As filmmakers are products have to tell a story to our audience. Without wanting to speak on behalf of all of us, I think we all agree about this point passionately. I feel personally that the experience watching a film is affected by how much you, as the viewer, are emotionally attached to a character or situation. I have spent many enjoyable conversations with my crewmates talking about the character development of the Doctor from 'Doctor Who'. The Doctor, of course, being an alien man who flies around space and time in a 1960's Police box, has two hearts and who once tried pulling off wearing a vegatable - which wasn't his worse fashion crime...
Fun Fact: Mark Nugent hates this man.
What I'm getting to here is that is fustrating when you see a piece of film that gets these points so wrong. Of course, I don't want these to sound like one of those annoying 'IKNOWSOMUCHBETTERNAHNAHNAHNAH' pricks. I understand I'm not going to get a deep and meaniful character archs in Steven Seagal films. I don't expect it in them. I do not get disappointed when I realise there is no hidden political undercurrent tone in 'Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People' (that is a real film btw).
However - when I watch a television production that has a budget of eleven million pounds and is written by an award winning writer who many claim is one of the best currently around then you can't blame me for having an issue.
Julian Followes' four part epic "Titanic" was announced by ITV last year to commenorate the hundredth anniversary of the stricken ship. It's budget was the major focus point - eleven million pounds. Alongside it's stellar cast including Toby Jones it was set to be the channels highlight of its broadcasting year.
It has now been on our screens for three weeks with it's forthcoming finale due to air this Sunday. Didn't know this? There's a good reason - everyone stopped caring after the first episode.
"Deploy submarine mode!"
I had a fascination about the Titanic when I was a young boy, as I had no friends at the time, but even now I was interested in seeing how this drama would play out. I never even seen Fellowes' Downton Abbey and was only being aware of the praise for the shows character development and dialogue. I didn't give into the hype of it being the potential TV spectacular it was being hyped up to but I did have high hopes for it. Hopes which only sunk* like a lead balloon.
*I am available to be booked as a stand up comedian for birthdays, shindigs and funerals. No seriously I am.
The faults of the series are many and I fear I will only be able to address few of them before I bore you. Here they are in a presentable manner:
- There are too many characters - Seriously. There are fucking loads. Take a look at the cast list for EACH episode. And it's not like there's a load of minor characters - they all get round about equal screen time. In a hour. It's like when you're in a under ten's football team and every player, regardless of they're rubbish or obese, gets a run out. You don't get any time to connect with them and when the ice berg hits you end up going 'Ah - there goes whatsername', which I suppose Fellowes doesn't want us to do. Speaking of ice bergs...
- The ice berg hits too many times - Okay, we all know the joke. The ending of nearly every Titanic story (more on that later) is more well known than Bruce Willis being a ghost. The crew behind the series knows this and have given a solution - by making it hit the ship every episode. Seriously. Its like a vintage Ground Hog Day. They try and show it from a 'different character perspective' each time which would be neat if there weren't so many to get confused with.
- Dramatic irony (with added hindsight) - "There's not enough life boats!" "We got warnings of ice!" "Where are the binoculars!" WE FUCKING KNOW. IF THERE WASN'T ANY FAULTS THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY FUCKING STORY. STOP MAKING YOUR CHARACTERS POINT OUT SHIT WE KNOW.
- The dialogue is boring - Oh jeez is it boring. There's just no point to it. It's always either poorly delivered back story which doesn't get developed enough to gain interest as none of the characters have time too or about someone bitching about someone else and when its not that then it's...
- Class - Now at this point I've felt I've been harsh on Julian Fellowes. The man is obviously a great writer and his accolades, which include an Oscar for screen play, show that. It is clear, however, from looking at his writing credits that the man does have a fetish for class. Apparently Downtown Abbey is full of it but in Titanic it just consumes the characters. It's like they cannot talk about any other thing. "Oh well we can't do this we're middle class" "She should not be mingling with our kind" "We're only lowly steerage". Seriously. It gets mentioned every five minutes it would appear. If it was a clever undertone it would be fine but it's just bad. Make it oblivious - or just play this clip (the famous John Cleese/Two Ronnies sketch that is - not Benny Hill) at the beginning of every episode so we understand.
- There is no energy - I've bated Fellowes and the writing enough. Now it's time to address the direction. It's bad. I can't even find out whose responsible for it - whomever it is is probably that ashamed of it. Scenes can just be images that flicker in front of your eyes. However, crucially, when the ice berg hints there is no urgency. Seriously. No panic. No sense of upcoming death. No feeling of the size of the disaster the Titanic actually was. Dare I say it - how dramatically undersold it is is quite disrespectful to those who did lose their lives on that fateful night. In one scene one couple (see pt 1 for the reason why I can't remember their names) take the time to have a five minute chat on a quiet part of the ship to take stock of their relationship - so good they could find such peace whilst two thousand people would be running around them screaming for their lives.
Those are all the ones I can think of - for now.
To be honest don't take my opinion for it alone. Watch the show for yourself. To at least give the show some praise, the acting from some of the cast is worth seeing. Also, if you're like most of us at Spacecat and are a Whovian you will also get a sneak peak at the new companion Jenna Louise Coleman who stands out on her acting talent alone.
If I was a tabloid writer I would make a joke about the life-
jacket looking like a bra and comment on her breasts. But I won't.
So there.
My final verdict on Titanic however? I might be overstating how bad it is here but if it was decent I wouldn't have felt the need to blog about it. But like I said - make you're own opinion on it.
Alternatively if you want me to recommend a Titanic film then I do have one purely on the grounds that it does not fall into the grounds of the "it sinks at the end" joke and in fact completely subverts it. Let me introduce you to 1980's 'Raise the Titanic!'. It has a ridiculous plot which includes an expansive anti-nuclear weapons system which is dependent on a element which is called after something that confirms it is pure fiction for the purpose of the film. The lead hero is called Dirk Pitt (which, lets face it, is a fucking cool name). Then to round it all off - they're not in a hurry but they Moscow its those communist Russians! Take that you class whore Julian Fellowes!
This article was written by James Dunn
He is a member of Spacecat and a human being.
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