Okay, fine. We have a soft spot for the 1997 James Cameron masterpiece, Titanic. Its impressive computer-generated imagery (CGI) changed film-making forever, and everyone (including yours truly) all of a sudden found themselves thinking, “Woah, Leonardo DiCaprio is super hot.” But having recently re-watched the film, there are a few — actually, many — issues we’d like to talk about. Are we saying Titanic is actually the worst movie ever? No, we would never dream of condemning it like that. It’s a true modern marvel that tugs at the heartstrings, after all. It’s just also really annoying. Here’s why.
When Titanic was first released, it topped box offices like no other film before it.
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Until Cameron broke his own record in 2009 with Avatar, Titanic was the highest-grossing movie of all time, raking in over $2.1 billion, according to Empire Online.
And it’s no shocker as to why.
Technically speaking, Titanic was remarkable. The visual effects were like nothing anyone had ever seen on the big screen before 1997. The way Cameron and his team digitally reconstructed the RMS Titanic was, and still is, incredible — especially considering the limitations of late-’90s technology. And the historical accuracy of everything from the costumes to the set is pitch perfect.
And yeah, the romance between Rose and Jack makes us cry every time we watch the movie. Whatever.
But all this “perfection” doesn’t mean Titanic doesn’t have some flaws. In fact, some of the issues in the film are so irksome that we will truly never let go of them. And now we’re unloading our emotional burden onto you. You’re welcome.
1. Titanic is way too long.
Us falling asleep at the two-hour mark like:
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Let’s start with the obvious. If you want to watch Titanic, you have to chisel at least three hours and 15 minutes out of your evening (not including bathroom breaks, mind you). Three hours! When this thing dropped on VHS in the late ’90s, it had to be put on two separate tapes. We understand that it was one of the biggest historical epics to come out of the 1990s, but dang. This is a long movie — especially considering that we already know how it ends.
Spoiler alert: the ship sinks and a lot of people die.
Sure, upon first watch, you can’t be sure about exactly who lives and who dies. Do Jack and Rose end up escaping together to live happily ever after? Do they both die? Who knows! But after watching the entire behemoth through once, it’s hard to find the energy to do so ever again.
2. It starts off in present day.
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Listen, we understand what director James Cameron was trying to do here. Setting Titanic both in the present and the past humanizes the event and makes the tragedy that much more tangible. But besides the part when old Rose drops the Heart of the Ocean gem back into the sea (which we’ll touch upon later), try to remember even one other memorable part of old Rose’s story line? That’s right — you can’t. It’s all pretty unimportant and forgettable.
Furthermore, rather than diving right into the good, gushy romantic stuff, we’re forced to spend the first 20 minutes of the movie without Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, which is just a drag. You’re lying if you say you haven’t fast forwarded through old Rose’s scenes. Sorry, but you are.
3. Our two romantic leads meet during a suicide attempt.
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Look, there’s really nothing romantic about persuading someone to not end their life. And then it only gets worse when Jack has the audacity to taunt Rose by saying, “No, you won’t,” when she tells him she’s going to jump off the bow of the ship. We could have done without that line, don’t you think?
Then the whole “You jump, I jump” theme is pulled through the rest of the movie. Apparently we’re supposed to think of it as lovey-dovey, but in actuality, it’s pretty messed up.
4. This movie made us hate Billy Zane.
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Zane plays Rose’s betrothed, Cal Hockley, who is handsome, rich, and horrible. He’s not even one of those villains we love to hate. We just straight up loathe him from the get-go. And because Cal is one of Zane’s most memorable roles, we’ve had a hard time trusting him in other roles ever since.
What really sucks is that Cal has literally no redeeming qualities, which makes us wonder why Rose hadn’t tried to leave him before running into Jack.
…Or maybe she did? Anyway. We understand that “the money’s gone,” Mother. But there must be some other rich men out there who aren’t emotional/physical abusers, no?
And why did it have to take meeting another man for Rose to realize that she can do better than Cal? She’s smart, worldly, and obviously unafraid to test her mother and Cal with her quick wit and sharp tongue, so why hadn’t she already said, ef this, I’m out? I guess we will blame it on the times.
We just wish Rose had been a stronger female lead. Is that too much to ask?
5. Old Rose’s narration is weird.
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It sounds like a narration; it doesn’t sound like an old woman recounting her past.
Have you ever asked your grandmother to tell you a story from the olden days? There’s a lot more, “What the hell was that guy’s name? Ah, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, as I was saying…” and a lot less, “I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it… Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter…” Sorry, old Rose. We’re just not buying your dialogue.
6. The spitting thing was pretty gross.
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We get that flirting sometimes takes you to weird places.
But if you ever find yourself hocking loogies off the side of a boat with some dude who talked you down from a suicide attempt, you might want to take a moment, journal a bit, and ask yourself if this is actually a person you want to involve yourself with.
7. Rose changes her mind super fast. Like, too fast.
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Remember when Jack pulls Rose into that room and confesses that he loves her (without actually saying he loves her, mind you), and she was all like, “I’m fine, leave me alone” because she had just been threatened by her mother? It literally takes her less than an hour (about 30 seconds in film-time) to find Jack and say, “Nope, never mind. I actually want to risk everything to be with you.”
Let’s be real. If Rose were a real person, she’d need to take some serious Rose-time to figure out the pros and cons of the situation.
Give us a bigger catalyst for changing her mind other than watching a mother teach her daughter about good posture, you know?
And when she left that note, and the nude portrait of herself that Jack drew, in Cal’s safe as way of sticking it to him, did she really think he wasn’t going to find her? They’re on a ship in the middle of the ocean!
8. “I’m flying, Jack!” is corny as heck.
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Just skip to the kiss, TBH. Rose sounds really silly when she says what has now become one of the most quotable lines from the entire film (besides “Draw me like one of your French girls,” of course).
You’re not flying, Rose, and you know that.
Plus, does anyone else find it weird that Jack thinks it’s a good idea to put Rose back up on that boat railing only a few days after she had attempted to end her life? PTSD wasn’t really a thing yet, but we figure that anyone would tell you this can’t be good for her mental health.
9. Then all hell breaks loose.
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This is where the timing of the movie really pushes it. We’re only an hour and 40 minutes into the three-hour-long film and they hit the iceberg, thus triggering the film’s downward spiral. But, look, we still have another hour and a half to go, meaning that our guts are going to be in a huge knot for the rest of this movie and we ate so much popcorn within the first hour.
It’s at this point that we know we’re going to feel sick with anxiety for the next hour or so, and that straight-up sucks.
People are already starting to get locked into the lower chambers of the ship as a “safety precaution,” then Jack gets arrested for “stealing” the Heart of the Ocean, Rose starts questioning her judgement, and we really just want to zoom out and pretend we never started watching this movie.
10. Wait — is this just Romeo & Juliet?
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Two star-crossed lovers from opposing backgrounds, doomed from the beginning, with their relationship ending in tragic death… We’ve heard this all before. Actually we’ve seen Leo DiCaprio in this exact story before. Just a year before he starred in Titanic, DiCaprio starred as Romeo opposite Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juilet.
Um… We’re getting major déjà vu.
11. Then we finally *really* face the class issue.
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Up until this moment, the issue of social class is really just used as a backdrop to the film. But then when the mother in third class explains to her kids that they’re simply waiting for those in first class to board the lifeboats before it’s their turn, our hearts fully explode at the injustice. Considering that this is a historically accurate retelling of the event, this means that, yes, people really were treated this way during the crisis…gosh, we really wish we hadn’t eaten all that popcorn.
12. Jack mansplains how to use an axe to Rose.
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Rose had the wherewithal to dodge the lifeboats to save Jack from the depths of the sinking ship and yet he still has the gall to mansplain to her how to properly use an axe? We don’t really have time for that, Jack, nor do we have minutes to waste with “practice swings.” Yes, we know you want to keep your hands, but the ship is literally sinking beneath you. We certainly wouldn’t put up with that ish, but hey — love makes you do crazy things, we suppose.
13. The band is probably the purest aspect of this plot. Don’t @ us.
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No one — no, not even Rose nor Jack — is as pure of heart as the band that keeps playing throughout the panic. Yes, they were ordered to do so by the captain, but they could have gone against their orders and fashioned themselves a seat on one of those lifeboats. This, too, is one of the true stories from the Titanic’s sinking that really pulls at the heartstrings, in both a good and a bad way.
14. Both Rose and Jack could have fit on the door.
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Or headboard. Or mantle. Or whatever it was — Jack could have also floated on it! They are both slender people, they could have kept each other warmer maybe. If not, perhaps they could have taken turns. Or maybe they could have floated to another piece of debris for Jack to climb onto. There were other *options available* and we know it, okay?
But James Cameron just had to tear us apart inside. Thanks, bud.
15. Old Rose drops the Heart of the Ocean…into the ocean.
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Millions of dollars…sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Symbolism. We know. But are you kidding? Her granddaughter must have been so pissed when she found out that grandma sunk the most precious family heirloom. That was going to be my college education, grandma. But I totally understand that you had to return it to the heart of the ocean because full-circle stories make people go OMG!
We’re tired, and we’re never watching Titanic again.
Except for probably next week, and then the week after that, and then the week after that…