20th Century Fox
It may have won 11 Oscars, but one thing has never sat well with fans of Titanic: the tragic death of Jack Dawson.
While Rose (Kate Winslet) managed to stay afloat on the icy waters because of a door, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) freezed to death, leading fans to question: why couldn’t Jack fit on the board?
The film’s director, James Cameron, finally addressed the controversial ending when asked if there was room for both characters to fit on the door.
“Look, it’s very, very simple: you read page 147 of the script and it says, ‘Jack gets off the board and gives his place to her so that she can survive.’ It’s that simple,” he defended in an interview with The Daily Beast.
He also went on to explain how the hosts of Mythbusters got it wrong when proved they could both fit on the door.
“OK, so let’s really play that out: you’re Jack, you’re in water that’s -2 degrees [celsius], 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 — 2 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,” he said.
“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 [Mythbuster hosts], but they’re full of s**t.”
Cameron, however, remained firm there was only one outcome for the film: Jack’s death.
“Maybe we screwed up and the board should have been a bit smaller, but the dude’s [Jack] going down,” he said.
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