Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have many uses in various industries such as aquaculture, commercial and salvage diving, environmental research, military, municipal infrastructure, oil and energy, search and rescue operations, shipping, underwater discovery, you name it. But did you know that while ROVs have been a source for information and education, they have also been a source of entertainment and leisure?

For this week’s blog feature, SubNet Services will share with you some of the movies that used and/or featured ROVs.

Spare Parts is a drama film released in 2015. It was inspired by the story of the four undocumented Mexican high school students featured in the documentary, Underwater Dreams. More than learning how to build a robot, the moral of this movie is learning how to build a bond that will last a lifetime.

Underwater Dreams is a documentary film released in 2014. It was based on a true story of four undocumented Mexican high school students who learned how to build underwater robots from cheap PVC parts and entered the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center annual ROV competition where they went up against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which was considered the engineering powerhouse.

Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove is a family film released in 2010. It is the fourth installment of the Free Willy series, but it is not connected to the first three films. In this fourth movie, however, Willy is played by a robotic double from Falcon. The small Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV used its five powerful thrusters and intelligent electronics to give Willy the wriggle he needs to swim free. The realistic swimming motion was cleverly recreated through the precise fingertip control of the Falcon by ROV pilots Nick Stroud and Josh Smit of Marine Solutions.

Luck is an action-thriller film released in 2009. It is about an underworld kingpin who recruits people from across the globe to take part in a series of challenges designed to test their luck factor as gamblers bet on them. In this film, a Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV was again used. It was strapped beneath a giant 4.2 metre long Latex and Polyurethane replica of a tiger shark and then sent to eat luckless victims trying to escape a sinking container. Although small and compact, the Falcon is powerful enough to manoeuvre the 400Kg model in both swimming pool and the open ocean – the tricky bit being to balance the buoyancy for compensating between sea water and fresh water.

Last Mysteries of the Titanic is a documentary TV film released in 2005. It presented history’s best look yet at the Titanic’s interior, including some areas not seen before. James Cameron’s specially designed ROVs explore Turkish Baths (the best-preserved and most opulent remaining space in the ship’s interior), Scotland Road (the crew quarters), the first class cabins (which are full of countless personal possessions of the Titanic’s wealthy passengers), the mysterious boiler room #6, and the cargo holds (which housed the luggage of the ship’s first class passengers and remain largely unexplored).

Aliens of the Deep is a documentary film released in 2005. It featured Titanic director James Cameron and a team of NASA scientists journeying to some of the Earth’s deepest, most extreme and unknown environments in search of the strange and alien creatures that live there. One of the ROVs used in the movie is ROV Bot 1 nicknamed Jake.

Ghosts of the Abyss is a documentary film released in 2003. It featured Titanic director James Cameron, Titanic actor Bill Paxton, and a group of scientists sailing out to the wreck of the Titanic. In this expedition, they used two ROVs nicknamed Jake and Elwood. The film was nominated for a BFCA award for Best Documentary.

Expedition: Bismarck is a documentary film released in 2002. It followed the underwater expedition of World War II’s most fearsome ship, Bismarck and digitally reconstructed events that led to the ship’s sinking. Using high-tech ROVs and revolutionary production techniques, producer and director James Cameron gave viewers the first glimpse inside the Bismarck since its death 61 years earlier. This film won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for Non-Fiction Programming a year after its release.

Titanic is a drama and romance film released in 1997 that was written, directed, and produced by James Cameron. It was a fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, which was ironically called “The Unsinkable Ship”. The wreck of the ship itself was discovered in 1985 by Argo (ROV). In 1986, the ROV Jason Jr. or JJ explored the wreck of the ship. When Cameron set off on his first mission to film Titanic in 1995, he had to use his own ROV named Snoop Dog because the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution wouldn’t let him use JJ.

The Abyss is a science fiction film released in 1989. It is about the journey of a Navy SEAL team enlisted to search for a lost nuclear submarine and faced danger while encountering an alien aquatic species. There was a scene in the movie where the SEAL team leader, who was suffering paranoia from high pressure nervous syndrome, was being spied through a ROV called Little Geek.

Interested to dive into the deep using ROVs yourself? You can do so by taking ROV training courses. As the first company to provide the ROV Pilot Technician Course in the Philippines, you can count on SubNet Services to help penetrate the exciting and rewarding industry of ROV.

For further inquiries about our ROV trainings, you may reach out to our Customer Sales Team:

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Sources:
– Burgan, Michael. (2018). Finding the Titanic: How Images from the Ocean Depths Fueled Interest in the Doomed Ship. North Mankato, MN: Compass Point Books. Retrieved from books.google.com
– Daily Script. “The Abyss”. dailyscript.com. www.dailyscript.com/scripts/abyss.html (accessed July 19, 2018)
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-a). Spare Parts. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt3233418/?ref_=nv_sr_1
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-b). Underwater Dreams. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt3563782/?ref_=rvi_tt
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-c). Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt1394329/?ref_=nv_sr_1
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-d). Luck. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt1242782/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-e). The Last Mysteries of the Titanic. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt0479085/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-f). Aliens of the Deep. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt0417415/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-g). Ghosts of the Abyss. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt0297144/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-h). Expedition: Bismarck. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt0330267/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-i). Titanic. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/?ref_=nv_sr_1
– Internet Movie Database. (n.d.-j). The Abyss. Retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt0096754/?ref_=nv_sr_1
– James Cameron Online. “Documentaries”. jamescamerononline.com. www.jamescamerononline.com/Documentaries.htm (accessed July 19, 2018)
– Marine Solutions Underwater Systems. “Falcon Frees Willy”. marinesolutions.co.za. www.marinesolutions.co.za/projects.shtml (accessed July 19, 2018)
– Titanic Survey Expedition. “Titanic History of Explorations”. titanicsurveyexpedition.com. www.titanicsurveyexpedition.com/history-explorations.html (accessed July 19, 2018)
– Woods Hole Oceanographic. “Ships & Technology used during the Titanic Expeditions”. whoi.edu. www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=83577&tid=3622&cid=130989 (accessed July 19, 2018)