Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Titanic: Blood & Steel Blu-ray Movie Review

Going down for the third (or fourth or fifth) time.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 1, 2012

If anyone other than some far distant alien is reading this review on December 22, 2012, then perhaps Earth has avoided falling victim to supposed predictions by the Mayans and other “prophets” like Roland Emmerich. But if 2012 itself won’t go down in history as the year an epochal cataclysm occurred, it may well be remembered at least for being the centenary of a disaster that might seem relatively small scale in the face of so many other calamities that followed in the twentieth century, but which has had an almost unimaginable cultural impact. The sinking of the Titanic was of course an unbearable tragedy at the time, and it almost immediately entered the public lexicon of legend due to the fact that the liner was deemed unsinkable and the almost absurd number of mishaps that contributed to the loss of life. While the discovery of the rusting hulk of the ship on the bottom of the frigid mid-Atlantic in 1985 seriously reignited interest in the disaster, it was the phenomenal success of James Cameron’s Titanic in 1997 that fostered what might be termed the “modern era” of Titanic-mania. Cameron himself jumped on the 2012 centenary bandwagon by post-converting Titanic to 3D and re-releasing the film both theatrically and onBlu-ray, but this year has seen several other high profile outings, both documentary and fictional, which sought to cash in on the hoopla surrounding the 100th anniversary of the sinking. Both the Smithsonian Channel and History commemorated the disaster with Titanic's Final Mystery and Titanic: 100 Years in 3D respectively. Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes attempted to follow up on his success with his own Titanic, a fitfully entertaining miniseries that revisited the disaster, Rashômon-like, from several different perspectives over the course of the fateful few days of the massive ship’s one and only journey. The ironic thing about that version of events is that it is actually less like Downton Abbey (despite some obvious attempts to mimic the lauded drama) than this latest iteration of the Titanic saga, Titanic: Blood and Steel. This international co-production has a couple of interesting gambits up its sleeve, including concentrating on the building of the liner rather than its sinking (though of course that is part and parcel of the story, as it must be), as well as focusing on incipient class distinctions in the Belfast of 1912 that are more than a bit reminiscent of a certain Lord Grantham and his family, albeit in this case tinged with a religious underpinning that hasn’t really intruded on the Crawley family in any meaningful way (at least, not yet, aside from the tangential plot points involving Sybil, the youngest daughter). (For rabid completists, it should be noted that Fox's 1953 melodrama Titanic was initially announced for stateside release, but has not yet seen the Blu-ray light of day on this side of the pond.)

As with most recountings of the Titanic disaster, this miniseries blends real life characters with wholly fictional creations, with the emphasis being decidedly on the latter in this outing. The miniseries’ focus is one Dr. Mark Muir (Kevin Zegers), a young metallurgist who in the series first episode is brought on board (no pun intended) the offices of Harland and Wolff in Belfast in order to do more “modern” scientific testing on the steel that is being utilized to build the huge new liners that White Star is wanting to develop to compete with Cunard. Muir has been introduced to J.P. Morgan (Chris Noth), who in this version of the tale, is significantly more hands on in terms of the shipbuilding than he was in real life. In Belfast, Muir is almost instantly made aware of the roiling class conflicts between the downtrodden Catholics, who are actually in the majority, and the ruling elite Protestants. In terms of the shipyard, the Catholics are the “grunts” while the Protestants are middle and upper management, and never the twain shall meet.

Muir is soon dealing with a number of different personalities, including Lord Pirrie (Derek Jacobi), the real life Chairman on Harland and Wolff and one of the few in senior management with liberal, social activist tendencies; Sofia (Alessandro Mastronardi), an office copyist who quickly catches Muir’s eye; the prickly Thomas Andrews (Billy Carter), the real life head of the drafting department at Harland and Wolff, and a man who repeatedly butts heads with Muir over the safety of the steel being used; and real life labor organizer Jim Larkin (Liam Cunningham), whose rabble rousing efforts play a major part in Titanic: Blood and Steel’s depiction of the growing unrest in Belfast’s working class. This brief summary of characters might lead one to believe this miniseries is firmly anchored in actual personages, but by far the bulk of the drama is caught up with fictional creations, characters who fill in the huge supporting cast and manage to stand as symbols for various ideas or movements. One fictional character who has a rather odd arc is Joanna Yaeger (Neve Campbell), a writer for the New York Times who actually introduces Muir to Morgan but who later finds herself ensconced in some of the early international machinations which presaged World War I.

The miniseries is kind of odd in that the Titanic element, ostensibly its focal point, becomes a kind of sidebar as we’re introduced to a number of soap operatic plot points. These include Muir’s background, which any armchair screenwriter will have divined long before it’s ultimately revealed several hours into the enterprise, as well as the star-crossed love affair between Muir and Sofia, a woman who is simultaneously becoming more aware of women’s and workers’ rights while she’s being encouraged into an arranged marriage with one of her father’s coworkers. A number of other snapshots are presented through this overlong miniseries, a production that probably would have benefited from having been judiciously trimmed by at least a couple of hours.

Still, there is an awful lot to enjoy about this miniseries, if in fact a lot of it is ironically divorceable from the actual Titanic saga. This production boasts about the same multimillion dollar budget as ITV’s Titanic, but it’s a far more sumptuous looking affair, with gorgeous production design and (especially) costumes. The performances are also uniformly excellent, if occasionally hobbled by less than stellar writing. Only Noth seems slightly ill at ease playing such an iconic character, one for whom his decidedly contemporary ambience is perhaps not very well suited. Special kudos should be afforded one aspect of the writing, however: the ending is particularly well fashioned, drawing several key characters together for a fateful journey without revealing exactly what happens to any of them.

Titanic: Blood & Steel Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Titanic: Blood and Steel is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is an often gorgeous looking high definition presentation, one particularly well suited to the medium due to its often expensive looking production design. While some of the CGI and matte paintings are overly soft, the bulk of the "real life" action pops with excellent sharpness and clarity. The miniseries is more often than not framed in midrange and close- ups shots, which boosts fine detail to commendable levels. There does appear to have been some significant color grading at times (and not just in the kind of cool opening credits sequences, which blend black and white and color imagery seamlessly, a nice visual trope for the historical context of the miniseries), but generally speaking, things retain a very lifelike and accurate palette. No egregious compression artifacts of any kind were noticed in preparation for this review.

Titanic: Blood & Steel Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Titanic: Blood and Steel features a well rendered lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that may not provide huge, overpowering immersion, but which does rather well within the smaller, more intimate confines that make up much of this miniseries. There is significant surround activity in some of the shipyard scenes, notably some of the construction segments and the rabble rousing labor uprisings which explode throughout the miniseries, but a lot of this production is comprised of quieter dialogue sequences, often between two characters. These are presented with excellent fidelity if an obviously narrower soundfield. Maurizio De Angelis' music sounds fine, but it must be stated that some of his choices are awfully anachronistic (he underscores one early segment with 1920s era "flapper" music, certainly not in tune—pun intended—with the actual era being depicted.) Fidelity is excellent throughout all the episodes of the miniseries, and dynamic range is relatively wide for this type of outing.

Titanic: Blood & Steel Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Titanic: Blood and Steel (HD; 8:46) is a pretty standard EPK featurette which offers snippets from the miniseries interspersed with brief interview segments. There's actually precious little "making of" content here, though there is one passingly interesting moment devoted to the miniseries' use of CGI.


• The Visual Effects of Titanic: Blood and Steel (HD; 4: ) is a really good, albeit way too brief, look at the way the green screen and CGI VFX were achieved, including interviews with Ciaran Crowley and Julian Parry, Visual Effects Supervisors.

Titanic: Blood & Steel Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a certain irony at play with regard to Titanic: Blood and Steel. The drama of the Titanic was obviously meant to be the "hook" luring viewers into watching this probably too long miniseries, but it turns out the really interesting content here could have been completely divorced from the building of the ship and still have retained most of what matters. The class conflicts as well as the incipient "troubles" between Catholic and Protestant provide most of the compelling drama in this piece, and a lot of what is depicted is quite well done. The miniseries has a very impressive filmic sweep, is well directed and has truly sumptuous production design. It may have little to do with more "traditional" Titanic- mania, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This Blu-ray is really light on supplementary material, but its video and audio are excellent. Recommended.