Film Theory: Titanic is about Time Travel... No REALLY!

one silver lining to fewer movies coming

out this year a chance to theorize about

some of the best classics of yesteryear

take for instance the hottest movie from

when i was in middle school

titanic it's got everything you'd hope

for in a summer blockbuster iconic lines

romance time travel wait time travel

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hello internet welcome to film theory

the show where i'll never let go i'll

never let go

of theories about movies that were

released before most of the people

watching this video were born

seems like every year i have a good

excuse to use this tweet

can't do this anymore and who boy was

2020 the peak year to exemplify that

feeling

so instead this holiday season i wanted

to take us all on a quick trip

back in time to the year 1997.

things were just simpler back then games

had just started breaking out into the

third dimension

it was literally impossible to be on the

phone and on the internet at the same

time and there were only three star wars

movies it was also a time where i owned

zero pairs of jeans it's not to say that

jeans weren't commonly available there

was just a period of time in my life

where i thought it was a good idea to

wear suit pants but anyway it is hard to

state

how big of a movie james cameron's

titanic was back in 1997. when this

thing was released titanic was the most

expensive movie ever made but it also

became the highest

grossing movie ever made being the first

film to ever break the one billion

dollars earned at the box office mark

and remember we're talking about 1997

money here

and it stayed on top of that leaderboard

until a different james cameron movie

about weird blue aliens came along to

beat it it has the record of being

nominated for the most oscars

winning the most oscars the theme song

my heart'll go on was the most played

song on the radio for 10

straight weeks which honestly in my

memory feels too low because you could

not step

into a circuit city in the late 90s and

not hear that song and even though

titanic runs at a hefty

three hours and 14 minutes which fun

fact was a very specific time because it

was the exact time it took the ship to

sync in real life it's also the digits

of pi

people still went to see it in the

theaters over and over and over again

even though there were no super villains

in it unless of course you count the

iceberg hashtag historical spoilers my

point is that titanic was a

dominating cultural force and i get that

this channel tends to work best when i

focus on animated stuff and superheroes

but

man this is a movie that we need to talk

about and it's not like i haven't been

asked to either i get a lot of requests

to cover whether leonardo dicaprio's

character of jack could have fit on the

floating rubble that saved his

girlfriend rose but i've shied away from

that theory because one

mythbusters already did a deep dive into

the topic i've watched enough episodes

of deadliest catch to know that when you

plunge yourself into cold water without

a survival suit you're gonna freeze to

death

pretty darn soon but also number two the

question is missing the point entirely

jack had to die jack wanted to die

because jack is a time traveler i know i

know that sounds

crazy but it's true jack on the titanic

is a time traveler who was there on the

boat to make sure that the titanic

sank and if you think that's a hot take

just you wait cause this episode is

gonna get steamier than the window of

jack and rose's make-out mobile so put

on your life jackets theorists cause

today we're plunging into the icy

iceberg infested waters of titanic's

time travel

now in order to follow this theory and

several of the references i just made to

titanic you need to have a good idea of

how the movie goes so here's a quick and

spoiler heavy recap for you

in the 1990s a team of scientists is

excavating the wreckage of titanic

a massive passenger ship which crashed

85 years before

during their search they find an old

brand unsafe drawing of a lady named

rose wearing a necklace that contains

a massive diamond named the heart of the

ocean and as luck would have it she's

still alive and can tell him the story

of the titanic's cursed voyage from

there most of the rest of the movie just

boils down to rose telling her tale

how she boarded the titanic with her

rich fiance cal who is just

the worst human being and how to get out

of her miserable relationship she

decided to jump

overboard to kill herself however as

she's about to do it she's spotted by

jack a poor third class passenger who's

only on the titanic because he won a

ticket in a poker game

jack is charming enough that it makes

rose not want to die and it doesn't take

long for her to realize

that she likes jack's nude illustrations

and below deck drinking parties a whole

heck of a lot more than her fiance's

misogyny then the boat hits a huge ice

cube and breaks in half there aren't

enough lifeboats for everybody so rose

ends up floating on a piece of debris

while jack

chills out in the water literally it

turns out submerging yourself in icy

water is bad for you so jack freezes to

death while rose is rescued when one of

the lifeboats turns around and picks her

up at the end of her life she dumps the

heart of the ocean back into the sea

because um

because uh it's a symbol or something of

her

love of jack and then she dies cause she

real old the end now titanic as a whole

is an entertaining love story and it has

the added bonus of leonardo dicaprio

chasing after a young woman

just like in his real life only this

time it's age appropriate but what isn't

as immediately apparent about this story

is that

jack isn't just a poor third class

passenger jack

is a time traveler specifically on the

boat to complete

a mission oh yeah now we're getting into

the crazy pills territory of this theory

but it's not crazy at all when you think

about the things that

jack says that no one from 1912 could

possibly know

let's look at a few examples as he's

freezing to death in the north atlantic

jack accurately predicts rose's fate

you're gonna die an old lady

warm in her bed all right all right that

one's a little bit tongue-in-cheek it's

a last-minute pep talk as you're on the

verge of death no problem but how about

one of the very first things that jack

mentions to rose when he discovers her

dangling over the railing of the ship i

remember when i was a kid

me and my father we went ice fishing out

on lake with soda seems plausible enough

right

nothing out of the ordinary there well

this conversation between jack and rose

is happening in

april of 1912 but lake wisoda is a

man-made lake which was created between

1915

and 1917. even if jack is lying about

the memory there's no way that he could

know the name of a lake that didn't

exist yet

and this also isn't the only time it

happens he does it again when he's

telling rose about their imaginary trip

to the santa monica pier

ride on the roller coaster till we throw

up not necessarily the most

charming pitch for a date but that's

missing the point he's referring to the

blue streak racer roller coaster which

wasn't on the santa monica pier until

1917

and it's not just things that jack says

either when he and fabrizio are rushing

to board the titanic we see fabrizio

carrying this bag

that bag is called a moose sack and

here's where i'll pause moment to let

you giggle about that and also give you

a moment to subscribe to the channel

help push us over the 10 million

subscriber mark we good

alright so that rucksack became popular

after its initial use as a pack for the

swedish military in world war

ii starting in 1939. even if jack had

been guessing about future roller

coasters and man-made lakes how on earth

does he have a physical item that wasn't

produced until

27 years after he died unless

he's hopping timelines how does jack

have this power

why would he go back in time and the

most important question of all

why did he choose that haircut if he was

trying to blend into the scenery in

1912.

now hold on you stalwart advocates of

occam's razor are probably saying isn't

there a simpler explanation here that

rose is just

making jack up after all as one of the

researchers mentions to rose at the end

of the movie

we never found anything on jack there's

no record of him at all

but as rose says there shouldn't be

records of him because jack never

purchased his own ticket which he didn't

he won them playing poker in a bar

five minutes before the ship left all

the more reason the dude is a time

traveler leaves no trace of his

existence

gets on the boat via a fluke chance of

luck right before it takes off and let's

be honest if rose were making jack up

who drew the sexy time picture of her

that they found in the safe he

definitely existed and he definitely is

a time traveler heck

if you need further proof look no

further than the movie's director james

cameron

writer and director of iconic science

fiction films like aliens the abyss

avatar elita battle angel mastermind

behind other time travel classics like

the terminator and terminator 2.

look at the dude's entire filmography

everything is sci-fi

and action you know the one movie that

just doesn't make sense

titanic until you consider that it's

low-key a sci-fi

time travel movie so whether you buy

into that or not just go with me on this

why why would a time traveler go back to

the titanic

just have a fling with this rich girl

only to die in the end and why wouldn't

he choose to

i don't know save the freaking boat if

he knew what was coming well you see one

thing that's undeniable is that jack

saving rose

changes the course of history if jack

doesn't see rose stepping over the rail

and she actually jumps the titanic

doesn't sink consider this once her

fiance cal or her mother notices that

she's missing

they'd report it to the crew at which

point standard procedure is to turn the

boat around and

attempt a search and rescue but the

titanic is a big ship that you can't

just throw in reverse so in order to go

back and search for rose they'd likely

need to make what's called a williamson

turn which is a teardrop

shaped maneuver that large ships use to

reverse course and requires a

significant

detour and then there's the actual

search what matters here isn't whether

the search and rescue is successful what

matters is the change of timing

changing the course of the ship alone is

time consuming the official inquiry into

the crash

found that it took over 30 seconds and

nearly half a kilometer for the ship to

turn

22 and a half degrees in an attempt to

avoid the iceberg so doing a full 180

degree loop is gonna take several

minutes

the ship then has to retrace its path

back once they discover rose is missing

and then there's the time of the actual

search and rescue

it's impossible to come up with an exact

figure of how much of a delay rose

jumping overboard would cause but if

we're considering the bare

minimum of 15 minutes to turn the ship

around and go back to the point of

rose's disappearance a

shockingly cursory 30-minute search and

then another 15 minutes to get back on

course

we're looking at at least an hour of

delay which again

realistically i think it would have been

much longer than that even one

hour though changes history because

icebergs travel in the water on average

about 0.7 kilometers every hour

and often faster than that depending on

the current so it's safe to say that the

iceberg which sank the titanic in real

life would have been

thousands of feet away if the titanic

had been delayed by an hour

or more with no iceberg to hit the ship

now enters new york harbor safely and

rose's death

ends up saving 1500 lives suck on that

butterfly

effect ashton kutcher so then jack was

real but also a time traveler who

saved rose to make sure that 1500

other innocent people would die why

would he travel back in time to ensure

the destruction of the boat rather

than prevent it well maybe it's not that

simple maybe jack dawson was sacrificing

the 1500 lives lost on the titanic to

save

a million lives and preserve the course

of history hear me out on this one let's

say the titanic hadn't sunk

rose jumps overboard the ship is delayed

it misses the iceberg and the titanic is

now the new fad in transatlantic travel

it travels back and forth between new

york and southampton carrying

thousands and thousands of passengers

until one day in 1914 or 1915

it's torpedoed and sunk by a german

submarine

killing the thousands of people on board

now while that might seem like it's

coming out of nowhere like it is

completely random

we actually have ourselves a historical

comparison in may of 1915 the british

passenger ship lusitania was sunk

by a german u-boat killing over a

thousand people

including 128 americans and the

lusitania was attacked

just off the southern coast of ireland

which is right on the route titanic was

taking between southampton

and new york so we know that the german

navy would have been

in the area with an opportunity to sink

the titanic now in 1915 the united

states was neutral in the recently

started world war one though they were

helping to supply the british using

ships like the lusitania to do so but

germany declared the waters around the

united kingdom and ireland a war zone

and while it's speculation to say that

they would have torpedoed the titanic

let's just say that their history of

being perfectly honorable in world wars

wasn't exactly stellar the sinking of

the lusitania raised anti-german

sentiment among americans but the us

still stayed out of the war until 1917

as part of a surge that ultimately won

the war for the allies but if it had

been the titanic rather than the

lusitania

there would probably have been many more

americans on board and if there were no

war material on board the unprovoked

nature of the attack would have been too

egregious for president woodrow wilson

to keep the us

out of the war after all history has

shown us that american sentiment can

turn to war when it perceives an

unprovoked attack against the country

like pearl harbor the sinking of the

main

or entering the war in iraq so the

titanic sinking via iceberg

kept us out of world war 1 maybe so what

big deal the us was instrumental in the

allied forces winning the war so

why would it matter well it's true the

u.s was mostly successful in world war

one but most historians agree that

joining world war one in its early

stages say 1914 or 1915

rather than when we actually entered in

1917 would have been disastrous for the

united states the standing army of the

us in 1915 was smaller

and less experienced than the forces

from the major players in world war one

but also smaller and less experienced

than the forces of bulgaria

and greece the main opponent of the

united states in the war

germany had an army 20 times the size of

the us's at that point to position the

united states as an international power

many american politicians led a campaign

known as the preparedness movement in

the early days of world war one to

increase the size of the military

train them more thoroughly and invest in

updates to equipment and machinery the

gradual onset of this program proved

useful for the us in the later days of

the war but if the u.s had entered the

war in its early stages it's likely the

preparedness movement would have enacted

their plan to draft 600

000 young men annually and send them to

the front lines immediately without

adequate time to prepare them

proper equipment to send them to battle

with and only rudimentary scouting of

the war front in western europe american

casualties likely would have skyrocketed

as world war 1 played out in history the

us lost approximately 116

000 men in the last stages of the war if

the u.s had joined earlier though with

mobilized but untrained troops fighting

in the trenches it's likely that that

number of casualties would have been

closer to austria-hungary's 1.1

million deaths france's 1.4 million or

germany's

whopping 2 million heck the war may have

even been

lost as american troops and supplies get

burned out early rather than giving the

allied forces a late game boost to carry

them over the victory line

so let's take that all back to titanic

though jack's decision to save rose

caused the titanic to sink and cost

1500 people their lives he may have done

it to save the united states from a

timeline that would have cost them

over 1 million lives and with that kind

of decimation

who knows how the u.s turns out for the

remainder of the 20th century

maybe americans never land on the moon

never become world leaders in

information technology or worst of all

never develop the world's premier film

market that can afford to fund a 200

million

movie to give leonardo dicaprio his big

break that's right friends leonardo

dicaprio's character is a time traveler

who made sure the titanic

sinks to prevent an alternate history

where the career of actor leonardo

dicaprio

never exists but hey that's just a

theory a film theory and

cuts

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