Titanic: The Legend Goes On

Titanic: The Legend Goes On is an Italian-Spanish animated movie made in 2000 directed by Kim Lox and Camillo Teti and loosely based on the true events of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. Due to its incredibly insensitive nature, critics have considered this to be one of the worst animated films of all time, though not as bad as two other Italian films about the same disaster, The Legend of the Titanic and In Search of the Titanic.

Titanic: The Legend Goes On

Oh great, another Titanic adaptation that is incredibly insulting and lacks historical accuracy.

Genre:	Animated
Directed by:	Camillo Teti
Produced by:	Camillo Teti Gian Paolo Brugnoli Marco Scaffardi Jymn Magon
Written by:	Camillo Teti
Starring:	Lisa Russo Mark Thompson-Ashworth Gisella Mathews Kenneth Belton Gregory Snegoff
Distributed by:	Medusa Film
Release date:	September 15, 2000
Runtime:	82 minutes (uncut version) 70 minutes (edited version)
Country:	Italy Spain
Language:	Italian Spanish English

Plot

Love blossoms on board the ill-fated RMS Titanic between the upper-class Sir William and the blue-collar Angelica, who is hoping to find romance in America; several animal passengers, including groups of talking dogs, cats, and mice, are also on board looking forward to arriving in the New World.

Why We Are Going to Forget It

Similar to "The Legend of the Titanic," this film is an offensive and historically inaccurate portrayal of the actual event it depicts. Its juvenile tone, complete with talking animals and fantastical elements, along with its nonchalant writing, is highly inappropriate for an animated adaptation of such a somber real-life event.
- Also, just like "The Legend of the Titanic", this film, despite being based off of a historic tragedy, its title outright states that it's a "legend".
- Perhaps one of the worst examples of this is the fact that, much like the 1999 animated musical version of The King and I, any dark and mature elements from both the historical event and Cameron's 1997 film adaptation are completely glossed over in favor of sugar-coated replacements.
- The film opens with a rapping dog, which seems to serve no other purpose than to appeal to a younger audience.
- A terrier named Fritz performs a rap called "Party Time," a song infamous for its irrelevance to both the James Cameron source material and the film's narrative. It appears abruptly, without any context or explanation for his presence or motives. Moreover, the scene is glaringly anachronistic, featuring late 90s rap and attire that clearly did not exist in 1912.
The film barely has any originality whatsoever, as it largely rips off James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, with William and Angelica being discount store imitations of Jack and Rose, and it also shamelessly plagiarizes countless Disney films (e.g. the Evil Stepmother is basically Lady Tremaine from Cinderella and the two Dalmatians are Pongo and Perdita from 101 Dalmatians) and Don Bluth characters (e.g. Jeremy from The Secret of NIMH and the Mousekewitz family from An American Tail), and the Mexican mice are clearly more than "inspired" by Speedy Gonzales from Looney Tunes, amongst others. In short, the film's characters are blatant knock-offs from various animated properties.
- The subplot involving Angelica's search for her birth mother closely mirrors the storyline from Bluth's "Anastasia."
The animation is of poor quality, fluctuating between a rigid, constrained style and a bizarre, overly fluid motion, sometimes even within a single scene, resulting in erratic and unsmooth character movements.
- The color palette appears faded and is not visually appealing.
Laughably bad dialogue used in the English dubbing to the extent of obtaining small-scale memetic status, such as "If it hadn't been for you, I would now be in someone else's digestion!", along with "Pick up those bits of broken china at once!".
Bland, stiff, edgy voice acting from most of the cast, especially in the English dubbing.
An overly bloated cast of characters which, due to the film's convoluted plot, are granted barely any screen time beyond acting as plot utilities or displaying a handful of simplistic character gimmicks, leading to a set of characters alternating between forgettable and grating.
Numerous editing and animation errors in the movie (e.g. when the two robbers set off to attack the old woman, the movie goes pitch-black for a few seconds and the scene ends without explanation), leading to a shortage of exposition which renders many of the film's scenes lacking in pace and context, often to an unintentionally hilarious degree.
The main "couple" share 3 lines of dialogue and instantly know they're meant to be, solely on the basis that a loosely similar plot occurs in the James Cameron film.
The male love interest is incredibly creepy.
Several obnoxious cartoon sound effects throughout the movie that it even gives Golden Films' The Hunchback of Notre Dame (not to be confused with Disney's fantastic adaption), The Wild and The Magic Voyage a run for their money.
Largely forgettable music, aside from the infamous Rapping Dog song that achieved meme status in the early 2010s.
Way too much zany and slapstick style comedy for a film based on the Titanic disaster.
Numerous sub-plots that dilute the film's runtime to the extent where every single plot thread within the narrative is left underdeveloped and (at times) inconclusive.
No real villains, the closest we get is Angelica's stepmother and her two daughters.
The Stereotypical Mexican mice are undoubtedly even more offensive than the Siamese cats in both The Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp and even Speedy Gonzales from Looney Tunes (which ironically enough served as inspiration for the Mexican mice of this film).
A lot of the animation is blatantly reused, and it can loop over and over, further exposing the filmmakers' laziness and lack of budget. Examples include:
- Shots from the rapping dog song can be seen during the song sung by the Mexican mice.
- The scene when the ship busts open and the same scene of water bursting in plays four times in a row.
The ending is historically inaccurate and lacks sensitivity, portraying all Titanic survivors as living "happily ever after." It fails to acknowledge the individuals who perished in the sinking, including the 1,500 real-life passengers, and does not pay tribute to those lost, focusing instead on the survivors' happiness. Additionally, many actual survivors were traumatized by the disaster and grieved for their lost loved ones, a burden they carried for life. However, the characters in this portrayal seem unaffected by the tragedy, culminating in a fairy tale conclusion rather than an emotionally resonant one, unlike the ending of Cameron's 1997 film.

Redeeming Qualities

There are three good songs in the entire movie, "Holding Me" and "Lost in Each Other" (depending on whether you're watching the edited or uncut version) which, despite being obvious rip-offs of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", still sound pretty nice, and the uncut version's Mexican mice song is great, too.
This film has a somewhat better grasp of the historical event than The Legend of the Titanic. The movie stays true to the fact that the sinking was a tragic accident (with a brief scene during the climax actively depicting a child-friendly, if awkwardly executed, implication of the survivors' solemnity, at least before being undercut by the overly enthusiastic ending monologue), and not an intentional sinking like in The Legend of The Titanic. Also, it at least has the sense to imply that some people actually died, unlike the earlier Legend.
There is an uncut version of this flick and, while it still sucks, at least it doesn't try to make your brain explode from sheer confusion (despite the copious amount of loop lines).
The musical number "Party Time" (infamously sung by Fritz the Dog in rapping form) had a distinct "so-bad-it's-good" appeal, particularly when combined with the scene's blatant anachronisms and hallucinogenic rubbery animation.
While the animation is bad, the character designs look pretty good.

Reception

Unsurprisingly, the movie received negative reviews from critics and audiences alike for being historically inaccurate and insulting to the real life sinking of the Titanic ship and being a rip-off of the James Cameron film, as well as criticizing the animation, characters, and the songs. Linda Maria Koldau, author of The Titanic on Film: Myth versus Truth, describes the film as "a failed Disney imitation that excels in bad taste." In 2012, was the #1 lowest rated film on IMDb's Bottom 100 list. It is remembered nowadays for being reviewed by both Doug Walker (in his Nostalgia Critic character) and JonTron.

Trivia

The film was released in two versions, with the American version (which was redited down to 58 minutes with new music, added dialogue to silent scenes and cut scenes) being the most well known than its original uncut version. The English Dub of the uncut version won't resurface until years later.
Francesco Pezzulli, the official Italian voice of Leonardo DiCaprio, voices one of the main characters, William, who is based on Leonardo's character, Jack Dawson.
- Similary, Luigi Ferraro, the Italian voice of Jason Barry's character, also voices Kirk.
The director of this film, Camillo Teti, will later co-direct another animated film that received negative reviews in 2006 called Yo-Rhad - Un amico dallo spazio (Yo-Rhad - A Friend from Outer Space in English), which is his last known work as of now.
Jymn Magon, the creative consultant of this movie, was the creator of many Disney Afternoon shows, such as Ducktales, Darkwing Duck, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, as well as being the writer behind The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue while at MGM Animation, another movie starring anthropomorphic mice.
The infamous Rapping Dog song has since become an Internet Meme, as well being another example of the Big Lipped Alligator Moment.

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