🌀 Glitch Files · 💬 Movie & TV quotes

Case file · 19751999

Is it "we're" or "you're" gonna need a bigger boat?

The "We're gonna need a bigger boat" Mandela effect.

🌀 What you remember

"We're gonna need a bigger boat."

📼 What the record says

"You're gonna need a bigger boat." Chief Brody says it to Quint, backing into the cabin. (Jaws, 1975.)

🌀 Which do you remember?

Be one of the first to weigh in. No account needed.

The case

Roy Scheider's ad-libbed line after the shark first surfaces is quoted with "we're" almost universally. In the film it's "you're," because Brody is telling the boat's owner about the owner's boat.

As a stand-alone joke the line works better in the first person, so that's how it's been used in headlines and sitcoms for fifty years.

Why our brains do this

Quotes migrate toward the form that works out of context. "We're" makes the joke about the speaker, which is how people use it.

Sources: Wikipedia — Jaws (film) · Wikipedia — False memory: the Mandela effect

Where were you when you found out about "We're gonna need a bigger boat"? What do you remember?

The drive, the dance, the heartbreak, the summer. Add a memory of "We're gonna need a bigger boat".

💭 No rules — but if you’re stuck: what was on TV · what you were eating · the movie it brings back · who you were with

💜 Memories are kept forever — they live on this case’s wall. You can delete yours anytime.

Community Memories

More case files