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Titanic. Did you watch any of the programmes?

edited April 2012 in Off-topic
Did anyone watch any of the programmes on TV yesterday on the Titanic? I watched the film with Kenneth More, 'A Night to Remember' I prefer it to the one with Kate Winslet! Then I watched one of the documentaries, the one mainly about Southampton and how the tragedy effected the town. It showed a map of the area and how many families suffered a loss, marked with a black dot, there were a lot. Many families lost their breadwinners and had trouble managing afterwards, although there was a charity set up to help. White Star didn't pay wages to those who survived either.

Comments

  • I've seen bits of the documentaries that have been on over the past week or two.
  • Obviously, the centenary of such a tragedy needed commemorating, but I think it was done to death. Couldn't shift for documentaries, news items and drama's. Brassed me off in the finish
  • I'm going to watch the James Cameron one on sky anytime later on. From what I saw it looked really good.

    I want to watch the film because I have not seen it all the way through so I might wait till it comes out on TV.
  • Have loads on Sky+ to watch later. Have really found the Bernard Hill narrated ones fascinating though.
  • Too distressing. I enjoyed the Kate Winslet one which I saw several years ago, but I still remember the scenes of the people going down with the ship, and I can't bear the thought of it.
  • The Mail online yesterday had some previously unreleased pictures from the wreck, and I have to say I agree they shouldn't have shown them.
    Shoes and clothes lying in such away that it had obviously once had a body within it... :(
  • The James Cameron film is a travesty, one of the worst films ever made IMO. It's bad enough to make entertainment out of a real life disaster but you can at least do it with some respect for the dead which this film spectacularly fails to do. It replaces the true stories of the 1500 REAL men, women and children who perished that night by making up some silly chav's wet dream about then-Hollywood hotshot Leo Di Doodah - totally miscast as a poor Irish immigrant - getting his end away with some posh English bird in the back of a car. It's too long, too corny and in the end I was rooting for the iceberg. If you want real drama and a sense of what really happened watch the 1958 British version, A Night To Remember.
  • I watched the first of the four part tv drama, but not the rest of it. I recorded the documentary that was on after part four last night, but haven't watched that yet. I was interested that it mentions a lady called Violet Jessop, whose book I have read some years ago. She tells in her book how she worked on both Titanic and its sister ship the Brittanic, and survived its sinking as well as the Titanic's. I also went to see the James Cameron film in 3D last week. I'm afraid i fail to understand why this film is now receiving such critism after nearly fifteen years of praise. Aside from the corny love story through which the story is told, it is otherwise rather good, especially the depiction of how the ship split in two. Of course we'll never know that it happened exactly like that, but at least thanks to Bob Ballard, we do know that it did happen somehow. It is many years since I saw the original The Night To Remember, and must put it on my Must see list.
  • [quote=flyingtart]The James Cameron film is a travesty, one of the worst films ever made[/quote]

    I agree - worst in the sense that it did not convey much reality of the event, it got many facts very wrong and any Titanorak will know exactly what I mean. The only thing good about the film was that it was entertaining. It's just a shame that it got most of its facts wrong.

    The TV drama that concluded last night was a contrived pile of horse dung, again missing out key facts and making up some complete codswallop in the process. It was badly acted and badly written. Most of the poor souls who perished must be turning in their graves at such crap.
  • We watched a Nat Geo documentary (we get Canal +, a Spanish sat, channel) which was very interesting. The man who originally found the Titanic made the programme from the point of view of Belfast, where the Titanic was built and from where a group of select men who had worked on the ship went on its maiden voyage as the Guarantee Group. None of them survived, and eye witness accounts suggest that they were all working to the last trying to help others. Then we watched another documentary by a man who had researched all the weather conditions, logs from other ships etc. Both programmes well worth watching.
  • Anyone who has read Beryl Bainbridge's book, Every Man For Himself (published 1996), will know that much of Cameron's film came from there. It was almost like reading the book of the film. Although you might argue they both did the same research?

    On iPlayer last night I played the BBC's Titanic: A Commemoration in Music and Film. Had it on in the background while I worked.
  • Amazing to think how much money some people will be making from the Titanic disaster. Imagine how happy it's made James Cameron these last few weeks
  • [quote=BuickMackane]Imagine how happy it's made James Cameron these last few weeks [/quote]

    That's because people are daft enough to go see the movie again. And that's the thing about disasters - they're good moneyspinners. Of course, I wonder if the interest will fade when the old lady finally disintigrates within the next 20 years?
  • Not one minute has flickered on my Telly screen - total overkill...

    Call me boring if you must, but the whole story's been over-promoted & re-written so often, it's tedious - and as for the news programs showing pictures of weeping great-great-grand-nephews/nieces & the like...total drivel, considering there was never ever any chance of them meeting their ancestors had those ancestors even survived the sinking... Well, sorry, but it was just totally OTT, for me
  • [quote=Red]That's because people are daft enough to go see the movie again[/quote]
    All those involved in the film will be laughing at how easily-led and ignorant people can be.

    [quote=B L Zebub]the whole story's been over-promoted & re-written so often, it's tedious[/quote]

    Yep, totally agree. I've got no interest in it whatsoever. Titanic the film spoiled any interest I might've had in the event. And really, what am I going to learn from all these programmes? A ship hit an iceberg. I can imagine it just being the narrator saying 'It was the biggest maritime disaster of all time' over and over in lots of different ways, and that's the whole programme.
  • Can't remember what the programme was, but it was interesting. About the movement of the iceburg that Titanic hit. It was basically looking at iceburgs in a scientific way but tied into the Titanic thing.
  • Oh, is there something about the Titanic on the box?

    Learn summat new every day don't 'ees.
  • [quote=Carol]Can't remember what the programme was, but it was interesting. About the movement of the iceburg that Titanic hit. It was basically looking at iceburgs in a scientific way but tied into the Titanic thing. [/quote]

    That's another one I caught on the iPlayer.
  • May have been Horizon, or some programme like that.
  • Natural History? Wasn't Horizon.
  • And this programme I watched was talking about people robbing the grave.
    With the prices being fetched by the sale of a simple photo of one of the men who died, of course the wreck will be plundered.
    That shoe Carol saw on Mail Online is probably for sale as we speak.
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