Neil DeGrasse Tyson says his annoying tweets are meant to "enhance your viewing pleasure"

By Reid McCarter  |  October 15, 2018 | 6:30pm
Aux Features Film

Spare a moment to reconsider poor Neil deGrasse Tyson. The astrophysicist and author obviously loves his work, loves opportunities to share its intricacies with a general audience, and loves to do so via examples from pop culture. Sure, his tweets are deeply—deeply—annoying, but the man can only do what he knows. He’s trying. He just wants so badly for all of us to learn.

This is obvious in a recent clip from Vulture, in which Tyson is asked what he thinks of the many tweets—specifically this one—goofing on his imagined reaction to A Star Is Born’s cosmological accuracy.

Rather than take offense, Tyson laughs it off, saying that his high school science teacher enthusiasm for movie science correction has been misunderstood and is simply meant to “enhance your viewing pleasure.” He suggests, too, that his pedantic tweets pale in comparison to the real movie commentary villain: people who have read the book first.

“I will cite things that I think they could’ve done better,” he says. “Not that they got wrong.” He goes on to explain to interview host Natalie Walker how a star is actually born, somehow failing to mention the role that Bradley Cooper plays in guiding the Gaga-based process while doing so.

It’s more endearing than you might expect and it kind of makes you just want to appreciate Tyson for what he does, even when it’s annoying as hell. Remember it the next time you see Tyson tweeting something about how, like, Ryan Gosling totally has the wrong bone density to play an astronaut or how Chewbacca’s internal organs would rupture at hyperspeed. Instead of embracing your instinctual desire to give him a wedgie, just appreciate that he’s doing what he thinks is good and right: nerd-ing up a movie for your benefit.

[via Digg]

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