In the world of filmmakers, few have been more outspoken over the decades than James Cameron, the visionary mind behind such hits as the first two Terminator films and Avatar. Cameron made a rare jump to the small screen when he appeared on a 2012 episode of Mythbusters to tackle elements of legitimacy from his box office behemoth Titanic. And when asked recently about the show's conclusion that both Jack and Rose could have survived while floating in the wreckage, Cameron rejected their reality and re-substituted his own.
So you're talking about the Mythbusters episode, right? Where they sort of pop the myth? OK, so let's really play that out: you're Jack, you're in water that's 28 degrees, your brain is starting to get hypothermia. Mythbusters asks you to now go take off your life vest, take hers off, swim underneath this thing, attach it in some way that it won't just wash out two minutes later---which means you're underwater tying this thing on in 28-degree water, and that's going to take you five to ten minutes, so by the time you come back up you're already dead. So that wouldn't work. His best choice was to keep his upper body out of the water and hope to get pulled out by a boat or something before he died. They're fun guys and I loved doing that show with them, but they're full of shit.
Now, we should all note that James Cameron doesn't have pitchforks and torches out while decrying the mere existence of Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, but he definitely is the kind of filmmaker who is far more defensive about fact-checking critiques than more narrative-based opinions. If James Cameron had really wanted to kick up dust over Mythbusters, legal teams would have gotten involved when they weren't defending waves of failed Avatar lawsuits.
Still, a rose is a rose is a rose, and calling somebody "full of shit" is just that. It's almost still surprising that James Cameron even appeared on Mythbusters, knowing that his film's veracity would be viewed by skewed eyes looking to take down the big ship, sans iceberg. But he definitely has a point in shrugging off those particular findings, as he did in his interview with The Daily Beast, considering how mentally on-the-ball both Jack and Rose would have to be in such a ridiculously tense situation. I mean, nobody is acing Mensa tests under hypothermia-inducing conditions, right?
Okay, okay, James Cameron. If anybody can show off their high IQ while fingers and toes are losing all feeling, it's you.
In all its years on the air, Mythbusters never promised to exclusively offer the most feasible and plausible ways of debunking myths of history and hallmarks of pop culture, so it's not like they're at fault here for positing such an ideal strategy for survival existed in the first place. But James Cameron was invited into their home and was then told that the resolution to one of his greatest achievements could have been more happy and fan-pleasing, so he's not at fault for being as salty as that cold ocean water. Nobody bring up that new Titanic documentary with him at a cocktail party, though, or tell him that Kate Winslet agrees with the two-person-on-the-door-bit theory.
Basically, what we're saying is: James Cameron, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman should all work together again soon, with explosions fully welcomed. While that likely won't happen, though, you can check out everything that IS coming to TV soon with our midseason premiere schedule.
