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Raise the Titanic: Refloated

ParanoidAndroid

ParanoidAndroid

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Producer Lord Lew Grade’s attempt to start a film franchise based off the techno-pulp thriller novels by Clive Cussler (featuring his character Dirk Pitt) was a dismal flop, he later noted “It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic”. The story is bogged down by some grinding dialogue and limp sideplots, but also features decent cinematography, excellent effects and model work as well as lovely music by John Barry. The performances are decent overall, with the great Alec Guinness appearing for a few minutes, so I was convinced on first viewing that a better film lay hidden within, waiting to be discovered.

The aim of this edit is pretty much to simplify the story as much as possible in order to keep the pace up and the viewers interested. As of now about half an hour has been removed, taking away almost everything not directly connected to the salvage operation, most significantly Dirk’s ex (who is now seeing his project partner) and a Soviet espionage plot that goes nowhere interesting (in the words of Roger Ebert, the “The Girl and The Russians”).

Hope to have ready in a few weeks time, need to decide if a couple of short scenes ought to be kept and want to work a little more on tidying up some of the audio transitions before watching through again.
 
Nice! I've always thought this was indeed a collection of great model shots surrounded by a very dull movie, so I'm up to finding out if you can make it exciting!
 
Visited St Ives today, where a few minutes of the film takes place. The only shooting location I know of that I can travel to fairly easily, the scene is the one where Dirk Pitt (Richard Jordan) and John Bigalow (Alec Guinness) talk about the latter’s experiences, first on Smeaton's Pier and then at the Sloop Inn, both places seeming to me to be preserved more or less as they appeared during filming in the late seventies.
 
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If anybody wishes to preview a workprint version just PM me, it still needs a little fine tuning (and want to have a crack at livening up the image) but think I am at the stage where feedback would be useful.

Much the same as described above so runs a comparatively brisk 84 minutes, changes include:
  • Removed opening montage of real-life Titanic under construction, think that it should not be revealed so soon (and to reduce the number of times the main theme is used, 4 by my count in the original and 3 here)
  • Removed model shot of sunken Titanic (for same reason as above) so the title card now opens onto black and fades over helicopter shot of "Siberia"
  • Cut scene with Soviets between Pitt rescuing the mining engineer and him meeting Seagram and Sandecker at the airport
  • Cut Seagram meeting and later fishing with Dana Archibald, scene in car fades to that of them discussing the Hobart file
  • Cut Pitt meeting Archibald after he gets out of his car
  • Cut Pitt's "We'll see" just before Sandecker arrives to tell them if the project is going ahead
  • Cut from Sandecker announcing "We're in business." to Pitt giving the briefing, skipping the scene in the where Pitt and Seagram meet with Walker
  • Faded from second establishing shot of ships over the dive site to Deepquest, cutting shots of the ship's crane
  • Cut shots of subs surfacing as Pitt arrives in the helicopter
  • Removed latter part of Pitt and Walker talking, no Soviet ship is sighted and discussed
  • Cut section of underwater activity, less time between Starfish getting order to descend and reaching depth
  • Cut several scene after one where the cornet is examined (Soviets plotting, discussion of strange "intereference" and Seagram on deck with the underwater light), fades straight to subs
  • Cut scenes with Archibald and Soviets: now Titanic is found, TV announcement is made (cutting off at "We don't know"), the press conference takes place and we then fade into montage of preparations for the raising operation without seeing Sandecker going outside and being accosted by reporters asking about byzanium
  • Overlaid trimmed montage of hydrazine tanks (with reduced opacity) on top of earlier one of lights being dropped down, removing scenes of and discussion of the spy
  • Removed scene of Soviets arriving (via a Huey of all helicopters) on Titanic after it is raised, now goes straight from Pitt hoisting the flag to the tugs pulling away
  • Trimmed Sandecker's explanation of why he is glad not to have found any byzanium
  • Trimmed shot of Sandecker walking away, felt like it went on a bit long
I hope any viewer would find this take a bit less of a drag than the original, though it is still by no means an insightful tale of the human condition! For anybody seeking more Alec Guinness in (somewhat more introspective) Cold War-themed stories, look no further than his turns as George Smiley in the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People miniseries from 1979 and 1982.
 
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Richard Jordan (as Dirk Pitt, left) and Alec Guinness (as John Bigalow, right) walking into The Sloop Inn, as filmed in the late seventies...

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...and as seen a few weeks ago.

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Congrats on getting it released on the main database, seeing raise the titanic of all things on there cought me out of left field i half expected to be the only one on the site to know that movie even existed
You aware of the Deleted Prologue to this movie whose footage was reused in an episode of Voyagers? theres an old video from 2009 that tried to reconstruct how it might have looked like, figure you might find it at least mildly interesting
 
freemanforgothispassword said:
Congrats on getting it released on the main database, seeing raise the titanic of all things on there cought me out of left field i half expected to be the only one on the site to know that movie even existed
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Didn’t know myself until a couple of months ago, saw it and thought that an attempt at editing might make a nice diversion from another project I have in the works!
 
freemanforgothispassword said:
You aware of the Deleted Prologue to this movie whose footage was reused in an episode of Voyagers? theres an old video from 2009 that tried to reconstruct how it might have looked like, figure you might find it at least mildly interesting
Click to expand...
Many thanks for letting me know, was not aware that the material had been repurposed, never heard of Voyagers before either! Would have been nice if any of the cut footage was included on the blu-ray though I admit that I probably wouldn’t use it, took off the photo montage and shot of the wreck at the start so we discover the ship as the main characters do.
 
I am also a fan of the original movie. A while back I edited improved English subtitles for it. I've reedited the subtitles to fit your fan edit, which I haven't seen yet but seems to me an excellent idea. I also thought the subplots dragged and were unnecessary. The subtitles for your fan edit are on Subscene.com under "Raise the Titanic". I tried to post a link directly to the subtitles but apparently that's not allowed.
 
@Blackhawk , great that you made subtitles! Always a good thing, I wish all fanedits had them.

Instead of posting links, you can PM the faneditor (you may have to zip the .SRT file to be accepted as attachment). Then @ParanoidAndroid can include that subtitle file with the edit.
 
lapis molari said:
@Blackhawk , great that you made subtitles! Always a good thing, I wish all fanedits had them.

Instead of posting links, you can PM the faneditor (you may have to zip the .SRT file to be accepted as attachment). Then @ParanoidAndroid can include that subtitle file with the edit.
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Thanks. I appreciate the information but I don't think it's necessary in this case. Anyone can download the SRT file from Subscene.com. The site automatically zips the file, though I don't know why they bother; it's only 52 Kb. ParanoidAndroid is welcome to download the SRT file and add it to his edit. That's why I posted.
 
Blackhawk said:
Thanks. I appreciate the information but I don't think it's necessary in this case. Anyone can download the SRT file from Subscene.com. The site automatically zips the file, though I don't know why they bother; it's only 52 Kb. ParanoidAndroid is welcome to download the SRT file and add it to his edit. That's why I posted.
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Have just encoded down an SD version of the edit and added Blackhawk's subtitles as a selectable option, many thanks for taking the time to put them together!

For the HD version, l think I will export a very high-bitrate file from the editing software then use Handbrake to encode it down to a more reasonable size while adding the subs at the same time, hopefully shouldn't take too long.
 
HD version with Blackhawk's subtitles done and uploading, will shortly amend IFDB page to reflect their addition as well as availability of SD version.
 
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