James Cameron Recreates ‘Titanic’ Jack and Rose Ending to Test If Jack Could Have Fit on the Door

Amid the 25th anniversary of Titanicdirector James Cameron is attempting to settle the longstanding debate once and for all: whether Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack could’ve fit on that door and survived.

In a teaser of his upcoming National Geographic special, Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameronthe director conducts a scientific study to assess whether there was enough room for both Jack and Kate Winslet’s Rose on the floating door debris following the Titanic sinking.

“We’ll find out once and for all whether Jack could have survived the sinking of Titanic,” Cameron says in the preview.

In order to reexamine Jack’s final moments, Cameron enlisted help from a team of scientists and two stunt people to test four different scenarios to examine whether two people could have shared the door.

“Jack and Rose are able to get on the raft, but now they’re both submerged in dangerous levels of freezing water,” Cameron explains as the stunt people prove it.

Meanwhile in another example, Cameron details, “Out of the water, violent shaking was helping him and projecting it out, he could’ve made it pretty long, like hours.”

For a final test, they then incorporate the physical strain the characters would have endured amid the sinking of the ship — in the film, another passenger submerges Rose underwater before Jack saves her by punching them. Cameron also tests the scenario should Rose have offered her life jacket to help insulate Jack: “And he’s stabilized. He got into a place where if we projected that out, he just might’ve made it until the lifeboat got there.”

Ultimately, Cameron offers his final verdict: “Jack might’ve lived, but there’s a lot of variables.”

However, he notes that the character of Jack would still choose to do anything to save Rose: “I think his thought process was, I’m not going to do one thing that jeopardizes her. And that’s 100 percent in character.”

Cameron has been vocal over the years about the door debate, arguing that it was essential to the story. But with the special, he attempts to settle the debate for good.

In an interview with the Toronto SunCameron said he hopes the study puts “this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all.”

Despite the outcry and hopes that Jack’s ending fared differently, Cameron explained, “No, he needed to die. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. The love is measured by the sacrifice.”

Winslet recently did her part trying to settle the debate, saying, “Once and for all, he could have fit on that door but it would not have stayed afloat,” adding that it was not a “sustainable idea.”