Titanic and Don’t Look Up: Cosmic Denial .
One was released in 1997, the other in 2021.
The most obvious commonality is the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio in both films.
He played Jack Dawson in 1997, and Randall Mindy in 2021.
Jack, who fights to save his life and that of Rose while they are on this ocean liner, reputed to be unsinkable but which will be swallowed up in the ocean depths after a collision with an iceberg.
Dr. Randall, who fights with his doctoral student Kate to warn humanity that Earth will soon be hit by a meteorite and that action must be taken quickly to find a solution.
Do you see any other commonality there? Besides the fact that the redhead Rose is replaced by the redhead Kate?
Well, the other thing these two films have in common is what we call the Titanic syndrome!
The name for this syndrome comes from Nicolas Hulot : “The days of the world as we know it are numbered. Like the passengers of the Titanic, we are hurtling into the dark night, dancing and laughing, with the selfishness and arrogance of those who are convinced that they are masters of themselves and of the universe. And yet, the warning signs of the shipwreck are accumulating: a series of climate disruptions, omnipresent pollution, exponential extinction of animal and plant species, anarchic pillaging of resources, multiplying health crises. We behave as if we were the last generation of men to occupy this Earth: after us, the flood…”
And there you have it! We swap the iceberg for the meteorite, the ocean liner for planet Earth, the privileged first-class Rose DeWitt Bukater for the promising PhD student Kate Dibiasky. And what about the penniless drifter Jack Dawson who becomes the astronomer Randall Mindy? Oh, but we had a foreshadowing in the movie Titanic ! Remember when Jack and Rose are in a car?
Jack gets behind the wheel and asks Rose, “Where are we going, Miss?” She replies, “To the stars!”
In short, both films are about the same thing: whether it’s an iceberg or a meteorite, we see the catastrophe coming, we know it, we’ve been warned but we don’t listen to the Cassandras, we don’t realize the seriousness of the facts, we’re in denial, we don’t do anything in time, we rush straight ahead or we let it happen… Slowly and surely? Or rather quickly and surely!
And the victims are numerous. Approximately 1,500 died after the sinking of the Titanic. And all of humanity after the meteorite struck planet Earth. Except for a few survivors who managed to escape to another planet… But they are few in number, and barely arrived, the President of the United States, played by Meryl Streep, is devoured by a creature from that planet. Their survival on this hostile planet seems compromised…
And to think that, in these two films, this could have been avoided if we had acted in time? If we had mobilized the necessary resources?
And for us, is there still time?!
A little clarification: Leonardo DiCaprio is a person who is committed to planet Earth. He created a foundation in 1998, shortly after playing Jack Dawson…
To this question, there is another answer that I find interesting and that links Titanic (definitely !) to Inception. I invite you to read it.