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I watched the theatrical release of Jaws 2 in my childhood. When years later I got the VHS version I was puzzled. I was sure I remembered a full body shot of Miss Amity (Tina Wilcox) at the beginning of the movie with a scissor in her hands while cutting the inauguration ribbon of a hotel, but that was not in the VHS. I thought, perhaps they had done a new cut of the film in order to adapt it to the VHS resolution limitations.

Years later I purchased the DVD and again, I could not see the full body shot of Miss Amity. Then the Bluray (yes, that movie impressed me in my teen years) and again, no full body shot of Miss Amity cutting that inauguration ribbon. Then I thought 'maybe my teenager memory betrayed me and I never saw that in the movie theater'.

But yesterday I stumbled upon a very old magazine in sort of a garage sell. It is a magazine for people who want to learn English. The movie Jaws 2 was a novelty at the time. They turn the movie into a story, like a short novel in a few pages where they also insert frames of the movie here and there. Then to my surprise, among some of those frames I find, yes, the nice, full body shot of Miss Amity cutting that ribbon:

enter image description here

I certainly don't like the fact that this footage was in the theatrical release but didn't make it into the Bluray edition and now, for all purposes, is lost.

Why? Where is this footage gone today and why was it removed?

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    As a side note, I suspect they removed that full body shot because it could seem, omg, too sexy. Damn puritans. Even when the movie is full of bloodshed and terror and cruelty, they worry about that shot. Please someone explain this. Also, if you pay for a theatrical release, you should get a digital scan from the theatrical release, frame by frame, into a Bluray. They can do color grading or noise removal, but you should get every frame of the theatrical release in the Bluray.
    – Mephisto
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 13:32
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    Being that there doesn't seem to be any evidence online to support what you remember, if you really care about confirming it, your best bet is probably trying to find somewhere to rent the theatrical reels. A quick google search suggests there are sources from which you can do that for a lot of old films.
    – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 21:13
  • @R.. That is an awesome idea you should turn into an answer. In my case, I don't care as much about this question as to devote the required resources for that search, but someone else might.
    – Mephisto
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 23:34
  • @LarsTech I am a big fan of Ken M too. :)
    – Mephisto
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 23:35
  • The late '70s was not a particularly prudish time. A different shot from Jaws 2 focused on three bikini-clad bottoms -- much more skin shown than in the shot in question.
    – Rob Crawford
    Commented Dec 7, 2018 at 4:14

2 Answers 2

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Perhaps you are, in fact, mis-remembering it? That picture could, in fact, be a "behind the scenes" photo someone took on the set.

All of the stuff known to be cut is listed here:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/JawsJaws-2-extended-editions/id/52523

For link rot purposes I'll list them out:

  • Extra scenes at the opening of the HOLIDAY INN - Ellen Brody tells a waitress to smile and look cute and Peterson tries to cut in when Brody & wife dance.

  • Martin drives the wife to work and ends up giving her boss (Len Peterson) a ticket for illegal parking - after two previous warnings.

  • Hendricks, Red & divers recover the camera at the last known location of the two missing divers - the ORCA’s resting place.

  • Extended scenes at the police station - Polly the secretary (recast) has some dialogue.

  • After grounding son Michael, Brody & wife have an extended dialogue scene which ends with him hiding his gun and poison-tipped bullets in the bathtub.

  • After the incident at the beach, Peterson convinces the Mayor to have a meeting with the selectmen, to vote Brody out of his job.

  • After Brody’s showing of the photograph - taken by the two missing divers - Peterson and the selectmen vote him out, with only the Mayor showing support for Brody.

  • Extended underwater attack on the helicopter pilot by the shark.

  • Dialogue scenes with the teenagers (throughout the film) have been cut.

  • An image exists of Bob clinging to a sailboat pontoon as he is about to be attacked by the shark.

  • Alternate scenes filmed by the original director - before he was fired - have never been seen (on home video) but exist as still images.

Someone else also added:

  • Ellen Brody feeding the dogs.

  • Brody & Cassidy alternate/extended dialogue.

  • Mayor and Hendricks extended dialogue during band practice.

  • Amity Music Shop.

  • Amity Town Hall/Quint’s truck.

  • Bounty hunters arrive on the island - extended.

  • Bounty hunter shark kill frenzy.

  • Hooper and Brody make their way to autopsy the shark.

  • Two insert shots of Quint’s tackle box.

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  • That is a reasonable answer, but still, I remember I saw that shot in the theatrical version, and I remember that I already noticed this thing when I purchased the VHS, so it is not that I have a fake memory at 2018, but rather I already had it (in case it is fake) shortly after the movie, when the VHS version was sold.
    – Mephisto
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 15:55
  • Is the entire scene cut, or is it just cropped so that her full body is not in view?
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 15:56
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    @Mephisto - Human memory is (with apologies!) notoriously unreliable, particularly over a significant timespan. Perhaps you saw the same promo shot you've since found again in a magazine at roughly the time you saw the film the first time, and the two got conflated in your mind... :-) Not to say it's impossible that it was actually in the version you saw, but it's unlikely you and only you remember that, so memory conflation is the more likely explanation.
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 19:38
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    @T.J.Crowder Or maybe what I saw was a movie trailer? Some of them contain shots that don't appear in the movie, like e.g. when Dr. Sattler grabs a big plant leaf from the jeep in Jurassic Park. In the movie we see that leaf for the first time already in her hands.
    – Mephisto
    Commented Dec 6, 2018 at 23:41
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    I think you're probably right about the trailer Mephisto. It seems unlikely to be misremembered since you went looking for it and eventually did find it in the magazine! That's very different from, say, people (mis)remembering "Play it again, Sam!" which didn't actually happen in the movie Casablanca at all.
    – user1118321
    Commented Dec 7, 2018 at 5:57
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Being that there doesn't seem to be any evidence online to support what you remember, if you really care about confirming it, your best bet is probably trying to find somewhere to rent the theatrical reels. A quick Google search suggests there are sources from which you can do that for a lot of old films. Reel Classics has a list of sources you may find useful.

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