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At the end of the film Titanic, Kate Winslet’s character Rose floats on a piece of driftwood, looking up at the stars.
But those stars weren’t in the right spot in the sky, according to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He sent an email to Titanic director James Cameron years ago to tell him about the error. Cameron adjusted the sky in the 3D rerelease of the film in 2012 based on Tyson’s input.
To unpack the science in other popular films, Tyson will return to Dallas on April 4 for “An Astrophysicist Goes to the Movies: The Sequel.” Tyson will discuss films like The Wizard of Oz and A Bug’s Life at the Winspear Opera House, recapping which movies got the science right and wrong.
Tyson has spent much of his career trying to make science both exciting and relatable to a wide audience. He ties scientific topics to famous celebrities, current events and popular films to make them easier for people to engage with.
“The juxtaposition of pop culture, science, with a dose of humor? That makes sure people come back for more,” Tyson told The Dallas Morning News.
The pop culture ‘scaffold’
Tyson was born and raised in New York City and earned his doctorate in astrophysics at Columbia University. He is head of the Hayden Planetarium in New York and has written several bestselling books about astrophysics, including Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, co-written with Donald Goldsmith. Tyson also hosts StarTalk, a podcast which “bridges the intersection between science, pop culture and comedy.”
He frequently ties pop culture to science on his Twitter account. Tyson has commented on Santa’s ability to travel the world when delivering Christmas presents, and even a game-winning NFL field goal in 2015.
Tyson said pop culture is like a scaffold: a body of knowledge that we all carry. “I don’t have to explain who Beyoncé is to you,” he said.
By adding science to pop culture — calculating how fast Santa must travel, for example, to deliver Christmas presents to kids around the world — Tyson gets his audience interested in science by starting with something they know.
“I didn’t have to teach you the pop culture. What I did was enhance your pop culture,” he said. “And it’s way easier to accomplish than starting you from scratch.”
‘Frozen,’ ‘Star Wars’ and more
Tyson’s “An Astrophysicist Goes to the Movies: The Sequel” celebrates the films that got the science right and points out those that got it wrong. But only some of the films Tyson will discuss are science fiction. “There’s science that manifests even when you’re not thinking about it,” he said.
On April 4, he’ll play clips from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. But he’ll also feature Frozen and Monsters, Inc.
Tyson isn’t trying to ruin people’s favorite films, he said. Instead, he wants to explain what the film could have looked like if the science was illustrated correctly.
“It’s not so much debunking,” he said. “It’s: Here’s a thing they missed.”
To help people understand and engage with science, Tyson said it’s important to communicate, not lecture. Lecturers offer information — sometimes with their backs turned, facing the chalkboard. Communicators, on the other hand, first consider what the audience cares about and tailor their delivery to catch the audience’s attention.
Whether he’s talking about the origins of the universe or the physics of his favorite movie, The Matrix, Tyson aims to communicate. Using pop culture, he hopes to build a bridge in Dallas between what people know and what they might be excited to learn, one film at a time.
‘An Astrophysicist Goes to the Movies: The Sequel.’
WHERE: Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St., Dallas
WHEN: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.