Titanic: The Legend Goes On (2000 animated film)

    The RMS Titanic. One of the most famous ships ever. The single biggest passenger ship afloat at the time, it was almost 900 feet long and had 10 decks. Embarking from Southampton in the UK, Titanic was destined for New York City. Unfortunately, this was not to be.

    It was almost midnight on April 14th of 1912, several days into the voyage, when Titanic struck an iceberg. A submerged chunk of the iceberg scraped along the ship's hull and ripped open a large section. Rivets popped, metal plates buckled under immense pressure, and water came cascading in. This led to a chain reaction in which multiple sections of the ship flooded. Long story short, Titanic sank in about two hours taking about 1,500 people to the bottom of the North Atlantic. The vast majority were lost due to freezing to death in water 27-28 degrees Fahrenheit or -2.7 Celsius.

    Tragic events like this are often immortalized in media such as books or movies. Titanic is no exception with quite a few movies such as the surprisingly realistic A Night To Remember (1958) and James Cameron's Titanic (1997) with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. I would rather be watching either of these interpretations but here we are. Right I've delayed long enough, let's do this.

      Titanic: The Legend Goes On (as if the Titanic was a legend but whatever) is an Italian animated film released in 2000.  The plot follows a poor woman named Angelica (voiced by Francesca Guadagno) who falls in love with a rich man named William (Francesco Pezzuli). Sort of inverted the roles of Jack and Rose in James Cameron's version. Essentially, William and Angelica find true, but doomed, love on the Titanic. Except their love is not doomed because only 5-6 people in the entire movie die. You know, when Titanic sank and mostly everyone lived happily ever after. Oh wait, that's not how it's supposed to happen.

    Not content with altering basic facts of history, this film tries to throw in a "Cinderella" type subplot with a cruel stepmother and stepsisters. Complete with a cat that is literally a palette swapped version of Lucifer the cat in Cinderella. There is also a dog that raps accompanied by Mexican or Italian mice. They both are portrayed as insultingly stereotypical as possible. There's also a whole thing about a jewel heist. And possibly Sherlock Holmes. I'm still confused. Please let this end.

    The editing in Titanic: The Legend Goes On is astoundingly bad. This would be somewhat bearable, if it weren't for the fact that the film had seven editors. There's no continuity to speak of. Certain frames of the ship sinking are replayed up to five times. Sometimes an establishing shot clearly shows the ship is almost vertical out of the water. Five minutes later another shot shows that the ship is barely sinking, if at all.

    Titanic: The Legend Goes On was released in Italy in September of 2000. The two best things about this movie are the music (rapping dog excepted) and the fact that the movie is only about an hour long. Is it good for a laugh? Maybe. It took me around 3-4 days to watch this movie solely because it's so bad it was actually making me angry to the point of my heart going unusually fast. So I took breaks to survive.

Right, I think I've run out of things to say about this movie. 

Till next time,

Conrad Smith

                                    Apparently the dog's name is Fritz. Now we know.