Do you have a favourite moment from the 1997 film Titanic? For me it's when the bridge drops below the ocean's surface, gives me chills every time! Thanks to our good friends at Titanic Honor and Glory as always for their stunning animation work! You can find their work here: www.titanichg.com/
wow, you got me thinking for a while lol. I think my favorite scene is when Captain Smith is in the submerged bridge and the glass breaks. It gives me chills
For me it's any scene Thomas Andrews is in. Victor Garber acted his heart out. But the standout is "she's made of iron sir. I assure you she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty." The absolute fear you hear in his voice is haunting.
I think that Cameron has since said that he regrets portraying Murdoch the way he did, and that he would have chosen a different solution, if he could make the movie again. So that's at least something.
would be nice if he spent some of his fortune to reshoot a few of these scenes for a 20th anniversary re-release or something, to address all those very small-minded portrayals of historical persons. he could also include cuts from his documentary as part of this re-release, heck he might even earn more from the box-office.
@@alveolate Given that it's been 27 years since the film was released, and that everyone in it has aged considerably since then, the result would be a CGI abomination. We have enough of those already.
Probably has something to do with the libel settlement he had to pay to the Murdoch family. Given the level of research and attention to detail he’s known for, there’s no way he didn’t know what he was doing with Murdoch or Ismay.
I think if they needed a character to act as Murdoch acts in the movie, to show that drama, they should have invented a fictional officer. Not maligned a real person.
It’s simply horrible that this hero was portrayed in such a cowardly and inept. His family should be compensated and James Cameron should be held accountable and make a public apology to Murdoch himself his family and the public.
@@brightstarlit - those scenes should be cut from every digital version and new release of the film. They don't drive the story telling in any direction, so they are pretty redundant and could easily be cut - at least out of respect for the family.
@TheHopperUK, Generally speaking, I'd agree with doing that. However, it's one thing to have fictional passengers play significant roles in the movie, quite another to create a non-existent officer who actually served aboard Titanic, particularly one who did something so drastic. Was it really necessary for the drama to have passengers shown being FATALLY shot in the chaos? Wouldn't it have been sufficient to simply have had a number of warning shots depicted, or at most, a passenger intentionally winged, as a deterrent, instead?
@@QP300Art is art. We shouldn't censor, let alone modify what was made in the past regardless if it triggers you. A better solution would be to put an announcement before the movie to explain how some of the characters are portrayed inaccurately.
William Murdoch was perhaps the biggest hero on the night of he sinking. If you watch "Ghosts of the Abyss" they show a life boat davit in it's upright position about to be reloaded. This is where Murdoch was about to connect one last boat to load up and send off, but ran out of time. In my opinion this is a monument of heroism to William Murdoch for his dedication and sacrifice, for performing his duty to saving the most lives regardless of class or social standing to the vary end.
I agree, Murdoch was a generous man, a real hero. Officer Murdoch saved my great grandfather’s life by ordering him and 6 other crewmen onto an under filled cutter lifeboat on the starboard side, instead of lowering it with merely 5 passengers. He was a true seafaring man if there ever was one and I hated seeing him portrayed as a pistol toting thug.
I've always believed his intention was for Moody to take the collapsible boat. He probably wasn't thinking of himself, but there's no way he would have let that boy die if he could help it.
While I live in Argentina, a first cousin of mine, now in her mid-nineties, was born in Belfast and used to live just down the road from some long-time friends, the Andrews family. While I have spoken to her of my fascination about the mythical Titanic story, she brought me down to earth about it, noting that first and foremost it was a great tragedy, and in particular, a terrible loss to the Andrews. I very much appreciated your research for this episode, setting the record straight about those real people. Still, in spite of the inaccuracies, I think the film is marvelous and I always regret my Dad (born 1905) never got to see it, as he would have loved the reconstruction of an epoch he kind of got to know, having crossed by boat a number of times between Buenos Aires and the UK, including when he volunteered for WWII. Every time I chance upon the film on TV, I get hooked and see it through to the end!
I am an Argentinian living in Belfast. Some of my ancestors were from the UK and I sometimes wonder how they got to Argentina but it was a quite a few generations before me so I don’t have much data, only their names, marriage licences, and some dates.
But he inexcusably omits any reference to the unforgettable omission of the Californian and the annoying wrong (American/yankee) hymntune of "Nearer My God To Thee" (instead of using the correct British hymntune).
The hymn playing at the end is endlessly up for debate. Did Cameron get it right? Did the musical get it right with "Autumn"? Was it something else entirely? The truth can only be known with a time machine.
@@Hat12man What unforgettable omission of the Californian? Are you talking about the deleted scene in the wireless room where the Titanic operators told the Californian operator to "shut up" because they were busy sending private messages and so the Californian operator turned off the machine and went to bed? Though cut from the movie, there was nothing erroneous about it. It factually happened. Some of the banter between the crews may have been embellished / dramatized, however the plot is still accurate.
My grandfather is a retired tug boat captain, he could easily point out the errors in the ship design and operation. This would always bother my grandmother because she just wanted to watch the movie without a lesson on ships.
I lived with a wonderful view of the Mississippi River in New Orleans years ago. I knew a tugboat captain who actually brought those huge ships and barges, etc. into the port. Those captains were very much respected and had jobs that were almost impossible to obtain. Hats off to your grandfather!!! I’m sure that he was a most interesting man, and by the way, a real man!!
I gotcha. 😉👍 Had a Navy buddy who was like that. Very intelligent, probably genius level, and at least in HIS mind could critique just about anything. In a documentary, maybe I can see doing that. I do some myself, but like you said, many people just wanna see the movie for entertainment without the technical analysis. For some reason, people who are geniuses or close to it completely miss things like that. It’s not “logical” to them, I guess. 🤔🙄 The narrator here sounds like he’s defending Holland & Wolfe rather than objectively looking at what most experts on this subject consider obvious errors. For one, and I’m looking at this as a Navy veteran myself, the compartmentalization of the ship only went up to E Deck, I believe it was. Above that, the water could flow freely bow to stern. And I believe that’s really what sank the Titanic. In addition to the statement “Not even God himself could sink her.” Using a slightly different application of the old WWII warning to civilians, military members, etc, “Loose lips sink ships.” Looks like that proved true, unfortunately, with the Titanic. 🚢
I actually really rather like how Thomas Andrews went out in the film. In the film, Andrews is almost like a living representation of the ship herself. When he apologized to Rose, I had always thought it was such an odd line. This was not his fault at all. We all know this. And then it hit me recently. It's not just the shipbuilder apologizing it's the ship herself. So him being resigned to his fate isn't so much him giving up. At least, that's not how I interpreted it. To me, even before looking into his life and what he was like and how he actually acted that night...to me this was James Cameron telling us that this isn't just how Andrews felt, but the ship. There was only so much he could do and we DO see him try his best. He told people in the hallways to get up top. He shouts at Lightoller for launching the boats half full. And I know that sounds silly in personifying the ship herself, but with how Andrews is in the film, there is credible evidence that's what Cameron was going for when he had Andrews say "I'm sorry I didn't build you a stronger ship, young Rose." Just like the ship herself is resigned to her fate, so is Andrews. Just like Andrews she did the best she could. The fact that she lasted long far longer than he himself predicted is a testament to her designers and builders.
Ya I like what you said. I didn’t think of that this way. I will always remember what you said about him and the ship next time I watch it. Which will be tonight probably. 👍🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
@TheRibottoStudios Very nice interpretation of the film....I agree , it does well to tell you the ship is sorry for these events and the great loss that was to be, through Thomas. That's a take on the action I never thought of but it sure is a better or nice way to see it. 👍
Like you, I never saw this as in any way an indictment of Andrews' character, rather the opposite - he had already done so much, and everyone has that point somewhere where their minds close down, and they go into shock, but I like your reading of this scene very much.
The vice-president of 20th Century Fox Scott Neeson went to the small town of Dalbeattie, near Dumfries, to deliver a personal apology to the 80-year-old nephew of William Murdoch, first officer of the Titanic, for the way he was portrayed in the movie.
@@1990drewman You say that like its a bad thing.. The whole movie wasn't about the one dude.. The whole movie wasn't about vilifying him.. IF the whole movie was about making Murdoch look bad and the movie revolved around him and tarnished the reality then yea only giving 5k seems terrible, but seeing as how Murdoch was supposed to kind of represent all of the officers on deck, which many many movies do that btw, where they use one character to represent a large number of people. Giving 5k isn't a bad thing. He didn't have to give anything. Also when you put into consideration the costs of making the movie, payments that need to be handed out to everyone who took part in the movie, from the set producers, cameramen, props teams, actors and actresses, and everything else, they didn't have close to 100 million left over, and they still need to make a lot of money to make the next "block buster" hit. 5k is a nice apology.
@@TreeBarkSide Learn about portraying someone honestly, not with BS written by writers just to get the $$$.......Bet you would be ungrateful if you got ignored here.
An old childhood friend of mine is a descendant of First Officer Murdoch. We went to see the film together in Edinburgh when it was first out in the cinema. I remember how hurt he was by the portrayal of Murdoch. So yes, the family were/are angry about it. They're also deeply hurt by it. It's always seemed to me an unnecessary and callous addition to a story that was already a gripping one.
I understand that his family would be upset about the dramatic liberties. But even the movie never treated the Murdoch character as less than sympathetic and understandable.
The thing that always gets me is Cameron's anti-English agenda. Now I know the ship was British but was it really true that all loveable or humane characters were American, Irish, Welsh, Scottish or Italian and the English, to a man, were all whirly-eyed, unfeeling, martinets gratutitously gunning down foreigners? [Edit: "Evil villians clarified as "English" rather than "British" in true Hollywood tradition.]
James Cameron has admitted he made a huge mistake. He and select crew went to Scotland and met with some of Murdock’s descendants to apologize and honour him
At 9:15 I totally 100% agree with you here Mike. J Bruce Ismay was nearly always badly portrayed in most Titanic movies/dramas. Always made out to be the wicked villain of story. Far from the truth. Poor man, his life was ruined. He helped a lot of people get into the lifeboats. He was rushing around on deck, trying to find women and children of all classes to get into the boats.
Other than the few days in which he shut himself in a stateroom aboard Carpathia, the poor man never had the chance to grieve for his friends, his ship, his passengers and his men. He had to immediately begin fighting back and defending his actions, all due to Hearst’s personal hatred and his penchant for yellow journalism.
One thing that gets on my nerves is that a lot of people act like Ismay personally decided that the Titanic didn’t need more lifeboats. I know Mike had debunked that in other videos and pointed out that having more lifeboats wouldn’t have helped (because there wouldn’t have been time to launch them) something that I found when I went down a bit of a rabbit hole was that the White Star Line’s plans for how to outfit Titanic and Olympic were reviewed by the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee which had been set up to advise the Board of Trade on adjusting regulations regarding lifeboats. While at least one member of the committee felt that both ships should probably carry more boats all ten still signed off and their decision was upheld by the Board of Trade. Titanic and Olympic carried the number of lifeboats that they did because they weren’t required to carry more, and they weren’t required to carry more because with the limits of technology and prevailing wisdom of the day it wasn’t clear that carrying more was necessary. It wasn’t because the White Star Line was worried the decks would be too crowded.
@@juliadagnall5816 As a team could launch 2 lifeboats in 15ish minutes and Titanic had 2 teams dedicated to the lifeboats yeah more lifeboats onboard are unlikely to have saved many additional lives considering the last 2 lifeboats were still being launched shortly before the final plunge. As part of the filming for the 1997 movie Cameron had teams actually learn to launch lifeboats as they were launched on the Titanic and they had a similar launch time. The 20 lifeboats Titanic carried was actually more than the 16 required at the time. Because of the dangers of lifeboats on open seas at the time they were used primarily to ferry people from one ship to another. It's a sad situation but a sinking like Titanic was just waiting to happen due to the rapidly changing technology that was making traditional ship designs and procedures outdated.
I think people have a natural tendency to scapegoat individuals. It can be hard to accept the lack of fault and consider that a set of people did what they thought was best and nature proved us wrong. It’s a lot easier to believe that we had the power to see the future and certain people failed. It was quite possibly reasonable to state that titanic was unsinkable in the face of any of the modalities of issue we had seen in living memory at the time insofar as they designed the ship to fix all the problems they knew about. It’s also quite reasonable to assert the quantity of lifeboats was sufficient because in all previous examples at the time it would have been. The idea of a ship like that going down in that way on an entirely calm night was simply unforeseen, the same as people hadn’t fathomed the Apollo 1 fire could have occurred on a completely unfueled “dress rehearsal.” I believe the way they summarized the Apollo 1 fire at the time was that the accident was “a failure of imagination,” which I think is quite germane to this accident as well.
@@jcohasset23 We know not all the lifeboats Titanic did have got properly used. :/ Also that's an issue with the "women and children first" thing... a life boat with JUST women and children.... is not necessarily... safe. It was a different shipwreck, but they had the men and women and children in separate boats.... guess who didn't make it? That was heart wrenching... if they hadn't separated them everyone might have lived.
I seem to recall reading that James Cameron- when asked about his depiction of Ismay- basically said that he knew Ismay wasn't a villain but that he showed him as such anyway because he felt the audience would have expected it.
More specifically, Cameron said his film was not going to challenge popular conceptions about the sinking. One of his technical advisors did want Ismay to be portrayed differently, much more fairly, but Cameron refused. This is also why he depicted Smith and Andrews the way he did, even though there is no evidence that Smith stayed in the wheelhouse.
Bruce Ismay's grave is in a cemetery around a mile from my home. On the 100th anniversary of Titanic's sinking, I visited his grave, [placed a hand on it and murmured, "It wasn't your fault." It's important to not let media distort history. Ismay's life after Titanic was terribly sad. No doubt he may have been racked with guilt and his health faded away.
@@sabrinastratton1991 *he didnt take a seat from anyone. There were no more women and children about* Such BS. Did he even try to find more women and children? Nope. Such a coward. 1500 people went down. Don't even try to tell me he couldn't find any one else. It was 20 minutes before the ship went down. People were all over the place, panicking.
@@benjalucian1515since collapsible C was one of the last boats to leave (2nd last to be exact) just before final plunge, it was not a good idea to stall the launch, keep the passengers waiting, and go further aft where everyone has gone and bring more only to risk those in the collapsible C. You can't simply waste time. That's one of the reasons first few boats were launched half full. So many were reluctant to leave and you can't just keep waiting.
I just finished my Bachelor degree in film and television, and my Bachelor thesis was about if James Cameron was using filmic aesthetics to make Bruce Ismay a villain in the film, despite historical facts arguing this. I came to the same conclusions as you, and I enjoyed this video extra much because of my recent research on the topic. Keep making the excellent videos you always make, and thank you for your quality content!
I have a degree in film and radio television from the 1980s. Read my comments earlier. The things Cameron chose to do made the film better and that's what he was doing. Not teaching a history lesson.
As a musician, I am always plugged into the soundtrack. There is a point in the sinking after a particularly meaningful event (the musicians stop?) when the focus of the movie pulls back from persons and their conversations to the acceleration and finality of the sinking - the water starts breaking through doors, furniture starts sliding across floors, people start getting sucked through windows, the stern starts going up. This sequence begins with a ringing note on the chimes leading into a quasi hymn being sung in the background. Gets me everytime. Also the cut at the end when the ship has gone under but you can see the stern with "Titanic" on it falling away through the water.
The soundtrack is what has me hooked to the movie. I literally feel the music and emotions. I’m no musician nor can I understand the subject but my hearing is my best sense and very sensitive along with my imaginative neurodivergent mind helps me appreciate music above any other media. It moves me. I use some of the softer tracks to fall asleep too and my mind drifts. I’ll experience images of drifting down to the ocean floor and swimming through the wreckage. It’s calming.
@lb5134 It's believed that the actual tune was "Autumn" which is very similar and apparently prompted someone already away in a lifeboat to start singing the actual hymn. Still heartbreaking though.
You always know James Horner is getting serious when he pulls out that smithing anvil. Whether Khan is about to set off Genesis, Bishop is late with the dropship, Fabrizio picked the wrong direction to swim in, or the Grinch has simply overloaded his sleigh-you know the time for slow dialogue scenes is over when that anvil comes out.
@@zacmumblethunder7466 in the 1997 film (and most other dramatisations made in the US or Canada), they play a 4/4 version of the Presbyterian hymnal setting "Bethany" by Lowell Mason. None of the survivors reported hearing it, but it borrows the lyrics of the less well known Methodist hymn "Propior Deo" by Arthur Sullivan, which *dozens* of witnesses mentioned, and is further supported by several personal letters written beforehand by bandmaster Hartley (himself a devout Methodist and son of a Wesleyan minister) and first violinist Hume. By pure coincidence, James Horner's arrangement of "Bethany" actually sounds more like "Propior Deo" than Mason's original version of the setting did. Only one witness, junior radio technician Mr Bride, made any emphatic declaration that a different selection was the last to be played-he said it was the romantic waltz "Songe d'Automne" ("A Fall Night's Dream"). This was then erroneously recorded in the write-up of the US Senatorial inquest as having been an Anglican hymn supposedly called "Autumn", which doesn't actually exist. The 1958 film (and most others made in the UK) used the Anglican hymnal setting "Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes, which *also* takes the lyrics of "Propior Deo" and *was* featured in the spring 1912 edition of the official White Star songbook-however, no witnesses describe hearing that version during the disaster, and given how little else about the band shown in that film have in common with their real-world counterparts, it's fair to say director Roy Baker just didn't research the subject all that deeply.
@@iamhungey12345 Exactly: too many trolls doing the talking, and not enough real participants. (That’s why I ignore so many obvious attempts at baiting.)
@@SnobbyBird_ That was probably better for him, since he doesn't come across as very likeable from the historic accounts of the event. He literally condemned men to drown who could have been saved, without using anyone else's seat in the lifeboat.
The overall characterisation of the British crew was rather negative and inaccurate, but Smith in particular got the short end of the stick in 97. He’s shown as a quite passive character on the whole, and during the sinking shown as being in a daze, which quite a few segments of testimony conflict with. ANTR did better by showing shock at the revelation from Andrews she would sink, immediately followed by quiet resignation, then jumping into action with stoic resolve to do what was possible to save as many as possible. I found it fascinating when I learnt a while back that the ‘Murdoch starboard, Lightoller port’ trope is a bit of an oversimplification, with some crossing over of officers from one side to the other lowering boats, with Wilde and Smith himself taking charge of lowering and getting several of them away.
I agree with you re Captain Smith. In particular, the scene in the movie on the bridge on the 14th prior to striking the iceberg when he orders Murdoch to maintain speed and heading despite Murdoch's concerns over ice is misleading. As I understand, reports suggested that he advised Murdoch that if there was even a slight change in visibility, they would need to slow down. Deleting this critical sentence, in my view, made Smith look like he simply disregarded the ice warnings.
@@michaelwood3305 We know Smith advised Lightoller around half past 9pm, from Lightoller's British inquiry testimony: 'If it does come on in the slightest degree hazy we shall have to go very slow. If it becomes at all doubtful let me know at once; I will be just inside.' Because all the officers already knew that in their training, reiterating that shows that Smith was aware of potential problems. Lightoller passed on those instructions to Murdoch upon the change of watch (and Smith may have done so himself as well). It is only with hindsight that Smith could be considered reckless.
@@michaelwood3305 Jack Phillips got a Marconi Radio Call from Cyril Evans that the SS Californian was parked for the Night due to Icebergs, Phillips didn't heed the Warning because he was overworked and tired. He Told Evans "Shut Up. I'm Busy". In which Evans Responded by shutting down his Equipment for the Night. Had Phillips been sober, he would have pay attention and sent the message to Captain Smith to Stop for the Night. But we can't blame Phillips. He was YOUNG. Only 25 years old. And Marconi was a relatively NEW Field and Business. Phillips was STILL a Young Hero. He kept Radioing for Help and found the Carpathia.
Apparently the characterisation of the British crew was bc of Cameron's previous experience with them. Apparently while doing production on Aliens, it had to stop bc he made a huge fuss about people taking a lunch break which is mandatory in the UK. The entire crew walked out bc he wouldn't let them have it and they returned only after he apologised but he was a carton of sour milk afterwards and expressed his anti-british sentiment in Titanic. My friend told me this while we were discussing directors being shoddy with breaks and having extremely weird rules when it came to being on set so take it with a grain of salt
In fairness to the bit with Thomas Andrews, the film does at least show him helping out in the evacuations and making sure people have lifebelts on, he even says to one of the ship's maids, "Put a lifebelt on, Miss Trudy. Set a good example." Or something to that effect. Although admittedly it is before he seems resigned in the smoking room before adjusting the clock's time. Feels like it breaks even to say the least. As for Murdoch, Cameron has since expressed regrets on the choices he made, so at least it shows he's learning. As Bob Ross once said, "As long as you're learning, you're not failing."
@@KTChamberlain yes, I meant Cameron. I listened to the Rest is History episodes on the Titanic recently and they do a great job describing Ismay's tragic life, I had no idea what parts of the film were accurate before listening.
I think the most egregious error was that they didn't name the reverend seen leading prayers on the deck as the ship is going down. His name was Robert Bateman, and he was was my great, great grandfather. He went down with the ship.
"The rudder was too small" That brings to mind a story that my dad told me. He was a leutenant engineer, working in the engine rooms of three ships during the war - they were all sunk - so he knew quite a lot about ships and heavy mechanics, and he told me about a film he saw in the days of black and white movies, in which one ship was being towed by another across the ocean, but in a plot twist, they didn't want it to arrive too quickly (some sort of shennanigans going on), so the ship's engineer dived over the stern with a shifting spanner, removed the propeller, turned it around (so that it would drive the ship backwards!), and bolted it back on. My dad laughed about that movie for years afterwards. For any reader not understanding how ridiculous this is, a ship's propeller weighs many tons, and it takea a LOT more than a car spanner to get it off. Also, if you put it on backwards, it still drives the ship forwards, though a little less efficiently. Dad's ship was lying astern of the SS Fort Stikine in Bombay harbour, when it blew up. A fire exploded its amunition cargo and sank most of the ships in the harbour - my dad's among them - Search UA-cam for "Bombay explosion 1944" - it was one of the biggest explosions of WWII. My dad spent a bit of time in hospital after that, and as he came out, many of his shipmates, who had been in town when it happened, were joining another ship, and he tried hard to go with them, but he still had some recuperation ahead of him and permission was not granted - which was lucky for him, because that ship went down with all hands. It was lucky for me as well, because I was born just after the war - one of the first of the boomers - and I wouldn't have been. It was lucky for my daughters and grandchildren also - but I guess everybody on earth could trace similar coincidences.
How could a rudder, a piece of equipment for steering, reverse a ship by installing it backwards? that's like making a car go into reverse by installing it's steering wheel backwards.
@@zombiedoggie2732 I don't know. I've never heard of a rudder being installed backwards. It wouldn't be possible, and even if it was, it wouldn't make the ship go backwards! Where did you get that from?
That was too perfect, you said "What I'm not going to excuse, is this" and an add for Dolmio pasta sauce started playing; I won't excuse that sauce either.
I believe in some versions Ismay was practically ordered into the boat by one of the officers. Let the guy rest in peace; he certainly never pushed away a woman or child to take their seat, but entered a boat with more space available when it was about to launch and there were no other passengers around. Should he have chosen to die just on a matter of principle? His testimony was valuable at the inquiry; we would know less about the sinking if he had not been around to witness.
Also, Ismay and passenger William Ernest Carter entered Collapsible C together, as there were no other women in the immediate vicinity of the boat, yet Carter didn't face the same backlash.
Having experience of working in hospitality industry, I must say that the presumption of Ismay forcing the crew to arrive earlier than planned does not make any sense from the point of view of customer service. Just imagine that most of your 300+ First Class passengers are planning to arrive on Wednesday, then stay at a hotel or take a train to continue traveling to their final destinations in Denver, Philadelphia, San Francisco, etc. But you put your corporate ambitions over their convenience and arrangements and bring them to New York a day earlier. By doing so you’re making them urgently look for hotels for that extra night, or change their train tickets. They are not gonna see people welcoming them in NY as planned (wouldn’t you hate it if you went to the airport to see your friends coming in your city and finding out their plane has landed several hours earlier?) Let alone the fact that your passengers/guests have their tickets that allow them to stay onboard for 6 nights, not 5, and you kick them out a day earlier! Some people hate ships, some enjoy voyages and would be disappointed at being one night short of their voyage. All of that taken in consideration, I think all that speeding theory is just a major speculation and misunderstanding of basic facts.
I recall reading (not sure where but it may have been in “On a Sea of Glass”) that if a liner arrived the night before it was scheduled, White Star allowed the passengers to stay on board in harbour and disembark the next morning.
James Cameron actually did a lot of research before, during and even after making the film, 20 years later he even made a documentary disproving some of his theories he used in the movie. His version of the Titanic is my favourite due to the sheer amount of research and love put into the project. Even though not everything is accurate, he took many creative liberties that added to the movie's plot (such as creating Jack and Rose) and did his best to portray what was known and believed at the time. He really did work hard on the film and I believe if it weren't for how successful his version of the movie is, people won't forget the Titanic and her victims any time soon. Great job on the video!
Unfortunately he still believes all the allegations made against Ismay, saying in 2023 that Captain Smith ignored the ice warnings because "He had Ismay's boot up his ass". Very painful to see, especially when every news outlet claims he's an expert. Allegedly, Ocean liner historian Paul Louden Brown was a historical advisor on this movie who appealed to Cameron about Ismay's portrayal in the movie. Cameron shut him down, as it was "what the audience expects to see". This, of course, is far from the only sin the movie commits, but it's among the worst. That aside, no movie is flawless. It's still my favourite movie of all time, and I think it always will be.
So, so refreshing to hear that a Titanic enthusiast also loves the movie! It seems to be a polarizing topic, which is totally fair. But as someone who has held a lifelong interest in this point of history and who also loves the movies (and acknowledges its flaws), this was a great breakdown. I'll refer people to this video whenever they ask about discrepancies in the film lol. Great video as always!
Possibly the "1912" segments of the film should be regarded as just visualizing how Old Rose remembered and told about things near the end of her life, and not necessarily how things "really happened". So if she, for instance, felt that the Titanic reached an angle of 45 degrees before the break-up, that is what the movie shows, even though she would not have been in a place where she could see the angle clearly and it was actually much less than 45 degrees. She was not there for Murdoch's demise, so what the movie shows may just be how she imagined his end based on some story she heard later, accurate or not. Even the fact that that the historical characters look only partially like their photographs can be explained by Rose hardly remembering their exact appearance 84 years later.
I really like this! Makes total sense. Especially when old Rose first starts describing the day Titanic sailed off. How the camera goes from a closeup of her and fades into her memories. I had never considered that we're looking at memories not historical reenactment exactly.
@@SAROne-pl5zh Which would also explain calling Margret Brown, Molly, in 1912 Magret Brown was known as and would have introduced herself as Maggie. The nickname Molly came from later headlines because she wouldn't shut up about the white star lined incompetence, and did help families recoup losses. It earned her the nickname "The unsinkable Molly Brown" which they used in the broadway musical and movie with Debbie Reynolds. Side note her husband had only discovered silver at that point (which made them wealthy) but would later also find gold on his Colorado property. Also the tux she would have loaned the fictional Jack, had he been real, would have been her sons, as his corpse was in the hold on the way back to the states for his burial.
Ah the artistic license to forgive all issues 😂. Regardless of explanation I agree that expecting perfection from Cameron while he had to actually make a movie is unreasonable.
I've thought this too. Rose describes an officer taking their own life, she doesn't know who but she read the papers afterwards that named Murdoch. So we see Murdoch, because that's who she pictured
The scene of Thomas Andrews in the smoking room of Titanic also appears in a very similar scene in A Night To Remember - “aren’t you going to try for it Mr Andrews ?” and he just looks up and stays there .
I've always hated how Ismay is treated. The "problem" is that the real story of the titanic doesn't have a villain (unless you count the iceberg I guess) and that just doesn't make an interesting story to some people. I wish you had mentioned that the insufficient lifeboats wasn't his fault, they had *more* lifeboats than legally required. They were supposed to be used to ferry passengers to safety and return for more, not a "drop everyone onboard in and leave them adrift for hours".
Yeah, a lot of people judge the Titanic story with modern-day sensibilities. They forget that planes became a primary transport for passengers decades later. Ships were the primary way to transport people from country to country during that time. It was relatively easy to find another ship crossing a similar path as you. That is why lifeboats could be served as transports from one ship to another. Nowadays, ships are rarer to find, so if you get lost, it could be deadly.
I understand how Ismay was called a 'coward' in 1912. 1500 people in the care of his White Star Line drowned in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, while he escaped. He wasn't blameless. Still, I do not think he deserves to be tagged as a 'coward' or 'villain. There were approximately 400 empty seats in the 19 successfully launched lifeboats. Ismay didn't get into one of the first lifeboats to be launched, he got into one of the last. The seat would have gone EMPTY, had Ismay not got in. During his testimony, Ismay was asked how he happened to get into lifeboat. He stated that the boat was there, being lowered, there was room, and he instinctively stepped into it.
Great analysis!. Looking forward to Bruce Ismay’s. Fun fact: Bruce Ismay’s Connemara residence is still present to this day, and is in fact a hotel. Preserved almost exactly as it was when he was still living in it. He actually died there. It’s called “Costelloe Lodge”. And the interior design resembles that of the White Star’s. Mr. Ismay’s fate was tragic. He really believed in his company. He didn’t deserve being portrayed as a villain.
It bugs me how captain Smith was portrayed as being in a daze and wondering around. While I’m sure at points he was in shock. He was very active in the sinking and overseeing the evacuation, trying to call boats back. I think the movie should have shown that more.
There is a deleted scene when he does call back the boat no. 6 - the one with Molly Brown, Rose's mother and other first class ladies. It should have been kept in the film.
Not only that. But a witness even told, that when Smith was in the water, he didnt swim to a lifeboat, instead he yelled to the other people ''dont give up !'' (like : he cheered them up ) . He was literally a hero to the last second! He didnt gave up, like the movie portrays him. Its very unfair how the movie portrays him and Murdoch, and Ismay. Ismay also didnt even wanted to go in a lifeboat, instead he helped as much as possible to get people into the lifeboats. The officers begged him numerous times to go into a lifeboat, but he refused, and helped. It was one of the last lifeboats he took ...and only because the officers said to him : he cant help any more, and begged him again to take a life boat. Instead the movie portrays Ismay like a c*ward. Its btw thanks to ismay, that we know that much about the technical side of the sinking of the Titanic, because most other people with knowledge died in the sinking. His knowledge in the court actually helped to make passenger ships much more safe up to this day. Its the usual stuff: people want to find villains of a tragedy where in fact there was not a single villain at all in this incident.
@@PygmalionFaciebat Thank you, this is a great comment. I hate Cameron's movie for depicting these people and the attitude of the crew towards the 3 class, which is completely wrong, fictionate and insulting. Titanic was a high class vessel, famous for its luxurious accommodation of the 3 class passengers as well. None other ship had same level of comfort for immigrants.
@@myrinphoto You are so right ! Ismays priority was ''to get 3rd class passengers at least the comfort and luxury of 2nd-class passengers on other ships !'' . While on other ships 3rd-class-passengers were treated like animals, in big sleeping halls , while on the Titanic 3d class passengers even had a bathroom sink (which at the time was very unheard of for 3rd-class-passengers). Also in the court after the sinking of Titanic 3rd-class-survivors were asked ''how they estimate their chances of survival compared to 1st-class passengers" and they answered ''about the same'' Also the black fences on the Titanic were only partielly true. Yes some of them were closed, but a lot of them weren't (there was no order like ''close all fences to the 3rd class'' ... Also there was numerous other ways to get to the deck with the lifeboats. I very much appreciating your comment ! For me its also disrespectful to choose a made up story for the Titanic disaster... They were really so much heart warming real stories on the Titanic - also with the sinking (women who didnt wanted to leave their husband and rather wanted to be with him, no matter what) . There were so much real love stories on Titanic... And they ignored almost all of them, or made it to a very small bit in the sinking ... Every real person on the Titanic would have deserved a main role instead of ''Jack and Rose''
Thank you so much for the accurate potrayal of Murdock and Ismay. My son and I find the Titanic history fascinating for many years. We love your channel!
I'm a Navy Veteran, and despite getting horribly seasick on boats and ships, I love movies about boats and ships. Go figure. Love your breakdown and attention to detail for those who aren't ship-savvy. Looking forward to checking out more of your videos.
About the hull breaking; I distinctly remember a documentary where they investigated this with Cameron present and he jokingly said something like "I hope you're wrong because otherwise I'm going to have to re-shoot this scene".
Mike, you’re my favorite you tuber…..the way you respect your content and respect your audience. Your channel is truly a relaxing joy to watch. Keep it up!
I think the film actually did a lot to renew interest in the Titanic, both in pop culture (obviously) but scientifically as well. You mentioned a study that was done to figure out at what angle the ship broke apart, and I don't know if that study would have been done if it weren't for the movie, and the discussions it sparked
Another great piece from you, Mike. Detailed enough without nitpicky. Absolutely agree about the Titanic film getting people into the historical event. I was in upper primary school when the movie came out. I was obsessed! Haha Favourite scene I froth over each time is the 'take her to sea Mr Murdoch' engines, water splashing, officers.. the lot!
I can remember the day I saw this film; I might have been a tad too young to have seen some of the elements in this film as a seven-year-old. As you say, it is something historical and should be accurately depicted. But to this day, nearly 27 years later, I still find myself in awe of the detail and care taken when producing such a big picture. I enjoy your videos; like you say, they are a way of digging up the facts and learning new facts, and I thank you for that.
Despite the innacuracies 27 years after release, this is still a jaw dropping piece of filmaking & its influence cant be ignored. Still one of my favourite films
Thanks for doing this. I have two personal Titanic connections - born in Belfast where she was built - on 1st Sep 1985, the very day she was discovered by Ballard on the ocean floor. So the ship has always fascinated me and the Cameron movie is my favourite picture. I visited the Murdoch memorial plaque in Dalbeattie, Scotland. I understand Twentieth Century Fox did apologize to Murdoch's family for the way he was portrayed.
Thank you so much for this video, Mike! I'm a Titanic nerd (not at the rivet-counting level you are, though!) and I care a lot about historical accuracy in films. I completely agree with you about the responsibility Hollywood has to present historical people and situations relatively accurately. I, like you, find certain exaggerations and conglomerations to be fine. The lead female character in "Chernobyl" was a comlomgeration of hundreds of scientists, and this helped the show give them credit. I was STUNNED to see that 1911 Ismay quote! That changes everything. No type-A strong-willed leader says things like, "If the Captain and X and Y person agree to do it a certain way, I won't stand in their way." Character assassination like this and what happened to Murdoch should make us more upset than it does, I think because we don't adequately sympathize with what it would be like to BE the person whose legacy is forever ruined because of a Hollywood writer or director.
I was applauding through most of this; you've summed up a lot of my thoughts on this film. The portrayal of Murdoch was very problematic, however in the context of Hollywood I can see how it happened. James himself admits he let his screenwriter self get carried away and push the historian down. Murdoch was extremely capable, you probably know this story, but many reading may not. He actually saved the S.S. Arabic from a collision 5 years earlier. He identified a ship in fog, calculated the trajectories, and pushed the helmsman aside to counterman a direct order to turn, having worked out they'd hit if they did so. Witnesses say they missed by feet; no doubt this incident ran through Murdoch's mind that night. I would believe that Murdoch had seen the iceberg at the same time if not before the bell was rung. Frederick Fleet's own testimony supports this; he said the ship was already turning while he was waiting for the bridge crew to answer the telephone. Given what you've told us about the response time of the ship, this could only have happened if the turn order had already been carried out. As you said, they *almost,* had it 😢 Regarding the shooting scene, as much as I dislike the results of this scene to the legacy of Murdoch, it's probably one of the most powerful to me in terms of the acting. Ewan Stewart did an incredible job showing exactly those big emotions that people would have felt that night. The helplessness of the situation, his desperation to save as many as he could, the totally human instinctive reaction to the sudden movement in his peripheral vision. And the fact he does it without a single word spoken was just 👌. We see the spectrum of emotions play across Murdoch's face, the devastation, the realisation of everything that's happening and then the resolve once he's made up his mind he's going to do it. Absolute tear-jerker moment for me and it stayed with me for a long time after that first viewing of the film at age 14. A cute historical fact- most people interpret the scene of Jack & Rose being seen by Murdoch as cute window dressing. I believe the inclusion of Murdoch smiling at the two is a nod to the fact that he met his own wife on a voyage between Sydney & Liverpool in 1903. He's smiling because he knows how it feels. Great video as always, Mike!
In the 20 and 25 Years later with James Cameron where he tests the models, he acknowledges that the angle showed in the movie was wrong. Like you said, this movie was made in 1997, way before we knew as much about Titanic as we do now. This is also where he says that you cannot have the stern dropping down after the break up and then sticking out of the water like a tower; you get one or the other. He ends the documentary by saying that we will never know what *really* happened, but we now know what it is possible because of physics. As a Titanic enthusiast, I loved every minute of it!
The only 'mistake' I really dislike is Cameron's apparent hatred towards the crew. He portrayed everyone, and the owner, as incompetent. It really bothers me.
@@Tornado1994 Audiences need someone to hate. Real life stories are dramatized to make content more interesting. There were no real "villains" in the true story, so Cameron decided to paint the 1st classers as haughty aristocrats, and the crew as incompetent. Karens love to complain about servicemen and those in charge, so it was easy to sell that to a general audience.
That is true, and part of the reason why I found A Night to Remember by Roy Ward Baker as a good film to balance it out, as it focuses on the historical events as told by survivor's testimony, as opposed to being used as a setting for a fictional period drama. It focuses mostly on Charles Lightoller, as he was the seniormost officer to survive the sinking, but also largely on other members of the crew; Captain Smith and Murdoch were heroic to the end, and Andrews and Ismay were presented in a more neutral manner as opposed to being ignorant, bumbling venture capitalists.
It has been pretty much proven that Murdoch was allowing men into the boats if there were no more women and children around. I don't care who you are, but if you're on a sinking ship that doesn't have enough spots for everyone and the man n change says "anyone else?" or words to that effect... I'm "anyone else"ing my ass into the nearest lifeboat.
It is always interesting to see more about the Titanic. I have a family concern it this unfortunate incident. In 1912 my grandmother was an unborn baby at the time of the sinking but her cousin was a young man called Wallace Hartley who was the Bandmaster of the ship. The band stayed aboard playing music to try to alleviate what must have been a very distressing time for all on board. Sadly they perished. Edit. Perhaps I should add that I was at school with a great -grandson of Captain Smith.
"What I'm not going to excuse is this." points, and ad for Buick Elantra appears. Sorry, I know you have no control over the ads, but the timing was so well timed. There is never too much information from Mike Brady and the Titanic Honor and Glory cohort.
Another good and factual video. But I'm still waiting for you to address the elephant in the room. Namely the depiction of passengers being locked behind bostwick gates when Titanic only had gates to separate the classes, not prevent people from reaching their respective decks.
Relax, this movie is just a cheap drama/sugary romance, not to be taken seriously. I don't remember if it was there, but a simple disclaimer of it being a fictional account would solve the problem.
Not sure if its been ackowledged, out of the 3000+ messages, but when the First officer gives the order to turn the ship, his order is "Hard to Starboard", although the Helmsman turns the wheel to port (the correct side he should of turned), the First officer should of said "hard to Port".
For those that dont know Mike Brady, this "nitpick" video is the equivalent to him rolling up his sleeves to get into a boxing ring. This is hardcore Mike Brady we are seeing in this video. We love the vids Mike
@@kevincobble934 In every video on this channel, including this video, the narrator says "Hello this is your friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs". It is really obvious who Mike Brady is.
Thank you for adding more accurate information about the sinking of the Titanic than what we frequently get in movies. I really like the movie Titanic. To me it was a lot like it must have appeared to all those shocked and mostly confused passengers. It’s often a convergence of misfortunes and I never bought the idea that Bruce Ismay was the movie-requisite evil guy. My son and I really enjoy the truths you tell about ships and ship sinking. And thank you for defending Murdoch. In other histories he did not go around shooting people, although I know such an occurrence might be required. One of my favorite parts was the all too brief look at the steam engines reversing. They must have been gigantic. My family were steam engine people since the time they were invented and I have a lovely working wood model of an upright that my father made. It runs on pressurized air. The metal twin to it was gifted to his close friend. Papa would have enjoyed the movie Titanic if I could have gotten him to sit still that long. March 4 would have been his 100th birthday. Thank you so much for the truths you tell about shipwrecks. They are historical and too important to be sullied with falsehoods.
A major reason, if not the greatest reason, for Ismay not pushing Smith to get into port a full day early has to do with traffic. Just like airport gates today, there were only so many berths available for big liners. If Titanic had shown up a day early there would have been no place for her to berth and would have had to sit out in the harbor for a day, sort of the equivalent of waiting on the tarmac for a gate to clear, if your plane gets in a little early.
i applaud you for making this video and highlighting the fact that real people´s characters need to be honestly depicted, especially as it is (unfortunately) from Hollywood films that most people take their information.
Did you ever notice that overall "Titanic" has the same plot as "George of the Jungle"? Curly-haired beauty is being pushed by her mother into marrying a cad. While the beauty is on a voyage with the cad, a poor but handsome rogue saves her from death. He takes her on a journey to seldom-seen places, dances with her, and introduces her to cool new friends. The cad nearly kills the rogue, but the beauty saves his life. In the end, the beauty, clad in an elegant white gown, is united with the rogue, clad in his simple garb, while people from both their worlds look on and applaud.
I hate it when movies are based off of a real life event and they turn a real life person into a villain especially to make the movie more interesting. It’s a real person most likely with real family that are alive and will watch the movie and question themselves if he really behaved that way or if they knew he didn’t act that way but they portray them as evil, it can cause a lot of issues for that family. Want to make a fake character that’s evil. Go ahead but don’t take someone who tried to save as many lives as possible in real life and turn them into a villain. I’m glad you caught that!
This is why I love historical based films! Titanic was one of the films as a kid that made me want to better understand the events of history and I still love the events of Titanic to this day!! Thank you for so many amazing videos!
Always great content ! Mike as a fellow Ozzie, I feel you would be the perfect content creator to look into two of Australia’s greatest Maritime mysteries , the disappearance of the Patanela , and the disappearance of the crew of the Kaz 2 that could be some great content mate. Sorry I realize this comment is off topic. I just feel you could really do both stories justice.
I think ANTR, despite lacking some of the obvious knowledge about the break up, made a better job at presenting the real life characters than the 1997 film. It seems like they made a greater effort.
You forgot to mention that they also turned Lightoller into a villain (kinda). It looked like he was trying to kill people on purpose, refused to let men enter on purpose and even overheard the "women and children first" by captain Smith on purpose while smiling in arrogance. In general most officers in the movie were portraied like villains. But I believe Lightoller is the most obvious one.
Jack references a few things that do NOT exist yet. The lake he said he spent his childhood on was man made years later. Also the bag he carries was not made until the 30’s.
Great video - and in defence of Cameron his "Romeo & Juliet on a boat" is an entertainment, not a documentary. As one critic observed, Cameron was "faithful to the detail, but promiscuous with the facts." In my view one of his most egregious inventions was "Third Class Passengers locked below decks". They weren't. Many assembled on the open well deck in front of the stairs up to Second Class where there was a low gate - Cameron actually filmed Jack going through this to visit Rose, but it didn't make it into the final edit. The "Bostwick" gates shown in the film didn't exist in passenger spaces - the ship was designed and built as Three Class from inception, so you wouldn't want to have gates you opened and closed. On the Officers, Lightoller is unfairly characterised as an "Upper Class RP speaking twit" when in fact he was a working class Westcountryman. Finally, try telling any of the Protestant Harland & Wolff ship builders in Belfast that this was an "Irish ship" and see how many teeth you've got left! Harland & Wolff was notoriously anti-Catholic and the builders viewed themselves as fiercely British. Titanic was a random tragedy which for a film needed "goodies" (Americans & immigrants) and "Baddies" (Brits). In some ways Cameron was even more Anti-British than the Nazi Titanic, which was more "anti-capitalist" in line with National Socialism. Great film, iffy history.
Should have said it was a fictional account at the start .. don't remember if it was there. Titanic is a fairly recent tragedy, so knowingly slandering real people with living descendants is not good. Especially for the purpose of cheap drama.
Thank you very much for the video. One thing that I never believed is that famous scene where DiCaprio hugs Winslet and her says "i'm flying!", both of them are in the very edge of the bow castle. I guess that area was forbidden for passengers.
There was also a Miniseries made in 1996, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones & Peter Gallagher. Overall it's about as accurate as you would guess... Although it was a very long time since I watched it, I believe there was a scene where Ismay was basically in the Engine Room ordering more speed. However, one thing that I remember actually being more accurate compared to Cameron's movie, was the very loud noise that could be heard on deck from all the steam being vented after ship had stopped!
Yes. I just learned about steam going from tunnels yesterday when I watched Titanic sinking in the real time videos. They should had added it to the Titanic movie. There was that eerie loud noise that lasted about an hour. It adds that creepy uneasy feeling to a whole evacuation process. It was like the ship exhaling her last breath. Everyone who is interested in Titanic should watch those 2.5h videos. It gives you a feel of timing and that horrible . Isteam noice going abc going, you will know when you watch them.
1. In the underwater shot of the Titanic's centre propeller at departure, there are 4 paddles. In reality, there were 3 blades on the Titanic's centre propeller. H and Wolf could not decide which solution was more efficient. So Olympic was put into service with a 4-bladed centre propeller, while Titanic was fitted with the 3-bladed version. From the experience of the tests, the Britannic would have got the better version. In the end the 4-bladed version was the better one. 2. At start-up, the three propellers start turning simultaneously. This is impossible. The central propeller was driven by the unused low steam pressure of the two steam engines driving the two outer propellers. And that's why the middle propeller started with a phase delay. The delay time depended on the boiler pressure applied to the piston steam engines at start-up. 3. Boarding scene: /A/ Hockley, Rose, and Rose's mother boarded the ship in the wrong place. As the film reveals, Hockley was in the B-52/54/56 suite. This suite was on B Deck. Of course, B Deck had a separate entrance. In the film, the Hockly's enter the ship two floors below through the D deck door. /B/ In the background of the boarding scene, you can see passengers boarding the ship at the staircase at the left side of B deck. This was impossible on the Titanic. That part of the Titanic was built. 3 cabins were placed there. 4. B-52/54/56 suite problems: /A/ In reality, Bruce Ismay was accommodated in this cabin. And since Ismay is in the film, this is a mistake. Or there should have been a scene where Ismay gives up his seat to Hockley due to lack of space. Or the Hockley's should have been put in the other suite of the same name, suite B-51/53/55. In reality, Mrs. Cardosa was travelling with her daughter in that cabin. They are irrelevant to the film. They were not even in the film. /B/ The furnishings in this suite were completely different from what is shown in the film. In reality, the furnishings of this suite are Louis XVI period. With white walls, elegant but understated decorations and furniture like this. In the film we see a magnificent Regence-style cabin. Except that there was only one such cabin on the Titanic. It was the C-55 cabin. And this is where Isidor Straus and his wife were accommodated. 5. Rose running towards the suicide attempt. Briefly. Unimpeachable! Plus, in the film, they make Rose look like a fool. To give you a sense of the problem, I'll describe the running scene point by point. Rose sits bored in the first-class dining room of the D deck communal dining room. The next moment, Rose is running down the promenade on Deck A, where she almost knocks people over. The next moment, Rose is running down the second-class promenade at the rear of Deck B, and from there she takes the stairs down to the open rear of Deck C. Need I explain? 6 Rose's "Freud quote" to Ismay. This scene takes place in the Verenda Cafe. In that scene, Ismay, Hockley and Rose's mother are ordering food. No food is served at the Veranda Cafe. The Veranda Cafe was actually part of the cigar lounge. At the far end of A Deck on the left. You could smoke there, as Rose does in the film. There was a similar room on the other side, but it was reserved for non-smokers. It was called Palm Court. 7 In the film, after the collision, the third class passengers were blocked by the crew. This did not happen in reality. 8. In the film, the corridors are wider than they were in reality. 9. Rose and Jack, running away from Lovejoy. They get into an elevator and go down to E Deck. They get out of the elevator. In this scene, the walls are white. In reality, the walls were covered with wood. In addition, the space in front of the elevators was closed off to the left. In the film there is an exit from there. So Lovejoy comes to the elevators from a place that did not exist in reality.
Excellent attention to detail. I wish Cameron had cared more, I've always thought this film was a wasted opportunity to really showcase THE TITANIC instead of re-using a fake love story at the expense of all the amazing real stories that took place.
ANOTHER INACCURACY ALL TITANIC MOVIES SHOW: Several movies (at least a couple dozen) have been made about Titanic. Every one of them shows the ship very visible,almost lit up under bright moonlight. The fact is, the moon was on the opposite side of the earth that night, which is part of why there were no waves in the ocean. In reality, it was a very dark night, and as the ship was sinking, those in the life boats would have only seen the light from the ships interior lights, as well as the starlight. Their perception would only show a slightly illuminated silhouette of the ship.
I agree with the Murdoch family being upset. Mr. Cameron could have created a fictional character with the gun and portray Murdoch the way he really was. The movie does have a lot of fictional characters, but the real named ones should have been portrayed as close to true character as possible.
I think it would’ve been really neat to see some sort of depiction of Joseph LaRoche, Titanic’s only black passenger, who was an engineer and second class passenger, traveling with his wife and daughters. Perhaps he needs his own biopic, as it probably would’ve been too challenging to show a short cameo of him in this already four hour film.
Thank you for brining up the fruitful way we take in history. We can be so easily swayed when we don't look to multiple sources, then form our own personal knowedge of the facts. It does not change history, it allows us to learn from it. a tip of the hat, good job sir.
There is enough evidence to indicate that some officer shot themselves. I tend to agree with Walter Lord that it was Chief Officer Wilde who did so and accept Lightoller's explanation of what happened to Murdoch.
One thing i found curious about Thomas Andrews was that he spoke with a typical Received Pronunciation (or RP) accent, not the light Irish Brogue he spoke with in the film. It was very common at the tie for people of Andrews background to speak with an affected accent.
For me, the thing I didn't like in the '97 movie is how they portrayed the Titanic-crew as incompetent. The more I have learned about the disaster, the more impressed I'm with their actions on that fateful night.
I discovered ocean liner designs a few months ago, completely hooked the content is always so interesting and brilliantly researched, the presentation is very professional and engaging. Thanks for your fascinating videos.
To me, the biggest error is the third class being locked down by the crew for the majority of the sinking. No ship would actively block people from getting to the deck in the case of emergency. There were no locked gates. There were signs reading "careful, you are now leaving third class" and on deck there were SMALL gates one could easily step over. The reasobs so many third class passengers died was because they slept on the lower decks. News about the emergency reached them last and the water reached them first. Secondly, many men worked in the boiler rooms and so they were locked in the flooded rooms. Thirdly, there were just a lot more third class passengers. They were the biggest group by far so it makes sense that more people died. And additionally, some people were lost or did not speak English and therefore did not get the instructions (as shown in the film).
Mike goes into further detail in other videos that though the ship had segregated classes some of the 2nd class cabins could be converted into 1st or 3rd class cabins depending on need so what gates there were below deck were not kept locked. Due to the segregation 3rd class passengers would have had no familiarity with the 1st and 2nd class areas where the lifeboats were kept so many of them apparently stayed in the parts of the ship they were familiar with until late in the sinking, and by then many of the lifeboats had already been launched. In the movie whether this was changed due to incorrect information or just to add drama is hard to know. It also tends to get overlooked by the movies and media that the crew suffered the worst losses aboard.
Accounts of a passenger said that a ships officer (possible Murdoch) ordered ismay to enter the boat as there wasn’t anyone there. Ismay also convinced many woman and children to board a lifeboat early in the sinking,
Please watch some more accurate documentaries! Lord and lady Duff Gordon actually paid an officer to launch a lifeboat with only like 20-30 people in it once they were were in it. That's something they don't show in the movie.
@@rebeccablackburn9487 what? The Gordon’s didn’t pay any officer to launch the boat, it was launched since most of the passengers went aft and not many wanted to leave the comfort of the actual ship itself. Then Murdoch ordered some crew members to board then lowered, no way 1st officer Murdoch would a bribe.
@@Aperson-qv9rd I never said it was officer Murdoch who accepted the bribe. Please stop basing everything you know about Titanic from the movie. It's fiction built around a historic event.
Maybe it's because people are tired of smear campaigns and fake virtue signaling? Ismay was a passenger and had no obligation to go down with the ship. So easy talking from one's couch when in real life 99% of these commentators would be scared sh.tless
Mr. Braidy, new subscriber here. Been seeing your videos pop up in my suggested videos, and have been enjoying your production quality and attention to detail. I recall when Ballard discovered the wreck in 1985, I was about 7 at the time. Never forgot that and started my wild fascination with the ship and the tragedy. I've learned a great deal more about the history through your videos, wonderful dives into the actual accounts and everything. I also like the kinder view on Ismay, while he has been criminalized by historys key players, there is a human side to the industrialist we know as Bruce Ismay. I appreciate you taking some of the blame and heat off of him, it's only too common we try and find all the blame and fault on one man, for everything but, we truly don't know enough about most of those involved of these moments of history, so long ago. Thank you for your great channel, I truly enjoy it.
She definitely would have. Only 3 or 4 of her lower compartments would have flooded and She was designed to be able to stay afloat with up 4 flooded, and steel she was made from was flexible enough to crush up like a soda can.
I had a friend of mine during this time that was a Titanic nut even way before this movie came out and he knew the story of Titanic inside and out way before this and he actually gave the movie high praise He says they got a lot of things right.
At the time, anyone who was a Titanic nut would have said the same. I was around 8 or 9, and every piece of media available before 1997 was depicted pretty well. Don Lynch and Ken Marshall were on set as historian and technical support. Anything with their name attached like "Titanic an Illustrated History" and "Titanic Death of a Dream" was a commercial success. I even had a majority of the books and had the A&E show recorded on VHS. So yeah, those depictions came to life for the majority of the fans who knew Titanic through the eyes of those two. At the time, you also got to consider that James Cameron was indeed a household name because of his previous movies. We ALL knew James Cameron would deliver. It was extremely exciting to see what he did in the trailers before the film came out.
The fictional character of Rose on Titanic was probably the biggest villain 🤣. Spends the whole movie having an affair with some homeless guy, blows smoke into her mothers face at the tea table, has sex in someone else's car with said homeless guy (syphilis, gonorrhoea anyone.....??), has a table at the end full of photos showing just herself - no kids, grandkids, husband, granddaughter Lizzie who helps her so much - nope, just herself, and then tops it all off by throwing a priceless diamond into the ocean that could have lifted half of the planet out of poverty if donated. Ismay & Murdoch could have massacred the entire ship with zombie knives and still be saints in comparison to that character 🤣🤣
All 3 of Cameron's Characters are VILLIANS. Jack and Rose are Figments of his Imagination that DON'T even show,speak or Have Mannerisms from 1912. They both are written like Mid 90s Teen Lovers: The 1990s. Like they traveled in Time to 1912. Cameron clearly did NO research on Post Victorian Mannerisms and Lingo. NONE. The "Middle Finger" did NOT exist in 1912. "Nickelodeons". Nickelodeons were completely experimental and Test Marketed. They were never approved for Nationwide use because they never made it past Test Marketing. Swearing was VERY uncommon and extremely derogatory and saying "God's name in Vain" would have resulted in BOTH of them being thrown in the Brig. The way Jack was depicted as 3rd Class Passenger was B.S. NO 3rd Class was Allowed ANYWHERE past their Floor. There were NO exceptions. Jack would have NEVER corresponded with Rose or her Friends,Family Whatever because he would have been FORBIDDEN from it. The Car Scene? Cheap Schmaltz. They would have NEVER found their way in a Storage Hall because it would be Completely Locked away. I'd like to personally conclude in the Same way that SNL Did, that The 1997 Titanic film is basically a Figment of the Old Lady's Imagination. She made the WHOLE thing up in her Senile, Dementia Ridden Mind. She certainly NEVER rode or got onboard the RMS Titanic(She didn't even have a DAMN British Accent for God Sakes.), Got TONS of Anachronisms Wrong, was Inaccurate in almost EVERYTHING, Clearly Exaggerated the POV of Other Characters(How the HELL would she know or be Allowed down into the 3rd Class Deck?) and Probably was off her Meds if she couldn't even Remember KEY Titanic Survivors and only ones she probably read about in A Night To Remember by Walter Lord and In the Fictional Musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" Despite the Fact that Margaret Brown's Family has stated that "Molly" was NEVER her nickname and the fact she SWORE she saw First Officer Chief William McMaster Murdoch kill himself despite the Fact that NOBODY none of the Titanic Survivors EVER said or stated that he killed himself and pretty much ALL of them Say they Saw him get swept by a Wave as as he was trying to Unload a Collapsible.
@@Tornado1994 After I found out about the "Molly" thing, I refused to call Margret that in respect of her memory. But to be fair to the audience, if they wrote her accurate to the time, it'd loose allot of people. It would of felt forgein to them. Although I admit, I'd love to see it rewritten with the mannerism's of the time, and compare the slang differences to the 90's one.
14:58 Two cases that I know of about that are #1 (capacity 40, occupancy 12) which makes it the one lowered with the lowest occupancy percentage, 30%, and #6 (capacity 65, occupancy 22) the one lowered with most empty seats, 43. Of the 12 people in #1 only five were passengers the rest were all crew .
I recall when the movie came out that Cameron said he made an effort to include all of the myths about Titanic. He was conciously aware of the fact that he was presenting myth as fact to make the movie more enjoyable for the audience. I have always watched it with that in mind and take the information presented in the movie as good story telling and research any part that I am interested in for myself. Unfortunately not everyone does that and will take a Hollywood movie as an accurate description of a historical event.
My Hatred of the Cameron film is based entirely on the Fact that he took WAY too many Liberties just to make sure his Film Made Nearly Billions. He didn't CARE about Accuracy, Anachronisms, Story or History. He DIDN'T have to make up Characters. Jack Thayer and Olive "Rose" Earnshaw were REAL Survivors and he coulda made an "Apocryphal" Story Arc of 17 Year old 1st Class Passenger Jack and 22 Year old Divorcee 2nd Classer Rose corresponding and ultimately have a brief Love affair on the RMS Titanic. Thayer was VERY intelligent, VERY Handsome for his time, and was turning 18 at the time and Earnshaw was a YOUNG, Single, Tomboy Divorcee and 1st and 2nd Class Passengers WERE allowed to Correspond with each other and allowed free access to Each Decks. It was the 3rd Class who were Discriminated and Segregated. Also, Cameron could have Portrayed Lawrence Beesley as their Friend(Cal is a DEAD Ringer for Professor Beesley and that Ain't no coincidence) with the Film being about how ALL 3 Survivors saw the suffering of the victims and how they all collaborated together to tell Congress what they saw. Apocryphal Storytelling Works. It allows Suspension of Disbelief because its on the line of the "We don't know if that's how it really happened, it probably did that way, it coulda, but we can't say for absolute sure" This Worked for Braveheart,Ray, La Bamba, Mask, how in the HELL did James Cameron not get or Understand that? Cameron's Titanic isn't Apocryphal. Its Romeo and Juliet Fanfiction that uses the RMS Titanic as a Backdrop. And it wouldn't bother me so much had he NOT ripped off and stole the Likeness of Thayer,Earnshaw and Beesley for his Three Fictional Characters.
Do you have a favourite moment from the 1997 film Titanic? For me it's when the bridge drops below the ocean's surface, gives me chills every time!
Thanks to our good friends at Titanic Honor and Glory as always for their stunning animation work! You can find their work here:
www.titanichg.com/
For me, it's when the titanic splits in half
wow, you got me thinking for a while lol. I think my favorite scene is when Captain Smith is in the submerged bridge and the glass breaks. It gives me chills
The Nearer My God To Thee Sequence Moves Me Every Time
Mike, what's your thoughts on the new film "Unsinkable"?
Have you seen the trailer or heard about this one? 🚢
For me it's any scene Thomas Andrews is in. Victor Garber acted his heart out. But the standout is "she's made of iron sir. I assure you she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty." The absolute fear you hear in his voice is haunting.
I think that Cameron has since said that he regrets portraying Murdoch the way he did, and that he would have chosen a different solution, if he could make the movie again. So that's at least something.
would be nice if he spent some of his fortune to reshoot a few of these scenes for a 20th anniversary re-release or something, to address all those very small-minded portrayals of historical persons. he could also include cuts from his documentary as part of this re-release, heck he might even earn more from the box-office.
@@alveolate Given that it's been 27 years since the film was released, and that everyone in it has aged considerably since then, the result would be a CGI abomination. We have enough of those already.
Probably has something to do with the libel settlement he had to pay to the Murdoch family. Given the level of research and attention to detail he’s known for, there’s no way he didn’t know what he was doing with Murdoch or Ismay.
Sure. After he was sued by the family and had to pay out.
If it is Cameron, he might do it again. 🤣
I think if they needed a character to act as Murdoch acts in the movie, to show that drama, they should have invented a fictional officer. Not maligned a real person.
It’s simply horrible that this hero was portrayed in such a cowardly and inept. His family should be compensated and James Cameron should be held accountable and make a public apology to Murdoch himself his family and the public.
@@brightstarlit - those scenes should be cut from every digital version and new release of the film. They don't drive the story telling in any direction, so they are pretty redundant and could easily be cut - at least out of respect for the family.
@TheHopperUK, Generally speaking, I'd agree with doing that. However, it's one thing to have fictional passengers play significant roles in the movie, quite another to create a non-existent officer who actually served aboard Titanic, particularly one who did something so drastic.
Was it really necessary for the drama to have passengers shown being FATALLY shot in the chaos? Wouldn't it have been sufficient to simply have had a number of warning shots depicted, or at most, a passenger intentionally winged, as a deterrent, instead?
@@mitchellmelkin4078 Yeah, I think we agree pretty much. Anything would be better than what they did.
@@QP300Art is art. We shouldn't censor, let alone modify what was made in the past regardless if it triggers you. A better solution would be to put an announcement before the movie to explain how some of the characters are portrayed inaccurately.
William Murdoch was perhaps the biggest hero on the night of he sinking. If you watch "Ghosts of the Abyss" they show a life boat davit in it's upright position about to be reloaded. This is where Murdoch was about to connect one last boat to load up and send off, but ran out of time. In my opinion this is a monument of heroism to William Murdoch for his dedication and sacrifice, for performing his duty to saving the most lives regardless of class or social standing to the vary end.
yes and he could have jumped on the last boat but he didnt, i dont know if i could do some like that just to save one more stranger instead of miself.
I agree, Murdoch was a generous man, a real hero. Officer Murdoch saved my great grandfather’s life by ordering him and 6 other crewmen onto an under filled cutter lifeboat on the starboard side, instead of lowering it with merely 5 passengers. He was a true seafaring man if there ever was one and I hated seeing him portrayed as a pistol toting thug.
@@donnix1192wow that’s amazing! What was your great grandfathers name?!
@@MrColonelCool Albert Horswill, just google him-there is an entire page about him on encyclopedia titanica
I've always believed his intention was for Moody to take the collapsible boat. He probably wasn't thinking of himself, but there's no way he would have let that boy die if he could help it.
While I live in Argentina, a first cousin of mine, now in her mid-nineties, was born in Belfast and used to live just down the road from some long-time friends, the Andrews family. While I have spoken to her of my fascination about the mythical Titanic story, she brought me down to earth about it, noting that first and foremost it was a great tragedy, and in particular, a terrible loss to the Andrews. I very much appreciated your research for this episode, setting the record straight about those real people. Still, in spite of the inaccuracies, I think the film is marvelous and I always regret my Dad (born 1905) never got to see it, as he would have loved the reconstruction of an epoch he kind of got to know, having crossed by boat a number of times between Buenos Aires and the UK, including when he volunteered for WWII. Every time I chance upon the film on TV, I get hooked and see it through to the end!
I am an Argentinian living in Belfast. Some of my ancestors were from the UK and I sometimes wonder how they got to Argentina but it was a quite a few generations before me so I don’t have much data, only their names, marriage licences, and some dates.
I admire the intellectual honesty of our host. He loves the movie AND YET accept and denounces its flaws. I appreciate this a lot.
That’s a very fair and valid way of saying that, a laudable example
But he inexcusably omits any reference to the unforgettable omission of the Californian and the annoying wrong (American/yankee) hymntune of "Nearer My God To Thee" (instead of using the correct British hymntune).
The hymn playing at the end is endlessly up for debate. Did Cameron get it right? Did the musical get it right with "Autumn"? Was it something else entirely? The truth can only be known with a time machine.
@@Hat12man What unforgettable omission of the Californian? Are you talking about the deleted scene in the wireless room where the Titanic operators told the Californian operator to "shut up" because they were busy sending private messages and so the Californian operator turned off the machine and went to bed? Though cut from the movie, there was nothing erroneous about it. It factually happened. Some of the banter between the crews may have been embellished / dramatized, however the plot is still accurate.
My grandfather is a retired tug boat captain, he could easily point out the errors in the ship design and operation. This would always bother my grandmother because she just wanted to watch the movie without a lesson on ships.
🤣💜😂
I lived with a wonderful view of the Mississippi River in New Orleans years ago. I knew a tugboat captain who actually brought those huge ships and barges, etc. into the port. Those captains were very much respected and had jobs that were almost impossible to obtain. Hats off to your grandfather!!! I’m sure that he was a most interesting man, and by the way, a real man!!
@@bettycattk5298 Thank you and he was
I gotcha. 😉👍 Had a Navy buddy who was like that. Very intelligent, probably genius level, and at least in HIS mind could critique just about anything. In a documentary, maybe I can see doing that. I do some myself, but like you said, many people just wanna see the movie for entertainment without the technical analysis. For some reason, people who are geniuses or close to it completely miss things like that. It’s not “logical” to them, I guess. 🤔🙄 The narrator here sounds like he’s defending Holland & Wolfe rather than objectively looking at what most experts on this subject consider obvious errors. For one, and I’m looking at this as a Navy veteran myself, the
compartmentalization of the ship only went up to E Deck, I believe it was. Above that, the water could flow freely bow to stern. And I believe that’s really what sank the Titanic. In addition to the statement “Not even God himself could sink her.” Using a slightly different application of the old WWII warning to civilians, military members, etc, “Loose lips sink ships.” Looks like that proved true, unfortunately, with the Titanic. 🚢
Hardy har har
I actually really rather like how Thomas Andrews went out in the film.
In the film, Andrews is almost like a living representation of the ship herself. When he apologized to Rose, I had always thought it was such an odd line. This was not his fault at all. We all know this. And then it hit me recently. It's not just the shipbuilder apologizing it's the ship herself.
So him being resigned to his fate isn't so much him giving up. At least, that's not how I interpreted it. To me, even before looking into his life and what he was like and how he actually acted that night...to me this was James Cameron telling us that this isn't just how Andrews felt, but the ship. There was only so much he could do and we DO see him try his best. He told people in the hallways to get up top. He shouts at Lightoller for launching the boats half full. And I know that sounds silly in personifying the ship herself, but with how Andrews is in the film, there is credible evidence that's what Cameron was going for when he had Andrews say "I'm sorry I didn't build you a stronger ship, young Rose."
Just like the ship herself is resigned to her fate, so is Andrews. Just like Andrews she did the best she could. The fact that she lasted long far longer than he himself predicted is a testament to her designers and builders.
Ya
I like what you said. I didn’t think of that this way.
I will always remember what you said about him and the ship next time I watch it.
Which will be tonight probably.
👍🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
@TheRibottoStudios
Very nice interpretation of the film....I agree , it does well to tell you the ship is sorry for these events and the great loss that was to be, through Thomas.
That's a take on the action I never thought of but it sure is a better or nice way to see it. 👍
Like you, I never saw this as in any way an indictment of Andrews' character, rather the opposite - he had already done so much, and everyone has that point somewhere where their minds close down, and they go into shock, but I like your reading of this scene very much.
VERY astute of you! Titanic was a good ship, she stayed alive as long as she could, staying afloat longer than Mr. Andrews thought she would.
I also thought it was a very respectable representation of Andrews. He'd built a good ship. He'd done nothing wrong...
5:01 - Right as you finished saying, "What I'm not going to excuse is this", an ad played. Perfect timing. (EDIT: I don't care about the ads)
Omg same
Same
UA-camrs have the ability to preselect the time codes for ads. This was likely deliberate and I love it 😂
“What I’m not going to excuse, is this” ritz crackers apparently
I have UA-cam premium so I have no idea haha that’s so funny
The vice-president of 20th Century Fox Scott Neeson went to the small town of Dalbeattie, near Dumfries, to deliver a personal apology to the 80-year-old nephew of William Murdoch, first officer of the Titanic, for the way he was portrayed in the movie.
Yeah then donated $5k to the charity set up in Murdochs name…5k of the 100 of millions they made….
@@1990drewman You say that like its a bad thing.. The whole movie wasn't about the one dude.. The whole movie wasn't about vilifying him.. IF the whole movie was about making Murdoch look bad and the movie revolved around him and tarnished the reality then yea only giving 5k seems terrible, but seeing as how Murdoch was supposed to kind of represent all of the officers on deck, which many many movies do that btw, where they use one character to represent a large number of people. Giving 5k isn't a bad thing. He didn't have to give anything.
Also when you put into consideration the costs of making the movie, payments that need to be handed out to everyone who took part in the movie, from the set producers, cameramen, props teams, actors and actresses, and everything else, they didn't have close to 100 million left over, and they still need to make a lot of money to make the next "block buster" hit.
5k is a nice apology.
Ah so Mr Murdoch had a brother or sister? I'm glad they apologized
@@1990drewman $5,000 of which they were under no obligation to give. They could have gave NOTHING. Learn gratitude.
@@TreeBarkSide Learn about portraying someone honestly, not with BS written by writers just to get the $$$.......Bet you would be ungrateful if you got ignored here.
An old childhood friend of mine is a descendant of First Officer Murdoch. We went to see the film together in Edinburgh when it was first out in the cinema. I remember how hurt he was by the portrayal of Murdoch. So yes, the family were/are angry about it. They're also deeply hurt by it. It's always seemed to me an unnecessary and callous addition to a story that was already a gripping one.
I understand that his family would be upset about the dramatic liberties. But even the movie never treated the Murdoch character as less than sympathetic and understandable.
The thing that always gets me is Cameron's anti-English agenda. Now I know the ship was British but was it really true that all loveable or humane characters were American, Irish, Welsh, Scottish or Italian and the English, to a man, were all whirly-eyed, unfeeling, martinets gratutitously gunning down foreigners?
[Edit: "Evil villians clarified as "English" rather than "British" in true Hollywood tradition.]
I agree. Nitpicking: Wales is part of Britain, I think you just mean English.
@@alanbinks6106 Aren't Ireland, Scotland and Wales part of the UK?
James Cameron has admitted he made a huge mistake. He and select crew went to Scotland and met with some of Murdock’s descendants to apologize and honour him
At 9:15 I totally 100% agree with you here Mike. J Bruce Ismay was nearly always badly portrayed in most Titanic movies/dramas. Always made out to be the wicked villain of story. Far from the truth. Poor man, his life was ruined. He helped a lot of people get into the lifeboats. He was rushing around on deck, trying to find women and children of all classes to get into the boats.
Other than the few days in which he shut himself in a stateroom aboard Carpathia, the poor man never had the chance to grieve for his friends, his ship, his passengers and his men. He had to immediately begin fighting back and defending his actions, all due to Hearst’s personal hatred and his penchant for yellow journalism.
One thing that gets on my nerves is that a lot of people act like Ismay personally decided that the Titanic didn’t need more lifeboats. I know Mike had debunked that in other videos and pointed out that having more lifeboats wouldn’t have helped (because there wouldn’t have been time to launch them) something that I found when I went down a bit of a rabbit hole was that the White Star Line’s plans for how to outfit Titanic and Olympic were reviewed by the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee which had been set up to advise the Board of Trade on adjusting regulations regarding lifeboats. While at least one member of the committee felt that both ships should probably carry more boats all ten still signed off and their decision was upheld by the Board of Trade. Titanic and Olympic carried the number of lifeboats that they did because they weren’t required to carry more, and they weren’t required to carry more because with the limits of technology and prevailing wisdom of the day it wasn’t clear that carrying more was necessary. It wasn’t because the White Star Line was worried the decks would be too crowded.
@@juliadagnall5816 As a team could launch 2 lifeboats in 15ish minutes and Titanic had 2 teams dedicated to the lifeboats yeah more lifeboats onboard are unlikely to have saved many additional lives considering the last 2 lifeboats were still being launched shortly before the final plunge. As part of the filming for the 1997 movie Cameron had teams actually learn to launch lifeboats as they were launched on the Titanic and they had a similar launch time. The 20 lifeboats Titanic carried was actually more than the 16 required at the time. Because of the dangers of lifeboats on open seas at the time they were used primarily to ferry people from one ship to another. It's a sad situation but a sinking like Titanic was just waiting to happen due to the rapidly changing technology that was making traditional ship designs and procedures outdated.
I think people have a natural tendency to scapegoat individuals. It can be hard to accept the lack of fault and consider that a set of people did what they thought was best and nature proved us wrong. It’s a lot easier to believe that we had the power to see the future and certain people failed. It was quite possibly reasonable to state that titanic was unsinkable in the face of any of the modalities of issue we had seen in living memory at the time insofar as they designed the ship to fix all the problems they knew about. It’s also quite reasonable to assert the quantity of lifeboats was sufficient because in all previous examples at the time it would have been. The idea of a ship like that going down in that way on an entirely calm night was simply unforeseen, the same as people hadn’t fathomed the Apollo 1 fire could have occurred on a completely unfueled “dress rehearsal.” I believe the way they summarized the Apollo 1 fire at the time was that the accident was “a failure of imagination,” which I think is quite germane to this accident as well.
@@jcohasset23 We know not all the lifeboats Titanic did have got properly used. :/
Also that's an issue with the "women and children first" thing... a life boat with JUST women and children.... is not necessarily... safe. It was a different shipwreck, but they had the men and women and children in separate boats.... guess who didn't make it? That was heart wrenching... if they hadn't separated them everyone might have lived.
I seem to recall reading that James Cameron- when asked about his depiction of Ismay- basically said that he knew Ismay wasn't a villain but that he showed him as such anyway because he felt the audience would have expected it.
More specifically, Cameron said his film was not going to challenge popular conceptions about the sinking. One of his technical advisors did want Ismay to be portrayed differently, much more fairly, but Cameron refused. This is also why he depicted Smith and Andrews the way he did, even though there is no evidence that Smith stayed in the wheelhouse.
@@drygnfyre And Andrews was LAST seen on the Port Side Deck moments before the sinking.
Bruce Ismay's grave is in a cemetery around a mile from my home. On the 100th anniversary of Titanic's sinking, I visited his grave, [placed a hand on it and murmured, "It wasn't your fault." It's important to not let media distort history. Ismay's life after Titanic was terribly sad. No doubt he may have been racked with guilt and his health faded away.
Do you also visit the drowned women and children's graves that might have been saved had he not taken a seat from them as well?
@@benjalucian1515Presumably, you mean the women and children around the forward starboard collapsible boats who didn’t exist.
@@benjalucian1515he didnt take a seat from anyone. There were no more women and children about or willing to get in when he boarded Collpsible C
@@sabrinastratton1991 *he didnt take a seat from anyone. There were no more women and children about* Such BS. Did he even try to find more women and children? Nope. Such a coward. 1500 people went down. Don't even try to tell me he couldn't find any one else. It was 20 minutes before the ship went down. People were all over the place, panicking.
@@benjalucian1515since collapsible C was one of the last boats to leave (2nd last to be exact) just before final plunge, it was not a good idea to stall the launch, keep the passengers waiting, and go further aft where everyone has gone and bring more only to risk those in the collapsible C. You can't simply waste time. That's one of the reasons first few boats were launched half full. So many were reluctant to leave and you can't just keep waiting.
I just finished my Bachelor degree in film and television, and my Bachelor thesis was about if James Cameron was using filmic aesthetics to make Bruce Ismay a villain in the film, despite historical facts arguing this. I came to the same conclusions as you, and I enjoyed this video extra much because of my recent research on the topic. Keep making the excellent videos you always make, and thank you for your quality content!
Ahh... Film and television. Or propaganda and brainwashing as it is also called. Great waste of time, you did pay for it yourself i hope...
My condolences to your wasted time and money.
@@SpicyTexan64What have you achieved with your life, then?
@@SpicyTexan64in nice countries university education is free :P
I have a degree in film and radio television from the 1980s. Read my comments earlier. The things Cameron chose to do made the film better and that's what he was doing. Not teaching a history lesson.
As a musician, I am always plugged into the soundtrack. There is a point in the sinking after a particularly meaningful event (the musicians stop?) when the focus of the movie pulls back from persons and their conversations to the acceleration and finality of the sinking - the water starts breaking through doors, furniture starts sliding across floors, people start getting sucked through windows, the stern starts going up. This sequence begins with a ringing note on the chimes leading into a quasi hymn being sung in the background. Gets me everytime.
Also the cut at the end when the ship has gone under but you can see the stern with "Titanic" on it falling away through the water.
The moment when the musicians break and seem like they're going to try to get off the ship, and the one guy starts Nearer My God To Thee, I just sob.
The soundtrack is what has me hooked to the movie. I literally feel the music and emotions. I’m no musician nor can I understand the subject but my hearing is my best sense and very sensitive along with my imaginative neurodivergent mind helps me appreciate music above any other media. It moves me. I use some of the softer tracks to fall asleep too and my mind drifts. I’ll experience images of drifting down to the ocean floor and swimming through the wreckage. It’s calming.
@lb5134 It's believed that the actual tune was "Autumn" which is very similar and apparently prompted someone already away in a lifeboat to start singing the actual hymn.
Still heartbreaking though.
You always know James Horner is getting serious when he pulls out that smithing anvil. Whether Khan is about to set off Genesis, Bishop is late with the dropship, Fabrizio picked the wrong direction to swim in, or the Grinch has simply overloaded his sleigh-you know the time for slow dialogue scenes is over when that anvil comes out.
@@zacmumblethunder7466 in the 1997 film (and most other dramatisations made in the US or Canada), they play a 4/4 version of the Presbyterian hymnal setting "Bethany" by Lowell Mason. None of the survivors reported hearing it, but it borrows the lyrics of the less well known Methodist hymn "Propior Deo" by Arthur Sullivan, which *dozens* of witnesses mentioned, and is further supported by several personal letters written beforehand by bandmaster Hartley (himself a devout Methodist and son of a Wesleyan minister) and first violinist Hume. By pure coincidence, James Horner's arrangement of "Bethany" actually sounds more like "Propior Deo" than Mason's original version of the setting did.
Only one witness, junior radio technician Mr Bride, made any emphatic declaration that a different selection was the last to be played-he said it was the romantic waltz "Songe d'Automne" ("A Fall Night's Dream"). This was then erroneously recorded in the write-up of the US Senatorial inquest as having been an Anglican hymn supposedly called "Autumn", which doesn't actually exist.
The 1958 film (and most others made in the UK) used the Anglican hymnal setting "Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes, which *also* takes the lyrics of "Propior Deo" and *was* featured in the spring 1912 edition of the official White Star songbook-however, no witnesses describe hearing that version during the disaster, and given how little else about the band shown in that film have in common with their real-world counterparts, it's fair to say director Roy Baker just didn't research the subject all that deeply.
Another fantastic video Mike. Your work has so much credibility due to your diligence and integrity. Please keep up the good work my friend.
Let's not forget the film's downplaying of Molly Brown's heroism, and taking no notice of the equal-or-greater deeds of the Countess of Rothes.
Tell me more.
Same here and few times I brought that up I get crapped on...ffs.
@@iamhungey12345 Exactly: too many trolls doing the talking, and not enough real participants. (That’s why I ignore so many obvious attempts at baiting.)
They also didn’t show a lot of lightoller’s actions either which was a bummer
@@SnobbyBird_ That was probably better for him, since he doesn't come across as very likeable from the historic accounts of the event. He literally condemned men to drown who could have been saved, without using anyone else's seat in the lifeboat.
The overall characterisation of the British crew was rather negative and inaccurate, but Smith in particular got the short end of the stick in 97. He’s shown as a quite passive character on the whole, and during the sinking shown as being in a daze, which quite a few segments of testimony conflict with. ANTR did better by showing shock at the revelation from Andrews she would sink, immediately followed by quiet resignation, then jumping into action with stoic resolve to do what was possible to save as many as possible. I found it fascinating when I learnt a while back that the ‘Murdoch starboard, Lightoller port’ trope is a bit of an oversimplification, with some crossing over of officers from one side to the other lowering boats, with Wilde and Smith himself taking charge of lowering and getting several of them away.
I agree with you re Captain Smith. In particular, the scene in the movie on the bridge on the 14th prior to striking the iceberg when he orders Murdoch to maintain speed and heading despite Murdoch's concerns over ice is misleading. As I understand, reports suggested that he advised Murdoch that if there was even a slight change in visibility, they would need to slow down. Deleting this critical sentence, in my view, made Smith look like he simply disregarded the ice warnings.
@@michaelwood3305 We know Smith advised Lightoller around half past 9pm, from Lightoller's British inquiry testimony: 'If it does come on in the slightest degree hazy we shall have to go very slow. If it becomes at all doubtful let me know at once; I will be just inside.' Because all the officers already knew that in their training, reiterating that shows that Smith was aware of potential problems. Lightoller passed on those instructions to Murdoch upon the change of watch (and Smith may have done so himself as well). It is only with hindsight that Smith could be considered reckless.
@@michaelwood3305the film needed weak characters and it found it in Cap'n Smith and Ismay..
@@michaelwood3305 Jack Phillips got a Marconi Radio Call from Cyril Evans that the SS Californian was parked for the Night due to Icebergs, Phillips didn't heed the Warning because he was overworked and tired. He Told Evans "Shut Up. I'm Busy". In which Evans Responded by shutting down his Equipment for the Night. Had Phillips been sober, he would have pay attention and sent the message to Captain Smith to Stop for the Night. But we can't blame Phillips. He was YOUNG. Only 25 years old. And Marconi was a relatively NEW Field and Business.
Phillips was STILL a Young Hero. He kept Radioing for Help and found the Carpathia.
Apparently the characterisation of the British crew was bc of Cameron's previous experience with them. Apparently while doing production on Aliens, it had to stop bc he made a huge fuss about people taking a lunch break which is mandatory in the UK. The entire crew walked out bc he wouldn't let them have it and they returned only after he apologised but he was a carton of sour milk afterwards and expressed his anti-british sentiment in Titanic. My friend told me this while we were discussing directors being shoddy with breaks and having extremely weird rules when it came to being on set so take it with a grain of salt
In fairness to the bit with Thomas Andrews, the film does at least show him helping out in the evacuations and making sure people have lifebelts on, he even says to one of the ship's maids, "Put a lifebelt on, Miss Trudy. Set a good example." Or something to that effect. Although admittedly it is before he seems resigned in the smoking room before adjusting the clock's time. Feels like it breaks even to say the least. As for Murdoch, Cameron has since expressed regrets on the choices he made, so at least it shows he's learning. As Bob Ross once said, "As long as you're learning, you're not failing."
he should've apologised for ismay
@@denverbritto5606 Who? James Cameron or Thomas Andrews? I'm guessing Cameron, and I would agree, but I don't wanna assume anything.
@@KTChamberlain yes, I meant Cameron. I listened to the Rest is History episodes on the Titanic recently and they do a great job describing Ismay's tragic life, I had no idea what parts of the film were accurate before listening.
I think the most egregious error was that they didn't name the reverend seen leading prayers on the deck as the ship is going down. His name was Robert Bateman, and he was was my great, great grandfather. He went down with the ship.
for real?? you must be proud of your ancestry.
Wow ❤
stop lying
Yes, for sure, and your sister is lady Diana. stop
Have you heard the story of John Harper’s last convert?
"The rudder was too small"
That brings to mind a story that my dad told me. He was a leutenant engineer, working in the engine rooms of three ships during the war - they were all sunk - so he knew quite a lot about ships and heavy mechanics, and he told me about a film he saw in the days of black and white movies, in which one ship was being towed by another across the ocean, but in a plot twist, they didn't want it to arrive too quickly (some sort of shennanigans going on), so the ship's engineer dived over the stern with a shifting spanner, removed the propeller, turned it around (so that it would drive the ship backwards!), and bolted it back on. My dad laughed about that movie for years afterwards.
For any reader not understanding how ridiculous this is, a ship's propeller weighs many tons, and it takea a LOT more than a car spanner to get it off. Also, if you put it on backwards, it still drives the ship forwards, though a little less efficiently.
Dad's ship was lying astern of the SS Fort Stikine in Bombay harbour, when it blew up. A fire exploded its amunition cargo and sank most of the ships in the harbour - my dad's among them - Search UA-cam for "Bombay explosion 1944" - it was one of the biggest explosions of WWII. My dad spent a bit of time in hospital after that, and as he came out, many of his shipmates, who had been in town when it happened, were joining another ship, and he tried hard to go with them, but he still had some recuperation ahead of him and permission was not granted - which was lucky for him, because that ship went down with all hands. It was lucky for me as well, because I was born just after the war - one of the first of the boomers - and I wouldn't have been. It was lucky for my daughters and grandchildren also - but I guess everybody on earth could trace similar coincidences.
How could a rudder, a piece of equipment for steering, reverse a ship by installing it backwards? that's like making a car go into reverse by installing it's steering wheel backwards.
@@zombiedoggie2732 I don't know. I've never heard of a rudder being installed backwards. It wouldn't be possible, and even if it was, it wouldn't make the ship go backwards! Where did you get that from?
@@DownhillAllTheWay OOPS my bad, I misread propeller as rudder. Whoops on me!
@@zombiedoggie2732Yup - that's what I thought. I was just pulling your plonker - but to be fair, the spelling is similar! 😉
That was too perfect, you said "What I'm not going to excuse, is this" and an add for Dolmio pasta sauce started playing; I won't excuse that sauce either.
It was an ad for driving high speed cars when I watched it.
I didn’t get an ad. 😅
I wouldn't be surprised if Murdoch said to Ismay something along the lines of "Mr. Ismay, I think it's time to go, sir."
I believe in some versions Ismay was practically ordered into the boat by one of the officers. Let the guy rest in peace; he certainly never pushed away a woman or child to take their seat, but entered a boat with more space available when it was about to launch and there were no other passengers around. Should he have chosen to die just on a matter of principle? His testimony was valuable at the inquiry; we would know less about the sinking if he had not been around to witness.
Also, Ismay and passenger William Ernest Carter entered Collapsible C together, as there were no other women in the immediate vicinity of the boat, yet Carter didn't face the same backlash.
Knowing what we do about the real Murdoch, I personally believe something to this effect was said. Ismay was no sailor
@@lehighguy Carter didn't piss Hearst off.
And Ismay had been of great help to him.
Having experience of working in hospitality industry, I must say that the presumption of Ismay forcing the crew to arrive earlier than planned does not make any sense from the point of view of customer service. Just imagine that most of your 300+ First Class passengers are planning to arrive on Wednesday, then stay at a hotel or take a train to continue traveling to their final destinations in Denver, Philadelphia, San Francisco, etc. But you put your corporate ambitions over their convenience and arrangements and bring them to New York a day earlier. By doing so you’re making them urgently look for hotels for that extra night, or change their train tickets. They are not gonna see people welcoming them in NY as planned (wouldn’t you hate it if you went to the airport to see your friends coming in your city and finding out their plane has landed several hours earlier?) Let alone the fact that your passengers/guests have their tickets that allow them to stay onboard for 6 nights, not 5, and you kick them out a day earlier! Some people hate ships, some enjoy voyages and would be disappointed at being one night short of their voyage.
All of that taken in consideration, I think all that speeding theory is just a major speculation and misunderstanding of basic facts.
BRAVA! WELL SAID! I COULDN'T STAND THE SELFISH WEASEL ANYWAY! 😅
Only thing that makes sense is THE SHIP arrives early. The Passengers wouldn't have to disembark if they didn"t want to.
I recall reading (not sure where but it may have been in “On a Sea of Glass”) that if a liner arrived the night before it was scheduled, White Star allowed the passengers to stay on board in harbour and disembark the next morning.
James Cameron actually did a lot of research before, during and even after making the film, 20 years later he even made a documentary disproving some of his theories he used in the movie. His version of the Titanic is my favourite due to the sheer amount of research and love put into the project. Even though not everything is accurate, he took many creative liberties that added to the movie's plot (such as creating Jack and Rose) and did his best to portray what was known and believed at the time. He really did work hard on the film and I believe if it weren't for how successful his version of the movie is, people won't forget the Titanic and her victims any time soon. Great job on the video!
Unfortunately he still believes all the allegations made against Ismay, saying in 2023 that Captain Smith ignored the ice warnings because "He had Ismay's boot up his ass". Very painful to see, especially when every news outlet claims he's an expert. Allegedly, Ocean liner historian Paul Louden Brown was a historical advisor on this movie who appealed to Cameron about Ismay's portrayal in the movie. Cameron shut him down, as it was "what the audience expects to see". This, of course, is far from the only sin the movie commits, but it's among the worst. That aside, no movie is flawless. It's still my favourite movie of all time, and I think it always will be.
His exploration videos are equally as good well worth watching
@@theoneandonlyveganvampireq2450 Shut up.
@@theoneandonlyveganvampireq2450 no, neither Jack nor Rose existed
@@lenseclipse ah yes I got jack Dawson and Joseph Dawson mixed up in my brain (do excuse me brain injury means I get names jumbled)
So, so refreshing to hear that a Titanic enthusiast also loves the movie! It seems to be a polarizing topic, which is totally fair. But as someone who has held a lifelong interest in this point of history and who also loves the movies (and acknowledges its flaws), this was a great breakdown. I'll refer people to this video whenever they ask about discrepancies in the film lol. Great video as always!
Possibly the "1912" segments of the film should be regarded as just visualizing how Old Rose remembered and told about things near the end of her life, and not necessarily how things "really happened". So if she, for instance, felt that the Titanic reached an angle of 45 degrees before the break-up, that is what the movie shows, even though she would not have been in a place where she could see the angle clearly and it was actually much less than 45 degrees. She was not there for Murdoch's demise, so what the movie shows may just be how she imagined his end based on some story she heard later, accurate or not. Even the fact that that the historical characters look only partially like their photographs can be explained by Rose hardly remembering their exact appearance 84 years later.
Thats an interesting perspective - Ive never considered that before.....
I really like this! Makes total sense. Especially when old Rose first starts describing the day Titanic sailed off. How the camera goes from a closeup of her and fades into her memories. I had never considered that we're looking at memories not historical reenactment exactly.
@@SAROne-pl5zh Which would also explain calling Margret Brown, Molly, in 1912 Magret Brown was known as and would have introduced herself as Maggie. The nickname Molly came from later headlines because she wouldn't shut up about the white star lined incompetence, and did help families recoup losses. It earned her the nickname "The unsinkable Molly Brown" which they used in the broadway musical and movie with Debbie Reynolds.
Side note her husband had only discovered silver at that point (which made them wealthy) but would later also find gold on his Colorado property. Also the tux she would have loaned the fictional Jack, had he been real, would have been her sons, as his corpse was in the hold on the way back to the states for his burial.
Ah the artistic license to forgive all issues 😂. Regardless of explanation I agree that expecting perfection from Cameron while he had to actually make a movie is unreasonable.
I've thought this too. Rose describes an officer taking their own life, she doesn't know who but she read the papers afterwards that named Murdoch. So we see Murdoch, because that's who she pictured
The scene of Thomas Andrews in the smoking room of Titanic also appears in a very similar scene in A Night To Remember - “aren’t you going to try for it Mr Andrews ?” and he just looks up and stays there .
I've always hated how Ismay is treated. The "problem" is that the real story of the titanic doesn't have a villain (unless you count the iceberg I guess) and that just doesn't make an interesting story to some people. I wish you had mentioned that the insufficient lifeboats wasn't his fault, they had *more* lifeboats than legally required. They were supposed to be used to ferry passengers to safety and return for more, not a "drop everyone onboard in and leave them adrift for hours".
Oh don’t worry! In his Ismay video (posted 3 hours ago actually!) he definitely goes into the lifeboat Misconception/Myth.
Yeah, a lot of people judge the Titanic story with modern-day sensibilities. They forget that planes became a primary transport for passengers decades later. Ships were the primary way to transport people from country to country during that time. It was relatively easy to find another ship crossing a similar path as you. That is why lifeboats could be served as transports from one ship to another. Nowadays, ships are rarer to find, so if you get lost, it could be deadly.
There is another entire villian of the titanic but it is an outlier of the titanic stuff in history books. So many evil people involved.....
No villains, but sailing 22knots in a pitch black ice berg field did not show very sound judgement. Foolhardy, to say the least…
I understand how Ismay was called a 'coward' in 1912. 1500 people in the care of his White Star Line drowned in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, while he escaped. He wasn't blameless. Still, I do not think he deserves to be tagged as a 'coward' or 'villain. There were approximately 400 empty seats in the 19 successfully launched lifeboats. Ismay didn't get into one of the first lifeboats to be launched, he got into one of the last. The seat would have gone EMPTY, had Ismay not got in. During his testimony, Ismay was asked how he happened to get into lifeboat. He stated that the boat was there, being lowered, there was room, and he instinctively stepped into it.
Great analysis!. Looking forward to Bruce Ismay’s. Fun fact: Bruce Ismay’s Connemara residence is still present to this day, and is in fact a hotel. Preserved almost exactly as it was when he was still living in it. He actually died there. It’s called “Costelloe Lodge”. And the interior design resembles that of the White Star’s. Mr. Ismay’s fate was tragic. He really believed in his company. He didn’t deserve being portrayed as a villain.
It bugs me how captain Smith was portrayed as being in a daze and wondering around. While I’m sure at points he was in shock. He was very active in the sinking and overseeing the evacuation, trying to call boats back. I think the movie should have shown that more.
There is a deleted scene when he does call back the boat no. 6 - the one with Molly Brown, Rose's mother and other first class ladies. It should have been kept in the film.
Not only that. But a witness even told, that when Smith was in the water, he didnt swim to a lifeboat, instead he yelled to the other people ''dont give up !'' (like : he cheered them up ) . He was literally a hero to the last second! He didnt gave up, like the movie portrays him. Its very unfair how the movie portrays him and Murdoch, and Ismay. Ismay also didnt even wanted to go in a lifeboat, instead he helped as much as possible to get people into the lifeboats. The officers begged him numerous times to go into a lifeboat, but he refused, and helped. It was one of the last lifeboats he took ...and only because the officers said to him : he cant help any more, and begged him again to take a life boat.
Instead the movie portrays Ismay like a c*ward.
Its btw thanks to ismay, that we know that much about the technical side of the sinking of the Titanic, because most other people with knowledge died in the sinking.
His knowledge in the court actually helped to make passenger ships much more safe up to this day.
Its the usual stuff: people want to find villains of a tragedy where in fact there was not a single villain at all in this incident.
@@PygmalionFaciebat Thank you, this is a great comment. I hate Cameron's movie for depicting these people and the attitude of the crew towards the 3 class, which is completely wrong, fictionate and insulting. Titanic was a high class vessel, famous for its luxurious accommodation of the 3 class passengers as well. None other ship had same level of comfort for immigrants.
@@myrinphoto You are so right ! Ismays priority was ''to get 3rd class passengers at least the comfort and luxury of 2nd-class passengers on other ships !'' . While on other ships 3rd-class-passengers were treated like animals, in big sleeping halls , while on the Titanic 3d class passengers even had a bathroom sink (which at the time was very unheard of for 3rd-class-passengers).
Also in the court after the sinking of Titanic 3rd-class-survivors were asked ''how they estimate their chances of survival compared to 1st-class passengers" and they answered ''about the same''
Also the black fences on the Titanic were only partielly true. Yes some of them were closed, but a lot of them weren't (there was no order like ''close all fences to the 3rd class'' ...
Also there was numerous other ways to get to the deck with the lifeboats.
I very much appreciating your comment !
For me its also disrespectful to choose a made up story for the Titanic disaster... They were really so much heart warming real stories on the Titanic - also with the sinking (women who didnt wanted to leave their husband and rather wanted to be with him, no matter what) . There were so much real love stories on Titanic... And they ignored almost all of them, or made it to a very small bit in the sinking ...
Every real person on the Titanic would have deserved a main role instead of ''Jack and Rose''
As soon as you said.
:what I can't forgive, is this" an advert for Dolmio sauce began to play. Perfect timing.
You've explained and cleared Murdoch and Ismay's behaviour so clearly. Thanks, Mike. An excellent video as always.
Thank you so much for the accurate potrayal of Murdock and Ismay. My son and I find the Titanic history fascinating for many years. We love your channel!
I'm a Navy Veteran, and despite getting horribly seasick on boats and ships, I love movies about boats and ships. Go figure. Love your breakdown and attention to detail for those who aren't ship-savvy. Looking forward to checking out more of your videos.
You are in illustrious company, Nelson for one also suffered from it.
Did you see Das Boot ? Dir cut? 🇩🇪 or Crimson Tide? ⚓️
So glad you cleared up the misconception about Ismay.
Yes, the smear campaign against him is so tiresome
About the hull breaking; I distinctly remember a documentary where they investigated this with Cameron present and he jokingly said something like "I hope you're wrong because otherwise I'm going to have to re-shoot this scene".
imagine cameron redoing the entire movie just to be more accurate. he absolutely would do that...
There is a National Geographic documentary by James Cameron on Disney+ where they investigate a whole bunch of errors made with the film.
ua-cam.com/video/1jXHFEy-ibc/v-deo.htmlsi=_UmDqnU_CTLveW-f
Of course prior to her wreck being found, she was generally shown as going down complete despite eye witnesses disputing that.
@@matthewbarabas3052 That would be a pain in the ass tbh.
Mike, you’re my favorite you tuber…..the way you respect your content and respect your audience. Your channel is truly a relaxing joy to watch. Keep it up!
I think the film actually did a lot to renew interest in the Titanic, both in pop culture (obviously) but scientifically as well. You mentioned a study that was done to figure out at what angle the ship broke apart, and I don't know if that study would have been done if it weren't for the movie, and the discussions it sparked
I absolutely appreciate your in-depth, no fluff approach. My new favorite historian!
Another great piece from you, Mike. Detailed enough without nitpicky. Absolutely agree about the Titanic film getting people into the historical event. I was in upper primary school when the movie came out. I was obsessed! Haha
Favourite scene I froth over each time is the 'take her to sea Mr Murdoch' engines, water splashing, officers.. the lot!
Great price? Absolute bargain I say!
B-plugs
I can remember the day I saw this film; I might have been a tad too young to have seen some of the elements in this film as a seven-year-old. As you say, it is something historical and should be accurately depicted. But to this day, nearly 27 years later, I still find myself in awe of the detail and care taken when producing such a big picture. I enjoy your videos; like you say, they are a way of digging up the facts and learning new facts, and I thank you for that.
Oh you also saw that part at a young age?
@@crazypro715I did too.
Despite the innacuracies 27 years after release, this is still a jaw dropping piece of filmaking & its influence cant be ignored. Still one of my favourite films
Thanks for doing this. I have two personal Titanic connections - born in Belfast where she was built - on 1st Sep 1985, the very day she was discovered by Ballard on the ocean floor. So the ship has always fascinated me and the Cameron movie is my favourite picture.
I visited the Murdoch memorial plaque in Dalbeattie, Scotland. I understand Twentieth Century Fox did apologize to Murdoch's family for the way he was portrayed.
Thank you so much for this video, Mike! I'm a Titanic nerd (not at the rivet-counting level you are, though!) and I care a lot about historical accuracy in films. I completely agree with you about the responsibility Hollywood has to present historical people and situations relatively accurately. I, like you, find certain exaggerations and conglomerations to be fine. The lead female character in "Chernobyl" was a comlomgeration of hundreds of scientists, and this helped the show give them credit.
I was STUNNED to see that 1911 Ismay quote! That changes everything. No type-A strong-willed leader says things like, "If the Captain and X and Y person agree to do it a certain way, I won't stand in their way."
Character assassination like this and what happened to Murdoch should make us more upset than it does, I think because we don't adequately sympathize with what it would be like to BE the person whose legacy is forever ruined because of a Hollywood writer or director.
I was applauding through most of this; you've summed up a lot of my thoughts on this film.
The portrayal of Murdoch was very problematic, however in the context of Hollywood I can see how it happened. James himself admits he let his screenwriter self get carried away and push the historian down.
Murdoch was extremely capable, you probably know this story, but many reading may not. He actually saved the S.S. Arabic from a collision 5 years earlier. He identified a ship in fog, calculated the trajectories, and pushed the helmsman aside to counterman a direct order to turn, having worked out they'd hit if they did so. Witnesses say they missed by feet; no doubt this incident ran through Murdoch's mind that night. I would believe that Murdoch had seen the iceberg at the same time if not before the bell was rung.
Frederick Fleet's own testimony supports this; he said the ship was already turning while he was waiting for the bridge crew to answer the telephone. Given what you've told us about the response time of the ship, this could only have happened if the turn order had already been carried out.
As you said, they *almost,* had it 😢
Regarding the shooting scene, as much as I dislike the results of this scene to the legacy of Murdoch, it's probably one of the most powerful to me in terms of the acting. Ewan Stewart did an incredible job showing exactly those big emotions that people would have felt that night.
The helplessness of the situation, his desperation to save as many as he could, the totally human instinctive reaction to the sudden movement in his peripheral vision. And the fact he does it without a single word spoken was just 👌. We see the spectrum of emotions play across Murdoch's face, the devastation, the realisation of everything that's happening and then the resolve once he's made up his mind he's going to do it.
Absolute tear-jerker moment for me and it stayed with me for a long time after that first viewing of the film at age 14.
A cute historical fact- most people interpret the scene of Jack & Rose being seen by Murdoch as cute window dressing.
I believe the inclusion of Murdoch smiling at the two is a nod to the fact that he met his own wife on a voyage between Sydney & Liverpool in 1903. He's smiling because he knows how it feels.
Great video as always, Mike!
This was really nice e to read thank you
@@MonsterJuiced you're welcome. I really love this portrayal, and many people never realise the deeper significance it has.
I love how the film added reflective lights on the ship’s smokestacks. A very aesthetic and beautiful touch 💙
In the 20 and 25 Years later with James Cameron where he tests the models, he acknowledges that the angle showed in the movie was wrong. Like you said, this movie was made in 1997, way before we knew as much about Titanic as we do now. This is also where he says that you cannot have the stern dropping down after the break up and then sticking out of the water like a tower; you get one or the other. He ends the documentary by saying that we will never know what *really* happened, but we now know what it is possible because of physics. As a Titanic enthusiast, I loved every minute of it!
The only 'mistake' I really dislike is Cameron's apparent hatred towards the crew. He portrayed everyone, and the owner, as incompetent. It really bothers me.
And 1st Class Men.
@@Tornado1994 Audiences need someone to hate. Real life stories are dramatized to make content more interesting. There were no real "villains" in the true story, so Cameron decided to paint the 1st classers as haughty aristocrats, and the crew as incompetent.
Karens love to complain about servicemen and those in charge, so it was easy to sell that to a general audience.
@@nahor88 Cameron is a Hack and a Hypocritical Moron.
That is true, and part of the reason why I found A Night to Remember by Roy Ward Baker as a good film to balance it out, as it focuses on the historical events as told by survivor's testimony, as opposed to being used as a setting for a fictional period drama.
It focuses mostly on Charles Lightoller, as he was the seniormost officer to survive the sinking, but also largely on other members of the crew; Captain Smith and Murdoch were heroic to the end, and Andrews and Ismay were presented in a more neutral manner as opposed to being ignorant, bumbling venture capitalists.
@@Hirundo-demersalis it's an excellent film.
If I hate one thing about that film, it's the way Ismay is portrayed. Thanks for pointing it out. Justice for Ismay!
He was not the cowardly moustache twirling villain as depicted in cinema.
Unfortunately, every disaster movie needs its villain. Thanks to Hearst, Ismay is the one who always gets picked.
@@jamesbrown4092 Hearst is the biggest a-hole and a true definition of a villain.
It's good to know he never twirled his mustache.
It has been pretty much proven that Murdoch was allowing men into the boats if there were no more women and children around. I don't care who you are, but if you're on a sinking ship that doesn't have enough spots for everyone and the man n change says "anyone else?" or words to that effect... I'm "anyone else"ing my ass into the nearest lifeboat.
It is always interesting to see more about the Titanic. I have a family concern it this unfortunate incident.
In 1912 my grandmother was an unborn baby at the time of the sinking but her cousin was a young man called Wallace Hartley who was the Bandmaster of the ship. The band stayed aboard playing music to try to alleviate what must have been a very distressing time for all on board.
Sadly they perished.
Edit. Perhaps I should add that I was at school with a great -grandson of Captain Smith.
Are you sure? Captain Smith's daughter, who was his only child, had a son, but he died before he could have any children.
Whenever I’m feeling a little down, I just put on a video from Oceanliner Designs. I find that my friend Mike Brady’s voice is comforting.
The Titanic disaster film 'A night to remember' (1958) is also worth a watch, it's currently on UA-cam.
"A Night to Remember" is a very good dramatic film, and very historically accurate.
@@JimMac23I enjoyed a night to remember a lot more than titanic to be honest
"What I'm not going to excuse is this." points, and ad for Buick Elantra appears. Sorry, I know you have no control over the ads, but the timing was so well timed. There is never too much information from Mike Brady and the Titanic Honor and Glory cohort.
I got an ad for pet insurance at the exact same point 😂
I use brave browser, I had forgotten about getting ad's on youtube. It stops them all!. Vid starts - watch vid - vid ends. done.
Another good and factual video.
But I'm still waiting for you to address the elephant in the room. Namely the depiction of passengers being locked behind bostwick gates when Titanic only had gates to separate the classes, not prevent people from reaching their respective decks.
Good point. Guess it was just another slight at the British (Well, the English ones) lovingly deployed by Hollywood.
@@patagualianmostly7437They slandered the British upper class in this movie more than in the 1943 propaganda movie.
Imagine getting locked up and 🌊 iz slowly coming up to drown you.
Relax, this movie is just a cheap drama/sugary romance, not to be taken seriously. I don't remember if it was there, but a simple disclaimer of it being a fictional account would solve the problem.
cry harder
Not sure if its been ackowledged, out of the 3000+ messages, but when the First officer gives the order to turn the ship, his order is "Hard to Starboard", although the Helmsman turns the wheel to port (the correct side he should of turned), the First officer should of said "hard to Port".
For those that dont know Mike Brady, this "nitpick" video is the equivalent to him rolling up his sleeves to get into a boxing ring.
This is hardcore Mike Brady we are seeing in this video. We love the vids Mike
Mike Brady? Like the Brady Bunch?
@@kevincobble934 In every video on this channel, including this video, the narrator says "Hello this is your friend Mike Brady from Oceanliner Designs". It is really obvious who Mike Brady is.
@@Mark_Bridges Someone's not paying attention in class are they 😂😂
Thanks. This is my first video of his because I love the Titanic, along with other historic tragedies of the world.:)
I would expect nothing less from our friend Mike Brady
Thank you for adding more accurate information about the sinking of the Titanic than what we frequently get in movies. I really like the movie Titanic. To me it was a lot like it must have appeared to all those shocked and mostly confused passengers. It’s often a convergence of misfortunes and I never bought the idea that Bruce Ismay was the movie-requisite evil guy. My son and I really enjoy the truths you tell about ships and ship sinking. And thank you for defending Murdoch. In other histories he did not go around shooting people, although I know such an occurrence might be required. One of my favorite parts was the all too brief look at the steam engines reversing. They must have been gigantic. My family were steam engine people since the time they were invented and I have a lovely working wood model of an upright that my father made. It runs on pressurized air. The metal twin to it was gifted to his close friend. Papa would have enjoyed the movie Titanic if I could have gotten him to sit still that long. March 4 would have been his 100th birthday. Thank you so much for the truths you tell about shipwrecks. They are historical and too important to be sullied with falsehoods.
A major reason, if not the greatest reason, for Ismay not pushing Smith to get into port a full day early has to do with traffic. Just like airport gates today, there were only so many berths available for big liners. If Titanic had shown up a day early there would have been no place for her to berth and would have had to sit out in the harbor for a day, sort of the equivalent of waiting on the tarmac for a gate to clear, if your plane gets in a little early.
Exactly. And Ismay, as a former shipowner, new this.
i applaud you for making this video and highlighting the fact that real people´s characters need to be honestly depicted, especially as it is (unfortunately) from Hollywood films that most people take their information.
Costanza: "So that lady, she was just a liar wasn't she."
Seinfled: "And a bit of a tramp if you ask me."
Did you ever notice that overall "Titanic" has the same plot as "George of the Jungle"? Curly-haired beauty is being pushed by her mother into marrying a cad. While the beauty is on a voyage with the cad, a poor but handsome rogue saves her from death. He takes her on a journey to seldom-seen places, dances with her, and introduces her to cool new friends. The cad nearly kills the rogue, but the beauty saves his life. In the end, the beauty, clad in an elegant white gown, is united with the rogue, clad in his simple garb, while people from both their worlds look on and applaud.
Well, they say there are only 5 basic plots in the world. George & Titanic must be one of them.
Yup. Cameron is a Hack.
Aren’t we all?
I hate it when movies are based off of a real life event and they turn a real life person into a villain especially to make the movie more interesting. It’s a real person most likely with real family that are alive and will watch the movie and question themselves if he really behaved that way or if they knew he didn’t act that way but they portray them as evil, it can cause a lot of issues for that family. Want to make a fake character that’s evil. Go ahead but don’t take someone who tried to save as many lives as possible in real life and turn them into a villain. I’m glad you caught that!
So true. Slandering people for cheap drama is not nice, and this is also a fairly recent tragedy
This is why I love historical based films! Titanic was one of the films as a kid that made me want to better understand the events of history and I still love the events of Titanic to this day!! Thank you for so many amazing videos!
Always great content ! Mike as a fellow Ozzie,
I feel you would be the perfect content creator to look into two of Australia’s greatest Maritime mysteries , the disappearance of the Patanela , and the disappearance of the crew of the Kaz 2 that could be some great content mate. Sorry I realize this comment is off topic. I just feel you could really do both stories justice.
I think ANTR, despite lacking some of the obvious knowledge about the break up, made a better job at presenting the real life characters than the 1997 film. It seems like they made a greater effort.
It stuck closer to facts and focused on real people
You forgot to mention that they also turned Lightoller into a villain (kinda). It looked like he was trying to kill people on purpose, refused to let men enter on purpose and even overheard the "women and children first" by captain Smith on purpose while smiling in arrogance. In general most officers in the movie were portraied like villains. But I believe Lightoller is the most obvious one.
you’ve opened my eyes about bruce. i was always so closed minded about it. appreciate the transparency!
Jack references a few things that do NOT exist yet. The lake he said he spent his childhood on was man made years later. Also the bag he carries was not made until the 30’s.
As a high school senior in late 1997... oh god, we all hated THAT song.
Great video - and in defence of Cameron his "Romeo & Juliet on a boat" is an entertainment, not a documentary. As one critic observed, Cameron was "faithful to the detail, but promiscuous with the facts." In my view one of his most egregious inventions was "Third Class Passengers locked below decks". They weren't. Many assembled on the open well deck in front of the stairs up to Second Class where there was a low gate - Cameron actually filmed Jack going through this to visit Rose, but it didn't make it into the final edit. The "Bostwick" gates shown in the film didn't exist in passenger spaces - the ship was designed and built as Three Class from inception, so you wouldn't want to have gates you opened and closed. On the Officers, Lightoller is unfairly characterised as an "Upper Class RP speaking twit" when in fact he was a working class Westcountryman. Finally, try telling any of the Protestant Harland & Wolff ship builders in Belfast that this was an "Irish ship" and see how many teeth you've got left! Harland & Wolff was notoriously anti-Catholic and the builders viewed themselves as fiercely British. Titanic was a random tragedy which for a film needed "goodies" (Americans & immigrants) and "Baddies" (Brits). In some ways Cameron was even more Anti-British than the Nazi Titanic, which was more "anti-capitalist" in line with National Socialism. Great film, iffy history.
Exactly.
Should have said it was a fictional account at the start .. don't remember if it was there. Titanic is a fairly recent tragedy, so knowingly slandering real people with living descendants is not good. Especially for the purpose of cheap drama.
lmao the 2 biggest villains were both american. stop crying.
Thank you very much for the video. One thing that I never believed is that famous scene where DiCaprio hugs Winslet and her says "i'm flying!", both of them are in the very edge of the bow castle. I guess that area was forbidden for passengers.
There was also a Miniseries made in 1996, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones & Peter Gallagher. Overall it's about as accurate as you would guess... Although it was a very long time since I watched it, I believe there was a scene where Ismay was basically in the Engine Room ordering more speed. However, one thing that I remember actually being more accurate compared to Cameron's movie, was the very loud noise that could be heard on deck from all the steam being vented after ship had stopped!
Yes. I just learned about steam going from tunnels yesterday when I watched Titanic sinking in the real time videos. They should had added it to the Titanic movie. There was that eerie loud noise that lasted about an hour. It adds that creepy uneasy feeling to a whole evacuation process. It was like the ship exhaling her last breath. Everyone who is interested in Titanic should watch those 2.5h videos. It gives you a feel of timing and that horrible . Isteam noice going abc going, you will know when you watch them.
1. In the underwater shot of the Titanic's centre propeller at departure, there are 4 paddles. In reality, there were 3 blades on the Titanic's centre propeller. H and Wolf could not decide which solution was more efficient. So Olympic was put into service with a 4-bladed centre propeller, while Titanic was fitted with the 3-bladed version. From the experience of the tests, the Britannic would have got the better version. In the end the 4-bladed version was the better one.
2. At start-up, the three propellers start turning simultaneously. This is impossible. The central propeller was driven by the unused low steam pressure of the two steam engines driving the two outer propellers. And that's why the middle propeller started with a phase delay. The delay time depended on the boiler pressure applied to the piston steam engines at start-up.
3. Boarding scene:
/A/ Hockley, Rose, and Rose's mother boarded the ship in the wrong place. As the film reveals, Hockley was in the B-52/54/56 suite. This suite was on B Deck. Of course, B Deck had a separate entrance. In the film, the Hockly's enter the ship two floors below through the D deck door.
/B/ In the background of the boarding scene, you can see passengers boarding the ship at the staircase at the left side of B deck. This was impossible on the Titanic. That part of the Titanic was built. 3 cabins were placed there.
4. B-52/54/56 suite problems:
/A/ In reality, Bruce Ismay was accommodated in this cabin. And since Ismay is in the film, this is a mistake. Or there should have been a scene where Ismay gives up his seat to Hockley due to lack of space. Or the Hockley's should have been put in the other suite of the same name, suite B-51/53/55. In reality, Mrs. Cardosa was travelling with her daughter in that cabin. They are irrelevant to the film. They were not even in the film.
/B/ The furnishings in this suite were completely different from what is shown in the film. In reality, the furnishings of this suite are Louis XVI period. With white walls, elegant but understated decorations and furniture like this. In the film we see a magnificent Regence-style cabin. Except that there was only one such cabin on the Titanic. It was the C-55 cabin. And this is where Isidor Straus and his wife were accommodated.
5. Rose running towards the suicide attempt.
Briefly. Unimpeachable! Plus, in the film, they make Rose look like a fool.
To give you a sense of the problem, I'll describe the running scene point by point.
Rose sits bored in the first-class dining room of the D deck communal dining room.
The next moment, Rose is running down the promenade on Deck A, where she almost knocks people over.
The next moment, Rose is running down the second-class promenade at the rear of Deck B, and from there she takes the stairs down to the open rear of Deck C.
Need I explain?
6 Rose's "Freud quote" to Ismay. This scene takes place in the Verenda Cafe. In that scene, Ismay, Hockley and Rose's mother are ordering food. No food is served at the Veranda Cafe. The Veranda Cafe was actually part of the cigar lounge. At the far end of A Deck on the left. You could smoke there, as Rose does in the film. There was a similar room on the other side, but it was reserved for non-smokers. It was called Palm Court.
7 In the film, after the collision, the third class passengers were blocked by the crew. This did not happen in reality.
8. In the film, the corridors are wider than they were in reality.
9. Rose and Jack, running away from Lovejoy. They get into an elevator and go down to E Deck. They get out of the elevator. In this scene, the walls are white. In reality, the walls were covered with wood. In addition, the space in front of the elevators was closed off to the left. In the film there is an exit from there. So Lovejoy comes to the elevators from a place that did not exist in reality.
Excellent attention to detail. I wish Cameron had cared more, I've always thought this film was a wasted opportunity to really showcase THE TITANIC instead of re-using a fake love story at the expense of all the amazing real stories that took place.
ANOTHER INACCURACY ALL TITANIC MOVIES SHOW: Several movies (at least a couple dozen) have been made about Titanic. Every one of them shows the ship very visible,almost lit up under bright moonlight.
The fact is, the moon was on the opposite side of the earth that night, which is part of why there were no waves in the ocean.
In reality, it was a very dark night, and as the ship was sinking, those in the life boats would have only seen the light from the ships interior lights, as well as the starlight. Their perception would only show a slightly illuminated silhouette of the ship.
Andrews and Captain Smith were spotted jumping into the water at the end? Wow. I had no idea. I enjoyed learning these details.
I agree with the Murdoch family being upset. Mr. Cameron could have created a fictional character with the gun and portray Murdoch the way he really was.
The movie does have a lot of fictional characters, but the real named ones should have been portrayed as close to true character as possible.
As much as the love the movie, it pains me that Murdoch was seen as a suicidal murderer. He was a hero and saved so many that night.
I think it would’ve been really neat to see some sort of depiction of Joseph LaRoche, Titanic’s only black passenger, who was an engineer and second class passenger, traveling with his wife and daughters. Perhaps he needs his own biopic, as it probably would’ve been too challenging to show a short cameo of him in this already four hour film.
Thank you for brining up the fruitful way we take in history. We can be so easily swayed when we don't look to multiple sources, then form our own personal knowedge of the facts. It does not change history, it allows us to learn from it. a tip of the hat, good job sir.
There is enough evidence to indicate that some officer shot themselves. I tend to agree with Walter Lord that it was Chief Officer Wilde who did so and accept Lightoller's explanation of what happened to Murdoch.
It was Wilde. 16 Year Old Survivor Edith Haisman testified she Saw Wilde kill himself and that He shouted "I've got a good mind to shoot someone".
One thing i found curious about Thomas Andrews was that he spoke with a typical Received Pronunciation (or RP) accent, not the light Irish Brogue he spoke with in the film. It was very common at the tie for people of Andrews background to speak with an affected accent.
Yes. He would have been taught RP growing up.
For me, the thing I didn't like in the '97 movie is how they portrayed the Titanic-crew as incompetent. The more I have learned about the disaster, the more impressed I'm with their actions on that fateful night.
Considering you are new to this ship and *Bam* it's sinking out under you. Alot of stress to keep calm that night!
The Capt was on his last main ship 🚢 voyage after a 50yr + career. I highly doubt Smith was inept or unable to run the large ship.
@@DavidLLambertmobile yes. he had quite a career. Captain Smith also captained the Olympic. So the Titanic wouldn't be that much different.
I discovered ocean liner designs a few months ago, completely hooked the content is always so interesting and brilliantly researched, the presentation is very professional and engaging. Thanks for your fascinating videos.
To me, the biggest error is the third class being locked down by the crew for the majority of the sinking. No ship would actively block people from getting to the deck in the case of emergency.
There were no locked gates. There were signs reading "careful, you are now leaving third class" and on deck there were SMALL gates one could easily step over.
The reasobs so many third class passengers died was because they slept on the lower decks. News about the emergency reached them last and the water reached them first. Secondly, many men worked in the boiler rooms and so they were locked in the flooded rooms. Thirdly, there were just a lot more third class passengers. They were the biggest group by far so it makes sense that more people died. And additionally, some people were lost or did not speak English and therefore did not get the instructions (as shown in the film).
Mike goes into further detail in other videos that though the ship had segregated classes some of the 2nd class cabins could be converted into 1st or 3rd class cabins depending on need so what gates there were below deck were not kept locked. Due to the segregation 3rd class passengers would have had no familiarity with the 1st and 2nd class areas where the lifeboats were kept so many of them apparently stayed in the parts of the ship they were familiar with until late in the sinking, and by then many of the lifeboats had already been launched. In the movie whether this was changed due to incorrect information or just to add drama is hard to know. It also tends to get overlooked by the movies and media that the crew suffered the worst losses aboard.
Murdoch: *dies an actual hero saving people*
Ismay: *Everyone runs to comments to defend him- who saved himself.*
Accounts of a passenger said that a ships officer (possible Murdoch) ordered ismay to enter the boat as there wasn’t anyone there. Ismay also convinced many woman and children to board a lifeboat early in the sinking,
Please watch some more accurate documentaries! Lord and lady Duff Gordon actually paid an officer to launch a lifeboat with only like 20-30 people in it once they were were in it. That's something they don't show in the movie.
@@rebeccablackburn9487 what? The Gordon’s didn’t pay any officer to launch the boat, it was launched since most of the passengers went aft and not many wanted to leave the comfort of the actual ship itself. Then Murdoch ordered some crew members to board then lowered, no way 1st officer Murdoch would a bribe.
@@Aperson-qv9rd I never said it was officer Murdoch who accepted the bribe. Please stop basing everything you know about Titanic from the movie. It's fiction built around a historic event.
Maybe it's because people are tired of smear campaigns and fake virtue signaling? Ismay was a passenger and had no obligation to go down with the ship. So easy talking from one's couch when in real life 99% of these commentators would be scared sh.tless
Cameron regrets his Murdoch portrayal because he had to settle a lawsuit with Murdoch's family and open his wallet.
Mr. Braidy, new subscriber here.
Been seeing your videos pop up in my suggested videos, and have been enjoying your production quality and attention to detail.
I recall when Ballard discovered the wreck in 1985, I was about 7 at the time. Never forgot that and started my wild fascination with the ship and the tragedy.
I've learned a great deal more about the history through your videos, wonderful dives into the actual accounts and everything. I also like the kinder view on Ismay, while he has been criminalized by historys key players, there is a human side to the industrialist we know as Bruce Ismay. I appreciate you taking some of the blame and heat off of him, it's only too common we try and find all the blame and fault on one man, for everything but, we truly don't know enough about most of those involved of these moments of history, so long ago.
Thank you for your great channel, I truly enjoy it.
8:00 if titanic actually did have really bad manouverability and hit the berg head on it might have survived
She definitely would have. Only 3 or 4 of her lower compartments would have flooded and She was designed to be able to stay afloat with up 4 flooded, and steel she was made from was flexible enough to crush up like a soda can.
@@katbagley3214but remember how close the iceberg was if you were the peron who was on the bridge that had to make a quick decision
I had a friend of mine during this time that was a Titanic nut even way before this movie came out and he knew the story of Titanic inside and out way before this and he actually gave the movie high praise He says they got a lot of things right.
Cool story
At the time, anyone who was a Titanic nut would have said the same. I was around 8 or 9, and every piece of media available before 1997 was depicted pretty well. Don Lynch and Ken Marshall were on set as historian and technical support. Anything with their name attached like "Titanic an Illustrated History" and "Titanic Death of a Dream" was a commercial success. I even had a majority of the books and had the A&E show recorded on VHS. So yeah, those depictions came to life for the majority of the fans who knew Titanic through the eyes of those two. At the time, you also got to consider that James Cameron was indeed a household name because of his previous movies. We ALL knew James Cameron would deliver. It was extremely exciting to see what he did in the trailers before the film came out.
The fictional character of Rose on Titanic was probably the biggest villain 🤣. Spends the whole movie having an affair with some homeless guy, blows smoke into her mothers face at the tea table, has sex in someone else's car with said homeless guy (syphilis, gonorrhoea anyone.....??), has a table at the end full of photos showing just herself - no kids, grandkids, husband, granddaughter Lizzie who helps her so much - nope, just herself, and then tops it all off by throwing a priceless diamond into the ocean that could have lifted half of the planet out of poverty if donated.
Ismay & Murdoch could have massacred the entire ship with zombie knives and still be saints in comparison to that character 🤣🤣
All 3 of Cameron's Characters are VILLIANS. Jack and Rose are Figments of his Imagination that DON'T even show,speak or Have Mannerisms from 1912. They both are written like Mid 90s Teen Lovers: The 1990s. Like they traveled in Time to 1912. Cameron clearly did NO research on Post Victorian Mannerisms and Lingo. NONE. The "Middle Finger" did NOT exist in 1912. "Nickelodeons". Nickelodeons were completely experimental and Test Marketed. They were never approved for Nationwide use because they never made it past Test Marketing. Swearing was VERY uncommon and extremely derogatory and saying "God's name in Vain" would have resulted in BOTH of them being thrown in the Brig.
The way Jack was depicted as 3rd Class Passenger was B.S. NO 3rd Class was Allowed ANYWHERE past their Floor. There were NO exceptions. Jack would have NEVER corresponded with Rose or her Friends,Family Whatever because he would have been FORBIDDEN from it.
The Car Scene? Cheap Schmaltz. They would have NEVER found their way in a Storage Hall because it would be Completely Locked away.
I'd like to personally conclude in the Same way that SNL Did, that The 1997 Titanic film is basically a Figment of the Old Lady's Imagination. She made the WHOLE thing up in her Senile, Dementia Ridden Mind. She certainly NEVER rode or got onboard the RMS Titanic(She didn't even have a DAMN British Accent for God Sakes.), Got TONS of Anachronisms Wrong, was Inaccurate in almost EVERYTHING, Clearly Exaggerated the POV of Other Characters(How the HELL would she know or be Allowed down into the 3rd Class Deck?) and Probably was off her Meds if she couldn't even Remember KEY Titanic Survivors and only ones she probably read about in A Night To Remember by Walter Lord and In the Fictional Musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" Despite the Fact that Margaret Brown's Family has stated that "Molly" was NEVER her nickname and the fact she SWORE she saw First Officer Chief William McMaster Murdoch kill himself despite the Fact that NOBODY none of the Titanic Survivors EVER said or stated that he killed himself and pretty much ALL of them Say they Saw him get swept by a Wave as as he was trying to Unload a Collapsible.
Totally agree
@@Tornado1994 After I found out about the "Molly" thing, I refused to call Margret that in respect of her memory. But to be fair to the audience, if they wrote her accurate to the time, it'd loose allot of people. It would of felt forgein to them. Although I admit, I'd love to see it rewritten with the mannerism's of the time, and compare the slang differences to the 90's one.
That is something to ponder on, Rose is kind of scuzzy
You are a genius! 😂
14:58 Two cases that I know of about that are #1 (capacity 40, occupancy 12) which makes it the one lowered with the lowest occupancy percentage, 30%, and #6 (capacity 65, occupancy 22) the one lowered with most empty seats, 43. Of the 12 people in #1 only five were passengers the rest were all crew .
I recall when the movie came out that Cameron said he made an effort to include all of the myths about Titanic. He was conciously aware of the fact that he was presenting myth as fact to make the movie more enjoyable for the audience. I have always watched it with that in mind and take the information presented in the movie as good story telling and research any part that I am interested in for myself. Unfortunately not everyone does that and will take a Hollywood movie as an accurate description of a historical event.
My Hatred of the Cameron film is based entirely on the Fact that he took WAY too many Liberties just to make sure his Film Made Nearly Billions. He didn't CARE about Accuracy, Anachronisms, Story or History. He DIDN'T have to make up Characters. Jack Thayer and Olive "Rose" Earnshaw were REAL Survivors and he coulda made an "Apocryphal" Story Arc of 17 Year old 1st Class Passenger Jack and 22 Year old Divorcee 2nd Classer Rose corresponding and ultimately have a brief Love affair on the RMS Titanic. Thayer was VERY intelligent, VERY Handsome for his time, and was turning 18 at the time and Earnshaw was a YOUNG, Single, Tomboy Divorcee and 1st and 2nd Class Passengers WERE allowed to Correspond with each other and allowed free access to Each Decks. It was the 3rd Class who were Discriminated and Segregated. Also, Cameron could have Portrayed Lawrence Beesley as their Friend(Cal is a DEAD Ringer for Professor Beesley and that Ain't no coincidence) with the Film being about how ALL 3 Survivors saw the suffering of the victims and how they all collaborated together to tell Congress what they saw.
Apocryphal Storytelling Works. It allows Suspension of Disbelief because its on the line of the "We don't know if that's how it really happened, it probably did that way, it coulda, but we can't say for absolute sure" This Worked for Braveheart,Ray, La Bamba, Mask, how in the HELL did James Cameron not get or Understand that?
Cameron's Titanic isn't Apocryphal. Its Romeo and Juliet Fanfiction that uses the RMS Titanic as a Backdrop. And it wouldn't bother me so much had he NOT ripped off and stole the Likeness of Thayer,Earnshaw and Beesley for his Three Fictional Characters.
0:06 Lol just like Frozen ❄️
When Rose and Jack got in the lift,,,,she gave the middle finger...........That would not have been done in 1914...........
What about in 1912?
Another great video thanks. I’ve gone down a big rabbit hole recently with your tales of shipwrecks and Titanic in particular.
Have you ever seen the Nazi version of the Titanic movie. VERY interesting!!!!!!!
Appreciate your honest opinion on what Mr Andrews stood for.
As a huge Titanic movie fan, this video was absolutely PERFECT! Your channel is a true gem 💜