Titanic (1997) (1 Viewer)

[Rick Thompson]

It was an incredible technical achievement, and parts of it were excellent, but it was far too long. I kept thinking, "So sink already! Enough water!" And the part where Jack is handcuffed to the pipe and tells Rose, who had missed the chain twice, to close her eyes and swing the fire axe was a moment of pure low comedy. Of course, when I laughed out loud at that knee-slapper, people looked at me as if I'd drawn a mustache on the Mona Lisa.

 

[Radioman970]

Jack was like a Mark Twain character. His adventure .... jus dropping everything and going. Terrific character and a very good hero. That tied with just seeing the real event look so amazing and real. Everything you heard about it and more is on the screen. I had zero problems with lengths of movies when it's epic like this. Some didn't like AI Artificial Intell but I wouldn't change one single thing, just like Titanic.

 

[Tino]

A near perfect film in my opinion. Still holds up tremendously more than 20 years later.

And here come the haters.........

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'm surprised the re-release last year was not followed by a Blu-ray re-release.

Personally, I don't need a Blu-ray of Titanic to come with DVDs, since I already have the 2005 3-disc set. But I could actually use a Vudu digital copy rather than the iTunes only version that's in the current Blu-ray copies. I haven't gotten around to upgrading Titanic yet, but I would welcome a reissue which is simply Blu-ray + UV digital.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I saw "Titanic" opening weekend but only went out of a sense of "obligation" toward Cameron.

I looked forward to the "disaster" scenes, but the character bits didn't interest me, so given the movie's extreme length, I figured I'd be bored for large swaths of cinematic real estate.

Instead, I found myself just as enchanted by the romance and story elements as I was the action. The whole movie kept me with it and worked very well for me - I thought it was really great that 1st viewing!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I'm surprised the re-release last year was not followed by a Blu-ray re-release.

Personally, I don't need a Blu-ray of Titanic to come with DVDs, since I already have the 2005 3-disc set. But I could actually use a Vudu digital copy rather than the iTunes only version that's in the current Blu-ray copies. I haven't gotten around to upgrading Titanic yet, but I would welcome a reissue which is simply Blu-ray + UV digital.

I'd be curious to know about a 4K UHD release.

Paramount has been aggressive in their pursuit of catalog 4K releases, but I don't know how much involvement Cameron requires to sign off on a new version.

So far there's only been one Cameron film on 4K UHD: "T2", and I feel sure that only exists because he wanted to put out a 3D version so he was already involved with it.

A 4K UHD "Titanic" seems like a sure thing in terms of sales, but Cameron probably gums up those works...

 

[Tino]

I saw "Titanic" opening weekend but only went out of a sense of "obligation" toward Cameron.

I looked forward to the "disaster" scenes, but the character bits didn't interest me, so given the movie's extreme length, I figured I'd be bored for large swaths of cinematic real estate.

Instead, I found myself just as enchanted by the romance and story elements as I was the action. The whole movie kept me with it and worked very well for me - I thought it was really great that 1st viewing!

I had a great first showing too.

First show opening day in 70MM 6 track Dolby stereo at the Loews Astor Plaza in NYC. Named of course after John Jacob Astor who died on the Titanic.

It was tremendous.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I first saw it at the Syosset theater on Long Island which was the last single screen theater in the area. They had a huge, deeply curved screen that never failed to impress.

When I was growing up, my mom would try to take me and my brothers to a movie every Friday if we behaved during the school week. We always looked forward to that, but it was even more special if we knew the movie was going to be at Syosset.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'd be curious to know about a 4K UHD release.

Cameron is probably too busy with Avatar to supervise such a thing personally, but he really ought to learn to delegate so we get his films out. I still haven't seen The Abyss or True Lies because I don't want to watch non-anamorphic DVDs. I suspect Avatar will probably come along around the time that Avatar 2 opens, but who knows about the rest of his catalog?

The other issue with Titanic in particular is that it's a Fox/Paramount co-production, and Fox distributes outside of North America, which means that the international rights will shortly transfer to Disney.

The thing is that a Blu + digital release along the lines of what I want wouldn't actually require a new release or sign off from Cameron, since they can simply repackage the existing Blu-ray with a digital code and less the DVDs if they wanted to do that.

 

[Malcolm R]

When I was growing up, my mom would try to take me and my brothers to a movie every Friday if we behaved during the school week.

So you guys saw about four movies a year?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The promise of a movie at the end of the week was enough to keep me in line!

 

[Jake Lipson]

That's one quality motivator, Josh.

When I was growing up, every year from kindergarten on through his departure for another job when I was in high school, the superintendent of the school system would visit us at the beginning of the year for an assembly, and he always promised us that if the school went the whole year without anyone getting into a physical fight, we'd have a pizza party for the entire school at the end of the year.

We never got the pizza party.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Cameron is probably too busy with Avatar to supervise such a thing personally, but he really ought to learn to delegate so we get his films out. I still haven't seen The Abyss or True Lies because I don't want to watch non-anamorphic DVDs. I suspect Avatar will probably come along around the time that Avatar 2 opens, but who knows about the rest of his catalog?

The other issue with Titanic in particular is that it's a Fox/Paramount co-production, and Fox distributes outside of North America, which means that the international rights will shortly transfer to Disney.

The thing is that a Blu + digital release along the lines of what I want wouldn't actually require a new release or sign off from Cameron, since they can simply repackage the existing Blu-ray with a digital code and less the DVDs if they wanted to do that.

I agree 100% Cameron needs to be less "hands-on" about this stuff. It's ridiculous that the best versions of "Abyss" and "True Lies" on home video are DVDs that came out nearly 20 years ago!

 

[Jake Lipson]

Cameron needs to be less "hands-on" about this stuff.

I don't have a problem with him being hands-on...if he has the time to devote to doing that. But he's off making Avatar, or whatever project interests him at any given time, and the home video releases always seem to get pushed to the side when they don't really need to. There are people inside the studios' home video divisions who could do the job to make True Lies and The Abyss look good whether Cameron is involved or not.

I hate to be crude about it, but Billy Wilder didn't approve the Blu-ray edition of Sunset Boulevard, because he's dead, and that didn't prevent Paramount from putting that film out.

It would be one thing if there weren't skilled people for him to delegate to -- but there are. So I don't see how it benefits anyone for him to hold up the releases waiting for...what, exactly? It's not like he's going to suddenly become less busy and have time to supervise.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I don't have a problem with him being hands-on...if he has the time to devote to doing that.

Well, yeah. I also would be 100% fine with Cameron's involvement in the home video releases if he'd actually get off his bony butt and do it!

Though given his fondness for recolored movies, maybe we don't want him involved!

 

[TravisR]

I saw "Titanic" opening weekend but only went out of a sense of "obligation" toward Cameron.

I looked forward to the "disaster" scenes, but the character bits didn't interest me, so given the movie's extreme length, I figured I'd be bored for large swaths of cinematic real estate.

Instead, I found myself just as enchanted by the romance and story elements as I was the action. The whole movie kept me with it and worked very well for me - I thought it was really great that 1st viewing!

I remember being just completely bowled over thinking that even with the budget & release date craziness that he pulled the movie off in an amazing fashion. I was still sure that the movie wouldn't do particularly well but I thought they could some solace in that they made a helluva picture.

My thoughts on its commercial prospects brightened when I went to the second show and it was actually fairly crowded with a younger crowd who were out of school for the day.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I saw Titanic I think seven times during its original run. It was great to go back and see the audience actually grow. That sort of thing really doesn’t happen anymore and I think we’d all be better off if it did. I think we lose out when the only movies that make an impact are one that can be sold in 30 seconds. I miss word of mouth.

 

[holtge]

I agree. I saw "Titanic" in my town's small three-screen movieplex at least five times in late 1997/early 1998. I was thrilled to see it in 3D when it was re-released in April 2012 on the 100th Anniversary of the accident. I was super impressed with the depth that the 3D provided, but found myself just as excited to see it on the big screen once again as I had been 15 years previously. Truly a masterpiece!

 

[Jake Lipson]

I saw Titanic I think seven times during its original run. It was great to go back and see the audience actually grow. That sort of thing really doesn’t happen anymore and I think we’d all be better off if it did.

I agree. We've talked about this in other threads before, but I think about how extraordinary Black Panther's success was this past winter -- and I don't want to take anything away from the remarkable run that it had -- but it still made the bulk of its money in a couple months, and then it was onto Infinity War.

The kind of staying power that Titanic had, where it was allowed to build and build and build and just stay in theaters, will never happen again because the studios want to rush the thing out to Blu-ray as quickly as possible. Had Disney not rushed Black Panther to disc in May, I'm sure it would already be over $700 million, instead of their having to add second-run theaters in an attempt to squeeze a final $70k out of it to get it over the mark. And again, I think Black Panther is great and what it did this winter was phenomenal by any standard. But its journey to the top of the charts just illustrates the cultural differences where the entertainment industry is now versus where it was in 1997-8 when Titanic was the king of the world.

Or something like The Greatest Showman, which had a really high multiple off of its low opening weekend and was a word-of-mouth success, still came to disc in what, April? So what constitutes having legs now is very different than what constituted Titanic having legs.

 

[Alex...]

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of James Cameron’s Titanic, the multiple Oscar winner and box office phenomenon has been set for a fresh theatrical release just in time for Valentine’s Day next year. A remastered version will be available in cinemas in 3D 4K HDR and high-frame rate, with Disney releasing internationally beginning February 10, 2023, Deadline has confirmed. Paramount has domestic rights and is expected to also set its date in the coming days.

https://deadline.com/2022/06/titanic-rerelease-date-remastered-version-james-cameron-1235050212/