Titanic's Final Moments: Missing Pieces (DVD, 2006)

The Titanic has always fascinated me, since childhood when I heard my parents talk about her. Since I have acquired just about every program about her, this seemed to be another good one to add to the collection, especially since it has the History Channel behind it.

The history of Titanic and her sinking is covered, interspersed with discussions about this latest mission to try and find missing pieces of the hull. Several years earlier on a dive, one man thought he found "ribbons of steel" which would indicate that Titanic suffered more damage than the scraping of the sides against the iceberg. Unfortunately, he brought no photographic proof up from the depths, and in this attempt, the team will try to find and document the pieces for more in-depth analysis by a number of experts.

The program covers the research vessel, the Russian ship Keldysh, its submersibles, and the logistics of diving to such formidable depths. That is a nice overview for anyone not familiar with what an enormous undertaking it is to dive to Titanic.

My biggest complaint about this program is the same as every other one done - there is never enough footage of the ship itself. I'm quite certain there must be miles and miles and miles of film that has been taken of the ship, but we see relatively little in final productions. One thing that is very evident, however, is the deterioration of the ship which seems to be accelerating, and sadly, as one of the team puts it, "someday she will be a big rust stain on the bottom of the ocean."

The dive teams' number of dives is decreased as a serious storm moves toward the dive site, putting more pressure on them in their efforts to succeed. Better than Hollywood. The team is tracked as it tries to locate the pieces, which is no easy task two and a half miles down. The ocean floor is vast, pitch black, and without roadmaps. The Mir submersibles have cameras inside them, which gives you an idea of how cramped three people are inside these technological marvels.

For anyone fascinated by the Titanic and her tragic demise, I think this program is a nice addition to your library.

This is a very detailed exploration of the Titanic. I know the Titanic story has been redone over and over again, but we all love these true deep diving adventures. Something about the Titanic intrigues everyone. We have heard it all before but each time we watch one of these shows, we wonder about the people on the boat, what they were like, what they could have done with thier lives if they would have lived. Thank goodness the boating industry has come along way, where a tragedy like this can be prevented. The Titanic is truly a story that will never lose interest.

My son is very much into the whole Titanic mystery and history. This is the perfect thing to answer many of his questions and teach him about some of the things lost on the floor of the ocean

I think the authors proved their point in this DVD. There was a lot of underwater footage of the actual Titanic and it was exciting to watch them venture into "no man's land" in order to try one last attempt at finding the missing piece which they did find using that method. Sometimes you need to go on a hunch or instinct. This is a great DVD for anyone interested in underwater wrecks, the Titanic, or ship wrecks, or deep sea diving in general. Fascinating!

This is a very good documentary and I really enjoy it. It shows that even though you think you know everything about the Titanic there still is a lot we can learn from it.