Bill Nye is a man of science. He's called "Bill Nye the Science Guy" for a reason. It's only logical then that when it comes to the two massive sci-fi franchises sharing the word "Star", Nye prefers the one that ends in "Trek."
In a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the celebrity scientist weighed in on the age old debate of which is better: Star Wars or Star Trek?
"Star Wars has magic in it!" Nye says in the interview. "The Force is like a ghost or magic or religion." He goes on to describe the saga created by George Lucas that is now enjoying the biggest box office success of all time as being "about family conflicts, and it's Shakespearean... you know, there's commoners and all powerful kings, essentially."
But Star Trek, on the other hand?
"It's an optimistic view of the future with science," he says. "Anti-matter contained in magnetic fields, real physics... [in Star Wars] there's an invisible thing that has superpowers, but in Star Trek they didn't do that."
Nye's answer isn't all that surprising. It echoes that of yet another famous scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who recently took to Twitter to point out all the scientific inaccuracies of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When it comes down to the Millennium Falcon or the USS Enterprise, Tyson too is Star Trek all the way based on how the show and films have have at least thought about how science in the future might be used for the benefit of mankind. The fact that the Enterprise was created solely for exploration, and is manned by a full crew, as opposed to the Millennium Falcon's crew of two, makes the iconic star ship more endearing in Tyson's eyes.
It's been said over and over again: Star Wars is space fantasy, Star Trek is science fiction. When you look at it like that, the answers of two of the world's most outspoken scientists about which franchise is better aren't surprising in the least.
