WTF, This is frigtarted

There's a lot of debate as to whether this movie is a sequel or a remake. What I don't understand, though, is that, in the first movie, Richard and Emmeline don't die, they were rescued in the end. Richard's father and his ship crew find them in the rowboat at sea with their son and the three of them are laying in the rowboat together with their eyes closed. Richard's father asks "Are they dead?" to which his crew member replies, "No sir, they're asleep.", so it's implied all three of them lived. Even if Richard and Emmeline did turn out to be dead after all, they wouldn't have just been left at sea in the rowboat with the baby. Richard's father and his crew would have given them a burial at sea and taken baby Paddy along with them, not just abandoned them, so I don't see how this movie can be a sequel to the first because it really doesn't follow the storyline from where the original left off. Unless, maybe there was another shipwreck that was never explained after the rescue with the father's ship and Emmeline, Richard and Paddy were the only survivors. Then Emmeline and Richard later died in the rowboat after escaping the second shipwreck, leaving the baby alone, and that's where this movie picks up. It would be nice if it had been explained.

Here we are talking about a movie not a book.
I always laugh when someone gives a reference of some book to define a movie.