Last Updated on July 16, 2016
A century ago, April 14, 1912, the luxury ocean liner Titanic struck an iceberg in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.
Roughly two and a half hours later, the ship would sink to the bottom of the ocean, claiming more than 1,500 lives in the process. Hours after witnessing the great ship disappear, 710 survivors were rescued by the Carpathia, and likely never forgot that harrowing night and how fortunate they were to have come out of it alive.
James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic is one of several big and small screen adaptations of the events of that April evening. His was the first film to reach the $1 billion — that’s billion — mark in gross revenue and would hold the record as highest-grossing film for a dozen years. The film has now been released in a 3D version, and I must admit, I am curious enough to want to see what they do with it, especially considering that the film wasn’t shot for 3D; I can’t imagine it’s necessarily easy to just make a film that wasn’t shot with 3D in mind into a 3D experience.
For whatever reason, I won’t be the only one watching the movie when I eventually see it. And I won’t be the one who remains fascinated by the doomed ship. Do you plan to be there?
ABC just launched a miniseries on Saturday night. I missed the first part, but I will try to catch it online later. Did anyone see it? Any thoughts?
The story has captivated the imagination of generations of people, much the same way the events of September 11, 2001 will still be fascinating our ancestors when 2101 rolls around. Maybe it’s because we have a hard time comprehending such a large loss of life in a single incident.
Or maybe it’s that we have difficulty wrapping our heads around a tragedy that seemed to come out of nowhere for people who seemingly happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
