It is the top grossing film of all time, AND got oscar for best picture.
So why is it panned so often?
Because it was the top grossing film of all time AND got an Oscar for best picture.
Backlash is inevitable. Some people feel it is their duty to bash anything successful, using the philosophy “if it’s good, it can’t be popular; if it’s popular, it can’t be good.” The idea is demonstrably false, but it’s the basis of many people’s opinions.
Also, Titanic was too old-fashioned for some. Overall, I’d say it was a good movie, though not a great one. To that, there’s also the Law of Internet Criticism: Something is either great, or it sucks. The concept of “good, but not great,” or any sort of nuanced critique, does not exist online.
Why I bash the film?
Because I’ve been a Titanic buff since I was 8 years old. There was so much already happening on the ship, I didn’t see the need for the Jack and Rose story. It’s like they took the pain of so many people and cheapened it by saying that wasn’t good enough - you need a fictional, sappy love story to go with it. I always say that it’s a good movie as long as you fast forward through every part with Jack and Rose in it.
And the reason it made so much money? Girls in love with Leonardo DiCaprio.
I agree that the Jack/Rose story was completely unnecessary and not well done. It was heavily cliched.
The idea of framing the tragedy in a personal story is fine – they should have used any of the hundreds of true stories that occured on the ship.
At the start, it was trendy to like Titanic.
People like to think that they are cool or that they are different, so a lot of people decided to hate the movie.
I’ve always said that Titanic is a great movie, just not a phenomenal one and that it deserved to be a hit, just not the numer one hit of all time.
Not true. It is referred to as such because people in Hollywood are too stupid to understand inflation and real vs. nominal values. Gone With The Wind is at the top. Titanic, while still a huge money maker, is down the list in the teens somewhere, IIRC, depending on what inflation figures you’re using.
js_africanus, adjusted for infation “Titanic” is in the top ten. “Gone With The Wind” is #1 though, by a fair margin.
“Titanic” is panned online for the same reason “Forrest Gump” is panned online; it was a very, very successful movie that won the Oscar and was a huge pop culture touchstone AND was not dark, edgy, or screenwriting-cool like “The Usual Suspects” or “Pulp Fiction.” It is. consequently, a huge bullseye target for people who want to look cool by bashing popular things.
js_africanus:
I think it was in the top ten - round number six or so. But then again, the list I saw was pre-Spider-Man, LOTR and Harry Potter.
As for the OP - people pan the movie because it’s “intellectual” to disdain what the masses enjoy.
I pan the movie because it had one of the worst, ham-handed scripts I have ever listened to. Ed Wood, Jr., could have punched it up. Nice costumes and special effects, but the performers should never have been allowed to open their mouths.
It was a bad movie cause you just knew it was gonna sink!
he he!
I’ll shut the hell up now.
Well, it just wasn’t very good.
Kate Winslett nominated for Best Actress? Preposterous! Even Leo was better than her.
It won the Picture Oscar on the tidal wave of publicity alone, IMHO.
hrh
Like I said, it depends on what inflation figures you are using; i.e. how one is indexing the price changes will affect the final results. I’ve seen Titanic ranked as low as 19th. That was reported in a Newsweek article from '97 or '98.
Here is one list, dated 9/2001.
Here’s date June of 2002.
And finally, here is one that shows admissions.
YM(ath)MV
Turek - great sleuthing!
So, not only is Titanic in the top ten by all three of the above measures, it appears to be the # 1 if films that have been re-released are excluded (none of these tables seems to have broken down the amount earned in the initial release of the multi-released films, interestingly. That might give us the best perspective of how Titanic truly ranks with those others).
Chaim Mattis Keller
I had the bad luck of being dragged into the theater in order to see it when it first came out.
It annoyed me quite a bit. First of all, the main story they used was a huge cliche. Second, it was a two hour film streched to three hours. Third, I didn’t care for either Kate Winslett or Leonardo DiCaprio.
It had good special effects, I’ll grant it that, but not much else.
My review overall- two stars out of four
Firstly, no one who knows me has ever accused me of being trendy or doing anything because it was the cool or popular thing to do.
Secondly, I thought it stunk. Leo and Kate can’t act their way out of paper bags. The story was very poorly written and cliched. I enjoyed the sinking part, and most of the movie that ignored those two, but they ruined it for me overall.
I wrote a few paragraphs on this a while back when a similar question was asked and I had been pretty vocal of my dislike for this film.
While I don’t think it sucked, I also don’t think it was nearly as good as other people thought. As had already been mentioned, the story was unoriginal and cliched, the characters poorly defined (all Rose’s fiance was missing was a Snidely Whiplash type moustache), and why fictionalize this love story when there had to have been just as moving real stories of the people who were actually on the Titanic? Not too mention it was overlong.
My ex wanted me to see it, and I claimed at the time to have seen enough from the previews, “Spoiled rich girl meets poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Girl’s friends and family don’t approve, they fall in love, one or both die.” She claimed, “Oh no, it’s so much better than that!” so I went to see the movie. One of the few cases I was disappointed in a film because it was exactly what I expected it to be.
Additionally, I’m rather cynical as it is and I just can’t swallow the romantic idea of falling so deeply in love with someone in two days that I’m willing to die for him/her.
On top of all this, what also bugged me about Titanic (which in all honesty has nothing to do with Titanic), was the fact that LA Confidential was released that same year and didn’t get anywhere near the attention, although IMO it was an immensely better film. Better story which you had to pay attention to if you wanted to understand the plot. Better writing in which the characters had good dialogue and were fully formed, 3-dimensional people. Better direction - the director kept a good pace while telling a story that could have been an indecipherable confusing mess in someone else’s hands. Better acting - in a cast that included Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey it’s Kim Bassinger who wins the Oscar.
So in part, I don’t like Titanic because I honestly dont think it’s that good. 2 or 2 and a half stars tops. The other part was the furor over Titanic overshadowed a film which I thought was superior in all respects.
I’m in the same boat (ha ha) as Smeghead and Crunchy Frog here. I didn’t like Titanic, but it had nothing to do with how much money it made or how many awards it got. It had everything to do with the fact that the storyline was utterly unbelievable (the love story, that is; I had no objection to the ship sinking) and the acting was horrendous. Leo DiCaprio acted like he’d never seen a real live boy before, and Billy Zane’s character was so two-dimensional that I thought if he turned sideways he’d disappear. Granted, this last was thanks entirely to James Cameron’s script, which badly needed some energy or at least some original dialogue.
On the other hand, from a technical standpoint the film was terrific, and I’m glad I saw it on the big screen to appreciate the scenes of the ship sinking, and the goregous underwater submarine sequences. I think it deserved every Oscar it got for technical achievement, but to my mind, the Best Picture of the Year would preferably have more going for it than $100 million worth of computerized effects. Like maybe some characters who didn’t act like fools who’d never been let out of the house before.
I reiterate: I have nothing against big-budget, successful films. I loved Sam Raimi’s Spiderman and, unlike many people, I thought Attack of the Clones was pretty cool, and certainly achieved everything it tried to do. Just because I didn’t think Titanic lived up to its ridiculously grandiose aims, please don’t accuse me of being an intellectual reactionary or a snob.
Well for those of you who didn’t like the love story side, but liked the adventure side… I offer you this:
James Cameron and Bill Paxton went back to the titanic with new cameras and equipment and filmed a documentary that is showing at certain IMAX theatres.
I liked the last 45 minutes of the movie, but the movie’s dialogue was so bad. James Cameron was not meant to write dialogue.