"Titanic" director James Cameron has finally put to rest the burning question that fans have been asking since the epic 3.5-hour film was released in 1997: Could Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) have fit on the floating door with Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) while they were fighting for survival in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, ultimately saving his life?
The answer? According to Cameron, No.
"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, according to The Toronto Sun.
The scene in question takes place towards the end of the film, after the RMS Titanic sank, leaving Jack and Rose to swirl through the freezing waters, where they manage to find a thick door that had been ripped off its hinges aboard. However, after they tried unsuccessfully to both fit on the floating door, Jack allows Rose to stay on while he remained mostly submerged in the water. By the time lifeboats arrived, he had frozen to death.
Fans have since argued that there was more than enough space for both Jack and Rose to fit on the door but Cameron is adamant that it could not have worked.
"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 explained. "We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate and Leo 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."
And now, two-and-a-half decades later, Cameron said he has "no" regrets for the movie's outcome.
"No, he needed to die. It's like Romeo and Juliet. It's a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality," he said. "The love is measured by the sacrifice."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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