MovieChat Forums > Raise the Titanic (1980) Discussion > Why change the ending?(SPOILER ALERT!!!!...

Why change the ending?(SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!)

posted 17 years ago by Altho73
7 replies | jump to latest

Why was the ending of this film changed???? In Clive Cussler's novel Pitt and his friends found the byzanium and the US built a byzanium defense system. Yet in this film Sandecker says that they could not have built the defense system because the top brass wanted it to build a byzanium bomb, so Pitt and David leave it there for the sake of morality.

Another film that did this was 'Ice Station Zebra' where in Alastair McLaine's book the US recovered the Soviet satellite capsule but the film changed the ending so the capsule was blown up and nobody got it.

Also the Soviet agent in Cussler's book was far more repulsive than the one in the film. Were these films changed so as not to offend the Soviet Union and its tyrrany?

[–] FossGly 17 years ago

Apparently, the Pentagon requested several changes to the screenplay in order to play down the hostility between the US and the USSR - so basically yes, they changed it so as not to offend the Soviets. I can only assume the producers agreed to the changes because they needed to borrow some ships off the Navy. (I read this somewhere but can't remember the reference - sorry)

As for changing the ending, it's not clear why they did that. There's lots that was removed. Surprisingly, they actually filmed the prologue set on board the Titanic but it was edited out.

[–] Altho73 17 years ago

I find it illogical that the Pentagon would want to play down the hostility between the US and the USSR. Did not President Reagan call the Soviet Union 'the empire of evil', It would make more sense for the Pentagon to want to display the Soviet Union as repulsive as possible. I would have thought that Hollywood (reputed to be full of reds and pinkos (by Joe McCarthy and others) would have been more likely to be sympathetic to the Soviet Union.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Eric-62-2 17 years ago

Hollywood was in the throes of pushing the dubious "moral equivalence" line in those days. And this would have been the Jimmy Carter era when the movie was filmed, which would probably also account for why the Pentagon at that time would want to whitewash the Soviets as happened so often in so many films of the 70s, to their lasting discredit. It was not a welcome change for me, but it's only the final insult to so many things that were insultingly done wrong in this adaptation.

And yes, "Ice Station Zebra" was mucked up the same way.

[–] Altho73 17 years ago

Pity that John Wayne didn't direct 'Raise the Titanic' and 'Ice Station Zebra'?

[–] Eric-62-2 17 years ago

Pity that no punches were pulled in showing the Cold War struggle in the proper context of what it was.

[–] ae36 16 years ago

And I for one wouldn't have minded seeing a young Ann Archer play out the nude scene that is found at the end of the book.

AE36