Was that film really that bad??? Raise the Titanic

Have you ever watched a film and thought, "That's not too bad." "It was alright." "Pretty middle of the road." "Kind of flawed but worth a couple of hours," but then learned more about that film and realised that pretty much everyone else considers it trash? Yep, me too, and such was my thinking when, one boring lockdown afternoon, I happened across a full copy of "Raise the Titanic" on YouTube and decided to give it a watch.

Even the title looks bored.

You see, when I was but a wee lad in the 1980's, this was a semi-regular Saturday afternoon kind of film (and if that doesn't raise an alarm, nothing will) and I remember liking it quite a bit. After all, I'd read the novel and was a fan of the author (you can read my thoughts on a modern day re-reading of his first few novels here). Given the rose tint of memory, I wasn't sure really what to expect as the film started and by the end of it, well, yes...

Released in 1980, Raise the Titanic was a Lew Grade production of the Clive Cussler novel of the same name. The book was published in 1976 and filming began in late 1979. Famously, the producers spent $15 million before a single frame had been shot, getting together the models and water tanks required for the special effects. That was $15 million then. That's over $53 million today. In the end, the budget that was originally set at $9 million ($31m 2020) ended up being $40 million ($142m 2020). Given the money spent on it, it had to be something special. It's box office return of $7 million ($22m 2020) was not.

The plot is pretty straight forward: America has a defence program that would protect the country from airborne and spaceborne threats. It needs a specific mineral to power it. The only known source of this was on a Soviet held island, but when they look for it, it's already been mined. They discover that the mined material was loaded on to the Titanic and thus decide to raise the ship to get to the mineral. Naturally, the Soviets clock onto this and therein should lie the basis of a decent thriller. Notice I said "should".

Because this film isn't a decent thriller. Where to begin?

OK, let's start off with the whole point of the book: it's a Dirk Pitt adventure. Except here, Pitt is a bit of a whiny arse. Not really Richard Jordan's fault: the script does give him some clunkers - especially the "distress" rant, where he comes across as someone who doesn't know what's going on, when in fact the film has him reveal a secret insurance policy a few minutes later. Really, this film isn't about Pitt at all - it's about the ship. Which means most of the cast are wasted.

With Jordan being miscast as Pitt (no twinkle in his eyes, playing it completely flat), the rest of the cast are similarly poorly chosen. Jason Robards as Admiral Jim Sandecker looks bored and totally disinterested in acting. When asked why he was in the movie, he later replied "for the money." It shows. David Selby as Gene Seagram is ok, possibly the best casting of the lot, but an entire sub-plot from the book is discarded and again, he struggles to come across as two dimensional, so bad is the script. And bless poor Anne Archer, one of only two women in the film with speaking parts - the other is a pub landlady in Cornwall! Archer gives perhaps the only warm performance of the lot as Dana Archibald, a reporter who is Seagram's girlfriend and an ex of Pitt's. Again, not given much to do and with bugger all involvement in developing the plot, even though there is room for tension and drama (as there was in the novel), it's almost like Archer is window dressing and this is a criminal mis-use of her acting abilities.

Everyone else has pretty much bit parts, though one character was originally going to be Al Giordino, Pitt's long time friend, but in the end, Giordino is nowhere to be seen. Comment must be made about Alec Guiness, who pops up as the last surviving crew member of the Titanic - it looks like he was given £50 in an envelope and told to ham it up for a day or two. I apologise, it was probably way more than £50!

So, with a simple plot and barebones characters, you'd maybe expect a taut, Cold War thriller. Well, it's set in the Cold War, there is that. The pacing of the story is glacial, with a brisk-ish start that soon slows to the almost documentary-level torpidity of how to raise a long sunken ship from a very deep part of the ocean. Of course, this is dangerous and there are deaths but you might not notice all of this as you'll have been too busy watching some impressive, albeit murky, model submarine work. This pretty much takes up the middle third of the film. When they do get the ship to the surface (with some rather decent model work, it must be admitted), it then plods on for a bit before introducing the dual threats of bad weather and the Soviets, who have lured away the Titanic's protective Navy presence. The Soviets are dealt with by Pitt's surprise insurance policy of a sub and two fighter jets, whilst the bad weather never gets mentioned again. Needless to say, Cussler made this much more exciting in his book. Then we get to the end of the film and the twist. Except it's not really a twist and it's delivered with such a whimper that when one of the characters asks, "Don't you want us to dig it up?", you can't help but question whether they mean the mineral or the script.

On the plus side, there is that rather good model work, though modern day viewers used to CGI will call it out as crap, but that seems to be a generational thing. There is a lovely little easter egg on the model of the Titanic by its builders as well (yes, this is how desperate I am to find good things to say here...).

I've circled the pump operator here - he did well from 12,600 feet!

They did get official US Navy support so when you see ships floating about or mini-subs hanging from cranes, they are the real thing. There is also some decent real world location filming in the US, but there I am stretching the point that they got to walk two actors past a security cabin at an entrance to the White House. Other times, it looks cheap, especially when they dock the Titanic in New York and there is a crowd of about fifty people stood behind a railing and everyone else behind them isn't even taking any notice of the ship at all.

There is one thing, however, that we should be grateful for with this film, and that's the soundtrack. John Barry delivers one of his finest pieces of work. Some may only be familiar with his work on the Bond films but if you look here, he was extremely prolific. For Raise the Titanic though, he nails it, even if the film itself is poor. The score soars when it needs to, matches the seriousness of the underwater scenes and captures the joy of success - something the rest of this film lacks. Not only a damn fine composer, perhaps he'd read the book as well...

Is Raise the Titanic a good film? No, certainly not. It's biggest flaw is the lack of relatable characters - the focus on the ship means there is no human drama here worth a damn and all the actors have to do is turn up. The lack of passion is palpable and you often feel that even the actors are giving sly nods to the camera to show that they're also aware of it. This is a shame, as given the character of Pitt, there is an adventure series waiting to happen. And believe me, years after this box office bomb, they tried. But that's for another day, and another entry into what I hope becomes a semi-regular series. As for Raise the Titanic, it's a perfect Sunday afternoon film. After stuffing yourself with Sunday lunch, retire to the settee and doze off listening to Barry's superb score. It's not like you'll be missing much of the film.

Pixel Bison Issue 2

After a short delay caused by quality control issues with the printing, the latest issue of Pixel Bison arrived yesterday morning. The delay itself was minor but what was really appreciated was the Twitter update by the editor detailing why the delay had occurred and what options people had to deal with it. This clarity of communication was a nice touch.

Anyway, back to the magazine and here it is in all of its glory, alongside the included A4 poster:

As you can see, the cover is taken up by the indie title Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle Chapter II. This gets not only a review but also a three page interview with the games' creator, Ethan Fox. Both are well worth reading and if the idea of an anime styled graphical adventure where you play a defence attorney is appealing, then the first chapter can be found here for free (it's playable in a web browser). Chapter II is also available here for the sum of $2.99 (you can pay more if you wish), with a third chapter due in the autumn. 

The series of interviews with former Lionhead staff continues with a four page chat with Charles Griffiths and sheds further light on what it was like to work for such a well known developer, as well as working in the games industry as a whole. There is also an interview with Tatiana Delgado, co-founder of Out of the Blue Games. This I particularly liked as their forthcoming release, Call of the Sea, was a highlight from May's Inside X-Box show - a 1930's set first person puzzle adventure game. I've been playing a few similar titles recently (Deliver Us The Moon, The Talos Principle and Close to the Sun being three stand outs this year) and I like the style of this one. This interview gets four pages, one of which is artwork from the game. The final interview is with Ryan Brown of Super Rare Games. If you're not familiar with this publisher, they release limited run physical editions of games for the Nintendo Switch, and when I say limited, we're talking in the low thousands at best. Why? Because in the age of digital downloads, there are many who still want to collect physical games (I see no issue here - I bought the Evercade with an eye for collecting, as well as playing, the games). All of these interviews are well written and, in my humble opinion, are nearly worth the price of the magazine alone.

But there is more, of course.

Previews this month are for Chestnut Grove and Atomicrops, the former a short puzzle game with a very contemporary theme, the latter a farming simulator with a suitably nuclear twist. Both sound intriguing. 

The only review is that of NALE II as noted above, but you get three pages, half a dozen lovely screenshots and then, in a well placed move, a full page advert for Chapter III following straight after the review. There is also another advert for Chapter III on the back cover. This brings me neatly to the subject of adverts.

I was asked by a friend how many adverts there are in the mag, as they were thinking of giving it a try but didn't want to pay for something that was mostly adverts and little other content. Well, let me put their, and your, mind at rest - there are a total of three pages of adverts in this issue of Pixel Bison - the aforementioned full page for NALE Chapter III, a full page for Long Ago, a soon to be released puzzle title, and a split page - two quarters for the magazine and subscriptions, then a half page for a novel. That doesn't count the back cover ad, but then that's what the back cover is for. So no, there are not many ads in here at all - it's almost all content. 

The news section is pretty much taken up by the announced titles from Sony's PS5 event in June - seven pages briefly covering all of the games announced. Some interesting titles there and a handy little guide for future reference. There is also a page of publisher news where three new titles get an airing.

Finally, we get to the Retro section, with a five page retrospective on Star Trek: Birth of the Federation - a 1999 strategy title that I remember rather well. Reading this brought back some good memories of this title from way back when and I'd like to see more in depth pieces like this in future. A two page chat with Chris Griffin, founder of the YouTube channel Retrojunk Review leads nicely to what promises to be a lovely idea where the editor picks a couple of titles from his game collection and discusses them (possibly with interviews). That, I'd like to see take off.

So, overall, another excellent issue that more than maintains the level of quality set by the first. If you've been on the fence about Pixel Bison then give it a go. Check out Pixelbison.com, where you can buy single physical issues for £4.99 or get a digital copy for just £3 per issue. If you like what you see, then there are subscriptions available here. Roll on issue three!!!

I found my old Sony PlayStation Portable!

This is my Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). I would like you to take a minute just to look at it. It's an original Japanese PSP-1000 model, bought from Maughan's Micros in the MetroCentre back in early 2005, when buying imported consoles was still a thing! Not a problem for the PSP as the games don't come with any region locking. I'd pretty much forgotten I had it until clearing out a bookcase and finding it hiding on the bottom shelf. A quick search for a three-in-one mains adapter was successful and the console was soon charging.

That screen ain't half reflective.

As you can see, it's still in decent nick, though that is helped by the wonderful industrial design and build quality. For £180 (about £250 in 2020) at UK launch, you were getting a serious piece of kit. It's solid, with a reassuring heft and has certainly withstood the test of time with only a couple of blemishes. Unlike the more child-like Nintendo handhelds, this was aimed at adults, at least as far as the design goes. It was also a success, with this and follow on models selling a combined total of over 80 million units - though that was still only slightly more than half of the Nintendo DS sales total.

Spec-wise, you've got two 333MHz MIPS32 R4000 processors, 32Mb of RAM, a gorgeous (for the time) 4.3 inch 480 x 272 pixel LCD screen and a UMD (Universal Media Disc) drive. Battery life out of the box was good for three to six hours depending on how much the software demanded from the hardware and is easily replaceable. For those of you who don't know, I consider this "a very good thing". There are also decent front facing stereo speakers and built in wi-fi.

It honestly looks better in the glass and plastic.

It's nice to hold in the hand, not too small to cause immediate cramp, not too large to become tiring after extended periods of play. The controls, excluding the analogue nubbin, are in the right place and the four face buttons, as well as the clear plastic shoulder buttons, feel perfect, though the smaller controls below the screen are a bit fiddly and not that pleasant to use. That analogue nubbin, though, whilst a lovely design, is a smidge too low on the face of the PSP, and long term use, at least for me, causes mild cramp in my left thumb. I know, moving it would spoil the symmetry of the machine and may not be possible with the internal design but, it's a minor annoyance. Then again, so too is the Switch and it's uneven analogue sticks. Or maybe that's just me. Speaking of holding it, that lovely shiny finish is not good for hiding fingerprints.

Anyway, this particular PSP still has my original memory card in it and from that, I can see I have played Ridge Racer, Field Commander, EA Replay and the Powerstone Collection. Not that I have any of those games anymore, but can I hell remember getting rid of them. In fact, with no games to play on it, the PSP is only slightly more useful than a chocolate frying pan, especially with only the PSP branded 32Mb Memory Stick Pro Duo card that came in the box to hand. Fortunately, a quick trip to Games Galaxy in Consett sorted that issue out and I now have Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee (also known as Everybody's Golf - this particular game is an American release - but that's the joy of region-free gaming) and Tomb Raider: Legend to play. I'll also probably pick up some other titles from CEX whenever I am next visiting Durham or Newcastle. Their prices are really decent (£2.50 for quite a few of the more popular titles, sometimes only 50p for the more esoteric games) and whilst they have a good selection online, paying £1.95 postage per item is outrageous, especially when you're only looking to buy a few of the very cheap titles.

Two decent little titles.

So, some observations from using it for the past couple of weeks...

The screen, as much as it might have been amazing in 2004, is merely decent now. True, we're spoilt by ultra high-resolution mobile displays these days, but the viewing angles aren't brilliant and nor is it uncommon to find dead pixels on some examples. I can't see any on mine, which is fortunate. Having said that, this is fifteen year old tech, and it still shows off games at their best.

Also, that battery life - whilst three to six hours may sound good, anyone with a Nintendo Switch knows that the more power-hungry games will bring that down to three hours at a push. Same goes for the PSP, though even now, mine still offers about two to two and a half hours, which is not bad considering its age. Getting a replacement battery shouldn't be a problem though.

Memory cards - yes, they are Sony's own format. Yes, they were stupidly expensive when the PSP was first released but yes, they can be found a lot more cheaply now if you have a look on Amazon. There are adapters for Micro SD cards as well, which is handy. Still, not as bad as the situation for the PSP Vita - which to be honest was one of the reasons I didn't buy that handheld when it was released and I recall an awful lot of criticism at the time for Sony's pricing policies.

And then there is the UMD themselves. I actually like the format, dinky little 1.8GB disks, but I never saw the point of the TV/film side of them, and when launched, these were vastly over-priced. Not a problem for me with my Japanese device as media titles were region-locked, but I do feel for anyone who invested heavily in the film and TV shows that made it to the format. That also leads me on to the media player side of the machine - yes, that early '00's desire to have all in one portable media machines - you young 'uns now call them mobile phones. The PSP isn't entirely successful with that, needing a PC to transfer and convert files as and when required. Not exactly easy to use and, in the early years, hobbled by those memory card prices as well.

It's so dinky...

But that's taking away from what the PSP actually is: a damn good handheld gaming system with a wide variety of titles. As with the PS2, there is a ton filler as well, but like that system, if you can't find a title that takes your fancy, there is little hope for you as a console gamer - and yes, I thought long and hard about that definition :-).

I've always enjoyed handheld gaming systems, from the early days of the Sega Gamegear, various flavours of Gameboy, GB Advance and GB Micro, to the PSP, Nintendo DS and 3DS. That extends to the modern day Evercade, reviewed here. The only machine I have never owned, but would have liked to, is the PSP Vita, Sony's ultimate handheld gaming follow up that it allowed to die prematurely. That particular machine is on the list though... Back to the PSP, and it is a superb gaming system and one that, as it still works, deserves to be used. Plus it's a fairly cheap collectors system if you shop around, but as always, there are some titles that go for silly money. For me, there is something about the sound of the UMD drive spinning up, the tactile solidity of the machine, and the sheer capability that it delivers (squint and you'll think it's a PS2) that makes the PSP a lovely little machine to own.

Zorin OS - trying to bring an old laptop back into use.

This is a Compaq Presario CQ57-301SA laptop, a now elderly machine, dating from the back end of 2011. I recall getting it as part of a mobile phone contract bundle that seemed to make sense at the time and, to be fair to the Compaq, for the three years it saw use, it was good enough.

A sneaky shot of the dining room ceiling as well... you lucky people.

Equipped with an AMD E-300 1.3GHz CPU and Radeon graphics, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive, this is not exactly a powerhouse. Indeed, with the bundled Windows 7 Home Edition, the machine's performance would be best described as stately. It was never a primary machine but did act as a good back up device even if it wasn't exactly a lightweight, weighing in at a smidge over 2.5Kg not including the 200g needed for the power adapter. The screen is a 15.6 inch 1366x768 number, which is average at best. You do, however, get a decent sized keyboard which is alright to use - not earth-shatteringly good but better than some laptops I have experienced. The touchpad is something else though, dimpled plastic that feels uncomfortable to use and is really not nice. As for the mouse buttons, they are loose and unresponsive unless you click them just right. Needless to say, as soon as this was brought home, a mouse was attached. The build quality is, again with that word, average. Plastic, but sturdy enough though there is some give around the centre of the hinge area that adds doubt as to this machine's ability to bounce. It's certainly lasted over the years with just a few scratches and marks but nothing that affected the operation of the machine. One nice thing to see is that the keyboard is solidly placed in the case. There is nothing more concerning when typing than when the whole thing flexes even under the lightest of pressure. I have found some modern day laptops, especially some of the cheaper HP and Lenovo types, are plagued by this. Battery life was about three and a half hours when new but I am not expecting anything like that now, though it is replaceable.

Not a powerful machine, even when new.

Connectivity is standard for the era: three USB 2.0 ports, the usual RJ45 connector for 10/100 Ethernet, full size SD/MMC card slot, audio in and out, as well as a 15 pin VGA port. A tray loading DVD-ROM drive and Kensington lock complete the exterior. Under the base, you can access the hard drive and memory for any upgrades you want to perform, though you are limited to 8GB of RAM. A note on the installed RAM - you lose nearly a quarter to video RAM for the integrated graphics, and Win 7 Home was always a bit iffy with less than 2GB to itself.

So why mention this machine now? Well, it's pretty much sat in the corner of a room for the last five years with just the occasional switch on to see if it still works, which it does. However, the OS has not been updated in years and performance is such that it is painfully slow to use. Having said that, it could still be of use as a simple text entry/web browsing machine, even if the battery is such that you can't stray far from a mains socket. It could also double as a portable retro games machine, especially with the keyboard - a flaw with the Lenovo Yogabook I posted about earlier in the year. But it couldn't be any of those things with the existing Windows install - the limited RAM and under-powered CPU would see to that, never mind the lack of updates. As a self confessed hoarder, I didn't really want to chuck it and besides, it still works.

This is where Zorin OS comes in.

And no, not this Zorin!

Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that promises a switchable user experience to provide interfaces similar to Windows and MacOS in order to comfort the new user. There are four versions available: Ultimate (which will set you back 39 Euros), Education, Core and Lite (all of which are free). The first three require a 1GHz dual-core 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM, between 10 and 20GB of storage and an 800x600 screen. The Lite version takes that entry spec even lower to a 700MHz single core 32-bit CPU, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of storage and a 640x480 screen. Given the limited specs of the Presario, I opted to test out the Lite version. A handy comparison of the different versions can be found here.

You can easily try out Zorin OS by downloading it from the their website and setting up a bootable USB drive. Instructions are easy to follow and it's simple to do. Once you have your USB drive ready, you then need to pop into your computer's BIOS to change the boot order so that the stick is picked up before the existing boot device (usually the hard drive or SSD that contains Windows). To do this, you'll need to press a specific key once you have switched on your computer - usually F1, Esc or, in this case, F10.

BIOS screen - bringing back DOS memories...

If you're not familiar to this style of screen, then I don't blame you. The sealed box style of computing popularised by Windows and MacOS means that you'll probably never have seen this before and I warn you now, if you do get curious, be careful. BIOS changes can cause more than a few problems, so with most of the options in here, if you don't need to change anything, don't!

For me, I just needed to change this menu so that when I plugged in the USB stick and powered the laptop on, it would boot off the Zorin OS image there. This was quickly done and I restarted the machine with the stick plugged in.

After a couple of minutes, I ended up with this - the Zorin OS desktop.

IT LIVES!!!

It looks nice, very relaxing in tone, familiar looking icons in familiar places and, to be honest, feels a bit more sprightly in use even though it's running off an old USB stick. This is a nice touch, by the way - you can try out the OS without nuking your existing OS install. After having a bit of a play about, I decided to go in for the full install - and yes, that meant no more Windows on the Presario.

Forty-five minutes later (it may be quicker for you given the age of the processor and the slow USB drive), the OS was installed and working fully. Wifi connectivity was just a password away and from there, it took another thirty five minutes to get all of the required updates installed. This was pretty much expected and didn't feel overly long.

There is a decent selection of software already installed (including Libre Office) but you have access to a respectable software store as well, which led me to FocusWriter, which I may come back to in a later post. There are hundreds of programs on here alone that could be useful to you and, of course, more if you search online via the included Firefox browser.

The Software Store.

In general use, while there are some pauses and stutters, these are nothing like the glacially slow experience of Win 7 on this machine. Boot up to a desktop (minus the time to input a password) is now less than 90 seconds. Some may scoff at that (and if this were anywhere near a modern spec, you perhaps should), but with Win 7, it was upwards for four minutes by the time the disk stopped thrashing. Not entirely sure what was going on there but the start up was as clean as I could make it. Even so, in use, it was terrible before, whereas now, it's perfectly usable as a basic productivity, web browsing and retro gaming machine (once I get RetroArch installed). In use, over the past week, the battery still seems to give about three and a half hours which, considering its age, is amazing. Also, if you're a person concerned with privacy and personal data collection, the team behind Zorin are quite proud to state clearly that they do not collect any private data about their users.

As for upgrades, I could double the RAM for less than £25 and the hard drive can easily be replaced by an SSD, something that would improve the responsiveness no end. OK, the processor is always going to be a drag on performance but hey, you can make little improvements here and there. All in all, not too bad for a nine year old basic spec machine. It'll certainly do.

And that, I think, is the point I am making here. I have seen quite a few people get rid of older Win 7 based computers because they believe that, as it's old and feels slow, it's clapped out, when all they need to do is try an alternative OS. The user experience is not that different, certainly not as jarring as moving from Windows to MacOS in my opinion, and unless you need specific software requirements (thinking Apple Music/iTunes), then you're pretty much covered for anything you need. The militant RISC OS user in me wants to scream out that you should be buying one of these from RISC OS Open for a tenner to see what proper alternative computing is all about, but practicalities in general use mean it's a bit more of a stretch for the average user - whatever constitutes an average user.

Give Zorin OS a try - you never know, you might like it. Of course, there are many more Linux distributions out there, but I picked this one because it caters for older hardware and tries to comfort new users to Linux. You don't have to be tied to Windows or MacOS if you take a little time and put a little thought into switching. I'm rather pleased with Zorin OS and having seen how well it performs on the Presario, I think it might be time to replace the old Ubuntu 11.10 install on my Asus Eee-PC...