Discovery Channel

Could Jack have survived the end of ‘Titanic’ had Rose let him climb up on that door raft with him? The question has lingered in pop-culture ever since ‘Titanic’ crashed into movie history back in 1997, with even James Cameron himself guest-starring on an episode of the infamous series ‘Mythbusters‘ to see if they could find a plausible scenario where both characters could have survived that night. Unfortunately for Cameron, the Mythbusters team did come up with a way for Jack and Rose to both survive, which would have involved Jack using their life-jackets to give the door some extra buoyancy and then climbing up there with Rose, but apparently that answer has never sat well with the acclaimed director.

Now, years later, as Cameron has been doing the press rounds about ‘Alien‘ and ‘Terminator‘ and discussing how the Oscars do not give blockbuster films a fair shake (a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with), the question about the ending of ‘Titanic’ happened to come up again, and Cameron decided to share his thoughts on the subject, including that ‘Mythbusters’ episode.

In Cameron’s own words while speaking to The Daily Beast about the subject:

“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 5-to-10 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.”

While entertaining to see Cameron get this passionate in defending his film, it does make one wonder why he even bothered going on ‘Mythbusters’ in the first place, he should have known the results were not going to be to his liking. And regardless of the validity of the ending, there is no denying the appeal of ‘Titanic,’ or the impact the film has had on pop culture over the years, so it really does not matter whether Rose was just selfishly keeping the door to herself, does it? Feel free to share your thoughts on the matter in the comments below!

horizontal lineNick is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, who belongs to the privileged few who enjoyed the ending to ‘Lost.’ For more of Nick’s thoughts and articles, follow him on Twitter.