I watched the movie with an engineer (welder) who lost it when the rescuers cut into the hull. The air-bubble inside the hull is the only thing keeping the ship floating. Cutting into it and releasing that air (yeah, plus the survivors) would send the thing to the bottom.
You’d have to attach a complicated air-lock double-hatch rescue module for that to work.
Hackman’s horrible speechmaking was the least believable part of the film to me. C’mon, he’s better than that in his sleep.
The rest of that stuff? It’s an Irwin Allen film. Don’t think, just enjoy.
Im not watchin a superhero movie with you. 
cmon…the whole preacher pissed at God bit? Loved it.
And as always I have to be the one to praise the soundtrack.
My biggest peeve about TPA is some modern reviewer praising the bejeezus out of the remake crowing how “No modern movie watcher is going to wait 30 minutes for a ship to sink. They’re more sophisticated than 70’s movie goers!”
Yeah…Titanic …boy THAT movie didn’t make a dime.
TPA is the first grown up movie I ever saw in a theater. I can’t imagine what the people around us thought when they saw my parents walk in with a six year old, but I promise you, I knew waaayyyy better than to act up (plus, the movie was so freaking cool to my six year old self, I was silently glued to my seat). I have such great memories of that corny mass of melodramtic, unrealistic, shmaltzy goodness. I’ll still watch it if I notice it’s on tv. I love Leslie Nielson’s wooden “Oh my God” line, as well Gene Hackman’s sermonizing but my favorite line is when the kid and his sister, Nancy Drew, are arguing and he tells her to “shove it, shove it, shove it”. My brother and I got a lot of mileage out of that one, I tell ya.
At the time, I strongly preferred Pamela Sue Martin. In her scanties.
I thought the ending had some punch that I think is often overlooked.
The story quickly becomes about the trials and tribulations of a small band of people trying against all odds to survive. So, that small band is who you are rooting for. That becomes the whole story universe so to speak.
And finally, at the end, when they (what like 4 people?) get out, the rescuers are wondering/asking if there is anybody else.
Then it kinda hits you. EVERYBODY ELSE (and thats a buttload of people) is dead.
Six. Was nine not too long before; Belle Rosen, Linda Rogo, and Reverend Scott all died almost within sight of the finish.
Until you watch the sequel, which was on TCM or another cable channel a few months ago. It wasn’t nearly as suspenseful as the first movie, but a few more people made it out.
And think of the religious symbolism. Those who elected to stay with the purser, who warned everyone not to go, stayed in the belly of the Poseidon, named after a false god. Those who stayed with the minister were ‘saved.’ Yeah, I know that’s all a load of horse hockey. It’s just a movie.
If you would like some additional confusion, Paul Gallico wrote a sequel to TPA movie version that had Rogo, Mr. Rosen and (I think) Martin returning to the ship (I don’t remember exactly why) and blah, blah, blah. That was tossed for the movie sequel and they started fresh without anyone from the first film (except in archive footage). The sequel still sucked.
Of course, in the original novel of TPA, the ship sank at the book’s conclusion.
Confused? You won’t be after this episode of “Soap”!
The remake has much higher production values, better sfx and Emmy Rossum (yum!), but is just as silly and farfetched as the original.
There was a TV re-make that I never saw sometime before the Kurt Russell/Fergie version. Any good?
One redeeming feature about the theatrical re-make: I had no idea ocean liners use HUGE electric fans for propulsion instead of steam driven propellors.
Any movie where you’re sad to see Matt Dillon die is a turkey. 
Here’s the thread I started about it at the time…
Oh, I have GOT to see this! Push You Down, thanks for the heads-up; it sounds about as bad as the TV “Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3.”
So… OP got stuck on the notion that people might act irrationally rather than coolly, calmly and analytically after their cruise liner has been struck by a massive tidal wave, completely inverted, dozens have already died or been painfully crippled (including many right in front of their eyes)?
Honestly, if that’s the biggest knock against a disaster film, it’s better than most documentaries 