Icebergs Sink Ships

It's all terribly exciting that the 'new' Titanic movie is coming out in cinemas next week.  Well, it's the same old version that made squillions in the noughties, but the director, James Cameron, has converted it into 3D, so now we can practically touch the people as they go about their drowning and what not in the icy Atlantic. Charming.

I might confess at this point that I love the movie Titanic.  And it's possibly the creepy stalker kind of love, not the dreamy romantic type.  Don't be hatin' on Titanic or you'll have me to deal with.  And I can be scary and shit when y'all be dissing on my big boats.

And THIS is why you don't drive your
boat anywhere need a friggin' iceberg



Making stuff in 3D is expensive, and adding 2D's to a 1D movie is just one gigantic money pit and requires a lot of hard arithmatic.  Evidently creating depth costs bags and bags of cash.  Just ask Cameron, who is forking out $19 million for the upgrade, presumably so he can make an extra $19 billion as he continues on his merry way of milking the popular disaster franchise for all it's worth.  I could do him a pop-up book for half that price.

I didn't see Titanic when it first came out in the cinemas for some reason.  Although I've watched the DVD a few hundred-ish times.  The best part of the DVD are the commentary components.  Cameron has a real passion for the wreck and paid great respect to it through film and documentary.

I’ve never much liked Cameron.  Despite my admiration for the talents of various people in Hollywood, I tend to view their leftist political beliefs as largely hokum.  But Cameron has been to the Titanic wreck many times to film and has quite the connection to the sunken ocean liner.  So kudos.

My interest in the golden era of ocean liners came about a few years ago, when I was required to do a presentation on a topic of my choosing for my first ever uni assessment.  One evening I was browsing the university's library shelves, searching for inspiration the old fashioned way, when I came across a book about sunken ocean liners, written by Robert Ballard, the man credited with discovering the underwater graves of many of the twentieth century's great liners. 

I sat on the floor and read, glued to the pages; I couldn’t get enough information about the Titanic, Lusitania, Mauritania and Britannic.  My new obsession turned the chore of completing the course work into a remarkably simple task.

After my presentation on Titanic and her golden era, I decided that I would continue this research when I had time. These ocean floor monoliths weren't going anywhere.  I have no idea what forms the basis of my interest; it just intrigues the hell out of me.

I have since read tales of survival and of tragedy, and of the notorious mis-quotes prior to the maiden voyage of the Titanic, that are easy targets for derision with the benefit of hindsight.
 
The fate of the Titanic is a terribly tragic story. The desperation of one man - her creator - to achieve greatness and supremacy in the eyes of his peers, and the world, enabled him to envisage the most spectacular ocean liner ever seen, but it also drove him to challenge the forces of mother nature and ignore all calls to logic and reason.

His vain attempt to make history by pushing his super liner through a field of insurmountable icebergs is one of history’s great dramatic ironies, and one of its most well-documented tragedies.