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Orca (1977)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
5/21
5/21:
It's impossible to watch Orca without thinking of Jaws.
This one has a bearded guy who kind of resembles Richard Dreyfuss. For the fateful trip to hunt down the
killer whale instead of Bruce, it's three men plus a woman. Captain Quint—I'm sorry as I meant to say
Nolan—is a reincarnation of Martin Brody in the spirit of Ahab. Hence, there are too many similarities
going on. Even Quint's boat was called Orca.
No doubt it's a weird movie with uncharacteristically bad acting by Richard Harris who invokes the name of
God every fifteen minutes. Obviously, his character has to die because there's no other satisfactory conclusion;
what sucks is that it took so long to get there. Because of his singular eye, the killer whale has a super
fantastic photographic memory.
In all of my life, I don't think I've heard or read a tale about a killer whale taking revenge on a human being.
Orcas can burn down a town because they've understood the concept of gas and fire? To avoid dealing with them, the
accursed person can simply stay put in a landlocked region forever which is also said for everybody in
Jaws and the rest of the silly sequels.
The filmmakers keep insisting the setting is in Newfoundland, Canada, yet there are some references to the
United States. Worse is the sight of fake icebergs. They must have done the final act in a water tank with
sprayed-on wood objects. As a matter of fact, the location shooting took place in Malta which isn't anywhere
near Greenland.
Ironically, a lot of what Richard Harris' character did at the beginning is exactly what contracted fishermen
had done for SeaLand and SeaWorld. In the process, many orcas got killed accidentally while a few of the
captured ones, who were separated by force from their family, were shipped away to become performers.
If you want to know more about how SeaWorld became a billion-dollar industry, see the documentary
Blackfish.
All in all, if a niche genre has been successfully exploited by one film, then it should end right there.