Back to the Titanic

Always exciting to go back to the Titanic. A concise and interesting documentary, kept things on point. They even showed some original footage and pictures from 1912 and it was remarkable how they went searching for the suite of Benjamin Guggenheim and they had one of his descendants as part of the search. The work and modelling they did was great to show us more of what was happening. Enjoyed it.

Sadly, this is one of what I call the 'dunta-dunta' class of documenteries - in reference to the frantic drumbeats overwhelming the soundtrack, together with the turgid pauses, synth breaks, meaningless hyperbole and all the other desperate attempts a poor documentary makes to raise the sense of drama when there's not actually that much to say. Worse, they've skipped over any exciting angle they COULD have taken. Surely the primary value of the dive was to come up with an accurate and usable 3D model? Focus on that then. Or create a compelling narrative tied in with the history. Sadly all that potential gets lost in the sensationalist rubbish. No-one's going to learn much watching this.

There's not a lot new in this and the thing that bug me most was the way they kept making out it was "nearly 15 years since anyone went down" which is lies, as there was a dive done in 2012, and given this dive was done in 2019, thats only 7.

I was thrilled and happy to get to see this 2020 documentary titled "Back to the Titanic" made available by National Geographic.

And I must admit that this was definitely a documentary that was well-worth taking the time to sit down and watch, and it was also a documentary that was very much welcomed. The only downside to the documentary was that it was way, way too short. I could have spent hours perusing through footage of how the wreck of the majestic Titanic looked in 2020. And it was very fascinating to see the process of deterioration to the ship.

"Back to the Titanic" gives us some really great footage of what the wreck looked like in 2020. And the graphical presentation of the wreck that they made possible with this documentary was just spectacular.

Everyone is familiar with the tragic events of April 14th, 1912, so this documentary definitely is a monument of historic progress and gathering facts.

I can highly and warmly recommend that you find the time to sit down to watch "Back to the Titanic", if you have the chance to do so, especially if you have an interest in the ship or the events that transpired back in 1912.

My rating of "Back to the Titanic" is a seven out of ten stars. Just a shame that it was only 1 hour long - as it felt much shorter, and could have given so much more with more time and footage.

What we thought we'd see was Titanic's wreck. Instead, they repeat things we know already. Everything the voice over guy (whose voice doesn't belong in a documentary) says are things we've known since the late 90s. James Cameron has given us hours of incredible footage, these guys show us 4 minutes of the bow, some close up of some metal, and then it's all footage of either the guy in the sub, b rolls, reaction shots, cgi stuff.

The wreck looks exactly the same as it did in 1991. These guys keep saying "oh it's corroded!" Really Sherlock? It's a shipwreck.

The search for Guggenheim state room made me laugh. Who cares. There's a guy who's supposedly a descendant of the G man, and he's like "oh it's cool I'm standing where he last stood".

Boring.

"This is it, this is the state room right there" turn camera to: a piece of metal on the floor.

Boring.

All of it, boring.