In the same vein as the question: What came first, the chicken, or the egg? The question of: Could Jack have fit on the door in Titanic? Has baffled people for decades as they debate whether or not Jack could have lived if he would have fit on the door, and many passionately believe Jack could have 100% fit on the piece of wood with Rose. Well, now, James Cameron is putting and end to this debate as he revealed he has conducted a scientific study to prove that Jack and Rose would not have survived had they both been on the door.
With Kate Winslet in James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water cast, the debate has been brought back into the spotlight.
When it comes to the Titanic stars' thoughts on the debate, Winslet said the door debate is “one of those unanswerable questions,” and Leonardo DiCaprio refused to comment on the situation. Meanwhile, Cameron is out here using science to prove once and for all that Jack could not have fit on the door, as he told the Toronto Sun:
We have done a scientific study to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all. 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. 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.
According to the article Cameron has spoken for years about how it was an artistic choice for Jack to die, which he still believes today, saying:
No, he needed to die. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. The love is measured by the sacrifice.
However, since fans can’t seem to drop this debate, he decided to get science involved. According to the article, Cameron’s science project will be released by National Geographic around the same time Titanic is re-released for Valentine’s Day. The goal, as the director said, is:
Maybe … maybe … after 25 years, I won’t have to deal with this anymore.
Cameron also noted that for narrative purposes Jack had to die, and that if he “had to make the raft smaller, it would have been smaller.”
So, according to Cameron’s science experiment and his artistic vision, there is absolutely no way Jack could have survived. And come Valentine’s Day we’ll be able to see for ourselves the science behind the famous (or infamous to some) door debate.
While we wait to watch this experiment be sure to check out the 2022 movie schedule, and don’t forget you can watch Cameron’s long-awaited, and highly talked about Avatar sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, in theaters now.
