Few things ignite the passions of moviegoers like a great film ending or a maddeningly ambiguous one. Whether it’s arguing over whether the top in ‘Inception’ ever stopped spinning, debating if Deckard was a replicant in ‘Blade Runner’ or dissecting the fate of your favorite characters, cinephiles have an uncanny ability to keep fictional moments alive long after the credits roll. And some debates just refuse to sink.

For decades, film lovers, casual viewers and internet meme-makers have been haunted by one burning question: Could Jack from ‘Titanic’ have fit on that door and be saved by Rose? The floating plank of cinematic controversy from James Cameron’s Oscar-winning film has sparked many heated debates. And through it all, Cameron has maintained that no, Jack could not have lived. Case closed.

Except…not quite.

In a documentary released in 2023, Cameroon celebrated 25 years of his film with National Geographic. The ‘Avatar’ director hired stunt people and science-d his way through decades-old fan outrage.

ALSO READ

And so, armed with a swimming pool, two stunt doubles roughly matching Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s late-90s physiques and a burning desire to answer the internet’s sass, Cameron recreated the scene three different ways.

Test one

The first attempt was the most straightforward. Jack and Rose both climb aboard the fabled door. Turns out, yes, they fit. Unfortunately, both are submerged in “dangerous levels” of freezing water. Cameron notes that in this arrangement, they would both likely die. So, congratulations, now they both perish instead of just one.

Test two

In round two, Cameron positions the stunt pair so that their upper halves (and therefore vital organs) stay above the water. This significantly increases their survival chances. Cameron even observes that Jack, in this case, could have lasted “hours”.

There’s just one teensy problem — the stunt people were well-fed, well-rested and not fresh off an iceberg dodge, a near-drowning and the complete destruction of a luxury cruise liner. The real Jack and Rose would have been exhausted, freezing and possibly too tired to hold a winning plank position.

Test three

For the grand finale, Cameron goes full method. The stunt people reenact the entire Titanic sequence of what all Rose and Jack did on the fatal day on the ship; all the running, fighting, swimming and panic — before attempting the door trick again. This time, Rose hands Jack her life jacket.

“He’s stabilised,” Cameron says in the documentary. “If we projected that out, he just might have made it until the lifeboat got there,” he adds.

I’ll translate that for you — Jack might have survived but only if Rose gave him her life vest, which she didn’t. And that, Cameron argues, fits Jack’s character perfectly — a guy who would not do anything to jeopardise Rose’s safety.

So, after all this experimentation, the verdict? Jack “might have lived”, but the odds were stacked against him.

In other words, the scene remains tragically poetic. Sure, you can still yell at the screen when Rose whispers “I’ll never let go” before, in fact, letting go.