We Love the Original ‘Titanic’ Trailer
By now, you've probably seen the trailer for the upcoming super-fancy 3D re-release of "Titanic." It's sorta what you expect: lots of shots of iconic moments from the film, all treated with the prestige and grandeur usually reserved for presidential inaugurations or the final night of "American Idol." So, yeah, it's a bit stuffy -- and it made us curious to check out a trailer for the film before it opened in December 1997. There it is at the top of this post. It's kind of amazing.
We should say, first off, that this isn't the original original trailer. We distinctly remember seeing one that's shorter that advertised the film when it was originally scheduled to come out Summer 1997, which ended up not happening thanks to delays. (This has been completely lost to history, but at the time the delays -- and the huge budget -- convinced everyone that "Titanic" was going to be a massive bomb.) But this trailer's close enough.
Right off the bat, notice how long this trailer is. It's over four minutes. Second, wow, this thing really does give away the whole movie, huh? We see the (really boring) present-day story where it's established that Rose (Gloria Stuart) is the woman in the nude drawing who survived the Titanic disaster. From there, we meet Young Rose (Kate Winslet, looking incredibly young) and learn her entire story with lame-o fiance Billy Zane. And then we meet an incredibly young Leonardo DiCaprio, whom Rose falls in love with. And then we see that the boat's gonna sink ... and then we see the boat sinking. Other than what happens to Leo -- or hearing the Celine Dion song -- this trailer basically is "Titanic."
One of the running ironies in "Titanic" is that all the wealthy, smug people on the boat have no idea what's going to happen them, and this original "Titanic" trailer is sort of equally naive in its own way. Back in '97, the movie was largely advertised as an action-adventure/disaster flick with some romance thrown in. The trailer mentions that it's from writer-director James Cameron, but it's funny how the font looks like a leftover from "Terminator 2" or "The Abyss." But, then again, that's who Cameron was before "Titanic": the kick-ass sci-fi/action filmmaker. Fox had no idea what "Titanic" was going to become. None of us did.
OK, now look at the new trailer again. Very impressive, very regal. Where the original trailer seemed to be courting guys, the 3D trailer is all about the date-night crowd. All the scrappiness of the original has been scrubbed away -- now it's selling us "The World's Most Beloved and Acclaimed Film." Few could have predicted that 14 years ago.
