Jaws History: Steven Spielberg and The Fate of the Orca

Excerpt from the Shark is Still Working documentary where Steven Spielberg discusses his time with the Orca after filming and what eventually happened to the famous boat.

[kotaro]

That boat design became iconic to me. I love that boat.

[roseclearwater]

“I really think the tourist would like to see the Orca”

[Phantom]

Steven with all his millions should contact the people that made Orca 1 and have them build another replica to put in his museum.

[rhettcorbett]

What complete shame. They should have repaired it and put it on the land. It was a piece of movie history. Has Spielberg still got those pieces in his office ? RIP ORCA.

[wadehughes]

I probably made about 6 trips to Universal Hollywood between the years of 1975 to 1990. I just found out in the last decade that the original ORCA was stored on the JAWS scene at Universal. I thought that I must have seen the original ORCA on those trips, but I don't have a memory of seeing it. The tour guide on the backlot tour never pointed out that the boat in the harbor was the original ORCA! Why would you not point that out!!! Instead the tour guide just stuck to the stupid story line of the fishman getting pulled into the water by a fake shark fin circling the harbor. Due to the passing of a very close friend recently, I pulled out several 8mm home movies we made over 40 years ago. One of the movies was from Universal Studios in 1983. And on that movie from 1983 was about 30 seconds of the JAWS Encounter! And in the harbor docked was the original ORCA!!! Just about 4 glimpses of the boat on a shaky handheld camera, but it validated that I did actually see it! I got chills knowing that I did in fact see such an iconic piece of cinematic movie history! A crying shame that it doesn't exist anymore!

[odimarbatista]

No forethought or appreciation for a piece of history. I would have loved to see a continuation of this video showing the current rebuild of the Orca by John Tedder.

[GRSHlK]

They should have used another boat, perhaps the one of Matt Hooper as it looked a bit bigger, more modern and more stable but Quint would never let this happen, although they needed "a bigger boat"... 😉. And the Orca just looked cool. How would it have ended if Quint wouldn't had destroyed the engine intenionally (I assume)?! And I doubt that a GWS, even one of that size, would or could destroy a boat of that size. But okay, it's a (great) movie. I love Quint. "Best" character in the franchise. I still ask myself if he had the intention to die or if he was tired of living that he saw this shark as his personal demon that he wanted to fight on "equal" terms. Robert Shaw for sure should have got the Oscar for playing Quint. Still one of the greatest movie characters of all time to me.

[keithnoneya]

Some folks just need a good spanking! How sad. Thanks for sharing. Best Wishes & Blessings. Keith Noneya

[Laufield]

I thought he were talking about orca whale