Titanic Synopsis

Rating: Null/10 (4 October 2013)

The Titanic is a movie reenacting the historical event of a ship that was heading towards America and hit an iceberg and sank. In the movie, one of the main characters, Rose, is narrating and telling her point of view of what happened on the Titanic almost 80 years before. Rose was a young, upper class woman on the ship with her aristocratic family. On the ship, she soon meets a lower-class man named Jack Dawson. They met when Rose was considering jumping of the ship and he had no choice but to save her if she did. He ends up talking her down and that begins their relationship. They had many other encounters together where he was in her world, and she was in his. Throughout their many events together, they soon realize they are in love and they cannot spend the rest of their lives together without each other. This dream soon comes to a halt whenever the ship hits an unexpected iceberg. At first it just felt like a bump, but then slowly the ship started to fill up with water and begin the sink, and the chaos became greater as everyone tried to get off the ship or to safety. There were rescue boats on the ship, but the amount of extra boats compared to the amount of people was extremely different. The first people allowed on the safety boat were woman and children, but in reality it was the upper class people who got to get to safety first while the lower class passengers were still stuck in the lower deck of the boat. Rose refuses to leave Jack, so she stays on the ship with him, all the way until it plunges into the ice cold water. Rose finds a piece of wood to lie on while Jack swam beside her in the water. More rescue ships came, but it was already too late for Jack. Rose was on of the few survivors after the ship completely sunk and was able to tell her story to anyone who would listen. In the movie, special effects had to be used to make the ship sink. The quality of special effects used made the sinking ship in the movie look like what was described to happen in the actual historical event.
For a movie made in 1997, I think the special effect had very good quality for that time. The movie showed very big details of how exactly the ship sank and how it even broke in half and started bobbing until it was completely submerged in water. The Titanic was said to be called "the ship of dreams" and the way the movie made the ship look, it really did look like the gorgeous boat it was described to be. The well-known and respected critic, Robert Ebert, talks about the special effects and the animation of the movie and says, "You know intellectually that you're not looking at a real ocean liner--but the illusion is convincing and seamless. The special effects don't call inappropriate attention to themselves but get the job done" (Ebert 1997). I completely agree with Ebert's evaluation. The special effects were not way too dramatic to draw away attention to the underlying story of Rose and Jack's love, but they were also done well enough that it actually looked like a sinking ship. If the special effect were not in the quality they were in, the movie would probably not have been as big as a hit if the sinking ship looked extremely fake and not believable.
Last year, they turned one of the greatest movies into a 3D movie. Since the movie was not originally shot in 3D, it is much harder to turn a 2D film into 3D. Only certain scenes were actually 3D, opposed to the whole movie. Ebert does another review on the new version of the movie and goes on to say, "I know why the film is in 3D. It's to justify the extra charge. That's a shabby way to treat a masterpiece" (Ebert, 2012). The movie did earn a lot of revenue after it came back into theaters 15 years later and in 3D, which costs more than a 2D film. I agree with Ebert, making this timeless movie 3D almost ruined the entire quality of the movie. This movie was set in 1912, so keeping it in 2D gave it more of the vintage look. Making some scenes 3D really did take away from the overall story of the movie. This was a poor use of special effects, in my opinion, because the original movie already had so much character to begin with. I feel like one purpose of making this movie 3D was to make the audience feel like they were actually on the ship. Though it was interesting to see certain things pop, it really did draw attention away from the original special effects that were already done so beautifully.
When looking at the originally movie, the special effects and animation used to make the Titanic look like it was actually sinking, really made the movie just so much better. The story line of two people from different worlds on the same boat falling in love alone was already a hit, but the way the movie reenacted actual events really dramatized the importance of the story line and how the characters had to fight to survive. Without the special effect the movie would not have been the same and it probably would not be as popular is it is. The movie was made in 1997, and it is still talked about and played on television today. Also, in 2012 in was remade in 3D and brought back into theaters making in popular all over again. Some critics may say that the 3D version was better, but most critics will have to agree that nothing is better than the original.