Reflections on the Reading and Viewing

Waterworld

Titanic

 
My little brother who is not so little anymore loves the movie Waterworld, until today I have never viewed the entire movie.  I rented it from blockbuster and watched it from beginning to end.  Being perfectly honest, I did not enjoy the movie until I made the attempt to remember back to 1995.  After I thought about the film circa 1995, I had a different view.  Ten years ago this film was probable rather advanced for its time.  I did not think the acting was all that great, the characters lacked zest which would have kept the audience awake.  I like Kevin Costner but he was more “dry” in this film than his others such as The Sixth Sense.  I thought the ending was well done, obviously more realistic.  I think this was probably my favorite part, the “happy ending;” The little girl and her mother found land and Costner love struck returned to his post at sea.  I am not quite sure why I liked the ending, one would think that Costner would stay and begin a new life but he choose otherwise, maybe that is why I liked the ending, it was different than what might have been expected. 

 
Moving onto Titanic the funny thing is I remember seeing this movie with my best friend, in high school.  I can say I genuinely like this movie even though it has a tragic ending for the love affair between Jack and Rose.  The special effects were much more advanced and I found them realistic.  However, the actual plot to the story was most likely unrealistic, a third class citizen finding his way to the upper class was probably not going to happen during the time frame of the movie.  All technicalities set aside, I was able to see the big budget film in Titanic more than Waterworld.  It seemed as though Titanic took more time to create and no detail was left undone.  The concept of creating one big “blockbuster” rather than man small grossing films was obvious.  Titanic had a ton of press surrounding its arrival to the big screen.  Cameron was all over the news with his “vision” of recreating the Titanic’s demise.  I remember watching a special on how the set was created, the actors were really swimming in water as the scenes of sinking were played out.  I find comparing Waterworld to Titanic like trying to say an apple is an orange.  These two films are completely different although they share the same basic concept, forbidden love and the ocean.  I found the comment on made in our text unfortunate but true, “Perhaps it was fortunate that Waterworld, another epic adventure-romance staged on the open seas, had beaten it to the post.  It go the flak and Titanic got the plaudits and the financial returns”(Allen, 50).

 
As far as the reading goes, I did enjoy this chapter more that the last, I liked reading about production cost.  I found it fascinating how much money certain films required to make.  After the cost, I thought it was interesting how many films made no profit.  I am making a general connection between what I read and what I see in films.