James Cameron would very much like it if the discussion surrounding Jack’s death in “Titanic” did not go on. After years of fans debating whether or not Jack and Rose both could have fit on that floating door in the ocean, the director commissioned a study to prove once and for all that Jack had to die. And not just for cinematic reasons.
While on tour to promote his latest film, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Cameron told the Toronto Sun that he conducted a scientific study to settle the debate once and for all. The experiment will air as a special on the National Geographic Channel in February, but the Oscar winner had no problem spoiling the study’s findings.
“We have done a scientific study to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all,” Cameron said. “We have since done a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert who reproduced the raft from the movie, and we’re going to do a little special on it that comes out in February.”
He continued, “We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate [Winslet] and Leo [DiCaprio] and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods and the answer was, there was no way they both could have survived. Only one could survive.”
Cameron isn’t the only one who is standing by Jack’s icy death. Winslet, who stars in the Avatar sequel, recently appeared on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast where she too put another nail in the Jack-didn’t-have-to-die theory’s coffin.
“Look, all I can tell you is I do have a decent understanding of water and how it behaves,” Winslet said. “If you put two adults on a stand-up paddleboard, it becomes immediately, extremely unstable. That is for sure.”
Winslet added that while Jack likely could have fit on the door, it would have doomed both him and Rose. “I have to be honest: I actually don’t believe that we would have survived if we had both gotten on that door,” she revealed. “I think he would have fit, but it would have tipped, and it would not have been a sustainable idea. So you heard it here for the first time. Yes, he could have fit on that door, but it would not have stayed afloat. It wouldn’t.”
Both Winslet and Cameron’s assertions contradict the findings of a 2012 “Mythbusters” episode which posited that poor Jack could have survived — but only if he and Rose had figured out how to use Rose’s lifejacket as a buoy to help the door sustain their combined weight.