Perfection?

September 8th, 2012| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Neil deGrasse Tyson had a gripe. With James Cameron, film producer, deep-sea explorer, screenwriter, visual artist, editor, etc. The Cameron of Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), and Avatar (2009) fame. But it was the Titanic (1997), that induced Tyson’s gripe.

Cameron’s been nominated for six Academy Awards and won three for Titanic. Over $2 billion grossed for that movie. Hollywood’s top earner for 2011 as nominated by Vanity Fair.

Now Tyson is no slouch himself. Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia. The man also has sixteen (yes, 16!) honorary doctorates from places like RPI, U Penn, etc. He is Astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He has an asteroid named after him, “13123 Tyson.” And, for what it’s worth, People Magazine voted him the “Sexiest Astrophysicist” in 2000.

And he had a gripe with Cameron.

Now the movie honcho is a known perfectionist, wanting to (and succeeding in) getting everything in his movies just right, from the wainscoting in the Titanic cabins and staterooms, to other decorations and trivia on board. In fact, the Titanic was widely marketed as being almost a duplicate of originals—ship, scene, surroundings and all.

Tyson was watching the movie a few years ago, when he noticed something. After the ship has sunk at 4:20 am on April 15, 1912, and boyfriend Jack Dawson (Leonardo Di Caprio) has gone to Davy Jones’ locker, there is a scene in which Rose Bukater (Kate Winslett) is adrift on a piece of driftwood, looking up at the sky.

“Uh oh,” said Tyson. The sky was wrong. It wasn’t a 4:20-am-April-15-1912 sky for that particular latitude and longitude. Moreover, the left half of the sky shown was the mirror image of the right half of the sky. A no-no! Especially if you are an astrophysicist.

So Tyson wrote to Cameron. No reply.

Five years later, Tyson meets Cameron in some scientific committee work related to NASA. He grabs the opportunity and broaches the issue again. Nothing happens.

Three years later, Cameron wins an award from WIRED magazine, and they rent out the Hayden Planetarium (of which our aforementioned sexy astrophysicist is the chief) for the ceremony. Tyson tries again, at a post-award dinner. “Well,” replied Cameron, “the last I checked, Titanic worldwide had grossed $1.3 billion. Imagine how much more it would have grossed, had I got the sky correct.”

Tyson gave up.

Two months later, he gets a call: “Hello, I work post-production in Jim Cameron’s studio. He tells me you have a sky he can use.”

And so now Tyson’s sky is part of the relaunched 3D version of the blockbuster.

Perfectionists.

Not a bad thing to be … if you can.

“Therefore you are to be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:48

Sure, if you can do it. Without sin, not a one. Not even in thought. Or in word. And no sin in deed. Sure, be a perfectionist, if you can.

The Bible says you can’t.

If we say that we have no sin,
we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
1 John 1:8

But someone did pay for our sins, wiping them off the slate, so that they don’t stand between us and a perfect God.

You know that He appeared in order to take away sins;
and in Him there is no sin.
1 John 3:5

And believing that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again, restores one in a right relationship with this infinitely holy God.

Perfection! Not mine, but Christ’s. Yes, mine, through Christ, in Christ.