How Neil deGrasse Tyson Changed James Cameron’s Titanic Forever

While Cameron was preparing to release the 3D version of the film in 2012, he received what Cameron referred to as a “snarky Email” from Tyson about something he noticed in one of the film’s scenes. Up to that point, Cameron had made the conscious decision not to make any changes to the film, despite vast improvements in special effects technology since the film’s original release. But what Tyson had to say was enough to change his mind about one particular moment.

Tyson pointed to the scene where Rose was lying on a broken piece of a door — one that seemed big enough for Jack to actually fit on — staring up at the stars. It turns out that those stars wouldn’t have been there, at least not in that particular alignment on that particular night. After all, Tyson is an astrophysicist, so if anyone knew about star alignments, it’s him.

A small detail to be sure, and one the average movie-goer would probably never notice. But being the perfectionist he was, Cameron told Tyson to send the correct stars, and he put them into the 3D version of the movie as promised.