Its the characters in the story (Jack and Rose) that make the story silly. The movie would have done perfectly fine had the movie not been some kind of character driven fantasy.

Movies made nowadays can't tell stories, they have to have some kind of character involvement. Had James Cameron left out the love story, much more could have been told about the ship itself and the circumstances of its sinking--detailed analysis of damage, showing that the ship was definately within regulations with regards to its lifeboat capacity.

Time could have been spent telling the story of the Californian, which was never even mentioned.

People take this pop-culture movie and think its a historical document. Take these same people and ask them about the Titanic and they'll have no knowledge beyond what the movie said. Then you get the people that think Jack and Rose were real people.

James Cameron's movie is now 8 years old. Even still, I read posts here and elsewhere about people who haven't ventured beyond this movie to find out information about this event, why? Do they think this is the only movie made about this? What about the endless stream of books? If you're really interested in this, get some books, read, learn about what really caused it to sink (the reasons were far greater than a simple iceberg).

I started reading about this ship in 1977, when I was in the 1st grade. I've read so much about this, and watched enough movies about this that I can confidently say that his movie only brushed the surface about this ship and its sinking.

That being said, I reiterate that this movie should not have been character driven.