Discovery's 'Mythbusters' Tackles 'Titanic' Debate With Guest Star James Cameron

It's a question that has plagued moviegoers and cinema buffs for 15 years — did Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the James Cameron hit, Titanic, about (well, sort of) the tragic 1912 sinking of the most famous ocean liner in history, have to die, or could he have staved off hypothermia on the raft where his ladylove Rose (Kate Winslet) was perched, long enough to be rescued? Your sleepless nights are over, however — Discovery's Mythbusters' Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have figured out the answer.

Adam and Jamie invited Cameron, who had an obvious vested interest in finding out if the myth would be busted, on to the Mythbusters episode to explore the issue, and they determined, after building a gelatin-fleshed dummy with a water-heated cardiovascular system to mimic human body temperature, that Jack's body temperature would, indeed, have dipped below 85 degrees — the required temperature to maintain motor control and thus hold onto Rose's board — an estimated 12 minutes before the couple would have been discovered, according to the timeline of the Titanic film.

However, there's still validation for those of you who think that Rose should have tried a little harder to save her man. While the board wouldn't have supported both of them, Adam and Jamie determined that if either one of them had paid enough attention in high school physics to think of tying Rose's lifejacket underneath the raft, they could have created enough buoyancy to keep the slab of wood afloat, possibly saving them both.

During the conclusion, Jamie stated outright what everyone else was afraid to say. "With all we've learned, I think Jack's death was needless."

Cameron chimed in to defend himself, his characters and his flick. "I think you guys are missing the point here. The script says Jack died. He has to die. So maybe we screwed up and the board should have been a little tiny bit smaller, but the dude's goin' down," he said.

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