Give the movie a break, it came out 27 years ago
About 27 years ago Titanic was released and spawned a billion conversations about whether two people could fit on a floating door.
Of course it’s not really a matter of space, it’s far more to do with buoyancy as the MythBusters demonstrated and Kate Winslet has also pointed out.
Hell, James Cameron even did some ‘scientific tests’ to figure out whether Jack and Rose could both have survived and it turns out the answer is no, the wreckage would only take one of them.
Anyhow, while the movie is still a stone-cold classic there are inevitably going to be some things about it that don’t hold up, and we’re not talking about Leonardo DiCaprio dating someone his own age.
No, over the years a number of Titanic viewers have poked fun at some of the conspicuously 90s CGI used in the film, and one scene in particular.
It looks a bit like the work on The Polar Express if someone zoomed out (20th Century Fox)
Titanic uses a lot of practical effects to an impressive extent, but there’s obviously a bit of movie razzle dazzle thrown in there.
Early on in the film there’s a point where the razzle doesn’t quite dazzle, as Jack (DiCaprio) and his buddy Fabrizio (Danny Nucci) enjoy looking out from the bow of the ship and the camera pans across the Titanic.
However, as it does this all the people visible on deck are CGI, and looking back at them now they’re quite conspicuously naff.
Over the years plenty have had a decent laugh at this scene saying it gives them a ‘good chuckle’, looks like ‘some GTA San Andreas s**t’ and that the characters walk ‘like a Skyrim NPC’.
One guy recently posted the scene again and called it ‘the worst piece of CGI in cinema history’ as he couldn’t help but crack up at it.
In fairness to Titanic‘s somewhat silly CGI it is getting to be almost 27 years old and it’s one short shot in the film.
Is it really worse than this? (Universal)
Besides, it’s not really the worst CGI in cinema history, that dubious accolade has surely got to go to The Scorpion King being rendered as an early PS2 character in The Mummy Returns.
These days The Scorpion King would probably look a lot better and they’d mount Dwayne Johnson atop some green-screen rig so we’d at least see his actual face.
Also, The Mummy Returns released four years after Titanic so it hasn’t got much of an excuse.
However, the incredible CGI dinosaurs of Jurassic Park puts both movies to shame, Steven Spielberg gave us fricking DINOSAURS in 1993 and Titanic couldn’t make a man walking look very realistic.
Any credit James Cameron might have lost as a director for this one slightly goofy looking scene is surely outweighed by pretty much every other effect from every single one of his other films.
Featured Image Credit: 20th Century Fox
