Drain the Titanic

I really liked it. They didn't actually drain the sea. I don't remember much but it was just cool. I watched it for school. I liked seeing under the ocean. It looked really real. And the computer graphics were cool, too. --Cameron, age 8

Appreciate the team that has worked on the mission. Kudos to them.

A great story which is told in a most boring way possible.

The script is so repeatetive, I would be a millionaire by the end of the movie if I had gotten a dollar every time the narrator said "drained on the ocean floor", "never seen before", drain the water" Arghh.. Gave me headache.

There is some fascinating information in this documentary, but in about 45 minutes of documentary, there are only maybe 10-15 minutes of actual content. The information is heavily punctuated by repeated panning over the model of the wreck and the animation of "draining the sea floor", which of course, doesn't really happen. The narrator breaks from his narrative every few minutes to remind us how amazing it is that we are seeing the Titanic like never before. This is hyped up with dramatic music and sweeping views of the digital model . It extremely repetitive and left me waiting anxiously for more through the entire length of the film, but "more" was never delivered. So much filler, so little true content.

So much time is devoted to whether the ship broke apart at the surface or further down, and the show teases you it might be answered or given info to suggest a possible break up, but then all you get is some mysterious model about debris fields that never really is explained, video of stoic men looking at computers, some fancy graphics and no answer or data to back up an answer or model of the sinking. Then a blurb about what it might look like in the future and some stuff about preservation. Waste of time.

This fascinating documentary uses painstakingly detailed digital 3-D reconstructions of the Titanic's wreckage made from thousands of underwater photographs. The program's chief interest is that it provides clear views of entire sections of the ship that are impossible to see of the real ship because of the darkness of the water more than two miles below the ocean's surface. The digital images look very much like what one would expect the actual wreckage to look if the surrounding ocean could be drained away.

It's all very impressive, but the documentary's presentation has some irritating features. After explaining how the digital images were made, virtual cameras move past wreckage so rapidly it is difficult to take in details. The images would be far more interesting if the cameras were to linger over parts of the ship longer. For example, instead of showing the same rapid panning shots of the ship's bow repeatedly, it would have been better to use some of that time for much slower close-ups. It is also disappointing that the documentary provides almost no close-ups of the surrounding debris fields. What are all those large objects scattered around the ship's hull sections? Despite these reservations, the documentary is fascinating and well worth watching. Perhaps a future documentary will use the digital images to give us better views of the wreckage.