Okay, I will admit here and now that Titanic is my very favorite movie of all time. My mom took me to see it when I was young (yes, she covered my eyes during the two naughty scenes) and I fell hopelessly in love with the movie and have been a fan ever since. I don’t even know how many times I’ve seen it. It’s probably an embarrassingly high number. So, whenever I see anything about Titanic in the news, I always read it. And lately, director James Cameron has been sharing a lot of “behind the scenes” stuff… and he’s at it again.
One thing I have always wondered, and I am sure many others have as well, is why did Jack have to die? I mean, besides the fact that there was plenty of room on that door/headboard thingy that Rose was on, why did the story have to end without a life of beautiful adventure for Jack and Rose? Just thinking about it now pains me.
So, what’s the deal?
Well, James Cameron finally comes clean and explains why Jack had to sink to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again…
The Daily Caller reported that James Cameron, who directed the 1997 film “Titanic,” says he has conducted a scientific study proving that Jack Dawson, one of the main characters in the movie, could not have survived.
In the movie, the young lovers Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) are stranded on a floating door after the sinking of the eponymous ocean liner. Rose climbs atop the piece of flotsam, but it begins to capsize when Jack tries to get on. Jack, being madly in love with Rose, allows her to remain on the door and drowns in the freezing Atlantic. Since the film’s release, fans and critics alike have complained that Jack’s death was unnecessary.
Watch:
DON’T LET GO: Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson argues the character Jack from “Titanic” should have tried harder to survive. Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/1TUU73CTq0
— ABC World News Now (@abcWNN) October 6, 2017
“Mythbusters” hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage previously tested the Titanic scene in 2013 and ultimately found that Jack could have survived if they had put Rose’s life vest under the door to help keep it afloat.
Cameron disputed these claims in a recent interview with The Toronto Sun, in which he promoted his upcoming film “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Cameron told the Sun that there was no way Jack would have realistically survived the event. “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.
The award-winning director described this study as a “thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert” that recreated the scene from the movie. “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,” Cameron said, adding that Jack also “needed to die” for plot-related reasons.
Watch:
“Only one could survive”@JimCameron planning TV special to prove Jack Dawson couldn’t have lived in Titanic.
WATCH: https://t.co/8aTs1NfGKQ pic.twitter.com/unSZfDMGAg
— Mark Daniell (@markhdaniell) December 16, 2022
Cameron says the Jack and Rose story is like “Romeo and Juliet…” a story of love and sacrifice. “Maybe I didn’t do it in a way that everyone agrees with, but Jack had to die. It’s that simple. If I had to make the raft smaller, it would have been smaller.”
Yikes. Jack didn’t have a chance! He had everything working against him; a sunken ship, freezing water, and James Cameron!