The Legend of the Titanic

The Legend of the Titanic is an animated movie released in 1999 made by Mondo T.V. Productions. It was followed by a sequel, In Search of the Titanic, and a television series, Fantasy Island. It's clearly a movie just for kids, and it's historically highly inaccurate. The biggest wrong being that all people aboard Titanic survived the disaster.

Plot[]

In Modern-day New York City an old mouse named Conners tells his grandchildren the supposedly "true" story of the RMS Titanic. In April 1912, Conners was a young sailor mouse on the Titanic's maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. He is in charge of taking account for the mice who are making the trip. A young mouse from Brazil named Ronny who enjoys playing soccer befriends Conners and Conners falls in love with Ronny's sister Stella. Meanwhile, a rich aristocratic woman named Elizabeth and her family board the Titanic. Her father is a famous Duke and is very prominent in the whaling business. He and Elizabeth's stepmother have arranged for Elizabeth to marry Mr. Evarard Maltravers, a rich whaler. Unknown to the Duke, the marriage is actually a scheme concocted by his own stepwife and Maltravers to get certain whaling rights for themselves. Elizabeth is unhappy about the marriage. Elizabeth sees several gypsies dancing at the dock and happily watches them. A gypsy man named Don Juan is dancing with his dog Smiley. He notices Elizabeth and the two instantly fall in love.

The Titanic then sets off to sea from Southampton on her first, and only, voyage. Conners and Ronny learn all about what's going on with Elizabeth by their observations during their trips throughout the ship's ventilation system. They are appalled by the way Elizabeth is being treated badly and decide to help her. When Elizabeth goes to the bow of the ship one night, some dolphins talk to her due to some magic moonbeams. The dolphins jump very high out of the water and seem to levitate. They tell her of Maltraver's evil scheme.

Maltraver's manservant Geoffrey spies on Elizabeth's activities and uses a special whistle at the stern of the ship to call the criminal shark named Mr. Ice and use him for causing destruction. Conners and Ronny introduce themselves to Elizabeth and offer to help her. Listening to their advice, Elizabeth tells her father she doesn't want to marry Maltravers. He listens to his daughter and tells her that he will never force her to do something she doesn't want to do. Meanwhile, Smiley tries to look for Elizabeth to cheer up Juan. After he unsuccessfully tries to find her in the ship's ballroom, he meets Conners and Ronny, who agree to help arrange a meeting and dance for Elizabeth and Juan. The meeting goes according to schedule and Elizabeth and Juan dance and kiss together. Elizabeth tells her father that she wants to marry Juan, and he agrees, but Elizabeth's stepmother is furious. When Elizabeth tells her stepmother that she should marry Maltravers, she storms off in anger, despite the fact that they both flirt constanly (this might just be the fact that they're scheming together). Elizabeth's stepmother and Maltravers decide to do things drastically now, as it's clear that Elizabeth will not marry him. They decide to sink the Titanic using the help of Mr. Ice and his gang of criminal sharks. Maltravers prepares to send news to his whaling ships by telegraph, and the mice decide to chew apart the wires to stop it from being sent.

Ice and his gang of sharks decide to let an iceberg sink the Titanic. They fool an octopus named Tentacles with a dog's nose into heaving an iceberg to the surface of the ocean by concealing the plan in the form of a bet to see who can throw ice the farthest. On the Titanic, the Duke is forced to sign the whaling rights to Maltravers and his stepwife at gunpoint. Maltravers and his entourage escape the Titanic in a lifeboat. The crew of the Titanic then see the iceberg and attempt to avoid it, but the Titanic hits the berg anyway, due to the sharks blocking the rudder. The Titanic then quickly begins to sink, and the dolphins berate Tentacles for endangering the hundreds of lives on board the Titanic, and then Tentacles runs to the sinking ship in an attempt to stall for time for the passengers who were still on board to escape the ship, including Captain Edward Smith. The mice realize that because they have cut the telegraph wires, the ship can't send out a call for help repair the wires. They are unable to do it, but Camembert gets the idea to attach the halves of the cut wire to his moustache. They do so, and Camembert somehow dies because of this. Elizabeth and Juan manage to save her father, as he was tied up in a chair by Maltravers, and manage to put him on a lifeboat.

Tentacles notices that the Titanic is breaking in two and decides to rise out of the water, wrapping himself around the ship to keep it together. Several whales and dolphins arrive to help with the rescue. Elizabeth, Juan, Conners, Ronny, and Smiley jump off the now-perpendicular stern and jump into the water, and they are saved by a whale as well. Once everyone on the ship has been saved, the Titanic finally sinks, taking Tentacles with it and seemingly killing him, as he was still heroically holding on to it. In the morning, the passengers are taken aboard the RMS Carpathia. Conners mournfully remembers the heroes of the disaster, Camembert and Tentacles. Maltravers and his entourage are seemingly lost at sea, without Mr. Ice to help them and without Maltravers message having been sent.

The Carpathia arrives in New York and disembarks the passengers. Elizabeth and Juan are married, as are Conners and Stella. Suddenly, everyone gets great news. Everyone runs to the Brooklyn Bridge and sees a huge flotilla of whales and dolphins in the harbor. It is reveled that the wonderful news and celebrating are because Tentacles and Camembert have both survived and are well. Everyone is happy and dances in the harbor, congratulating Tentacles for saving everyone in the disaster. The Film ends with old Conners and Stella back in modern-day New York and Conners telling his grandchildren that the whales are still hunted. Stella says: "Your grandfather loves to tell stories, but like all sailors, you shouldn't take it too seriously."

In the closing credits, the song Ocean of Dreams is played.

Characters[]

Historical[]

Fictional[]

Animals[]

Trivia[]

The first animated movie of the Titanic.
This film was heavily criticized due to its failure to respect the tragedy and to be faithful to the sinking.

Factual errors[]

Due to thinking that it was better to adulterate the movie than to show the true Titanic tragedy the movie was full of historical inaccuracies that many Titanic enthusiasts found unforgivable given the vast amount of knowledge about the tragedy and its survivors existence in the mid-1990s.

The manservant tells the criminal shark that the Titanic has to sink at midnight "and not a second less." In real life, the ship hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm. By midnight the first lifeboats were being prepared and lowered.
Smoke is seen rising from the fourth smoke stack. It was actually a dummy, used to ventilate the ship's kitchen.
In this film, the Titanic only embarks people at Southampton, while embarked at Cherbourg and Queenstown are not shown.
There is no dance in First Class as it was not part of First Class customs until 1920.
Just like in the 1997 film, social class should be separated. Don Juan will not be allowed in the first or second class areas, nor will Elizabeth be in the third class areas.
Captain Edward John Smith is shown on the bridge when the Titanic hit an iceberg. He was actually resting in his cabin at this time.
The first person to warn about the iceberg in the film is Quartermaster Robert Hichens. Whereas in real life the ones who warn of the iceberg are the lookouts, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee.
Captain Smith gave the command "Hard to port" when he saw an iceberg dead ahead. The real order was "Hard to starboard", ordered by First Officer Murdoch.
The shock from the impact of the iceberg was exaggerated. In real life, many of the passengers feel only minor tremor, except for the passengers who occupy the cabin at the front.
During the shock of the impact of the iceberg, an officer frantically and loudly ordered the passengers to go to the lifeboats. The evacuation orders were issued nearly an hour after the collision in real life.
Only moments after the Titanic hit the iceberg, the passengers are shown to have been very panicked. In real life, many passengers don't realize how serious things are.
The film implies that lifeboats were available for every passenger. They had a limited number of lifeboats actually.
The number of lifeboats appeared to be more than there were only (twenty) in real life.
A lifeboat was seen being loaded while still on the boat deck. There are no boats being loaded on the boat deck in real life, except maybe Collapsible A.
The passengers were seen boarding the boat by themselves during the initial evacuation process. In real life, many passengers are reluctant to enter the boat, thinking it is safer on the ship.
All of the lifeboats seemed to be launched safely, even though in real life Collapsible A and B were never launched from the ship.
A lifeboat numbered three was seen floating on the port side. Lifeboat 3 is the odd-numbered boat, which should be on the starboard side.
The long-range sinking shot was inconsistent. One scene shows all the lifeboats having been launched, the next scene shows that there are still some lifeboats being launched.
Similar to the 1953 film, there is an alarm which is clearly not featured on the Titanic.
Although the Titanic is shown splitting due to Tentacles recomposing it, it sinks in one piece and the forward and stern sections did not separated as its seen in the ocean floor.
The design of rescue ship RMS Carpathia is very different from its real life counterpart.
The Carpathia arrived in New York City during a fierce storm, not in broad daylight as shown in the film.
Captain Edward John Smith made it to New York City. He actually died in the sinking.
There were no Gypsies on board the Titanic due to being frowned upon by society
Some of the titanic musicians were shown on a lifeboat; this is wrong, as they died in the sinking.

Set inaccuracies[]

The Grand Staircase design is more look like the one on HMHS Britannic.
The wall color of the smoking room was brown and not cream.
The door that should have led to the Gymnasium instead led to another room.

Character errors[]

The real Captain Edward John Smith had a beard, not just a moustache.
Interestingly, third class passengers are stereotyped Spanish instead of being people from Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Libya, England and France and displaying their own cultures. In real life, there are at least only 10 Spanish passengers but only in First and Second Class.
Geoffrey was a First Class servant, so he would not have dinner with his employer at the First Class Dining Saloon. There is a separate dining room for the First Class servants.