Titanic – The Jack Edit

February 17, 2009 @ 1:53 pm

This was a good movie and an excellent edit, if not perfect. Though I really can’t compare it to the original version, because last I saw it was nearly ten years ago – and what I remembered from the movie was almost all in this cut, except Old Rose beginning and ending (and some more deaths when the ship is sinking), so I can’t say how much is changed. Apparently quite much.

There were, however, two things I didn’t like. Firstly, the iceberg comes and goes very swiftly. Without showing the iceberg before hit, or any try for an evading maneuver, one might think this is only some first scrape foreshadowing the real iceberg still in the coming. Not much more would be needed, but something that establishes the threat. Without such, we slide from “no danger” to “we’re sinking” a little too little hassle. The material doesn’t support the way in which the viewer isn’t given clearer hint of the coming doom very well, even if that’s the way it was for the people on the ship. And this, imo, stands still even as there’s probably no single sane person on the planet who wouldn’t know how a story about Titanic would be ending. Otherwise, I thought the “catastrophe aspect” was handled very well. Though they were interesting in the original edition, to tell the central story of Jack & Rose no more was needed to show of the fates of the other passengers and crew.

Finally, the last dining hall chase/shootout between Rose’s fiance’s bodyguard, what ever his name was, and Jack & Rose… It felt already too repetitive and added nothing new to the stew. What’s more: As the diamond doesn’t matter much in this edit, Old Rose and all being cut, it’s just tad strange to make so much of it in that scene, when its meaning in the plot – to frame Jack of the theft – has already gone. And then its final outcome is left completely unknown, but hinted at. One can suspect it was still in Rose’s pocket when she was saved, but in the story of Jack & Rose it shouldn’t matter. If after the end of the movie the viewer is wondering is the diamond in Rose’s pocket or not, he/she has quite missed the mood.

November 17, 2008 @ 3:45 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

September 11, 2008 @ 2:17 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

August 28, 2008 @ 7:52 pm

Watched this last week, in good company.

Overall a brilliant piece of editing. The changed perspective really makes for a different movie. Good concept that works all the way. I still had a few issues with it.

The scene where Jack first sees Rose is a good one. But right after this comes her almost-suicide. This feels a bit off to me, he sees her and right after she tries to kill herself. It just feels like a piece of a bad movie script…
I would rather have had it so that Jack meets her for the first time there at the back of the boat. But that scene when he sees her is really good! Arg. Hmm. maybe some other scene could be placed in between these two?

I like your removal of the first kiss! Now it is postponed until after the painting, and it really works well, I thought it was a better first kiss than in the original! The GF was surprised that it was gone though, but not overly annoyed or anything.
But, right after their now first kiss there is a sound that feels out of place as the scene changes. I was jolted out of the movie a little bit, and that was not a good place to be taken out of it, with all those emotions running high. Went back and listened to that noise again…I might have overreacted the first time. But it happened.

And the sinking. It just goes on and on and on. The movie is much shorter now and the sinking takes ages in the original movie, now it’s a really major part of the total playtime. I get bored with it. Panic and despair, yes yes. This is more of an observation on something I would have tried to portray differently, but need not be a bad thing for people in general.

Final grade?
Great concept. Smooth editing of both video and audio (I had no problems with that horn in the beginning).
It works well for plot, but I have a few issues with the dramatic pacing in parts (as commented above).

I’ll go all the way, with a green light from the GF, and give this

5/5

Update sep 9 2012

With the 10 grade scale, I'm moving this to a 9 for enjoyment. And adding some other ratings :)

downloaded that a long time ago and forgot the review:

This edit is a very interesting take on Titanic and I was amazed how well the added scenes compensated the lack of Rose-scenes. We get every explanation we need from the scenes with jack and the story has no holes – of course Rose’s character becomes less complex than in the original since we don’t know about all the stuff that’s going on, but on the other hand now the story tells how a “true survivor” had an impact on a person that was unaware of her potential and unaware of the happiness of life – so in a way even though Rose’s arc is reduced a lot of the powerful emotion is still there because of the powerful performances.

It’s until the sinking ship where the editing becomes a little weird and you can clearly hear music passages getting overlaid to avoid rapid audio shifts, still the whole rhythm of a lot of scenes gets lost since this edit focuses solely on Jack and Rose and while I understand that because of that all the other characters are cut down to their interactions with the couple there are a lot of great scenes gone – just outside shots of the people looking at the Titanic, the sad picture of the floating women in the flooded room, the whole scene where the band plays “nearer my god to thee” – it just hurts to know those are gone, still I understand boon’s reasoning for cutting them in order to achieve the edit

the entertainment is still in titanic, it is faster than the original film, there are no plotholes and i had a nice time watching this:

8/10