Ben Gardner

[Twentee8Member]

Something that has bothered me for years and has never been explained. How did Ben Gardener get his head severed when there was just a mouth sized hole in the boat? Also, his death isn’t dealed with either.

The book goes over Ben’s death because he was hired originally to kill the shark. Hooper says “you’ve already had two incidents in one week” that I assume is Chrissy and the boy.

Ever caught this?

[BSS1980Member]

Twentee8,

As I have heard it, they were originally just going to find Ben Gardner’s boat- and I think that Meadows was originally on the boat with Hooper and Brody when Gardner’s boat was found. But, they wrote the script as they went and they decided to do the scene with Brody and Hooper at some point. After the scene that you refer to (where the Mayor is told about the two incidents in a week)- Speilberg decided that he wanted a big scare scene- so, he shot the Ben Gardner head scene in the swimming pool of the editor in L.A. They poored milk in the pool to make it look blurry like sea water. Thus, the scene discussing two bodies was shot before spielberg decided to do the head falling shot. Before that time, they had only shot a scene with the boat being found and Gardner’s death would not been confirmed. Hope this helped.

[jaws1976Member]

I think i have the answer to your question, or well at least one of them. If you ever look closely at the head when it shows up you can see the shoulder part of the bust. Also when ever you see the bust on display it shows the shoulders. My guess is they weren’t trying to make it seem it was just his head there but he had maybe been bitten in half. What I want to know is what happened to the other guy. When Ben heads out in the movie you see someone on the boat with him. What happened to him? Was he eaten did he get away?

[Twentee8Member]

It’s true in the book that Brody and The deputy find his boat and they have to tell his wife he’s dead. I knew Speilberg wanted the scare and shot it last, but i always view it from the movies perspective. The problem is that even if they were using material from the book in the Mayor scene, Ben was still dead regardless.

Nothing’s mentioned

[Author]

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