'Titanic': James Cameron Explains Why Rose and Jack Couldn't Both Fit on the Floating Board

"Titanic" turns 20 this year, but even two decades hasn't been enough time for fans to get over one important issue: whether or not Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) could have been made it out of the icy water alive.

It's a fair question. In the film, Jack has Rose (Kate Winslet) climb onto a floating board that appears large enough to fit them both. Instead, though, he stays in the water, sealing his tragic fate and leaving director James Cameron to answer for it. The scene was even featured in a "MythBusters" episode, which concluded that while their weight would have been too great to keep the wood afloat, they could have gotten creative and rigged their life jackets to it.

Recently, the filmmaker settled the issue once and for all during a Daily Beast interview, explaining why "MythBusters" is "full of s--t."

"Let's really play that out: you're Jack, you're in water that's 28 degrees, your brain is starting to get hypothermia," he said. "'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."

Put like that, it does sound pretty unlikely. Rigging it would be especially difficult with freezing, numb hands, and in the meantime, they'd both be in the water without life jackets on. Alas, the time for denial is over.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if they theoretically could have both survived. The fact of the matter is, Jack had to die because that's the story they were telling.

"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,'" Cameron said. "It's that simple."

Rose let go, and now we need to, too. RIP, Jack.

[via: The Daily Beast]

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