Everyone knows the ending of Titanic, before the dream sequence, when Rose (Gloria Stuart) drops the Heart of the Ocean into the water above the wreck site. After 84 years, she’s returning the diamond to its rightful resting place, even though Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) has been looking for it this whole time. He never sees the Heart of the Ocean in the film, but the alternate ending tells a different story. Rose’s granddaughter, Lizzy (Suzy Amis), sees her on the deck of the Keldysh while talking to Brock and rushes down to her. They think Rose is going to jump. Mirroring the scene when Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) saves young Rose (Kate Winslet) from jumping off the Titanic, Rose says, “Don’t come any closer.”
Rose threatens to drop the Heart of the Ocean, and Brock is in total shock. “You had it the entire time?” he asks. Rose admits that every time she thought about selling the necklace to make money, she’d think of Cal (Billy Zane). She knew she could make it without his help, and she did. She’s come all this way to put the necklace back where it belongs. Brock pleads with Rose to let him hold the necklace just one day, and she allows him to do so.
“You look for treasure in the wrong place, Mr. Lovett,” Rose says. “Only life is priceless. And making each day count.” With that, Brock lets go of the necklace. Then Rose tosses it over the ship.
Bill, shortly before his death in 2017, revealed that he was glad the alternate ending didn’t make the cut in the movie. “I always saw the wrap-around story that I was involved with, with Suzy Amis and Gloria Stuart, we were like the gantry on the Saturn V rocket,” he told Yahoo. “We’re there to hold the rocket up. But once the rocket takes off, the gantry is forgotten and falls away. Coming back to us was a way to wrap it up and kind of tie up the old Rose’s story and all that. But you didn’t really need anything from us. Our job was done by then. So it became very evident in the cutting. If you’re smart and you take the ego and the narcissism out of it, you’ll listen to the film. The film will tell you what it needs and what it does not need. And the baby needs tough love. It just wasn’t necessary.”
HollywoodLifers, do you prefer this alternate ending? Let us know!