Why You Should Go See Titanic 3D

Of all the films to receive harsh backlash in the years following their success, “Titanic” has probably suffered it the most. After its 1997 release, “Titanic” went on to win 11 Academy Awards and hit the billion-dollar mark at the box office, which earned it the title of highest grossing movie of all time until James Cameron’s “Avatar” was released in 2009. It was the world’s favorite film. People saw it two, three, four times in theaters, just to re-experience the ultimate visual spectacle.

In the 15 years that have passed since its original theatrical release, something has changed though. People have forgotten what it was about “Titanic” that made them spend precious time and money to see the movie multiple times. It’s not uncommon for someone to mention the movie in conversation only to be met with an eye-roll. Mind you, these are the same people that loved it when it first came out.

As one of the movies that I see being playing on TV nearly every single time I turn the television on, I think therein may lie the problem. People haven’t forgotten – at least they don’t think they have. “Titanic” is one of those movies that you feel like you remember every scene as if you just watched it yesterday: the “flying” scene, Jack drawing Rose, the sinking, old Rose throwing the Heart of the Ocean into the water. But if there is one film that is unfit for television, it’s “Titanic.” You may have watched part of it on TV last year while flipping channels, maybe you saw it in theaters so many times that you feel you need never see it again. Neither qualifies. Most people haven’t sat down and watched the movie, all 3 hours and 15 minutes of it, from beginning to end, in years – maybe since its 1997 release. It’s a big chunk of movie, so that’s not surprising. But the 3D re-release is a fleeting opportunity to see a film that is not only a pop culture phenomenon, but also one of the greatest disaster films ever made, on the big screen, the way it was meant to be seen, once again.


It’s hard to properly remember a movie when only watching random snippets at a time. You can watch those famous scenes on YouTube or TV a million times, and none of them will ever have the impact they do when watched all together, as one single entity. When going to see a movie in theaters, you’re committing to sit there and watch for a designated amount of time. With “Titanic,” you allow yourself to be reintroduced to the characters and the unforgettable love story. In recent years the romance aspect has been boiled down to little more than its iconic scenes. However when watched from the very beginning, it’s so evident what made Jack a character that girls all around the world fell in love with, and what made this a love story that won over everyone’s hearts. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jack with this soft, lighthearted quality that you rarely see in his current work. When they’re first getting to know each other you see the flirtatious chemistry budding. When Jack decides to give Rose the piece of wood to lay on when submerged in the freezing water at the end, you see the resolution in his eyes, that he has made the decision to save her instead of himself.

I’m not saying you should go see Titanic 3D because of the added dimension – I would be saying all of this even if it were being released without the 3D. Maybe it’s an incentive for fans to see it presented in a way they haven’t seen before. The 3D is certainly impressive, and completely in line with what we’ve come to expect from Cameron’s masterful use of the technology. It’s what I like to call “classy” 3D; it’s subtle and noninvasive, yet used to give the film some extra depth and oomph – as if “Titanic” needs anything extra to make it stand out.


“Titanic” gets a lot of heat for its amateur screenplay and less-than-stellar dialogue (written by Cameron), yet even so, “Titanic” is not a victim of its shortcomings; rather, it’s the product of a visionary filmmaker, one who defied the odds and managed to accomplish one of the most spectacular feats in filmmaking. While watching the sinking on the big screen again, all I could think to myself was, “this is why we go to the movies.” James Horner’s classic score combined with the images of the water gushing into the elevators, breaking open the windows, and people being thrown from the sinking ship in its final moments above water are unparalleled. Regardless of what kind of movies you like, it’s simply impossible to watch the final hour of “Titanic” and feel anything but your heart beating rapidly in your chest as goose bumps invade your arms.

Yet these memories seem to evade people. I can only tell people so many times that you truly don’t remember the grandeur and impact of “Titanic.” The emotion. The groundbreaking special effects (which still hold up incredibly well, even by today’s standards). You may think you remember, but I strongly suggest you take one final exhilarating sail aboard the Titanic before it’s too late.