HMHS Britannic As you all know, I love Britannic, and I always have, so when I heard there was a Britannic movie, I was understandably stoked. When I first watched it, about 3 or 4 years ago, I thought it was a good movie. a great movie, but upon watching it now, with the knowledge that I know about Britannic and the history surrounding her, I have come to the conclusion that it is an awful movie in almost every way.
Acting, production, animation, but most of all, it's a great movie. most importantly, how badly it handled her story. The movie itself was only made in the first place to cash in on James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic, so I don't expect the movie to be some masterpiece.
But the fact that I can't even get the simplest things right, like which propeller was responsible for Britannic's victims, is jarring for a movie made by a corporation. I am not a movie reviewer, and I wouldn't even call myself a historian, but I am a ship enthusiast, and I feel that I can do it. I know enough to at least put this movie in its place. That is why today I will be pointing out all the most jarring mistakes as I try to explain to you why the Britannic movie sucks. It is very clear that this movie had a low budget, and because of that, the construction managers were only able to build a limited amount of sets.
There's the forward boat deck set, which led into the officer's quarters and wheelhouse sets. There's the A-deck promenade set, the grand staircase set, the boiler room and cargo hold set, etc. All of these sets have a lot of problems, but the most apparent and annoying one to me is how none of the sets have any cohesion.
For example, those two doors on the forward boat deck set, which lead into the officer's quarters, also have doors behind them which lead into the officer's quarters. the grand staircase set. That wouldn't make any sense though, since in reality, the grand staircase lobby had its own separate structure with a completely different entrance.
The whole two-door setup in the first place doesn't make any sense, since on Britannic and- and the whole Olympic class, the officer's quarters don't have a big entrance like the Grand Staircase Lobby. That's because the officer's quarters and the whole boat deck past the Grand Staircase Lobby aren't open to the rest of the passengers and act more as the officer's promenade. I'm really not sure what they are going for with this set, but a lot of the time, it just seems like they're making up stuff.
Like, where the officer's quarters ends, there's a spacing holding those two doors I mentioned earlier. To the left, you meet a whole new structure. which I first assumed was the grand staircase lobby with the wrong windows, but then realized it can't be because, with the own movie sets in mind, the grand staircase lobby would be located past those two doors as shown from the movie. I guess it would have to be the gymnasium, but it's so confusing that at this point, I don't know.
The whole setup to this set is just that, confusing. They could have actually done their research on the forward boat deck, but instead, it just looks like they looked at a picture and made a set based off of it without checking any deck plans to actually know what was inside. Also, why does the Grand Staircase look like it's from a completely different ship? I don't know how you could mess this up, but yet again, laziness.
The forward A deck promenade set suffers from the same problems, but not to the same extent. In fact, it's probably the most accurate part of the ship, next to maybe the wheelhouse, but I can't forgive the Marconi room being located in the wheelhouse, when in reality, it was located in the officers'quarters. The sad part though is that the set is still horribly inaccurate.
For example, the entrance coming from the forward superstructure looks completely different than what it actually looked like. In the movie, it is shown as a pane glass wall with a pane glass door in the middle, but in reality, it was more of a simple door cutout. Most of the other sets are plain made up.
The gigantic room for all the patients is, as well as the small dining room set where all the- officers and captains sit to eat. It might be located in the smoking room, but like, why? The boiler room and cargo room sets are just generic boiler and cargo rooms, and don't look like they are from the britannic, besides maybe the watertight doors.
As you watch the movie, you may notice how they repeat the same set over and over again. This is obviously because of the limited number of sets, but it can lead to some confusing scenes, and overall just makes the ship feel smaller than it really is. For example, you may notice how almost every action scene always goes through the forward A deck promenade set, which just feels restraining since you have all this room on the ship for an action scene.
Same thing goes for the forward boat deck set. Almost no every scene where the characters are just taking a stroll down the ship, you have to see the same part of the boat deck, which after a while gets repetitive. I could mention a few other examples, but I think you get the idea.
You can't have few sets for a ship as big as Britannic. It makes the ship feel small and makes the scenes feel repetitive. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, wow, this movie is really incompetent.
Well, the set design is nothing compared to the animation. The movie's first scene starts with this. I don't really know how to describe it, but I'll do my best. The whole aesthetic of the animated scenes makes me feel like I'm in a PS2 era game, to the point where it takes me out of the experience. For example, during the scene where the U-boat is attacking Britannic, you have this tense scene where everyone is trying to get above deck.
Here, I almost feel a level of stress, but then this happens. This alone didn't fully take me out of the experience, probably because of the music, which carries most of the action scenes, but then this happens. When that happened, I was completely taken out of the experience, and couldn't help but laugh at what's trying to be a serious moment.
That's the problem, I think. The movie takes itself too seriously. For a movie like this, though, that's fine.
The problem, though, is that it's not a serious movie. that how am I supposed to feel stressed and anxiety-filled when I'm too busy laughing at it? The movie wants you to feel these things, but it simply can't because the production value just doesn't live up to the stakes.
And when you have good and tense music accompanied with these visuals, it just makes it worse. Now, the Britannic model at first looked fine. That's probably because of the lighting though, since when we first see the ship during the day, well, I'll let the scene explain.
You wanted to see me, Captain. I don't know what it is, but it just doesn't look real. I mean, the ship is model okay, I guess.
The boat deck looks like a reskinned Titanic model, and the hull is shaped weirdly. But the lighting, and especially the water, makes everything feel- wrong. Look at this image for example. Everything here just looks horrible.
The shading especially makes everything feel really fake, and it doesn't help seeing it in motion. This goes for every animated scene as well. It just looks and feels like a crappy video game, there isn't enough detail on the model, thus it doesn't look real.
A good example of how to model a ship would be the James Cameron's Titanic movie, which by the way was made two years earlier. Most of the scenes are sets, making it feel real. Even the scenes that are animated though, for the most part, don't look animated since they have good lighting and there's enough detail in the model to distract you from the fact that it is animated. In the Britannic movie though, the model model looks like it's only supposed to be viewed from really far away. When looking closer though, the lack of detail really starts to show, and combined with the horrible shading, it makes for a less than desirable experience.
Like, the grand staircase windows are literally just gaping holes into the void. From the first frame, I can already see one big thing wrong with this scene. Besides the horrible animation, it seems that the scene is set during the night, even though, on Bartanek's final voyage, she left Southampton at 2.23pm or 14.23 mili- time. I also know it's not early in the morning in the scene, since later on, you can see our main character is going to bed.
On top of that, this one governess character brings her children aboard. Like, why? It's a hospital ship, practically sailing into a war zone, they don't just let random children aboard, even if their mom is around.
When Britannic first departs Southampton, and throughout the voyage, Britannic is being followed by a U-boat. In reality, this never happened, and what makes it even less realistic is the fact that the U-boat follows Britannic for so long. A submarine like the one shown could never catch up, let alone follow a ship like Britannic. Also, later on in the movie, this U-boat attacks Britannic only to being stopped when the fictional ship HMS Victoria depth charges it. Yet again, this never happened, and would never happen, at least in World War I. The only way a Yuba would ever attack a hospital ship was if it was carrying ammunition and guns, which the movie suggests Britannic was doing.
Britannic never carried guns and ammunition though. The movie does that a lot. It makes up things to make the voyage play out in their way. Another major thing that got wrong, which can only is laziness, it's the date of which Britannic reached Naples. On Britannic's final voyage, she would stop at Naples for a resupply of coal and water.
In the movie, she reaches Naples on the 19th, but in reality, that is not the case, as on her final voyage, she would reach Naples on the 17th. The whole U-boat change is something I could more so dismiss, since in the end, it is a movie, and you do need to change some things to make it more enjoyable. You don't have to change the dates though, and that is why I think this is an example of the director not doing his research.
I also couldn't spot the infamous Naples storm, which delayed Britannic's departure. It does appear, but it's not on the correct time. In the movie, it is shown in the early morning hours of the 21st, but in reality, most of it was in port.
In fact, Captain Bartlett only left Naples when the storm had died down, and by the next morning on the 21st, it had fully died. Here we are. The whole point why I made this video.
The Britannic sinking this movie portrays is well... indescribable. Now, I can understand many of the changes made.
It's a movie, and sometimes changes must be made to keep the audience interested, like I mentioned earlier. A lot of the changes made to the sinking, though, are simply stupid, and don't benefit the plot in any way. We first start out with this.
Before the sinking even begun, I saw several red flags. I honestly don't really mind them changing the cause of the sinking, since it fits in the context of the story. What I do mind, though, is them changing what side of the ship was hit. At first, it does look like like the damage was taken on the starboard bow, just like real life, but just a few minutes later when Captain Bartlett is given the damage report, it is told to us that the damage is on the port bow. Sir, damage is in the port bow near one of the coal bunkers.
we're taking a water blast. That wouldn't make sense though, for a number of reasons. For one, the clip shown to us earlier suggests that the damage is on the starboard bow. Two, later on in the sinking, when the ship finally decides to list, it is clearly shown to us that it is a starboard list, just like real life.
And three, on Britannic's wreck, she rests on her starboard side. So, either Britannic defies the laws of physics, or the writers don't know their starboard from the port, and I think it's the latter. Another thing changed- The only change in the sinking, which really didn't need to happen, was the time of which Britannic actually started sinking.
In the movie, and throughout most of the sinking, it is shown to be so early in the morning that the sun hadn't even rose. In reality though, Britannic hit the mine at 8.12am, which would have been around an hour after the sun had rose. Like I mentioned earlier, the storm which delayed Britannic's departure from Naples by that time would have already faded, so I don't know why it is still raging for so long.
into the sinking. So for some reason, the reciprocating engines explode, which never happened. What makes it even worse though, is that the damage was taken on the port bow, even though the reciprocating engines were located in the aftermost part of the ship.
Even if the reciprocating engines were located in the aftermost part of the ship, did explode, the damage wouldn't be on the port bow. It would, and never could, reach that part of the ship, let alone do enough damage to blow a hole in the ship. After all that, we finally get a good indication of the general time the sinking takes place, and it is not good.
So by the time the sun had rose, according to the movie, the forecastle had started to go under. This obviously doesn't make sense based off of the real sinking, but going off of the movie's logic, I guess it makes sense. One thing I find really strange though is how in that scene I just showed, it is just barely dawn, with the forecastle clearly already under or starting to go under.
In the next wide shot of the sinking though, it is not only dark, but the forecastle isn't even close to it. to going under. I'm not really sure what went wrong with this clip, but I assume it was just a mistake by the editors.
They might have rendered it in the wrong lighting, or it could have even been intended for another scene. Also, am I the only one who finds it a bit weird that the ship just lists? Like, it's on an even keel for quite a while, but all of a sudden, it just decides to list.
Plot convenience. It really does feel like everything that happens during the sinking was just thrown in there, since stuff just happens without any context or suspense. Finally, the movie gives its retelling of the most tragic part of Britannic Sinking. We first see our main characters escape out of a porthole, before emerging from the water. A lifeboat is conveniently placed a few feet away from them.
After they climb on, we see this. Now, this was a very tragic event in real life, so I hope that it would be done right. Obviously though, like every other scene in the movie, there's one big thing they got wrong. Can you spot it? I'll play the clip one more time.
Yep, they got the wrong propeller. I seriously don't understand how you could get something like this wrong. It was very obvious from the get-go that they did little to no research on Britannic antresinking, but getting the wrong propeller to murder those passengers, to me, is unbelievable. especially since you really only had two propellers to choose from.
Britannic, by this time, had a pretty hard starboard list, which the movie conveniently ignores for plot reasons, I guess, even though earlier we saw the ship develop a list. By the movie's- logic, it seems that by this point, the forecastle had basically gone under, or at least was almost under. With that in mind, by that time, the starboard propeller had been ordered off, and the port and central ones were the only ones still running.
So how would that lifeboat get drawn into a propeller that wasn't even running? It doesn't make any sense, especially since, in reality, the bloodshed had occurred much earlier in the sinking. After all that, we finally get to see the final plunge of Britannic, and it is... as you expect, terrible. It is very obvious that they just wanted to get the movie done by this point, so after our main character is rescued and all the loosens are tied up, the ship quickly capsizes and sinks.
Like I said before, there is no buildup to this moment. It just happens, even though the ship just a few seconds ago was shown to have zero lists. It was only done this way because the story itself was done, and I for one am honestly glad.
I'm glad I no longer have to torture myself with this truly horrible movie.