A Chinese company with presumably too much money and time on its hands has announced plans to build a life-sized replica of the RMS Titanic. You read that right. The Titanic, the same mega cruise ship that sunk in the Atlantic Ocean back in 1912, is getting a do-over.

Ok, that’s not entirely accurate. The Chinese Titanic, if you can even call it that, won’t be fully functional. In fact, it’s going to be a stand-still replica that will double as a museum and a theme park of sorts. If only the Irish folks behind the construction of the original Titanic thought of the same thing 113 years ago.

In any case, plans to build the replica Titanic actually began in 2013, when Seven Star Energy Group announced its intention to build the iconic cruise ship based on a majority of its design papers and with the help of an American high technology company. Apparently, this includes exact design replicas of both the ship’s exterior and interior, right down to the large dining halls and high-end hotels.

The project is expected to be completed in 2017, after which the replica Titanic will be prominently displayed on the Qi River at a theme park in Sichuan Province. There’s even talk that once it’s completed, the Chinese Titanic will be able to simulate the feeling of hitting an iceberg, much like the original Titanic, which eventually led to its sinking.

Continue reading to read more about plans to build the Chinese Titanic.

Why it matters

I’m not quite sure what to make of this. On the one hand, I like the idea of building a full-scale replica of the Titanic as a way to raise awareness regarding the unspeakable tragedy that befell the original Titanic back in April 1912. A lot of people, especially the younger generations, probably don’t even know what the Titanic was. Having this replica serve as a tribute to the original cruise ship should introduce the Titanic’s history to these young folks.

If that’s the intention here, then I’m all aboard on the project. On the other hand, if the project is meant to be used as a theme park of sorts that trivializes what happened to the original Titanic, then I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Some of us know what happened, even those who probably base the cruise ship’s history on the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. The bottom line is that the sinking of the Titanic remains one of the world’s most tragic events, one that could’ve been avoided if more people had paid more attention to what was unfolding on that cold April 1912 night.

Either way, I’m still interested to see how this project shapes up now that the company behind it has announced that it would be finished in 2017. One thing we can at least agree on is that this project is going to be massive. Probably not as massive as the original Titanic, but still big enough to make headlines.