"I'm flying, Jack!" - Rose DeWitt Bukater, reciting the film's most iconic line
"I'm the king of the world!" - Jack Dawson, reciting
this tropers opinion on the film's most iconic (and ironic) line
The movie of
1997. It was a darling of most critics at the time, a commercial splash, won 11 Oscars including Best Picture, and quickly became a source of many
Stock Parodies. If you don't adjust for inflation, it's the highest-grossing movie ever and unlikely to be unseated anytime soon. Currently, the film is
facing a bit of a backlash, due to being rather schmaltzy, but it still has its fans. We're not going to get into that other than to say
Your Mileage May Vary.
In case you don't remember '97 or you were living in a cave at that time,
Titanic tells the story, in
Flashback, of the two fictional
Star Crossed Lovers Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater. Unfortunately, they both happen to aboard the ill-fated ocean liner of the title, which,
as we all know, struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in
1912. There's also a
Love Triangle involving Rose's evil
Disposable Fiancé Caledon "Cal" Hockley, who decides the best solution is to literally
Murder The Hypotenuse,
Jumping Off The Slippery Slope in the process. This more-or-less leads to the film's
Downer Ending.
Launched the careers of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
This film provides examples of:
- Auto Erotica (a thousand beds on board, and they consummate their love in the back of a car?)
- Bittersweet Ending (Jack freezes to death, but Rose meets him again when she finally passes.)
- Badass Well, in this tropers', opinion, the band members certainly deserve this, at least.
- Disposable Fiancé (Cal)
- Downer Ending (for most of the people on the ship of course)
- The Edwardian Era (1912 scenes)
- Flashback
- Foregone Conclusion (The ship sinks; you'll know this even if you're totally clueless about history as the sunken ruins are shown and discussed in the opening)
- Fake American (Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater)
- Follow The Leader (Pearl Harbor, which has a similar romance-against-epic-tragedy-in-the-early-20th-century concept)
- George Lucas Love Story (Some regard the fictional romance taking precedence over the suffering of everyone else as an excellent example of this)
- Gorgeous Period Dress (for the first class, at least)
- I Was Quite A Looker ("Wasn't I a dish?")
- It Has Been An Honor (The band)
- Its All Junk (The "Heart of the Ocean" now really is the heart of the ocean)
- Jerkass (Cal)
- Jumping Off The Slippery Slope (Cal)
- Karma Houdini (Cal, sort of - he lives through the sinking of the ship, but it's mentioned later on that he committed suicide when The Great Depression rolled around, making his eventual 'punishment' completely unrelated to his actions on the ship.)
- Love It Or Hate It (possibly one of the most decisive examples in movie history)
- Love Triangle (Jack, Rose and Cal)
- Melodrama, some would argue
- Murder The Hypotenuse (Quite literally, Cal's plan to get Rose back)
- The Nineties (1997 scenes)
- Pretty In Mink (This was likely more for historical accuracy than anything else. Also, a poster for "Ghosts of the Abyss" showed a woman wearing an ermine cape and muff.)
- Screw The Money I Have Rules (Take That, Cal!)
- She Cleans Up Nicely (applies more to Jack, but there you go.)
- Star Crossed Lovers (Jack and Rose)
- Tear Jerker (such as when the band starts playing)
- Timeshifted Actor (Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart as Rose)
- The Unfair Sex (It is, of course, perfectly okay for Rose to cheat on Cal.)
