The Dark Mystery Behind The Titanic Phenomenal Movie

Illustration of the sinking of the Titanic (doc. Wikimedia commons)

JAKARTA - On December 19, 1997, Titanic opened in theaters for the first time. Released in conjunction with these major films, Titanic managed to make a profit of 3 million US dollars more in the first week of broadcast.

The film went on to break box-office records, turning Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio into megastars. Titanic won 11 Academy Awards in 1998. This James Cameron directed film has grossed over US $ 2,187,463,944 to date.

Citing History, Saturday 19 December, critical responses to the film were divided. Lots of positive reviews, but some critics praised the visual effects and action sequences. But critics also pointed out the flaws of the screenplay. In one particularly memorable passage, Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film Titanic "smelled falsehood or even less original."

Cameron echoed the dialogue from Leonardo DiCaprio's character on Titanic's "I'm the king of the world!" After receiving the Oscar for Best Director. When accepting the Best Picture award, James Oscar was a little more reserved, asking for a moment of silence to remember the more than 1,500 people who drowned in the Titanic tragedy.

The conspiracy theory of the RMS Titanic

The storyline of Titanic is inspired by the tragedy of the sinking of the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic in 1912. Citing the Britanica page, the RMS Titanic, a British luxury passenger ship, sank during its maiden voyage en route to New York from Southampton, England. The tragedy is known to have killed around 1,500 passengers and crew.

Not only did it produce films and research, the sinking of the RMS Titanic also gave birth to conspiracy theories. One "craziest" theory holds that the RMS Titanic never sank.

This theory begins with the fact that a ship called the Olympics was damaged while sailing from Southampton, England to New York in September 1911. The ship had to return to the Harland and Wolff shipping dock in Belfast for repair. The company fixes the Olympics and sails to New York and back. The ship returned to Belfast for further repairs in March 1912, a few weeks before Titanic set sail.

Conspiracy theorists claim that some say the Olympics were badly damaged to make a profit. At some point, he exchanged it for the Titanic to purposely dispose of the damaged ship, rake in insurance money and in the process kill countless people.

In addition, this theory also says that Titanic's insurance was insufficient to cover Olympic losses. As J. Kent Layton wrote in Conspiracies at Sea, "the founders of the conspiracy turned to its financial benefits."

illustration of the sinking of the Titanic

Another myth states that a Catholic from Harland and Wolff, the company that helped build the Titanic, felt distressed because the ship number 3909 04, He assumed the number means 'NO POPE' or 'no Pope' when seen in the mirror. He felt that the number was bad luck that predicted the ship's destruction.

This response was refuted by the Titanic historian Walter Lord. He said he received letters from people in Ireland telling the 'No Pope' story that started in the mid-1950s. However, no such number was attached to the Titanic.

The number painted on the ship is 401 and the number from the Titanic Board of Trade is 131,428. Even if the numbers are real, none of the Catholic workers in Harland and Wolff are panicking. The company then fired Catholic employees in the late 1800s. In the twentieth century, Harland and Wolff had a reputation for employing only Protestants, says Annie Caulfield in the book Irish Blood, English Heart, Ulster Fry.