Billionaire begins building Titanic II, ignoring the lessons of The Asylum's Titanic II

By Sean O'Neal | April 30, 2012 | 5:07pm

Aux Features Film

Billionaire begins building Titanic II, ignoring the lessons of The Asylum's Titanic II

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Swept up in the everlasting romance of drowning rich people and the serfs who served them, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has announced plans to build the Titanic II, a "high-tech" replica of the doomed ocean liner outfitted with all the latest innovations in symbolism and hubris. Palmer says his version will similarly set sail from the UK to New York in 2016 and will boast the same level of luxury and implicit class warfare, yet it will be differentiated by its "state-of-the-art 21st-century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems." This should help it avoid being downed by any giant floating metaphors for modern man's arrogance.

That lack of significance will be mirrored in its more "efficient," Chinese-manufactured scale, putting Titanic II well below most modern cruise ships in terms of its capacity for passengers who are probably going to die, because they had the balls to board a Chinese knock-off named the Titanic II and dare destiny to do something about it. Further tempting fate, Palmer calls the ship "a tribute to the spirit of the men and women who worked on the original Titanic"—which is, of course, another parallel this proposal has with The Asylum's "mockbuster" sequel Titanic II, a film whose plotline is now coming to life. Why, it's almost as if these people never even saw the movie Titanic II.