Steven Spielberg retconned Jaws for a young fan – and it's very wholesome

Jaws movie — (Image credit: Universal Pictures)

A Jaws fan has recalled the moment Steven Spielberg made his daughter's day – and the film even better, too – by suggesting the dog doesn't actually die in the iconic shark movie.

In response to a tweet from writer Dan Slott, who linked to How I Met Your Mother's alternate ending after a viewer voiced their disappointment over the sitcom's finale, Marvel scribe Ethan Sacks remembered the time his daughter interviewed Spielberg as part of a junior reporting article for the New York Daily News. The link between subjects seemed tenuous at first, but it soon became clear that it was a similarly-themed alternate ending anecdote...

"For the last [question], after she got the info she needed, she opted to ask something that has personally bothered her from the first time she watched Jaws," Sacks explained in a thread. "To this day, every time she sees the movie, she cries when the dog, Pipit, disappears, presumed to have ended up an hors d'oeuvres (hors d'og?) for the shark."

Pipit the dog in Jaws — (Image credit: Universal Pictures)

According to Sacks, his daughter then asked Spielberg outright whether there was a chance the black Labrador Retriever could have survived, to which the legendary filmmaker replied: "What's possible is Pipit was not owned by the person who who threw the stick. Pipit was a neighbor's dog and Pipit decided he was tired of chasing the stick for as many times as it was thrown to him. He was hungry and ignored the stick in the water, swam home and had a very good dinner..."

Sacks concluded: "After the interview, I told my daughter how lucky she was to have the great Steven Spielberg retcon Jaws for her. We now choose to believe Pipit lived and are eagerly awaiting a spinoff."

Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, and Rob Scheider, Jaws was released in 1975 and follows a marine biologist, a professional shark hunter, and a police chief, who band together to catch a great white shark that's been attacking beachgoers in their summer resort town.

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I am an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.