Popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson said on Monday that he enjoyed the depiction of scientific principles in the new film Interstellar, while insisting he did not want to review the film itself.
"I don't give opinions," he told CBS News. "I don't care if anybody agrees with me or not. But as an educator I feel duteous to share with people what science they can look for."
deGrasse Tyson also went on Twitter to offer more specific (and lightly spoiler-iffic) praise for aspects of the film's approach:
He also noted that the film's five lead characters are a diverse group of scientists and engineers, and recommended to his fans that they read the work of Kip Thorne, a Cal Tech physics professor who served as an advisor and executive producer for the movie.
He did, however, concede that the film's depiction of a wormhole was a nod to science-fiction convention.
"We know about wormholes. We know the mathematics of them," he said on Monday. "We don't know how to make one yet, and plus, they're kind of unstable. If you go in, they might collapse."
He also expanded on his statement that, if he were a character in the movie, that he would "stay as far the hell away" from any planet near a black hole.
"If you're near a very strong source of gravity, from Einstein's theory of relativity we know that time ticks more slowly for you than it would elsewhere," he explained. "If you're near a black hole, weird things go on, and they captured much of this in the film."
Earlier this year, deGrasse Tyson questioned and fact-checked the depiction of space in the Alfonso Cuarón film Gravity, despite admitting that he enjoyed it.
Watch deGrasse Tyson's interview, as aired on CBS on Monday, below.
