My Favorite YouTube Video: Titanic 2: The Sequel

I loved the movie Titanic. I think I saw it 4 or 5 times in the theater - something I rarely do. In fact, I rarely see a movie once in the theater. The romance was timeless - literally - although Rose did go on to find love again, Jack was always in her heart. I loved the perfect casting of so many characters. For instance, Eric Braeden, better known as Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless, was perfect as John Jacob Astor. He does upper upper class so well.

So many of the actors were cast not only for their acting abilities but for their canny, or uncanny, resemblance to the people they portrayed. Kathy Bates as the Unsinkable Molly Brown is another fine example.

That being said, my interest has waned over the years. I have not watched the video in years and I never bothered to buy the DVD. I still cannot stand the scene where Jack teaches Rose to spit - but I think that has a lot to do with my twitchy gag reflex.

Nevertheless, I was quite intrigued when "Titanic 2" showed up as a thread on a message board I frequent. I checked out the link and, sure enough, there it was.

The official website for the video is at www.robertblankenheim.com/, including a version with commentary by the creator, and the video is found on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch and many other YouTube pages.

The creator has taken scenes not only from Titanic, but many of Leonardo Di Caprio's other movies. I do not claim to be a Di Caprio fan like some and so have not seen all of the movies in question, but I can identify some of them. The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy are two that I do recognize (both good movies, though as is often the case the books are better) and the scenes from those movies are well used.

I have read elsewhere that The Beach is also one of the movies that is used in the sequence, but I have done my best to block out that experience.

The 'trailer' starts with scenes from Titanic as the boats search for people, including Rose, to rescue. We see her let Jack go to the depths, choosing to let him go and save her own life since his is already over.

We jump to the present day with video from Titanic and, I believe, at least one other movie to see the treasure hunters searching the wreckage for the "Heart of the Ocean" dropped over the rail by Rose. Imagine their surprise when they find Jack frozen in a block of ice.

Jack is unfrozen - a la Mel Gibson in Forever Young or Brendan Fraser in Encino Man - and confined to a prison. With scenes from Con Air (a non-Di Carpio film) as well as others, we see him escape his prison and head into the present day world. The Fugitive is also given a nod in the chase scenes.

He finds a recent article of the last Titanic survivor meeting her ultimate fate - death at 102. He reads newspapers detailing the last almost 100 years, including the atomic bombs that ended WWII. He learns computers, apparently, and Google searches for Rose DeWitt Bukkater only to be told that she's dead.

While he tries to stay away from those who would do him harm, it appears the entire force of the U. S. military and other organizations are sent to find him. He attends a production of Titanic: The Musical (which I have seen and it was quite good) while attempting to lose himself in the big city. It appears that later he is captured and, while in a cage, put on display as "The Frozen Man of the Titanic", in a way reminiscent of how the traveling fairs of more than a century ago would display the bearded lady or Siamese twins.

He finds Rose's tombstone, with her 'full' name on it - Rose DeWitt Bukkater Dawson Calvert.

This video takes a stab at all of the hoopla surrounding the movie when it first came out - the absolute obsession that many people had, and there were many 'worse' than I was.

Some of the comments indicate that people would actually like to see this particular movie made, which absolutely astounds me.

That being said, I laughed the whole way through at the idea of something that, to me at least, seems absolutely ludicrous. The idea that Jack was alive when he sunk to the depths of the ocean and survived in a block of ice and was not crushed by the weight of over a mile of water is just beyond what is remotely reasonable. I know many movies are based on unreasonable beliefs or expectations (any super hero movie, for example), but this one is just too much of a stretch for me.

I have recommended this video to a number of friends and they have found it as fun as I did.