Factual error: The layout of the hallways in the film does not match the deck plans of the real Titanic.
Revealing mistake: When the [CGI] Titanic leaves the dock, watch a man in a green jacket close to the bottom part of the screen. He is waving goodbye to 'nowhere', for that part of the boat is empty and its prow is pointing away from where he is staring. This reveals he was looking at a green screen, with no idea whatsoever of what was going on. (00:25:40)
Continuity mistake: Ruth walks to the ship, followed by Rose and Cal. When she is about to enter, the angle cuts and suddenly several women with dogs haven taken her place, followed by a lady who looks nothing like Ruth. Then in the following close-angle the group is meters behind from where they first were, repeating the walk towards the door. (00:22:15)
Factual error: The movie shows men removing the boats that have been stowed (Collapsibles A - D). The boats that they remove are not collapsibles, which were wooden bottom boats with rolled down collapsible sides (hence the name). (02:18:10)
Continuity mistake: When Lovejoy and Jack are talking, Jack tucks his cigarette in his ear in an 11 o'clock position. A shot later it's in a 9 o'clock position and a bit of hair is covering his ear.
Other mistake: The ship is down by the bow about 30°. There follow scenes in which people make their way through flooded passageways. The water is chest-high, but level.
Continuity mistake: When Jack and Rose are in the lower hallway after escaping from Cal, Titanic is already at a major tilt with the bow completely underwater and the first class dining saloon getting flooded. The problem is that the water in the hallway is completely level and the water that floods is also level. With the ship tilted the way it is the water should have been collecting at the end of one of the hallways, not flat.
Continuity mistake: The first chimney fell in the scene where Fabrizio died, but later when showing the Titanic sinking, the uppermost part of the chimney is visible, intact. (02:40:30 - 02:41:15)
Continuity mistake: On the night of Rose's attempted suicide, we see her with a necklace on at the meal which disappears when she reaches the end of the ship. There was a deleted scene showing her removing it in her room, but without that it just vanishes. (00:35:00)
Continuity mistake: The way the necklace is held after it is found in Jack's pocket changes instantly. In one shot the steward is gripping the chain. In the next, the chain is draped over his fingers. (01:41:10)
Visible crew/equipment: When Jack and Rose are running from Lovejoy, they stop for a moment on E deck. When they do, look behind them and a member of the ship's crew comes into shot holding a bag of something. When Jack and Rose start running again, this man has disappeared. (01:28:20)
Continuity mistake: When Rose is talking to Mr Andrews about the lifeboats, her bag changes hands instantly. (01:13:10)
Continuity mistake: In the film, Titanic has a yellow stripe down from the bow to the stern, however the yellow stripe disappears from the film in some scenes, and appears in others. The main one is the sinking. (01:59:55)
Continuity mistake: Just after Rose leaves Cal, we get an underwater shot panning down on Jack, showing that the window he's standing next to is fully submerged. However, interior shots after that show air around the upper edge of it. It's not trapped air: it's constantly bouncing around, in a wave-like pattern. (01:53:10)
Revealing mistake: When Tommy and Fabrizio meet Jack and Rose at the bottom of the staircase and try to look for a way out, you can see a boy in the bottom left corner staring at the camera and smiling. (02:03:40)
Continuity mistake: In the "You jump, I jump" scene with Jack and Cal persuading Rose to get on a lifeboat, Rose embarks the lifeboat at the front, port(left side) side of deck top. Yet when Rose jumps back on the ship, she climbs back on in the middle, starboard(right side) of A deck where the windows change, running towards the bow to the Grand Staircase; while Jack is running towards the Stern from the Port front side of deck top. Jack enters the Grand Staircase from the port side of Deck top, and Rose enters the Grand Staircase from the port side of A Deck. (02:11:40)
Continuity mistake: When Rose leaves Jack's company to retrieve help, and goes to return with the axe, she stops at the stairway with the rising water and wedges the axe on the bars. The camera cuts to behind Rose to show her removing her outerwear, and the axe is still being held up by the bars but it's nice and straight, before and after this camera shot, the axe is propped in the bars crooked at an angle. (02:00:05)
Revealing mistake: In the first shot of a sailor watching the ship right in front of the iceberg, the mast has thick blue lines around it and the man's coat and cap swap from black/dark blue to faded blueish colour, all due to the green screen. (01:34:45)
Continuity mistake: Rose steps out of the car, sees the Titanic and says "It's as big as the Mauretania" while she holds her hat. A frame later, from a different angle, her arm is down. (00:21:00)
Character mistake: At the beginning of the movie, Bill Paxton is pulling out documents out of the safe, maybe destroying some of them. Extremely unprofessional from an archaeological perspective. Although he represents a private company on a Russian ship searching for a diamond, he for sure violates many international laws with this brutal act of recovering objects. A professional treasure hunter should know that, plus a camera is filming him. He risks never getting a licence for a treasure hunt again.
Answer: Yes, it was. At the time, the big cruise lines were all trying to outdo each other with the largest and most opulent cruise ships. The Olympic class ships were the White Star Line's entry in the size race, with Olympic, the first built, taking the title in 1911, before losing it to her sister ship, the Titanic, the following year.
Tailkinker ★