Titanic: Special Collector's Edition (1997)
Paramount Home Video

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Love it or leave it, the top grossing movie of all time and Best Picture Oscar winner is a global crowd-pleaser. The fictional love story of young artist Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and heiress Rose (Kate Winslet), set aboard the doomed Titanic ocean liner in 1917, has something for everyone. Walls of water, deadly stunts and mind-boggling special effects wow action fans.

The painstakingly detailed authenticity awes historians. And the schmaltzy, inter-class love story warms the hearts of romantics. Detractors pooh-pooh Titanic's fictionalized plot for its one-dimensional, first class-vs.-third class rivalry, but fans defend the rich vs. poor machinations as more akin to modern Dickens. The plot's simple, but it's classic old-fashion storytelling that meshes seamlessly with state-of-the-art special effects.

James Cameron's Titanic first came out on DVD in 1998, with no bonuses or extras. Now this three-disk set in a leatherette box does the super-production justice, with more than 45 minutes of deleted scenes, including a never-before seen original ending. But the real gems are the technical featurettes that reveal how Cameron combined live action, miniatures, models and multiple generations of digital effects in each scene to create a realistic-looking epic worthy of the boat it pays homage to. While Titanic ushered in a new wave of digital effects, the featurettes and commentary also reveal Titanic to be one of the last big Hollywood movies to actually employ real actors on giant sets doing real things. An on-screen icon intermittently pops up during the movie, and by clicking it viewers can access branching technical featurettes that show how effects were achieved in the very scene they're watching. This comprehensive package is precisely what the medium of DVD was made for.

by Rob. Walton