4. Jaws
Now, let's be honest. Even in the 1970's, the shark in Jaws didn't even look close to being real. But we believed, none the less. There were actually three different sharks in Jaws, which were pneumatically powered. So, why three? The picture above is why. The sharks would only individually move left to right, right to left (and one for underwater scenes) because that's what they looked like from the other side. Obviously, actually creating the sharks would prove to be very difficult. In stepped Bob Mattey, who created the giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. He was a retired special effects man and believed that he could achieve the right result with using mechanical sharks. Unlike some other special effects in this article, the sharks would be created without the use of miniatures and a lot of filming time was spent on trying to get the things to actually work. This meant that the film's production went way over schedule (Over 100 days, in fact) and way over budget. I bet we're all glad that Spielberg got it finished, though. If you want to see more images of the shark, then click
here.