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Paramount Pictures / 20th Century Fox
Film director James Cameron talks with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet during the shooting of a crucial post-sinking scene in "Titanic." The newly released 3-D version of the film will show the sky as it actually appeared that night, thanks to astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson's goading.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't mind that "Titanic" film director James Cameron called him a "son of a bitch" for shaming him into correcting the movie's constellations.
"I take it as a frustrated expression of affection," Tyson, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, told me today. "As in, 'you son of a bitch, you got me there.'"
Thanks to Tyson's persistence, moviegoers who go to "Titanic" in 3-D will see a truer representation of the night sky when Rose (played by Kate Winslet) looks up into the heavens after the ship sinks. "That sky, I would say, was the most important sky in the movie," Tyson said. And in the original 1997 version of the film, it was wrong.
In a widely quoted interview with the British magazine Culture, Cameron said the sky scene was the only shot he fixed for this year's 3-D re-release:
"It's because Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is one of the U.S.' leading astronomers, sent me quite a snarky email saying that, at that time of year, in that position in the Atlantic in 1912, when Rose is lying on the piece of driftwood and staring up at the stars, that is not the star field she would have seen, and with my reputation as a perfectionist, I should have known that and I should have put the right star field in.
"So I said, 'All right, you son of a b**ch, send me the right stars for the exact time, 4:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, and I'll put it in the movie.' So that's the one shot that has been changed."
Rose (Kate Winslet) looks up at the stars in this scene from "Titanic."
The basic problem was that a space-savvy observer would see that the sky in the original version of the movie was unrecognizable, and in fact was produced by mirroring made-up stars on the left and right halves of the screen. Tyson saw that as a needlessly sloppy move, and he made that opinion known to Cameron and his team in a succession of letters, emails and personal encounters. He wrote about the "Titanic" trip-up and other Hollywood missteps in his 2007 book, "Death by Black Hole." You can watch him tell the tale about "Titanic" and other sci-fi movies in this video clip:
Neil deGrasse Tyson on inaccuracies in science-fiction movies and the "Titanic" night sky.
When Cameron's people finally asked Tyson to provide a better sky, the astrophysicist used a standard planetarium program to generate the star field for the proper latitude and time of night, captured a high-resolution image and sent it off to the filmmakers.
"The Big Dipper came out nicely," Tyson said.
The sky was initially fixed in the bonus materials for a special DVD version of "Titanic" a few years ago. "I took that as a triumph and let it be," Tyson told me. Now the corrected sky appears in the big-screen version of the film itself, thanks to post-production wizardry.
Tyson said he can understand why it took a big re-release for Cameron to change the sky. "As a director, you don't want to have to rethink all that, and I respect that," he said. Tyson said his respect for Cameron has grown even more now that the right stars will be on display in theaters around the world.
Will Cameron put the space-savvy S.O.B.'s name in the credits for the 3-D movie? Tyson says he doesn't know, and really doesn't care.
"If he does, that's fine," Tyson told me. "I'm a servant of the public interest and the public's appetite for information about the universe. I get these calls all the time. ... The mere fact that an artist cares about getting the science right, and thereby transmitting that science literacy to the consumers of that art — that's enough reward for me."
More about 'Titanic' and Neil deGrasse Tyson
- 10 reasons for the Titanic tragedy
- James Cameron refloats 'Titanic' in 3-D
- Tyson on NASA's need for a budget boost
- From black holes to black history
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
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I still like the Barbara Stanwick movie better.
Are people really still upset about Pluto? C'mon, get your emotions out of it, and look at the issue rationally. Do we start calling every object in the Kuiper Belt a planet? What about Eris, which is actually more massive than Pluto? Is that a planet too? What about Makemake? Haumea? Where do we draw the line? Should every asteroid in the asteroid belt also be considered a planet? I'm sorry, but demoting Pluto was the correct call. It's only one of many objects in the Kuiper Belt. Don't blame Neil dGT for that.
No. Kuiper Belt objects probably shouldn't be considered as planets, but after having been considered as one by us for many years, I think that Pluto should at least be awarded a de facto Honorary Title as one.
Many of us grew-up with Pluto as the ninth planet, and now it's like finding out Santa Claus isn't real all over again.
If nothing else, at least so that he doesn't have to get all new stationary printed.
:-)
Welll ... Some people do seem to get themselves upset over Pluto, on both sides of the controversy. I'm definitely not one of them. But I would say all celestial objects that are so massive they crush themselves into a ball due to self-gravity, resulting in differentiated layers, should be considered a type of planet. The IAU definition of dwarf planet handily lends itself to that. The line has already been drawn.
So, to answer your question, Eris, Makemake, Haumea and Ceres are dwarf planets, and in my book (literally) that constitutes a type of planet. Obviously a lot of the asteroids are not massive enough to take on planetary characteristics. Pluto and Eris are the most massive objects known in the Kuiper Belt, so they're not just one (or two) of many ... any more than Ceres, Vesta and Pallas are just three typical asteroids. They're not.
http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell/papers/CeresVesta.pdf
I don't blame Neil, certainly, but I do think it would have been wiser for him to have a couple of handball-sized objects alongside the softball-sized object (Mercury) in the Hayden Planetarium's lineup. That would be a more accurate reflection of the planetary objects in the solar system. Heck, I wouldn't mind if he put Titan and Enceladus in there as well.
Good, informative reply, Alan, and I apologize for the somewhat off-topic original post (I had just noticed that a few people seemed to dislike NdGT for Pluto's current status alone). Pluto and Eris are certainly interesting objects, and I'm looking forward to New Horizons getting a closer look. I love the blog!
Solomon Kane - there you go putting emotions into something that shouldn't be emotional ;)
I can't wait for New Horizons to get a closer look at Pluto, that is. I understand it may visit other Kuiper Belt objects, Eris not being one of them.
This makes me wonder how accurate the star field is in Avatar. I'm pretty sure at the beginning you can see the stars as the ship goes into orbit around Pandora. Regardless of the status of the hypothetic moon and it's parent gas giant since they orbit Alpha Centauri (not sure if A or B) we know what the stars positions are around that system (not much different from Sol but enough to be noticable). I need to go back and watch that scene to see if you can even see the stars.
Perhaps Sir Tyson has already figured that out.
i only watched the movie to see the ship sink and watch jack/leo freeze to death. watching that in 3-D with the sky the way it was back in the day will make it better
Neil deGrasse Tyson is my hero because he asked Sheldon Cooper if he was smoking crack.
Neil....you are a pompous a**. It is a movie, you expect to have artistic license. Nobody but a pompous a** would look at the sky and say it was wrong when they are watching this movie. Are you just flaunting your knowledge? You are lucky that I am not Mr. Cameron cuz I would tell you to p**s off!
I know that people have different styles and personalities but Tyson comes off as if he were the only astrophysicist, astronomer, or scientist, etc. on TV. I'm sure he's a nice person though and wants everyone to learn about science. But he shouldn't have dissed Pluto as he has. No class on that one,Tyson.
Dr. Michio Kaku is a pleasure to watch because he knows that it's not all about him. He's confident but he has a much better delivery.
Carl Sagon was the ultimate. He had a very pleasing personalty.
Another one is Alan Boyle. I saw him on The Nightly News. He was just as pleasing as I thought he would be. ;-)
Well the schoolyard is back in style, I guess. Neil deGrasse Tyson asks for accuracy and the playground bullies are all up in arms. "How dare him talk smart? Me angry at smart people!" I watched a stump speech recently where the candidate said "We don't want the smart people running the country, do we?" and the crow roared back "NO!" Wait. What?! Yes we *do* want the smart people running the country! Do you really thinks it's just a coincidence that once we started treating scientists and engineers as heretics instead of people to be admired that our country started to slide? I'm not saying put him up on a pedestal but at least give the guy room to breathe. Does he have an attitude? I'd say probably. Does he have an ego? You need to have something of an ego to run a planetarium. The good directors are part showman part scientist.
Your choice, folks. Get someone in there who can start our people thinking again or keep sliding into obscurity.
Pluto should have been demoted. It's too small. If you're going to call it a planet, then we need to reinstate Ceres. And add all the similar-sized bodies in the Kuiper Belt like Eris to boot. Not logical at all.
Get over it Pluto lovers.