Titanic: The Legend Goes On

Titanic: The Legend Goes On

"You know there's something you should know, so I'm gonna tell you so! Don't sweat it! Forget it! Enjoy the show!"

Genre:	Animated
Directed By:	Camillo Teti
Produced By:	Camillo Teti Gian Paolo Brugnoli Marco Scaffardi Jymn Magon
Written By:	Camillo Teti
Starring:	Lisa Russo Mark Thompson-Ashworth Gisella Mathews Kenneth Belton Gregory Snegoff
Distributed By:	Medusa Film
Release Date:	September 15, 2000
Runtime:	82 minutes (uncut version) 70 minutes (edited version)
Country:	Italy Spain
Language:	Italian Spanish English

Titanic: The Legend Goes On is an Italian animated movie made in 2000 directed by Kim Lox and Camillo Teti and loosely based on the true events of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. Due to its incredibly insensitive nature, critics have considered this to be one of the worst animated films of all time, though not as bad as two other Italian films about the same disaster, The Legend of the Titanic and In Search of the Titanic.

Plot

Love blossoms onboard the RMS Titanic between the upper-class Sir William and the blue-collar Angelica, who is hoping to find romance in America; several animal passengers, including talking dogs, cats, and mice, are also looking forward to arriving in the New World.

Why These Qualities Sunk This Movie

Not only does the film rip off James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, with William and Angelica being discount store imitations of Jack and Rose, but it also shamelessly plagiarizes countless Disney films (e.g. the Evil Stepmother is basically Lady Tremaine from Cinderella and the two Dalmatians are Pongo and Perdita from 101 Dalmatians) and Don Bluth characters (e.g. the Mousekewitz family from An American Tail), and the Mexican mice are clearly more than "inspired" by Speedy Gonzales from Looney Tunes.
Horrible and subpar animation which alternates between a stiff, limited style and an uncanny, rubbery fluidity, occasionally within the same scene.
Laughably bad English dubbing to the extent of obtaining small-scale memetic status, such as "If it hadn't been for you, I would now be in someone else's digestion!", along with "Pick up those bits of broken china at once!".
This film is actually based on a historic tragedy, but the film outright states that it's a "legend".
An overly bloated cast of characters which, due to the film's convoluted plot, are granted barely any screentime beyond acting as plot utilities or displaying a handful of simplistic character gimmicks, leading to a set of characters alternating between forgettable and grating.
Numerous editing and animation errors in the movie (e.g. when the two robbers set off to attack the old woman, the movie goes pitch-black for a few seconds and the scene just ends without explanation), leading to a shortage of exposition which renders many of the film's scenes lacking in pace and context, often to an unintentionally hilarious degree.
The main "couple" share 3 lines of dialogue and instantly know they're meant to be, solely on the basis that a loosely similar plot occurs in the James Cameron film.
Numerous sub-plots that dilute the film's runtime to the extent where every single plot thread within the narrative is left underdeveloped and (at times) inconclusive.
In the film, a terrier known as Fritz performs a rap number (the infamous "Party Time" song), which has nothing to do with either the James Cameron basis or the film's own "narrative" and randomly occurs with no buildup or explanation as to his presence or motives. The scene is also inexplicably (and shamelessly) anachronistic, as the conspicuously late '90s rapping and clothes associated with it evidently didn't even exist back in 1912.
Stereotypical Mexican mice, which are undoubted even more offensive than the Siamese cats in both The Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp.
Largely forgettable music, aside from the infamous Rapping Dog song that achieved meme status in the early 2010s.
Way too much zany and slapstick style comedy for a film based on the Titanic disaster.
An extremely insensitive ending where everyone who survived the sinking of the Titanic is shown to live "happily ever after".
A lot of the animation is blatantly reused, and it can loop over and over, further exposing the filmmakers' laziness and lack of budget. Examples include:
1. Shots from the rapping dog song can be seen during the song sung by the Mexican mice.
2. The scene when the ship busts open and the same scene of water bursting in plays four times in a row.
Several obnoxious cartoon sound effects throughout the movie that it even gives The Wild and The Magic Voyage a run for their money.

Redeeming Qualities

There are three good songs in the entire movie, "Holding Me" and "Lost in Each Other" (depending on whether you're watching the edited or uncut version) which, despite being obvious rip-offs of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", still sound pretty nice, and the uncut version's Mexican mice song is great, too.
This film has a somewhat better grasp of the historical event than The Legend of the Titanic. The movie stays true to the fact that the sinking was a tragic accident (with a brief scene during the climax actively depicting a child-friendly, if awkwardly executed, implication of the survivors' solemnity, at least before being undercut by the overly enthusiastic ending monologue), and not an intentional sinking like in The Legend of The Titanic. Also, it at least has the sense to imply that some people actually died, unlike the earlier Legend.
There is an uncut version of this flick and, while it still sucks, at least it doesn't try to make your brain explode from sheer confusion (despite the copious amount of loop lines).
The musical number "Party Time" (infamously sung by Fritz the Dog in rapping form) had a distinct "so-bad-it's-good" appeal, particularly when combined with the scene's blatant anachronisms and hallucinogenic rubbery animation.