Titanic’s parallels with Somewhere in Time

Titanic’s parallels with Somewhere in Time

I found after watching the beautiful Sci-Fi Romance ‘Somewhere in Time’ that James Cameron got a few things from this when making his movie; ‘Titanic’. Titanic is based on the real life shipwreck disaster and Somewhere in Time is based on the book Bid Time Return. Rose is played by Kate Winslet and Elise is played by Jane Seymour. Richard is played by Christopher Reeve and Jack is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Here are all the things I found that were similar. Warning: SPOILERS!!!!!

1.       Most of both films is set in 1912

2.       Both Rose and Elise the main characters are seen as older ladies

3.       Both have love triangles. Well somewhere in Time has a hinted love triangle that turns out to be untrue

4.       Both have sex scenes

5.       The ceremonial ‘letting down of the hair’

6.       Jack and Richard both get nearly arrested but the female heroines save them from this

7.       In the end both couples are reunited in an afterlife. Both scenes are very similar.

8.       The plots revolve around a special object, Titanic ‘Heart of the Ocean’ and Somewhere in Time is the pocket-watch

9.       There are both significant pictures of Rose and Elise.

10.   Both Jack and Richard die prematurely.
11. Female heroines looking in the mirror wistfully.
12. The tragic ending happens just as the hero and heroine start to make plans.
13. The hero and heroine are torn apart in the story only to be reunited in what is arguably the most beautiful and powerful scenes in both movies.

The plots:

Somewhere in Time:

A guy named Richard on the premiere of his play in 1972 gets approached by an old lady who gives him a pocket watch and says ‘come back to me’.  8 years later in 1980 Richard goes to The Grand hotel and meets a guy called Arthur who assumes they have met. Richard gets drawn to a picture of a beautiful woman and finds out that she’s called Elise McKenna. He goes to the library to find out more about her (days before internet) and finds out that the old lady who gave him the pocket watch was Elise McKenna. Richard visits her carer who looked after her as an old lady and she tells him that Elise died the night she gave him the watch. Richard sees one of Elise’s books written by his old lecturer. Richard visits his lecturer and asks him if time travel is possible. He tells Richard that the only way is to remove everything modern from the room and repeat over and over again that it is a year in the past. Richard records himself saying this but to no prevail. He asks Arthur for all the records of people who have checked in the hotel in the past years and sees his name proving he was there. Richard time travels and meets a little Arthur and eventually Elise McKenna who says ‘is it you?’ Her manager William Fawcett Robinson (the wonderful Christopher Plummer) abruptly intervenes and sends Richard away. Richard stubbornly continues to pursue Elise until she finally agrees to accompany him on a stroll through the surrounding idyllic landscape. Richard ultimately asks why Elise wondered aloud if he was "the one". She replies that Robinson somehow knows that she will meet a man one day who will change her life forever. Richard then shows Elise the same pocket watch which she will eventually give him in 1972, but he does not reveal its origin, merely saying it was a gift.

Richard accepts Elise's invitation to her play, she recites an improvising and frankly creepy to everyone else in the audience, monologue dedicated to him. During intermission, he finds her posing formally for a photograph. Upon spotting Richard, Elise breaks into a radiant smile, the camera capturing the image which Richard first saw of her 68 years later. Afterwards, Richard receives an urgent message from Robinson requesting a meeting. Robinson tries to get Richard to leave Elise, saying it is for her own good. Richard assumes he likes her but Robinson insists he wants her to be a star not his wife. When Richard professes his love for her, Robinson has him tied up and locked in the stables. Later, Robinson tells Elise that Richard has left her and is not the one, but she disbelieves him, stating that she loves Richard.

Richard wakes up the next morning and escapes. He runs to Elise's room and finds that her party has left. He goes out to the hotel's porch. Suddenly, he hears Elise screaming his name and sees her running towards him, one of the most beautiful and romantic scenes in a movie. They return to his room together and make love together. The next morning they agree to marry. Elise tells him that the first thing she will do for him is buy him a new suit, since the one he has been wearing is about fifteen years out of date. Richard begins to show her how practical the suit is because of its many pockets. He is alarmed when he reaches into one and finds a Lincoln penny of 1979. Seeing an item from his real present wrenches him out of his hypnotically-induced time trip, and Richard feels himself rushing backwards with Elise screaming his name in horror as he is pulled inexorably out of 1912.

Richard then wakes up back in the present. He is drenched in sweat and very weak, apparently exhausted from his trip through time and back. He scrambles desperately back to his own room and tries to hypnotize himself again, without success. Heartbroken and after wandering around the hotel property and sitting interminably at the places where he spent time with Elise, he eventually goes to his room and remains there unmoving for days until discovered by Arthur and the hotel manager; they send for a doctor and paramedics. Richard suddenly smiles and sees himself drifting above his body and, having presumably died of a broken heart. He then is reunited with Elise.

Titanic:

In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team explore the wreck of RMS Titanic, searching for a valuable diamond necklace called the Heart of the Ocean. They recover Caledon "Cal" Hockley's safe, thinking the necklace is inside, but instead find a sketch of a nude woman wearing it, dated April 14, 1912, the night the Titanic hit the iceberg. Hearing about the drawing, an elderly woman named Rose Dawson Calvert calls Lovett to claim that she is the woman depicted in the drawing. She and her granddaughter, Lizzy Calvert, visit him and his team on his salvage ship. When asked if she knows the whereabouts of the necklace, Rose recalls her time aboard the Titanic, revealing that she is Rose DeWitt Bukater, a passenger believed to have died in the sinking.

The story flashes back to 1912, when 17-year-old first class passenger Rose boards Titanic in Southampton with her fiancé Cal and her mother Ruth DeWitt Bukater. Ruth stresses the importance of Rose's engagement, as the marriage would solve the DeWitt Bukaters' secret financial problems. Distraught by her engagement, Rose considers suicide by jumping off the ship's stern; coincidentally, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson intervenes and convinces her not to jump. Discovered with Jack on the stern, Rose tells Cal she was looking over the ship's edge out of curiosity and Jack intervened to save her from falling, almost going over himself as well. When pressed, Jack confirms her account. Cal is at first aloof to Jack's actions, but when Rose indicates that recognition is due, Cal offers Jack a small amount of money. After Rose mocks Cal for this, asking if saving her life means so little, he invites Jack to dine with them in first-class the following night. Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, even though Cal and Ruth are wary of the young third-class man. Following the dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack for a party on the ship's third-class deck.

Since Cal and Ruth disapprove of Rose seeing Jack, Rose attempts to rebuff Jack's continuing advances. She soon realizes, though, that she prefers him to Cal, and meets him at the bow of the ship during what turns out to be the Titanic's final moments of daylight and they do the famous ‘I’m flying’ scene. They then go to Rose's stateroom, where she asks Jack to sketch her nude while wearing the Heart of the Ocean, Cal's engagement present to her. Afterward, they evade Cal's bodyguard and have sex inside a car in the ship's cargo hold. Afterward, the pair go to the ship's forward well deck and witness the ship's collision with an iceberg, overhearing the ship's officers and designer outline its seriousness. Rose and Jack decide they should warn her mother and Cal.

Cal discovers Jack's drawing and a mocking note from Rose in his safe, along with the necklace. Furious, he has his bodyguard slip the necklace into Jack's coat pocket. Accused of stealing it, Jack is arrested, taken down to the Master-at-arms' office, and handcuffed to a pipe. Cal then puts the necklace in his own coat. Rose runs away from Cal and her mother (who has boarded a lifeboat) and releases Jack. The ship then starts to launch flares in order to attract any nearby ships.

Once Jack and Rose reach the top deck, Cal and Jack encourage Rose to board another lifeboat; Cal claims that he has arranged for himself and Jack to get off safely. After she boards, Cal tells Jack the arrangement is only for himself. As Rose's boat lowers, she realizes she cannot leave Jack and jumps back on-board the Titanic to reunite with him. Infuriated, Cal takes a pistol and chases them into the flooding first-class dining saloon. After exhausting his ammunition, Cal realizes, to his chagrin, that he gave his coat with the diamond to Rose. With the situation now extreme, he returns to the ship's deck and boards a lifeboat by pretending to look after a lost child.

Jack and Rose return to the top deck. All lifeboats have now departed and passengers are falling to their deaths as the stern rises out of the water. The ship breaks in half, and the stern rises 90-degrees into the air. As it sinks, Jack and Rose ride the stern into the ocean. Jack helps Rose onto a wall panel that's only able to support one person's weight. Holding onto the edge of the panel, he assures her she will die an old woman, warm in her bed. Meanwhile, Fifth Officer Harold Lowe has commandeered a lifeboat to search for survivors. Jack soon dies from hypothermia. Rose draws the attention of Lowe's boat, and is ultimately saved.

Rose and the other survivors are taken by the RMS Carpathia to New York, where Rose gives her name as Rose Dawson. She hides from Cal on Carpathia's deck as he searches for her. She learns later that he committed suicide after losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

In the present, with her story complete, Rose goes alone to the stern of Lovett's ship. There she takes out the Heart of the Ocean, which has been in her possession all along, and drops it into the ocean over the wreck site. While seemingly asleep in her bed, the photos on her dresser visually chronicle that she lived a free and adventurous life inspired by Jack. The young Rose is then seen reuniting with Jack at the Grand Staircase of the RMS Titanic, in an afterlife applauded and congratulated by those who perished on the ship.

1.     The past scenes are both set in 1912.

They’re both set in 1912 but Titanic is April 14 and SIT (Somewhere in time) is in June two months later. In the book Richard travels from 1971 to 1896 instead of 1980 to 1912 but the screenwriter who also wrote the book changed it.

2.     Both Rose and Elise the main characters are seen as old ladies  

Old Rose is played by Gloria Stuart and Older Elise is played by Susan French. In Titanic Rose is 100 nearly 101. It’s hard to say what age Old Elise is because it is not said how old Elise is in 1912 but if Elise was 30 the same age as her actress Jane Seymour then Old Elise would be 90. In the book Elise doesn’t give Richard the watch creating a paradox that I’ll get to later.

3.     Both have love triangles

One thinks that there is a love triangle between William, Richard and Elise seeing as William is so defensive over her. However later on in the middle of the film Richard assumes that he wants Elise to be Mrs Fawcett Robinson and he demands angrily that he wanted her to be a star. He doesn’t let Richard be with her because he has some sort of unexplained psychic powers and knows that he’ll ruin her life (and he does).  Rose does have a fiancé however making her kind of an adulterer but he was an asshole to her so… it’s all ok. She was too good for him anyway.

4.     Both have sex scenes

Nothing too graphic in both scenes but SIT is way more subtle. In Titanic Jack and Rose are seen in the car seen sweaty and panting. In SIT Elise does the ceremonial letting down of the hair staring at Richard like he’s a time travelling Jesus Christ then it cuts to them in bed and pans out to candles and blurs out. And then the next day they are eating chicken. Chicken?!!!!!

5.     The ceremonial ‘letting down of the hair’

Rose before her nude drawing and Elise before her love scene with Richard that cuts out to candles. (Also in a deleted scene before Rose commits suicide she pulls her hair out of its bun but it didn’t end up in the movie so it doesn’t count.)

6.     Jack and Richard both get nearly arrested but the female heroines save them from this

Very similar scenes. Richard nearly gets arrested for hanging around Elise a bit more than he should have. Jack gets nearly arrested when he saves Rose from impending doom and it looks like rape. Jack gets arrested for real a second time after being framed for stealing the diamond.

7.     In the end both couples are reunited in an afterlife. Both scenes are dead similar.

Seriously similar. Check them both out. Cameron definitely took some imput from this movie with the endings. Especially with the holding out the hand. 

8.     The plots revolve around an object, Titanic ‘Heart of the Ocean’ and Somewhere in Time is the pocket-watch

Yes the pocket watch. So hear me out, Richard is given the watch by an Old Elise and then when he travels back he leaves it with her and she keeps it only to give it to him years later. So where did it come from?

9.     There are both significant pictures of Rose and Elise that appear in the modern scenes as well.

Oh yes. Titanic revolves around Rose and her nude picture that she leaves behind. Richard gets drawn to a picture of Elise looking mooney that was shot in 1912. But it turns out she was looking loved up because she saw him behind the camera man. Awwwww!

10.                         Both Jack and Richard die prematurely.

Jack dies of hypothermia and Richard dies of a broken heart after he gets taken back to his own time.

11. Wistful mirror stare

Rose has her stare when Cal gives her the diamond as she is wistfully sad at her marriage with him. It mirrors Elise's emotions perfectly as she stares in the mirror as she is at the stage where she is slowly falling in love with Richard. 

12. The tragic happens just as the hero and heroine start to make plans.

In Titanic Rose tells Jack she'll get off the ship with him when it docks and they begin to think about their future together. Then the ice berg collides with the ship and things start to go pear shaped. Even more tragic is Richard and Elise after they make love agree to get married whilst drinking champagne and eating chicken. Then Elise says that she'll buy Richard a new suit and he tells her that it's a great suit with lot's of pockets and then reaches in one and sees the 1979 penny and is pulled back to 1980 and then is unable to go back to 1912.

13. The hero and heroine are torn apart in the story only to be reunited in what is the most beautiful and powerful scenes in both movies. 

Rose tells Jack that she loves Cal and is going to marry him and doesn't want to see Jack again. And then she goes to the stern of the ship and tells him she's changed her mind and then Jack gets her to stand on the stern of the ship with her arms out in the infamous 'I'm flying scene.' In Somewhere in Time Robinson says he knows that Richard will destroy Elise and be her downfall. He persuades Richard to leave her who refuses. Then he knocks Richard unconscious and ties him up in the stables (also very similar to Jack being handcuffed to the pipe by Lovejoy). Then when he frees himself he goes to Elise's room and finds out that she is not there but then Elise sees him from a distance, screams is name and runs to him and holds him in another very powerful love scene. 

In conclusion both are equally good and different movies in their own right with some similarities.
 I owe Wikipedia credit for the plots.