Jack and Rose are not meant to grow old together. Titanic director James Cameron did multiple experiments to prove that only one of the two lovers would survive after the shipwreck.
James Cameron Debunks Titanic Speculations About Jack's Survival
Rose and Jack's love story in Titanic had a tragic ending as Jack, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, died to save his lover Rose (Kate Winslet). She survived by hanging on a makeshift raft.
However, many argued that Jack could have survived, too, had Rose shared the raft with him. After over two decades, Cameron told Toronto Sun in December that they did a scientific study to put the issue to rest.
They did a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert and reproduced the raft from the film. They hired two stunt people with the same mass as DiCaprio and Winslet, and they placed sensors all over them when they were submerged in the ice water. They experimented to see if both could have survived using a variety of methods. However, just like what was shown in the film, Cameron said the experiment resulted in the same ending - there is no way both will survive. Only one between Rose and Jack could survive.
Cameron said a little special about the experiment would be released in February. Titanic will be re-released in theaters on Valentine's Day.
The director doubled his take on it when asked about giving Jack and Rose's love story a tragic ending. According to him, Jack was doomed. He needed to die just like Romeo and Juliet because Titanic is a movie about "sacrifice and mortality."
James Cameron Shares One Thing He Would Have Changed in Titanic
To make his argument easier for many to accept that only Rose was meant to survive, Cameron joked that he should have just made the boat smaller.
By making a slightly different artistic choice and designing a smaller raft, the debate that Jack could have survived by joining Rose in the floating door would not be possible because the two of them wouldn't have fit on it.
Various discussions about Jack's death on Titanic probably moved Cameron to experiment. For instance, in a 2013 episode of Mythbusters, hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage believed that Jack would have survived if he tied Rose's life vest under the door, which they used as a raft, to help with buoyancy. The duo concluded that Jack's death was unnecessary.
Even Winslet had gone on the record, saying she believed Jack could have lived. Winslet appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's show in 2016 and said she felt Jack could have fitted on the door with her.
Meanwhile, Cameron was firm in giving the film a tragic ending. He told Vanity Fair in 2017 that the film's ending would be meaningless if Jack survived.
The award-winning director stressed that Jack had to die in a way. If he survived the shipwreck, he would still kill the character. Cameron emphasized that things had to happen for artistic reasons, not physics.
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