The following contains spoilers for Nope, now playing in theaters.
In Jordan Peele's Nope, the acclaimed director homaged many influences as he told a story about a UFO stalking a ranch in Agua Dulce. M. Night Shyamalan, Stanley Kubrick and John Carpenter were some masters of horror he paid tribute to, showing his appreciation for all generations. However, the movie's heartbeat connected to Steven Spielberg. And that's because Jordan Peele adopted a Jaws-like approach as the anchor of Nope, including copying and subverting the best parts of the 1975 thriller.
The first subversion came with Peele remixing the concept of the hidden monster. Spielberg had the shark moving stealthily in the water for most of his film, using the fin and a haunting POV perspective to tease how it took victims. And only in the end did the shark fully get revealed.
Nope also hid its monster, as the UFO got revealed to be an alien popping down from the sky to feed periodically. But when the final act began, fans saw its mouth and realized it was a predator sneaking around rather than a flying saucer. But the way Peele used the sky as his version of the sea was quite deft, with the night and sound nodding to Spielberg's abilities behind the camera.
The other subversion occurred with the documentarian the Hawyoods hired -- Antlers. A filmmaker who brought an analog camera to capture the perfect shot, he knew exactly how to get it. Antlers cut an experienced yet forlorn figure who seemed to have a dark past. It was similar to Quint, whose history got soaked in blood due to being a soldier. He was part of the USS Indianapolis that got bombed by the Japanese in World War II, which saw them drifting in the water and being preyed upon by sharks for days. Quint eventually got rescued and became a hunter, but he wore the mental and physical scars.
But while the shark would attack the boat and devour the adaptable, experienced Quint, Nope's Antlers ended his obsession by getting closer to capture a better shot of the UFO. That was his victory, but it still ended with the alien eating him. However, Nope's final parallel to Jaws helped avenge Antlers. Emerald tricked the beast into eating a giant float at Jupiter's Claim, which exploded in its throat, killing it. It nodded to Jaws, where Brody shoved a pressurized scuba tank into the shark's mouth before shooting and blowing it up. Ultimately, hot air killed the beasts in both cases after humans duped them, showing how humanity could improvise on the fly.
See how Jaws' major elements get reworked in Nope, now in theaters.