I don't understand why James Cameron undertook the challenge of building a replica of the Titanic but stopped at 90% scale. If you're going to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into a project like this, how can it hurt to add a few more million and make an exact replica?

-- Jason Sooch (jssooch@artsmail.uwaterloo.ca), January 15, 1998

Answers

As the saying goes, "They were on a budget." People were sweating blood to save money on the production, since the overages on construction were getting out of hand.

More importantly, the Titanic production was under severe time constraints for construction of the set. It has been mentioned by many on the production that it would have been cheaper to build a full-size, ocean-going hull in Gdansk, Poland, but it would have taken at least 2.5 years for it to be completed.

Cameron has mentioned that it would have made shooting a *lot* easier if the forecastle (the part between the bow and the forward well deck) had been built for the 9/10ths set. -e-

-- Thomas M. Terashima (tom@nucleus.com), January 16, 1998.

According to Cameron, he explained the boat like a loaf of bread. Just as wide and as tall but a little shorter because you take out a few slices. A few million dollars is still a lot of money, especially when you used more than double the original budgeted total. There were a lot of staterooms on the original boat that did not need to be part of the set. The grand staircase was the original size, same with the rooms, they just eliminated repetitive and unnecessary rooms.

-- Jen (jendrew@hotmail.com), January 15, 1998.

Also consider the constraints of the tank it was housed in.

-- Dave Phillips (Sonitus@USA.net), January 16, 1998.

What?! A 90 percent replica of an 882 foot-long ocean liner isn't big enough for you?

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), January 16, 1998.