Spielberg likes to place a shooting star in the sky when some character makes a decision. This happens in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when he decides to rescue the Sankara stones. There’s one in Jaws which people claim is a real one, and some in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and in The Adventures of Tintin.
It’s al supposed related to Spielberg’s dad taking the kids out to see a meteor shower when they were young
Last of the Mohicans includes a stare at the night sky in the Huron graveyard between Natty Bumppo and Cora Munro and the origin myth of the Mohican people. That was an event at some point in the past.
I have heard it claimed that you can tell the story of Perseus, and events in the story will coincide with when the constellations rise above the horizon. I have heard it claimed that if you tell the story over the course of several nights, you can even incorporate the variability of the stars into your narrative. Have you ever tried this?
Haven’t tried it, but I’ve considered it. And you don’t need to go over “several nights”. The only one of those variable stars with a really short period is Algol (beta Persei), which is an eclipsing variable star. In other words, beta Persei is actually two large stars orbiting a common center (actually , more than two, but there’s no point in complicating things. Most of the light comes from two stars). We on Earth are almost in the plane of this common orbit, so once every 70 hours or so (the orbital period), the brighter star is eclipsed by the dimmer one.
Here’s a light curve:
The brightness changes by about two magnitudes in the space of about 6 hours. So you can tell the story at the beginning of the night and see the star “wink out” by the end of the night, if you’re lucky. (Note that there’s a lesser minimum between the two mjor ones, as the brighter star eclipses the dimmer one.
Depending upon how you tell the story, this can be Perseus cutting off Medusa’s head, or it can be Perseus stealing the Eye from the three Graea (The “stygian witches” in the recent movie versions).
This trick won’t work with the other naked-eye variables in constellations associated with the story. Mira (omicron Ceti) has an 11 month period. Delta Cephei has one of 5.4 days. And nobody can tell you how long the period of gamma Cassiopeia is – it’s an irregular variable.
Yes, it’s hard to explain. Did I “like” it? “Enjoy it”? Well, yes and yes.
A similar but less serious movie that I wanted to mention (even though it’s outside the OP’s criteria) is Last Night directed by and starring Don McKellar with a host of familiar Canadian actors. Earth about to be destroyed by the sun moving too close to Earth or something. I really love this movie.
Another one! We’ve been watching Back to the Future III as the finale of a three-night binge of the series. In BTtF III, Doc fixes the school-marm Clara’s telescope, and after the dance, she points out craters on the moon to him.
IQ: Albert Einstein tries to play matchmaker for his orphaned niece, which is to say that Walter Matthau keeps setting up romantic-comedy hijinks for Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins.
Anyway, another thing that keeps coming up is a comet coming back around.
I really liked that movie.
This line always grates me because he gets the year wrong. He says 1909 but the blast happened in 1908. As a paranormal expert, I would have thought Dan Aykroyd knew better.
In the 1994 film, Farinelli, the title character provides the musical accompaniment for the Spanish court during a solar eclipse. (The scene is invented.)
Farinelli (1994) • Alto Giove - Scene of a solar eclipse • 4K & HQ Sound
It started in 1909, but the residual tachyon emissions didn’t die down until 1908