Rhiannon Elizabeth Irons
For as long as there have been movies, there have been fan theories. Some fan theories are so ludicrous that there is no way they are physically plausible, while others make us do a double take, making us question how we could have overlooked something so obvious.
For this new series, I’m going to look at some of the more popular fan theories about some of our favourite movies. Naturally, there will be spoilers ahead for all entries into this series so consider this your only warning.
Today, we’re looking at the 1997 hit film, Titanic. Specifically, the popular theory that Jack Dawson is actually a time traveller.
This theory has been around for a while, but it’s hard to rewatch the film without picturing Jack moving through time, once you consider all the ‘evidence’.
Let’s begin with an easy clue, one of the first errors moviegoers noticed after watching Titanic. Jack makes mention of Lake Wissota, a lake he once fished in. There’s just one slight problem with that. The man-made lake wasn’t built until 1917, five years after the Titanic sank.
Next up, Jack promises to take Rose on a rollercoaster at Santa Monica Pier. Like with the lake, the rollercoaster wasn’t built until much later.
Some people like to stretch this theory by suggesting that Jack gambled for his ticket on the doomed ocean liner because he didn’t have any currency from 1912. It is also suggested that Jack only boarded the Titanic to save Rose from jumping off the ship.
Another argument made in favour of Jack being a time traveller is his floppy hair and his rucksack. Apparently, both that were made popular in the 1930’s, not 1912.
Some people have taken this time travel theory one step further by suggesting that Rose is Sarah Conner’s grandmother, connecting James Cameron’s The Terminator to Titanic. The theory goes that Jack was sent back to 1912 to save Rose, ensuring that Sarah Conner would exist in 1984.
In 2015, CinemaBlend took a stab at further explaining this connection: “But perhaps instead of killing Rose outright, the terminator decided to plot a more elaborate scheme to get Rose to die, by killing Rose’s father and leaving Rose and Ruth with ‘a legacy of bad debts hidden by a good name.’ And Rose’s desperation was all part of the machine’s much-more-subtle plan to alter the future, forcing Rose into a situation where she had to marry Cal Hockley in order to ‘ensure our survival’, as Ruth put it, thusly sending Rose into a desperate attempt to end her own life. Had she succeeded, no one would have ever suspected the machines, right? Just a woman in a pretty dress jumping off a ship. It’d be a very under-the-radar approach on the part of the machines, but they would have learned their lesson from the original Terminator’s Sarah Connor killing spree, which was all over the news.”
While this theory might be a little more on the so-crazy-it-might-just-work side of things, there is no denying the similarities between Jack’s hair and the style sported by a young John Connor in Terminator 2. Coincidence?
Titanic has many conspiracy theories about it from there being enough room on the door for both Jack and Rose to survive, to Jack actually having died before ship went down and it was his ghost finding the door for Rose. MythBusters threw their hats into the ring on this theory, proving that two people could have survived if they bumped up the buoyancy of the door by taking off their life vests to tie underneath.
There have also been theories that Rose either suffered a psychotic episode onboard the Titanic and simply made Jack up to help cope with her depression. The other argument is that the older version of Rose is simply lying about her great love story. This can be blamed on her advanced age or maybe the onset of dementia. Some people have said that she may be a compulsive liar because her accent changes from British to American throughout the film. (Although, this can be argued that once moving to America, she adopted the accent and over time, her British twang subsided). This theory gathered steam when it’s realised that there’s no mention of her husband, let alone an explanation as to why he never discovered the Heart of the Ocean, or why Rose never had to use it during times of hardship. The fact that this jewel was able to remain hidden for decades suggests that Rose and her family had been super comfortable and well off. This is highly unlikely especially due to the depression that would hit America in 1929.
While it’s fun to explore these theories, reality is most of them are probably a mistake from the filmmakers. Jack’s hairstyle may have been popular during the 1930’s, but it was also popular in the mid-late 1990’s, when the film was made. I can also argue that Rose’s hair was inaccurate for the time period. Does that mean that Rose is also hopping through the time streams?
The knowledge of Lake Wissota and the rollercoaster at the Santa Monica Pier can also be put down to an oversight in research by those involved in writing the cinematic masterpiece.
But if Jack is indeed a time traveller, then in theory, wouldn’t he have known about the Titanic disaster and therefore been able to forewarn people about the impending doom? Admittedly, there’s a good chance that if Jack was a time traveller and decided to inform as many people as he could about the pending disaster, he may have been taken into custody for the insanity he was spewing. If, for some reason, he managed to avoid being taken into custody and was able to prolong the voyage, imagine the consequences that would be had upon our timeline. Hey, I don’t write the rules when it comes to time travel. We’ve seen it repeatedly that when one minor thing changes in the past, the present and future are put in jeopardy. If Jack was able to stop the Titanic, what kind of consequences would this have upon our world?
So, I turn this fan-theory file over to you, dear readers. What do you think? Was Jack a time traveller, or was it merely an oversight by the creators of Titanic? Have your say in the comments below.
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