Titan: The OceanGate Disaster

Netflix's documentary on the Titan submersible disaster is a gripping case study in hubris. Stockton Rush, the CEO of Oceangate, fancied himself a visionary in the mold of Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, but lacked any genius and judgment to match (and none of them have much charisma). What Rush didn't lack was arrogance: dismissing safety concerns, ignoring engineering fundamentals, and ultimately dooming himself and his passengers. The film makes a compelling, damning case that this was no freak accident but the result of the unchecked ego of a man who thought he could outwit physics and the immensity of the ocean. It's sobering and infuriating and worth a watch.

By the time we reach the end of TITAN, to see what the audience is waiting for... the death of the five passengers including infamous Stockton Rush... the documentary is over, which is very strange...

It's not that it seemed too short, because it's a good-enough runtime and definitely holds your attention... but there must have been lawsuits pending concerning the families of the people who died. With the exception of the daughter of Mr. Titanic (the one ringer on board who knows about the fateful ship, and who was used to legitimize things)...

Instead, TITAN deals with the many, many, many mistakes/misjudgements leading up to the tragedy: so that way they attempt to explain the ending with all the problems of the past... which is somewhat interesting but ultimately a cop-out...

Also, there has never been a scarier, more formidable noise than what the submarine was making as it went further underwater... It was like Satan using a pick-axe on someone's nerve-endings...

The fact that Oceangate founder/CEO Stockton Rush was able to con all these people into taking such risks is like some kind of unexplainable cult...

But even THAT aspect could have been delved into further: not necessarily the good/positive aspects of Rush, but the confidence he must have had that allowed the people to be conned in the first place (from workers to investors), and for so long: It must have been more than money that brainwashed these people... many of them scientists...

Instead he's a kind of nerdy impatient scientist instead of the mad scientist they're building-up... whenever he's interviewed it's a bit of a let-down...

Meanwhile, since the frame-story involves his former employees in court while delving into all the near-implosions and endless testing of the submersible, what could have been totally suspense-filled, isn't...

Except the scenes with actual footage of being underwater with Rush and his cohorts... from another famous wreck to The Bahamas... which has aspects of watching an underwater thriller, like The Abyss...

Speaking of, there should have been (more) footage of James Cameron (or perhaps interviews with him) because he was warning people before and after the tragedy, and is far more interesting than anyone interviewed here: he'd have made a perfect Van Helsing to Rush's bloodsucking murderer...

And it's very annoying and anti-climactic ending on the second-to-last run with the obnoxious "influencer" who resembles a superhero's boxer shorts... too much 11th hour time's spent on him and his fake crying-for-the-camera...

So when things sum up, they literally... sum up, and quickly... Probably because everything in this case is still in red-tape limbo...

So perhaps Netflix should have waited a few years to make this documentary... which means, they too, like Stockton Rush, basically jumped the gun on a creation that just wasn't ready.

I found the documentary excellent, great cinematography, good music, it's well organized and the understandably focused on Stockton Rush.

The documentary details how we got to this horrific implosion, exposing his stubbornness, his dishonesty, and his charisma despite his relative mediocrity.

We get a good perspective on his madness, his psychology, and keys moments of the "successes" he had until the inevitable bang.

It's indeed very interesting, but it's missing some of the expected results of the investigation. The financial aspect, for example; how dire were OceanGate's finances ? And how much pressure was he under to get paying customers ?

Anyway, good job overall...

I am sorry the submersible didn't implode when Rush was in it alone. He's obviously 100% responsible for the deaths of the customers. Despicable character.

I'm proud of the people who quit the company and spoke out. We are responsible for speaking up when people of authority overstep their bounds.

It was very nice to get the backstory of this catastrophe and see that it was entirely preventable if not for the arrogance of Stockton Rush. It's also interesting to see how he replaces the strong people with the yes men and yes women. I hope this is a cautionary tale to prevent this from happening again.

I enjoyed watching this documentary but the longer I watched, the more I got annoyed with Stockton Rush. There is zero doubt that his is the sole cause of those people loosing their lives. He let his Ego outweigh his common sense(if he even had any). He was an example of someone who is rich that would leverage his wealth and connections to get what he wanted or he would ruin someone's life if he didn't. He should have been the only one on that Sub when it imploded. There were problems all along the way and he kept ignoring them and wanting to push forward. If someone didn't agree with him he would blame them for something and then fire them.