thrilling as I had hoped, even with the language barrier. I wish I could have ridden it a few more times, but Nintendo World called. (Also amazing, btw, but that’s a story for a different time.)
As I walked out of Amity I passed by the graffitied billboard. Yep. The proportions are correct.
Of course, JAWS is one of the biggest film successes in history and started the age of the blockbuster. But was it really big in Japan? It seems so. Not as pervasive as it was in the States, of course, but still pretty huge. Big enough that the famous Godzilla studio, Toho, wanted a film like it soon after. What they got was…well…not JAWS. Somehow, it was Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hausu, a great film in its own right, but certainly not JAWS.
As recently as 2009, a Japanese ripoff film was released. The makers of JAWS In Japan were sued because of the name (not to mention the design of the logo) and had to change it to Psycho Shark. Apparently, this is not a film to seek out, although I still might just for sharklike grins.
JAWS in Japan (aka Psycho Shark)
Sometime after my ride into Amity Island, I was pursuing a bookstore in Tokyo and found a book that I couldn’t read, but the cover made it obvious what it was about. It’s the poster for JAWS 2 with the girl skiing in front of her imminent death.
No words in English. Just that image and I had to buy it.
According to Google Translate, the book is called Complete Collection of Shark Movie Visuals: Shark Movie Chronicles: From the JAWS Saga to B-grade Movies.
In typical Japanese title fashion, it’s quite the mouthful. (Also, is JAWS really a “saga”?) Published in 2018, the book chronicles exactly what it says: JAWS ripoffs.
So, yes, JAWS still has somewhat of a hold on Japanese culture, even if they aren’t having JAWS On The Water screenings in Tokyo Bay. Hopefully, that hold stays so that future visitors to USJ can experience the terror that is JAWS: The Ride.
Mark has been a film nerd since his grandmother introduced him to Hitchcock and Welles films when he was still in elementary school. He went to film school, but now has a cushy desk job. He just really likes watching movies and occasionally reviewing them on letterboxd. https://boxd.it/
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