SOD and VFX versus dialogue

[linearA]

The SOD paradigm is employed on this site to justify preferring visuals over dialogue as a means to accurately analyze sci-fi television/cinema, with the reasoning that errors in dialogue are far more common than visual (VFX) errors, therefore any VFX errors can be dismissed as outliers. This way, the actual authorial intent behind the screenplay is not relevant – only what we actually see matters.

This is a convenient way to resolve debates, but I don't think it's a very consistent methodology. For one thing, VFX errors are not the only thing that separates sci-fi television from actual documentary footage. There are numerous other problems that would need explaining. Recasting is one major problem, e.g. how should we interpret Saavik's sudden change of appearance in Star Trek III if this is really documentary footage? Re-use of stock footage is another – why do multiple planets look the same? Why do we see the same star-fields and ship-movements in two different space battles? It's obvious that what we see on-screen is merely a general representation of what happened, and not what actually happened. And of course, the accuracy of this representation is going to be limited by the medium, e.g. budget, time constraints, etc. Therefore, it's not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue. Even though dialogue errors are common, we also know that what we see on screen is only a representation of what happened, (limited by the constraints of the medium) and not what actually happened.

So if you want to analyze these shows for the purpose of debate, you can still treat them as portraying events which actually happened, but you'd need to treat them more in the way a professional historian would treat an historical document – not the way a scientist would treat real-world observed data. Historians don't have the luxury of large data sets or reliable measurements. They simply have accounts of what happened. These accounts can only be tested by comparing them to other accounts. And the extent to which any accounts reflects reality is often difficult to determine. I'm sure some better methodology could be developed along these lines for analyzing television shows, which would take into account VFX outliers, as well as the limitations of the medium. For example, we could easily establish that mundane events depicted on screen, e.g. Kirk walking down a hallway, are a lot closer to the reality of what happened than a scene which shows us reused stock footage of the Enterprise orbiting a planet.

Of course, I doubt if many here will be willing to do that, because for one thing, treating the filmed material as a representation of what happened, rather than actual, objective data, relegates a lot of debate into the realm of subjectivity. But I would say it's a lot more consistent. A lot of historical debate exists precisely because the sources are only representations of what happened. But that is simply the limitations of studying history. And for all intents and purposes, analyzing televised sci-fi is more akin to studying history than it is to doing hard science.

With that said, I'm new here, so let the flaming begin...

[Darth Wong]

The SOD paradigm is employed on this site to justify preferring visuals over dialogue as a means to accurately analyze sci-fi television/cinema, with the reasoning that errors in dialogue are far more common than visual (VFX) errors, therefore any VFX errors can be dismissed as outliers. This way, the actual authorial intent behind the screenplay is not relevant – only what we actually see matters.

The method is not as strict as you seem to imply. Even a SoD method does have to recognize that this is a filmed production, just as real-life scientific methods recognize that experiments are conducted by fallible human beings. One can recognize the possibility of errors, just as you can have errors in a real-life scientific experiment. Your argument is based upon an assumption that the SoD method requires presumption of inerrance on the part of the source, as if we were aping the idiotic mindset of Christian fundamentalists.

Of course, I doubt if many here will be willing to do that, because for one thing, treating the filmed material as a representation of what happened, rather than actual, objective data, relegates a lot of debate into the realm of subjectivity.

More importantly, it renders the entire debate null and void, in the sense that you no longer pretend there is a real, self-consistent reality being portrayed by these films. If there is no self-consistent reality being portrayed by these films, then it is literally acceptable for the universe to ignore its own precedents, contradict itself, etc. So anything goes, and there is really no point at all discussing things. You might as well just do things WWWF Grudge Match style, where Han Solo can kick the shit out of Captain Kirk because Indiana Jones defeated the Nazis while TJ Hooker was nothing more than a Dunkin' Donuts cop.

But I would say it's a lot more consistent.

How so? The real reason to prefer the subjective is that you can never really be proven wrong about anything. You can say anything you want, and it's impossible for someone to produce an objective proof that you blew it. It's a very convenient approach for certain people because it takes away the risk that somebody will come along and be able to say "AHA! You didn't notice this, did you?"

[l33telboi]

And change the anchient traditions that have been in use for countless generations?

Blasphemy!

[Batman]

The SOD paradigm is employed on this site to justify preferring visuals over dialogue as a means to accurately analyze sci-fi television/cinema, with the reasoning that errors in dialogue are far more common than visual (VFX) errors, therefore any VFX errors can be dismissed as outliers. This way, the actual authorial intent behind the screenplay is not relevant – only what we actually see matters.
This is a convenient way to resolve debates, but I don't think it's a very consistent methodology. For one thing, VFX errors are not the only thing that separates sci-fi television from actual documentary footage. There are numerous other problems that would need explaining. Recasting is one major problem, e.g. how should we interpret Saavik's sudden change of appearance in Star Trek III if this is really documentary footage?

VFX error.

Re-use of stock footage is another – why do multiple planets look the same? Why do we see the same star-fields and ship-movements in two different space battles?

VFX error.

It's obvious that what we see on-screen is merely a general representation of what happened, and not what actually happened.

Why? Because you say so? A picture only lies when tampered with. Unless there's reason to assume what's shown is not what happened (like memory flashback scenes and the like), that's what happened. At least visuals are by and large quantifiable. Do quantify 'Ahead one quarter Impulse.

And of course, the accuracy of this representation is going to be limited by the medium, e.g. budget, time constraints, etc.

Bzzt. You just stepped out of SoD. You don't do that unless you absolutely have to or it's flat out impossible to debate in the first place.

Therefore, it's not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue.

I suggest talking to your optrician, then.

Even though dialogue errors are common, we also know that what we see on screen is only a representation of what happened, (limited by the constraints of the medium) and not what actually happened.

Why? Because you say so? It may not be 100% accurate at all times but UNLESS we have good reason to assume it ISN'T, we assume it IS.

So if you want to analyze these shows for the purpose of debate, you can still treat them as portraying events which actually happened, but you'd need to treat them more in the way a professional historian would treat an historical document – not the way a scientist would treat real-world observed data.

No we don't. UNLESS there's reason to assume the footage was doctored in any way, it IS observed data. They're NOT historical documents, they ARE documentary films except where there is evidence to the contrary.
And you'll kindly notice that the literary part of the EU IS treated like a professional historian would treat a historical document.

Historians don't have the luxury of large data sets or reliable measurements. They simply have accounts of what happened.

Vs debaters DO.

These accounts can only be tested by comparing them to other accounts.

Vs debaters have documentaries.

and the extent to which any accounts reflects reality is often difficult to determine.

Hooray for movies.

I'm sure some better methodology could be developed along these lines for analyzing television shows, which would take into account VFX outliers

Which the Vs debate already does,

, as well as the limitations of the medium.

Which the Vs debate already does.

For example, we could easily establish that mundane events depicted on screen, e.g. Kirk walking down a hallway, are a lot closer to the reality of what happened than a scene which shows us reused stock footage of the Enterprise orbiting a planet.
Of course, I doubt if many here will be willing to do that, because for one thing, treating the filmed material as a representation of what happened,

Which unless there is evidence to the contrary is what it IS under SoD,

rather than actual, objective data,

So what happened is NOT actual, objective data?

relegates a lot of debate into the realm of subjectivity. But I would say it's a lot more consistent. A lot of historical debate exists precisely because the sources are only representations of what happened.

How much of said historical sources is filmed? Yes, visuals can be doctored but until you present some evidence that they actually were THOSE FILMS ARE WHAT ACTUALLY TRANSPIRED.
A picture says more than a thousand words is NOT a hollow phrase.
Vs debaters have photographic evidence of a lot of what happened. Historians mostly do NOT.

But that is simply the limitations of studying history. And for all intents and purposes, analyzing televised sci-fi is more akin to studying history than it is to doing hard science.

Says who? Analyzing televised SciFi has the luxury of having tons of visual evidence of the concerned virtual historic occurances (unlike REAL history).
A picture will ONLY show what's really there, unless it's tempered with.
A text will sho whatever the writer wants it to.
SciFi visuals have, on numerous occasions, been questioned, when there was reason to.
NO, analysing TV SciFi is NOT more akin to studying history than trying to apply hard Science.

[Darth Wong]

It's interesting that he points out that a film is just a representation of reality, not reality itself. An actual photograph is also just a representation of reality, and just as with movies, artifacts in the technology of the photograph can manifest themselves (for example, lens flare). This does not mean that when we see lens flare in a picture, we assume the lens flare is something real; we know that it's just the way the light interacts with the lens. Similarly, the limitations of filmmaking can be taken into account with SoD without necessarily abandoning the method.

People who attack SoD are similar to people who attack the use of science in general; part of the reason they attack it is that they don't understand how to properly use it, so they promote a caricature of it in order to "prove" that it's somehow less accurate than dialogue literalism and inerrantism (by far the worst method).

[linearA]

The method is not as strict as you seem to imply. Even a SoD method does have to recognize that this is a filmed production, just as real-life scientific methods recognize that experiments are conducted by fallible human beings. One can recognize the possibility of errors, just as you can have errors in a real-life scientific experiment. Your argument is based upon an assumption that the SoD method requires presumption of inerrance on the part of the source, as if we were aping the idiotic mindset of Christian fundamentalists.

No, clearly SoD as employed here allows for visual errors. But SoD maintains that VFX errors are the result of some sort of doctoring of the footage. Furthermore, because VFX errors are relatively rare compared to dialogue errors, they can be dismissed as outliers. So visuals always have superior evidential value over dialogue under SoD.

But I'm saying this is not consistent. Again, VFX errors are not the only problem with visuals. Recasting and re-use of stock footage are also problems. Because of this, it is not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue, all the time, as a general rule. I think the visuals and dialogue would need to be compared on a case by case basis.

Another reason SoD is inconsistent is because it dismisses authorial intent as irrelevant, but at the same time it has to appeal to authorial intent to interpret visual shortcomings or discrepancies. For example, the Rancor in Return of the Jedi is obviously filmed in front of a blue screen. The way the lighting plays off of the skin texture doesn't at all match the background lighting. We as movie-goers simply ignore this, and assume that Luke is seeing the Rancor differently than we are. We do not assume that the Rancor actually has some sort of bizarre photonic properties. So how does SoD handle this? SoD tacitly understands that the anomalous visuals we see on screen are the result of technological or budget limitations, and we substitute what we actually see on screen with the authorial (or directorial) intent. We do the same when we see re-used stock footage in Star Trek, or bad CGI in Star Wars.

More importantly, it renders the entire debate null and void, in the sense that you no longer pretend there is a real, self-consistent reality being portrayed by these films. If there is no self-consistent reality being portrayed by these films, then it is literally acceptable for the universe to ignore its own precedents, contradict itself, etc.

Not if we develop a consistent methodology. As I said, the filmed footage should be treated more like historical accounts than observed scientific data. This allows for some objective analysis, but it is not as objective as hard science. However, given the nature of the data, I think an historical methodology fits better than a scientific methodology here. Historians work with data sets in the form of second-hand accounts, rather than directly observed phenomena. We know the data sets we have (the filmed material) are second hand accounts, because they do not always accurately represent what happened. (Recastings, reused stock footage, VFX problems, etc.)

But this does not mean we cannot reach ANY solid conclusions. Clearly, an historian of ancient Greece is not going to tell you that “anything is acceptable.” Rather, he would tell you that we can arrive at many reliable conclusions using an historical methodology. For example, we know that a war between Athens and Sparta occurred across the Peloponnese because it is reported by Thucydides, who is usually reliable in other matters, and independently verified by Xenophon and Aristophanes.

So, we can definitively say that most of the events depicted in Star Trek happened relatively close to the way they appeared on screen, because most scenes are consistent with each other, and form a cohesive universe. However, we certainly cannot take all visuals or dialogue literally, in the same way that we cannot treat every statement made by every Greek writer in a literal manner.

How so? The real reason to prefer the subjective is that you can never really be proven wrong about anything. You can say anything you want, and it's impossible for someone to produce an objective proof that you blew it. It's a very convenient approach for certain people because it takes away the risk that somebody will come along and be able to say "AHA! You didn't notice this, did you?"

Our goal is not to prefer the subjective – it is to be as objective as possible while applying a consistent methodology. I am saying that SoD is not a consistent methodology, and that if we were to treat the filmed material as historical data rather than observed scientific data, we would be more consistent. The price of this improved consistency would be that some areas of debate would be unresolvable. But we would still be able to make reliable conclusions. For example, the theme of this site – the technological superiority of Star Wars – could still be maintained quite easily, based on the various accounts we have of both sci-fi universes.

[linearA]

It's interesting that he points out that a film is just a representation of reality, not reality itself. An actual photograph is also just a representation of reality, and just as with movies, artifacts in the technology of the photograph can manifest themselves (for example, lens flare). This does not mean that when we see lens flare in a picture, we assume the lens flare is something real; we know that it's just the way the light interacts with the lens. Similarly, the limitations of filmmaking can be taken into account with SoD without necessarily abandoning the method.

Yes, but VFX errors, recastings, and re-use of stock footage are not artifacts in the technology, and are clearly not comparable with something like a lens flare, or a ink smudge. No, these things clearly indicate that the data we're dealing with is not depicting actual events, and so it should be treated as second hand accounts.

People who attack SoD are similar to people who attack the use of science in general; part of the reason they attack it is that they don't understand how to properly use it, so they promote a caricature of it in order to "prove" that it's somehow less accurate than dialogue literalism and inerrantism (by far the worst method).

I'm certainly not attacking the use of science in general.

[Darth Wong]

No, clearly SoD as employed here allows for visual errors. But SoD maintains that VFX errors are the result of some sort of doctoring of the footage.

Or some form of incompetence, much as errors can creep into real scientific research.

Furthermore, because VFX errors are relatively rare compared to dialogue errors, they can be dismissed as outliers. So visuals always have superior evidential value over dialogue under SoD.

And why shouldn't they? You still produce no evidence that dialogue is more consistent than visuals, nor do you address my point that the producers of a film or TV show pay much more attention to the visuals than they do to the scientific or technical accuracy of dialogue. Indeed, many writers are so cavalier about technical dialogue that they outsource it, and producers certainly don't care about it.

But I'm saying this is not consistent. Again, VFX errors are not the only problem with visuals. Recasting and re-use of stock footage are also problems.

They are problems inherent to the method. I pointed out that there are problems inherent to any method of recording reality, and you misinterpreted the analogy by assuming that I meant the same kind of problems were present. That's not what I was saying at all. Recasting is an inevitable side-effect of the way movies are made and the fact that an actor may not always be available. Similarly, lens flare is an inevitable side-effect of the way cameras work. It doesn't mean that the films should be assumed to be non-representative in any other way.

Because of this, it is not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue, all the time, as a general rule. I think the visuals and dialogue would need to be compared on a case by case basis.

If you don't have general rules, you don't have a method. Instead, you have whatever pleases you at any given time.

Another reason SoD is inconsistent is because it dismisses authorial intent as irrelevant, but at the same time it has to appeal to authorial intent to interpret visual shortcomings or discrepancies. For example, the Rancor in Return of the Jedi is obviously filmed in front of a blue screen. The way the lighting plays off of the skin texture doesn't at all match the background lighting. We as movie-goers simply ignore this, and assume that Luke is seeing the Rancor differently than we are. We do not assume that the Rancor actually has some sort of bizarre photonic properties. So how does SoD handle this? SoD tacitly understands that the anomalous visuals we see on screen are the result of technological or budget limitations, and we substitute what we actually see on screen with the authorial (or directorial) intent. We do the same when we see re-used stock footage in Star Trek, or bad CGI in Star Wars.

Nice try, but there is a huge difference between attempting to divine an author's state of mind and recognizing known empirical flaws in the movie-making process. One is totally subjective, the other is actually quite objective.

Not if we develop a consistent methodology. As I said, the filmed footage should be treated more like historical accounts than observed scientific data. This allows for some objective analysis, but it is not as objective as hard science.

Did I ever claim that sci-fi analysis was an objective as hard science? I limit the accuracy of all my claims to an order of magnitude, which means they could easily be five times off!

However, given the nature of the data, I think an historical methodology fits better than a scientific methodology here. Historians work with data sets in the form of second-hand accounts, rather than directly observed phenomena. We know the data sets we have (the filmed material) are second hand accounts, because they do not always accurately represent what happened. (Recastings, reused stock footage, VFX problems, etc.)

Even if you do adopt a historian's approach, that only means you have to weigh the credibility of different sources. It does not have any relevance to visuals vs dialogue. Historians treat photographs differently than words too.

But this does not mean we cannot reach ANY solid conclusions. Clearly, an historian of ancient Greece is not going to tell you that “anything is acceptable.”

He would if he refuses to accept that the world is real, which is basically what you're doing when you refuse to suspend disbelief. If you think of a sci-fi universe as the intentions of an author rather than imagining that it's a real object which is depicted in film, then it literally has no reality, and hence it is not bound by any real rules. Hence, anything goes.

Rather, he would tell you that we can arrive at many reliable conclusions using an historical methodology. For example, we know that a war between Athens and Sparta occurred across the Peloponnese because it is reported by Thucydides, who is usually reliable in other matters, and independently verified by Xenophon and Aristophanes.

And if you had a photograph of one of those battles ...

So, we can definitively say that most of the events depicted in Star Trek happened relatively close to the way they appeared on screen, because most scenes are consistent with each other, and form a cohesive universe. However, we certainly cannot take all visuals or dialogue literally, in the same way that we cannot treat every statement made by every Greek writer in a literal manner.

What do you mean by "take them literally?" Visuals allow measurement. Dialogue does not. By any standard, dialogue is farther removed from the hypothetical source (the imagined "reality") than visuals are. If you decide that visuals are a second-hand source, dialogue is a third-hand source because not only is it an author's depiction, but it is the voice of an imaginary character (ie- not the author himself) being depicted. If you had to force this discussion into literary terms, the visual film is, at the very least, equivalent to the "omniscient observer" narrator in a book, and thusly of vastly higher credibility than the words of any given character.

Our goal is not to prefer the subjective – it is to be as objective as possible while applying a consistent methodology. I am saying that SoD is not a consistent methodology, and that if we were to treat the filmed material as historical data rather than observed scientific data, we would be more consistent.

Even historians must deal with photographs vs testimony. You are mixing two different ideas: the idea that visuals are not superior to dialogue, and the idea that historical methods are better than scientific ones.

The price of this improved consistency would be that some areas of debate would be unresolvable. But we would still be able to make reliable conclusions. For example, the theme of this site – the technological superiority of Star Wars – could still be maintained quite easily, based on the various accounts we have of both sci-fi universes.

I think the fundamental miscommunication here is, as stated above, the inadvertent confluence of the visual vs dialogue, historian vs scientist, and author's intent vs suspension of disbelief debates. You seem to think that if you can convince people to employ historical methods, then your positions on "visuals vs dialogue" and "author's intent" automatically fall into place. I have seen no reason why this should be the case.

[Batman]

The method is not as strict as you seem to imply. Even a SoD method does have to recognize that this is a filmed production, just as real-life scientific methods recognize that experiments are conducted by fallible human beings. One can recognize the possibility of errors, just as you can have errors in a real-life scientific experiment. Your argument is based upon an assumption that the SoD method requires presumption of inerrance on the part of the source, as if we were aping the idiotic mindset of Christian fundamentalists.

No, clearly SoD as employed here allows for visual errors. But SoD maintains that VFX errors are the result of some sort of doctoring of the footage.

How so?

Furthermore, because VFX errors are relatively rare compared to dialogue errors, they can be dismissed as outliers. So visuals always have superior evidential value over dialogue under SoD.

Damn straight.

But I'm saying this is not consistent. Again, VFX errors are not the only problem with visuals. Recasting and re-use of stock footage are also problems.

Why? They're a subset of VFX errors.

Because of this, it is not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue, all the time, as a general rule. I think the visuals and dialogue would need to be compared on a case by case basis.

Why? Visuals give us a lot more data to play with, are a lot more quantifiable, unless verifiably tampered with are TRUE and are can NOT be fucked up by science-ignorant writing hacks that think that black holes can actually have a crack in their event horizon.

Another reason SoD is inconsistent is because it dismisses authorial intent as irrelevant,

That's because it IS, dunderhead. Under SoD WHAT WE SEE IS WHAT WE GET. If the author intended for something to happen, HE/SHE/IT SHOULD HAVE PUT IT ON SCREEN.

but at the same time it has to appeal to authorial intent to interpret visual shortcomings or discrepancies.

Hogwash. There's a difference between some stage hand or other putting a mike in front of the camera or or the VFX department fucking up the size of Defiant (which are clearly erroneous) and an actor saying lines that are put down in the script the way he says them!

Not if we develop a consistent methodology. As I said, the filmed footage should be treated more like historical accounts than observed scientific data.

Why? You're comparing what's effectively documentary film evidence to historical texts.

This allows for some objective analysis, but it is not as objective as hard science.

No, it is not. It is however a lot closer to hard science than it is to studying history.

However, given the nature of the data, I think an historical methodology fits better than a scientific methodology here.

And I think you're dead wrong.

Historians work with data sets in the form of second-hand accounts, rather than directly observed phenomena. We know the data sets we have (the filmed material) are second hand accounts,

No we don't except on very few occasions where there is evidence for them not being so.

because they do not always accurately represent what happened.

So the rest of it not accurate because of why exactly?

(Recastings, reused stock footage, VFX problems, etc.)

Gotcha. There's SOME footage that doesn't jive so let's ditch ALL of it.

Like hell it isn't. SoD takes ONLY what we actually see, and not even all of that. How much more objective does it get?

Why? How would that be more consistent? The filmed material is treated as true barring evidence to the contrary. Where's the inconsistency?

[linearA]

This is a convenient way to resolve debates, but I don't think it's a very consistent methodology. For one thing, VFX errors are not the only thing that separates sci-fi television from actual documentary footage. There are numerous other problems that would need explaining. Recasting is one major problem, e.g. how should we interpret Saavik's sudden change of appearance in Star Trek III if this is really documentary footage?

VFX error.

Re-use of stock footage is another – why do multiple planets look the same? Why do we see the same star-fields and ship-movements in two different space battles?

VFX error.

How is recasting/reuse of stock footage a VFX error? Recasting and reuse of stock footage is an intentional decision on the part of the production staff.

It's obvious that what we see on-screen is merely a general representation of what happened, and not what actually happened.

Why? Because you say so? A picture only lies when tampered with. Unless there's reason to assume what's shown is not what happened (like memory flashback scenes and the like), that's what happened. At least visuals are by and large quantifiable. Do quantify 'Ahead one quarter Impulse.

There is very often reason to assume that what's shown is not what happened. Again, what was Kirk seeing in Star Trek III when he spoke with Saavik? Was he seeing someone who looked like Kirstie Alley? Here we have two differing historical accounts, of equal evidential value. Clearly, the events in either Star Trek II or Star Trek III do not reflect the actual reality of what happened, but only approximate it to a certain degree.

And of course, the accuracy of this representation is going to be limited by the medium, e.g. budget, time constraints, etc.

Bzzt. You just stepped out of SoD. You don't do that unless you absolutely have to or it's flat out impossible to debate in the first place.

Why not? I don't think SoD is consistent to begin with.

Therefore, it's not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue.

I suggest talking to your optrician, then.

I don't go to an optician.

Even though dialogue errors are common, we also know that what we see on screen is only a representation of what happened, (limited by the constraints of the medium) and not what actually happened.

Why? Because you say so? It may not be 100% accurate at all times but UNLESS we have good reason to assume it ISN'T, we assume it IS.

I agree. I'm saying that in many cases we have good reason to assume it isn't – more cases than you're willing to admit it seems.

So if you want to analyze these shows for the purpose of debate, you can still treat them as portraying events which actually happened, but you'd need to treat them more in the way a professional historian would treat an historical document – not the way a scientist would treat real-world observed data.

No we don't. UNLESS there's reason to assume the footage was doctored in any way, it IS observed data. They're NOT historical documents, they ARE documentary films except where there is evidence to the contrary.

So you say. I'm saying they are not documentary films, because they clearly do not depict the reality of what happened. There are no recastings that need explaining in documentary films.

And you'll kindly notice that the literary part of the EU IS treated like a professional historian would treat a historical document.

As it certainly should be.

Historians don't have the luxury of large data sets or reliable measurements. They simply have accounts of what happened.

Vs debaters DO.

Vs. debaters have second hand accounts in the form of television shows and movies, which were produced under the limitations of a budget.

These accounts can only be tested by comparing them to other accounts.

Vs debaters have documentaries.

and the extent to which any accounts reflects reality is often difficult to determine.

Hooray for movies.

I'm sure some better methodology could be developed along these lines for analyzing television shows, which would take into account VFX outliers

Which the Vs debate already does,

, as well as the limitations of the medium.

Which the Vs debate already does.

SoD does not compensate for the shortcomings of the medium, other than to say that VFX errors are the result of external tampering.

For example, we could easily establish that mundane events depicted on screen, e.g. Kirk walking down a hallway, are a lot closer to the reality of what happened than a scene which shows us reused stock footage of the Enterprise orbiting a planet.
Of course, I doubt if many here will be willing to do that, because for one thing, treating the filmed material as a representation of what happened,

Which unless there is evidence to the contrary is what it IS under SoD,

rather than actual, objective data,

So what happened is NOT actual, objective data?

What actually happened would be objective data if we could observe it. But we can't observe it because we only have second hand accounts which give us approximations of what happened.

relegates a lot of debate into the realm of subjectivity. But I would say it's a lot more consistent. A lot of historical debate exists precisely because the sources are only representations of what happened.

How much of said historical sources is filmed? Yes, visuals can be doctored but until you present some evidence that they actually were THOSE FILMS ARE WHAT ACTUALLY TRANSPIRED.
A picture says more than a thousand words is NOT a hollow phrase.
Vs debaters have photographic evidence of a lot of what happened. Historians mostly do NOT.

Versus debaters have superior evidence than most historians, but they do not have first hand accounts in the form of documentary footage. They have second hand accounts in the form of produced approximations of what actually happened.

But that is simply the limitations of studying history. And for all intents and purposes, analyzing televised sci-fi is more akin to studying history than it is to doing hard science.

Says who? Analyzing televised SciFi has the luxury of having tons of visual evidence of the concerned virtual historic occurances (unlike REAL history).
A picture will ONLY show what's really there, unless it's tempered with.
A text will sho whatever the writer wants it to.
SciFi visuals have, on numerous occasions, been questioned, when there was reason to.
NO, analysing TV SciFi is NOT more akin to studying history than trying to apply hard Science.

No, a picture only shows what the director wants to. While it is superior to a written account, is it not as superior as you claim. If it were, then you should have no trouble telling me who you think Kirk was seeing when he spoke with Saavik in Star Trek III, and how you arrived at that conclusion.

[brianeyci]

linearA, I sympathize with some of your objections. For example, the Enterprise is 50 km off and the dialogue says they're 50000 km off.

But how do you deal with something like VOY "Rise" where you see fragments of the rock, and Chakotay says "that rock should've been vaporized!" Do you say the dialogue is superior to the visuals and therefore the Federation can vaporize that rock even though it's apparent they cannot from the footage? And of course Chakotay was using the scientific definition of vaporized?

Subjectivity means inconsistency. I don't see how you can make a claim to consistency when considering dialogue over visuals, anybody can prove anything he wants about incidents like VOY "Rise." You say vaporized means the scientific definition of vaporized I say vaporized was hyperbole, who is right?

You seem to be thinking suspension of disbelief has no room for flexibility. It does. Read a book anytime. Do you think a first person narrator would talk like that, like an author would describing things in detail or remembering events exactly as they happened? Or even a third person narrator or an omniscient narrator? Of course not, but we still suspend disbelief because that is the nature of the medium, storytellers will have perfect recall we assume and we handwave away the problem. If not you can prove anything about anything by pointing out any part of a story and say "well there's no way she would remember it like that and people don't even talk like that." Dialogue too is unrealistic, in that it's a condensed best hits of real life designed to keep you on the edge of your seat. VFX errors are the nature of the medium and considered case by case, and do not arbitrarily dismiss all other VFX. Put it this way, one doctored photo in the middle of a whole bunch of good ones don't mean the good ones are ruined. Debaters have to make this choice all the time, like with a Sith's lightsaber (in one scene I believe Palpatine is holding someone else's lightsaber).

[Batman]

How is recasting/reuse of stock footage a VFX error? Recasting and reuse of stock footage is an intentional decision on the part of the production staff.

Is it in accordance with the in-universe narrative? No? VFX error. And you have yet to show why the scene that 'out' of universe uses stock footage cannot 'in' universe look EXACTLY like the one the footage was taken from OOU.

It's obvious that what we see on-screen is merely a general representation of what happened, and not what actually happened.

Why? Because you say so? A picture only lies when tampered with. Unless there's reason to assume what's shown is not what happened (like memory flashback scenes and the like), that's what happened. At least visuals are by and large quantifiable. Do quantify 'Ahead one quarter Impulse.

There is very often reason to assume that what's shown is not what happened. Again, what was Kirk seeing in Star Trek III when he spoke with Saavik? Was he seeing someone who looked like Kirstie Alley?

SFX error.

Here we have two differing historical accounts, of equal evidential value.

As determined by what? Mike already explained that we make allowances for technical glitches and the like. That obviously falls under that category.
And it's not like there's a contradiction in that in the first place. There's no need for Saavik to look the same in TWOK and TSFS other than for our want for continuity. Under ultrastrict SoD apparently SOMETHING happened that changed her appearance.

Clearly, the events in either Star Trek II or Star Trek III do not reflect the actual reality of what happened, but only approximate it to a certain degree.

Garbage. Either both of them do to the detail or both of them do with the exception of Saavik's appearance. We make allowances for movie-making neccessities. We do NOT throw SoD out the window. At worst, for some arcane reason Saaviks appearance changed under SoD. The fact that we have no clue HOW it happened does not mean it didn't. We SAW it, therefore it HAPPENED.

And of course, the accuracy of this representation is going to be limited by the medium, e.g. budget, time constraints, etc.

Bzzt. You just stepped out of SoD. You don't do that unless you absolutely have to or it's flat out impossible to debate in the first place.

Why not? I don't think SoD is consistent to begin with.

That negates the fact that it's impossible to Vs debate without a common ground how exactly?

Therefore, it's not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue.

I suggest talking to your optrician, then.

I don't go to an optician.

That explains a lot.

Even though dialogue errors are common, we also know that what we see on screen is only a representation of what happened, (limited by the constraints of the medium) and not what actually happened.

Why? Because you say so? It may not be 100% accurate at all times but UNLESS we have good reason to assume it ISN'T, we assume it IS.

I agree. I'm saying that in many cases we have good reason to assume it isn't – more cases than you're willing to admit it seems.

You have, of course, a lot of examples.

So if you want to analyze these shows for the purpose of debate, you can still treat them as portraying events which actually happened, but you'd need to treat them more in the way a professional historian would treat an historical document – not the way a scientist would treat real-world observed data.

No we don't. UNLESS there's reason to assume the footage was doctored in any way, it IS observed data. They're NOT historical documents, they ARE documentary films except where there is evidence to the contrary.

So you say. I'm saying they are not documentary films, because they clearly do not depict the reality of what happened.

As evidenced by?

There are no recastings that need explaining in documentary films.

Is that the best you can do?

quote]

Historians don't have the luxury of large data sets or reliable measurements. They simply have accounts of what happened.

Vs debaters DO.

Vs. debaters have second hand accounts in the form of television shows and movies, which were produced under the limitations of a budget.[/quote]
You're arguing outside SoD again. You lose.

These accounts can only be tested by comparing them to other accounts.

Vs debaters have documentaries.

and the extent to which any accounts reflects reality is often difficult to determine.

Hooray for movies.

I'm sure some better methodology could be developed along these lines for analyzing television shows, which would take into account VFX outliers

Which the Vs debate already does,

, as well as the limitations of the medium.

Which the Vs debate already does.

SoD does not compensate for the shortcomings of the medium
other than to say that VFX errors are the result of external tampering.

For example, we could easily establish that mundane events depicted on screen, e.g. Kirk walking down a hallway, are a lot closer to the reality of what happened than a scene which shows us reused stock footage of the Enterprise orbiting a planet.
Of course, I doubt if many here will be willing to do that, because for one thing, treating the filmed material as a representation of what happened,

Which unless there is evidence to the contrary is what it IS under SoD,

rather than actual, objective data,

So what happened is NOT actual, objective data?

What actually happened would be objective data if we could observe it. But we can't observe it because we only have second hand accounts which give us approximations of what happened.

relegates a lot of debate into the realm of subjectivity. But I would say it's a lot more consistent. A lot of historical debate exists precisely because the sources are only representations of what happened.

How much of said historical sources is filmed? Yes, visuals can be doctored but until you present some evidence that they actually were THOSE FILMS ARE WHAT ACTUALLY TRANSPIRED.
A picture says more than a thousand words is NOT a hollow phrase.
Vs debaters have photographic evidence of a lot of what happened. Historians mostly do NOT.

Versus debaters have superior evidence than most historians, but they do not have first hand accounts in the form of documentary footage. They have second hand accounts in the form of produced approximations of what actually happened.

But that is simply the limitations of studying history. And for all intents and purposes, analyzing televised sci-fi is more akin to studying history than it is to doing hard science.

Says who? Analyzing televised SciFi has the luxury of having tons of visual evidence of the concerned virtual historic occurances (unlike REAL history).
A picture will ONLY show what's really there, unless it's tempered with.
A text will sho whatever the writer wants it to.
SciFi visuals have, on numerous occasions, been questioned, when there was reason to.
NO, analysing TV SciFi is NOT more akin to studying history than trying to apply hard Science.

No, a picture only shows what the director wants to.

Bzzt. Wong. A picture shows what a picture shows. The director will go to certain lengths to TRY to make it show what he wants but that's the best he can do.

While it is superior to a written account, is it not as superior as you claim. If it were, then you should have no trouble telling me who you think Kirk was seeing when he spoke with Saavik in Star Trek III, and how you arrived at that conclusion.

He was talking to Saavik, who for some arcane reason was no longer looking like Kirsty Alley.

[linearA]

Furthermore, because VFX errors are relatively rare compared to dialogue errors, they can be dismissed as outliers. So visuals always have superior evidential value over dialogue under SoD.

And why shouldn't they? You still produce no evidence that dialogue is more consistent than visuals,

I'm not claiming that dialogue is necessarily more reliable than visuals. I'm claiming that dialogue can be more reliable than visuals in certain circumstances, because visuals are only an approximation of what happened, just like dialogue may be an approximation of what was actually said.

nor do you address my point that the producers of a film or TV show pay much more attention to the visuals than they do to the scientific or technical accuracy of dialogue. Indeed, many writers are so cavalier about technical dialogue that they outsource it, and producers certainly don't care about it.

They probably consider both visuals and dialogue to be important to the overall production of the show, but they obviously devote more resources to visuals because visual effects cost more and require a larger team to implement. However, I'm not convinced at all that they pay any more attention to the technical accuracy of visuals than they do dialogue. They certainly pay attention to the dramatic quality of the visuals, but I hardly think they care much for the technical or scientific accuracy of dialogue OR visuals.

They are problems inherent to the method. I pointed out that there are problems inherent to any method of recording reality, and you misinterpreted the analogy by assuming that I meant the same kind of problems were present. That's not what I was saying at all. Recasting is an inevitable side-effect of the way movies are made and the fact that an actor may not always be available. Similarly, lens flare is an inevitable side-effect of the way cameras work. It doesn't mean that the films should be assumed to be non-representative in any other way.

However, in this case, the limitations of the medium are severe enough that the source material can't be reasonably interpreted as documentary footage. When you have the combination of VFX errors, recastings, and the constant reuse of stock footage space battle sequences or location establishment shots, (in almost every episode of Star Trek), I would think the sheer quantity of shots which cannot possibly represent actual reality would be sufficient to reconsider using SoD at all. I would say that treating the sources as historical accounts better fits the nature of the source material.

Because of this, it is not at all obvious to me that visuals should be preferred over dialogue, all the time, as a general rule. I think the visuals and dialogue would need to be compared on a case by case basis.

If you don't have general rules, you don't have a method. Instead, you have whatever pleases you at any given time.

I propose we use the general methodology set forth by historians which allows us to come to conclusions based on internal consistency and cross referencing. That is to say, most of the accounts we have of the Star Trek universe are sufficiently reliable, but we can't always say for sure exactly how some event actually appeared to the characters on screen. Did Kirk see the Gorn as a clumsy looking Halloween costume, or did he see an actual alien species with reptilian qualities?

Another reason SoD is inconsistent is because it dismisses authorial intent as irrelevant, but at the same time it has to appeal to authorial intent to interpret visual shortcomings or discrepancies. For example, the Rancor in Return of the Jedi is obviously filmed in front of a blue screen. The way the lighting plays off of the skin texture doesn't at all match the background lighting. We as movie-goers simply ignore this, and assume that Luke is seeing the Rancor differently than we are. We do not assume that the Rancor actually has some sort of bizarre photonic properties. So how does SoD handle this? SoD tacitly understands that the anomalous visuals we see on screen are the result of technological or budget limitations, and we substitute what we actually see on screen with the authorial (or directorial) intent. We do the same when we see re-used stock footage in Star Trek, or bad CGI in Star Wars.

Nice try, but there is a huge difference between attempting to divine an author's state of mind and recognizing known empirical flaws in the movie-making process. One is totally subjective, the other is actually quite objective.

Historians don't often need to decipher an author's state of mind, although it can sometimes be useful. More often, they rely on what the author actually says, keeping in mind the limitations of the medium. In this case, the “author” is really the combined efforts of the writers, directors, producers, and visual effects team.

Did I ever claim that sci-fi analysis was an objective as hard science? I limit the accuracy of all my claims to an order of magnitude, which means they could easily be five times off!

That's good. But I think you put too much faith in visuals, despite the fact that we know that visuals are merely the best approximation the production staff could come up with, rather than actual documentary footage.

However, given the nature of the data, I think an historical methodology fits better than a scientific methodology here. Historians work with data sets in the form of second-hand accounts, rather than directly observed phenomena. We know the data sets we have (the filmed material) are second hand accounts, because they do not always accurately represent what happened. (Recastings, reused stock footage, VFX problems, etc.)

Even if you do adopt a historian's approach, that only means you have to weigh the credibility of different sources. It does not have any relevance to visuals vs dialogue. Historians treat photographs differently than words too.

Yes, a historian would consider a photograph to be more valuable than a written account. But I don't think the filmed material we have can possibly be equated with an actual photograph. A photograph is an actual snapshot of a moment in reality. It can be marred with technical defects, yes, e.g. lens flare, overexposure, etc. However, a photograph is usually not limited by intentional decisions, on the part of the photographer, to approximate some aspect of reality to meet budget constraints – e.g. costumes, sets, visual effects, etc. We do not have photographs of life aboard the Enterprise – we have filmed approximations of what life would be like there.

But this does not mean we cannot reach ANY solid conclusions. Clearly, an historian of ancient Greece is not going to tell you that “anything is acceptable.”

He would if he refuses to accept that the world is real, which is basically what you're doing when you refuse to suspend disbelief. If you think of a sci-fi universe as the intentions of an author rather than imagining that it's a real object which is depicted in film, then it literally has no reality, and hence it is not bound by any real rules. Hence, anything goes.

I suspend disbelief to the extent that I am willing to believe that the filmed material represents an actual reality that exists apart from the film itself. However, I am forced to interpret the films as mere approximations of that reality rather than documentary footage – simply because the films themselves cannot possibly be depicting what actually exists in that reality, i.e. what the characters in the films actually see. To prove this, I need only point out that Kirk must be seeing something different than what I'm seeing when he looks at Saavik.

Rather, he would tell you that we can arrive at many reliable conclusions using an historical methodology. For example, we know that a war between Athens and Sparta occurred across the Peloponnese because it is reported by Thucydides, who is usually reliable in other matters, and independently verified by Xenophon and Aristophanes.

And if you had a photograph of one of those battles ...

That would give us a lot of invaluable historical data. But we do not have anything comparable to an actual photograph when it comes to sci-fi television or cinema. All we have are filmed representations of what happened. We have something closer to an historical account.

So, we can definitively say that most of the events depicted in Star Trek happened relatively close to the way they appeared on screen, because most scenes are consistent with each other, and form a cohesive universe. However, we certainly cannot take all visuals or dialogue literally, in the same way that we cannot treat every statement made by every Greek writer in a literal manner.

What do you mean by "take them literally?"

When I say “treat visuals literally” I mean treat them like actual photographs taken by a real photographer who lives in the sci-fi universe in question.

Visuals allow measurement. Dialogue does not. By any standard, dialogue is farther removed from the hypothetical source (the imagined "reality") than visuals are.

Visuals allow measurement only if the visuals are reliable. I do not think the visuals we have are reliable. I am saying they are approximations. And yes, dialogue also would not be completely reliable. However, there are no technical limitations that hinder dialogue. A character can say anything the director or author wants him to say, precluding censor violation, whereas visuals are clearly limited by the ability of the production crew. Therefore, I would say that most of the dialogue we hear was probably actually spoken. That doesn't mean it's necessarily always reliable. Clearly, if the dialogue is absurd then we can't take it seriously. (In much the same way we dismiss the claims of Greek historians when they start talking about encounters with gods.)

If you decide that visuals are a second-hand source, dialogue is a third-hand source because not only is it an author's depiction, but it is the voice of an imaginary character (ie- not the author himself) being depicted. If you had to force this discussion into literary terms, the visual film is, at the very least, equivalent to the "omniscient observer" narrator in a book, and thusly of vastly higher credibility than the words of any given character.

I am not proposing that we treat sci-fi television as fictional literature. I am proposing that we treat it as historical data. Similar to SoD, the characters are real people, not literary creations. Only unlike SoD, we take into account the limitations of the medium, meaning we do not treat everything we see as documentary footage.

Our goal is not to prefer the subjective – it is to be as objective as possible while applying a consistent methodology. I am saying that SoD is not a consistent methodology, and that if we were to treat the filmed material as historical data rather than observed scientific data, we would be more consistent.

Even historians must deal with photographs vs testimony. You are mixing two different ideas: the idea that visuals are not superior to dialogue, and the idea that historical methods are better than scientific ones.

The two ideas are interrelated in this case because they both fall under the concept that the available data we have which allows us to analyze sci-fi television, (the filmed material) is not comparable in quality to documentary footage. It is more akin to an historical account, because we know that what we actually see on screen cannot always be what actually happened in reality. The idea that visuals are not always superior to dialogue follows from this.

The price of this improved consistency would be that some areas of debate would be unresolvable. But we would still be able to make reliable conclusions. For example, the theme of this site – the technological superiority of Star Wars – could still be maintained quite easily, based on the various accounts we have of both sci-fi universes.

I think the fundamental miscommunication here is, as stated above, the inadvertent confluence of the visual vs dialogue, historian vs scientist, and author's intent vs suspension of disbelief debates. You seem to think that if you can convince people to employ historical methods, then your positions on "visuals vs dialogue" and "author's intent" automatically fall into place. I have seen no reason why this should be the case.

Rather, my primary goal is to convince people to use historical methods. My goal is not to make people prefer dialogue over visuals as a general rule. I believe historical methods are more adept at handling sci-fi television, simply because the limitations of the medium preclude us from considering what we see on screen to be a literal, photographic depiction of actual events. We know that Kirk saw something different than us when he looked at Saavik in either Star II or Star Trek III, and Luke saw something different than us when he looked at the Rancor. Therefore, what WE actually saw was only an account of what happened – not documentary footage.

[brianeyci]

Rather, my primary goal is to convince people to use historical methods.

Fine, use your historical method and tell me what was going on in the scene in VOY "Rise." If you don't know what I'm taking about, here is the transcript.

JANEWAY: Fire!
TUVOK: The asteroid is fragmenting, but most of the debris is still on a collision course with the planet.
JANEWAY: Target the fragments. Destroy them.
CHAKOTAY: That asteroid should have been vaporised. What happened?
KIM: Not sure. Sensors showed a simple nickel-iron composition. We shouldn't be seeing fragments more than a centimetre in diameter.
SKLAR: Ambassador, I'm afraid I was right. This isn't going to work. The same thing happened to us yesterday. We tried to vaporize two incoming asteroids but they fragmented and struck the surface.

Tell me how much firepower Voyager had in that scene, and give me an upper and lower limit for that firepower using your historical method. Bring up quotations from writers and so on if you want, and bring up anything you want.

I guarantee you this is what will happen... the debate will be endless, because there is no way of knowing whether Chakotay was using hyperbole when he said vaporized (especially since we've seen vaporized being used with phasers and they don't vaporize) or whether he was using the scientific definition of vaporized. However with suspension of disbelief we can look at the picture of the asteroid, assume it was nickel-iron and calculate an upper limit with the fragmentation we see.

If endless debate is your goal, inject subjectivism as much as you want like you seem to be suggesting.

[Patrick Degan]

Sorry, but quite frankly, this argument is a bunch of crap. Recognising limitations of the medium falls under SoD. Reconciling two different actresses cast in the same character falls under SoD. But a visual event represents a quantifiable phenomenon which can be measured and analysed. Unlike a line of dialogue which is never going to be first-hand as a source of testimony unless there are no superior sources of material to refer to. That you don't seem to like this viewpoint is frankly not our problem. But when a visual shows a planet being blasted apart violently by a large, very powerful energy beam, there is no real reason to assume that what we're seeing is anything other than what we see on screen: a planet being blasted apart violently by a large, very powerful energy beam.

[Darth Wong]

I'm not claiming that dialogue is necessarily more reliable than visuals. I'm claiming that dialogue can be more reliable than visuals in certain circumstances, because visuals are only an approximation of what happened, just like dialogue may be an approximation of what was actually said.

Even a real photograph is only an approximation of reality. That doesn't change the fact that photographs convey far more information than dialogue, and in such a manner that the speaker's character and state of mind and fallibility is removed as a factor. This is true regardless of what method of analysis you choose to use.

They probably consider both visuals and dialogue to be important to the overall production of the show, but they obviously devote more resources to visuals because visual effects cost more and require a larger team to implement. However, I'm not convinced at all that they pay any more attention to the technical accuracy of visuals than they do dialogue. They certainly pay attention to the dramatic quality of the visuals, but I hardly think they care much for the technical or scientific accuracy of dialogue OR visuals.

But they DO pay much more attention to the CONSISTENCY of visuals.

However, in this case, the limitations of the medium are severe enough that the source material can't be reasonably interpreted as documentary footage.

Why not? Even real documentarians sometimes shoot extra footage based on their own research, in order to buttress the original stock footage they've uncovered. It's only a problem if you assume that the documentarian is dishonest, and in this case, the documentarian is the creator of the sci-fi universe in question! Besides, suspension of disbelief is the conscious decision to ignore these kinds of errors; you seem to think that "suspension of disbelief" means "belief". It doesn't.

When you have the combination of VFX errors, recastings, and the constant reuse of stock footage space battle sequences or location establishment shots, (in almost every episode of Star Trek), I would think the sheer quantity of shots which cannot possibly represent actual reality would be sufficient to reconsider using SoD at all. I would say that treating the sources as historical accounts better fits the nature of the source material.

Historical accounts which convey a wealth of information in far greater detail than a verbal account ever would. Fine, let's say it's a simulation rather than direct film: how does that change the basic nature of the analysis? It must still be presumed to be made as accurately as possible, correct? Therefore you can still look at it the same way as you would look at direct footage, correct? Or are you saying that it should be presumed to be a highly inaccurate simulation?

If you don't have general rules, you don't have a method. Instead, you have whatever pleases you at any given time.

I propose we use the general methodology set forth by historians which allows us to come to conclusions based on internal consistency and cross referencing. That is to say, most of the accounts we have of the Star Trek universe are sufficiently reliable, but we can't always say for sure exactly how some event actually appeared to the characters on screen. Did Kirk see the Gorn as a clumsy looking Halloween costume, or did he see an actual alien species with reptilian qualities?

Fine, suppose we use your method of assuming it's a simulation rather than direct footage. Does that not still mean that the reality must have been as close as possible to the simulation, within the limits of the simulation's technology?

Historians don't often need to decipher an author's state of mind, although it can sometimes be useful. More often, they rely on what the author actually says, keeping in mind the limitations of the medium. In this case, the “author” is really the combined efforts of the writers, directors, producers, and visual effects team.

And in the case of visuals, "what the author says" is far more detailed and subject to far more analysis than what a particular onscreen character says, in which the author is not even directly speaking.

That's good. But I think you put too much faith in visuals, despite the fact that we know that visuals are merely the best approximation the production staff could come up with, rather than actual documentary footage.

If you acknowledge that the visuals are the best possible simulation, then why do you disagree that they should be examined as such?

Yes, a historian would consider a photograph to be more valuable than a written account. But I don't think the filmed material we have can possibly be equated with an actual photograph. A photograph is an actual snapshot of a moment in reality. It can be marred with technical defects, yes, e.g. lens flare, overexposure, etc. However, a photograph is usually not limited by intentional decisions, on the part of the photographer, to approximate some aspect of reality to meet budget constraints – e.g. costumes, sets, visual effects, etc. We do not have photographs of life aboard the Enterprise – we have filmed approximations of what life would be like there.

Fine, as I said, treat it as a highly accurate simulation then. Would you not agree that a highly accurate visual simulation conveys far more information, in a form much more conducive to direct analysis, than character dialogue in that simulation?

I suspend disbelief to the extent that I am willing to believe that the filmed material represents an actual reality that exists apart from the film itself. However, I am forced to interpret the films as mere approximations of that reality rather than documentary footage – simply because the films themselves cannot possibly be depicting what actually exists in that reality, i.e. what the characters in the films actually see. To prove this, I need only point out that Kirk must be seeing something different than what I'm seeing when he looks at Saavik.

As I've said before, even real photographs are an approximation. You keep pointing out that the limitations of that approximation are different than the limits for a movie, but for the second time, my argument is pi]not[/i] predicated upon the two mediums having identical limitations. It is predicated upon your assumption that any non-representative aspects of that simulation somehow nullify the credibility of all other aspects, even when you know precisely why those non-representative aspects occurred.

That would give us a lot of invaluable historical data. But we do not have anything comparable to an actual photograph when it comes to sci-fi television or cinema. All we have are filmed representations of what happened. We have something closer to an historical account.

No written historical account has ever contained the wealth of detail that is found in a movie. So if you're going to treat it as an historical account, you'll have to treat it as a rather remarkably detailed one. And you're downplaying the bulk of this data.

When I say “treat visuals literally” I mean treat them like actual photographs taken by a real photographer who lives in the sci-fi universe in question.

And as I said, this argument was primarily about the idea of using the films to take measurements. The convention of saying that you should treat it like "documentary footage" rather than "the most accurate possible visual simulation" was a choice I made but it is not really important. In fact, you would treat a highly accurate visual simulation and a piece of documentary footage similarly. You can analyze a visual simulation empirically, just as much as you would analyze a photograph.

Visuals allow measurement only if the visuals are reliable.

Now that's just bullshit; even a blurry picture still allows measurement; the inaccuracy of the picture only affects the precision of the measurement.

I do not think the visuals we have are reliable. I am saying they are approximations. And yes, dialogue also would not be completely reliable.

Of COURSE they're approximations; real photographs are approximations too. You're still ignoring the main point.

However, there are no technical limitations that hinder dialogue. A character can say anything the director or author wants him to say, precluding censor violation, whereas visuals are clearly limited by the ability of the production crew. Therefore, I would say that most of the dialogue we hear was probably actually spoken. That doesn't mean it's necessarily always reliable. Clearly, if the dialogue is absurd then we can't take it seriously. (In much the same way we dismiss the claims of Greek historians when they start talking about encounters with gods.)

For the umpteenth time, the dialogue is not the creator himself speaking. It is a character speaking. To ignore this extra layer of interpretation is absurd. Regardless of what technical limitations may bedevil the producers, what gets on the screen is the creators themselves communicating, not a character. And they are doing so in vastly greater detail than any character.

I am not proposing that we treat sci-fi television as fictional literature. I am proposing that we treat it as historical data. Similar to SoD, the characters are real people, not literary creations. Only unlike SoD, we take into account the limitations of the medium, meaning we do not treat everything we see as documentary footage.

Fine, so we treat it as a highly accurate simulation. Would you not be able to take measurements from a highly accurate simulation?

The two ideas are interrelated in this case because they both fall under the concept that the available data we have which allows us to analyze sci-fi television, (the filmed material) is not comparable in quality to documentary footage.

And I never said it was. I said that it should be treated in a manner which is analogous to the way we treat documentary footage.

It is more akin to an historical account, because we know that what we actually see on screen cannot always be what actually happened in reality. The idea that visuals are not always superior to dialogue follows from this.

Nonsense; a written historical account has a miniscule fraction of the detail that is found in a visual simulation. It cannot be analyzed the way a visual simulation can.

Rather, my primary goal is to convince people to use historical methods. My goal is not to make people prefer dialogue over visuals as a general rule. I believe historical methods are more adept at handling sci-fi television, simply because the limitations of the medium preclude us from considering what we see on screen to be a literal, photographic depiction of actual events. We know that Kirk saw something different than us when he looked at Saavik in either Star II or Star Trek III, and Luke saw something different than us when he looked at the Rancor. Therefore, what WE actually saw was only an account of what happened – not documentary footage.

No, even if we accept your logic, what you saw was a visual simulation, and it was the most accurate that could be made, subject to technical limitations. So since there is no technical limitation forcing people to make things look the wrong size, we can indeed measure things onscreen.

[Batman]

You know I had been working on a moderately elaborate response but I realized it would be a worth of effort. It boils down to this:
1. You work with SoD, or
2. You don't.
If 1., then barring obvious SFX gaps and such (and you DO try to explain those, too) then what's shown on screen is WHAT HAPPENS. Learn to live with it.
or 2. What in Valen's name are you doing here?
SoD either applies or it does not. We make leeway for obvious production errors but if it looks like it was meant to be in the episode, it's in-universe.
Author's intent is completely and utterly irrelevant. What we see is what we get.

[Batman]

That was supposed to be a WASTE of effort and that has go to be one of the stranger typoes in history.

[linearA]

Rather, my primary goal is to convince people to use historical methods.

Fine, use your historical method and tell me what was going on in the scene in VOY "Rise." If you don't know what I'm taking about, here is the transcript.

I never saw much of Voyager, but I understand the point you're making.

Tell me how much firepower Voyager had in that scene, and give me an upper and lower limit for that firepower using your historical method. Bring up quotations from writers and so on if you want, and bring up anything you want.

I don't know how to extrapolate the information you're asking for based on that scene. But the dialogue seems to indicate there is something unusual about the asteroid.

I guarantee you this is what will happen... the debate will be endless, because there is no way of knowing whether Chakotay was using hyperbole when he said vaporized (especially since we've seen vaporized being used with phasers and they don't vaporize) or whether he was using the scientific definition of vaporized. However with suspension of disbelief we can look at the picture of the asteroid, assume it was nickel-iron and calculate an upper limit with the fragmentation we see.

In this case, we could probably assume it's hyperbole. Similarly, ancient Greek historians would often give us figures for the Persian infantry. The figures would usually be in the millions. Since we know this is impossible based on a variety of other observed data, we dismiss it as hyperbole or ignorance.

If endless debate is your goal, inject subjectivism as much as you want like you seem to be suggesting.

I'm suggesting that we don't always assume events that we see on screen actually happened the way we saw them.

[Patrick Degan]

I'm suggesting that we don't always assume events that we see on screen actually happened the way we saw them.

Parsimony says otherwise.

[Darth Wong]

I'm suggesting that we don't always assume events that we see on screen actually happened the way we saw them.

Parsimony says otherwise.

Even his own argument says otherwise, in which he concedes that if we treat it as a visual simulation instead of direct footage, we should assume that the filmmakers did their best to make it accurate. So the only things we can ignore are those which can be definitely attributed to technical limitations: precisely the same thing I tried to tell him at the beginning by pointing out that we ignore the technical side-effects of camera technology.

I think his fundamental problem is that when he sees someone say "we should treat it as if it were documentary footage", he thinks we're saying "it is actually as good as documentary footage" rather than merely prescribing a particular way of approaching it.

[Darth Servo]

A lot of these "dialoge is just as good as SFX" people tend to be just like Biblical fundamentalists not only in they think every word is handed down directly from on high, but they also have a sever case of psychological projection going on. THEY treat their favored method as infalliable and so they assume the other side does the same. Creationist retards try and argue as if we assume scientists are infalliable. Dialogue wankers try and argue that the pro-SOD sees FX as infalliable.

[brianeyci]

Rather, my primary goal is to convince people to use historical methods.

Fine, use your historical method and tell me what was going on in the scene in VOY "Rise." If you don't know what I'm taking about, here is the transcript.

I never saw much of Voyager, but I understand the point you're making.

I do not think so, or you would not be debating like this, but we shall see.

Tell me how much firepower Voyager had in that scene, and give me an upper and lower limit for that firepower using your historical method. Bring up quotations from writers and so on if you want, and bring up anything you want.

I don't know how to extrapolate the information you're asking for based on that scene.

Of course, you cannot. For that you look at the visual. But your method says that dialogue is superior to visuals, so surely we shall be able to come to a conclusion relying solely on the dialogue.

But the dialogue seems to indicate there is something unusual about the asteroid.

Wrong. The characters say that there is something unusual about the asteroid. They could be lying, or wrong. Prove that there is something unusual with the asteroid.

I guarantee you this is what will happen... the debate will be endless, because there is no way of knowing whether Chakotay was using hyperbole when he said vaporized (especially since we've seen vaporized being used with phasers and they don't vaporize) or whether he was using the scientific definition of vaporized. However with suspension of disbelief we can look at the picture of the asteroid, assume it was nickel-iron and calculate an upper limit with the fragmentation we see.

In this case, we could probably assume it's hyperbole. Similarly, ancient Greek historians would often give us figures for the Persian infantry. The figures would usually be in the millions. Since we know this is impossible based on a variety of other observed data, we dismiss it as hyperbole or ignorance.

We can also assume it is not hyperbole. Earlier you said this,

More often, they rely on what the author actually says, keeping in mind the limitations of the medium. In this case, the “author” is really the combined efforts of the writers, directors, producers, and visual effects team.

And I can produce quotations from Bormanis, the science advisor, that say that Star Trek is supposed to advance science. As well, Chakotay is supposed to be a well-educated Starfleet officer, and would know what vaporized means. Star Trek intends its people to be heroes, not scientific ignoramuses. And I can turn your argument back on its head. In history there can be tendencies to lower the numbers for one reason or another, for example the Greeks at Thermopolyae. In other words using your methodology, I can argue for vaporized to be taken in the scientific sense as well as you can argue it for being taken as hyperbole.

If endless debate is your goal, inject subjectivism as much as you want like you seem to be suggesting.

I'm suggesting that we don't always assume events that we see on screen actually happened the way we saw them.

Then you can argue anything, because a rebuttal to any argument can be "it did not happen as the way we saw them."

Face it, your methodology sucks because it produces endless debate and no conclusion. If you want that, like an English essay, then fine, but the goal of a versus debate is to find out who is the winner and for that you need ground rules that both sides will be subject to, not a methodology where you can argue almost anything.

[linearA]

Is it in accordance with the in-universe narrative? No? VFX error. And you have yet to show why the scene that 'out' of universe uses stock footage cannot 'in' universe look EXACTLY like the one the footage was taken from OOU.

I thought that would be self-evident. In Star Trek, establishment shots are reused in almost every episode, in the form of matte paintings, or the Enterprise orbiting a planet. These shots look identical, but clearly cannot be the same place, unless you are proposing that multiple different planets in the Star Trek universe, populated by different species, built the exact same cities down to the last brick. Secondly, reused battle footage results in two different battles, taking place in two different locations, yet with the same star field in the background. Are you suggesting these visual images accurately reflect what is really happening in these scenes?

I doubt you actually think that. So you're forced to appeal to authorial intent. You know the director/producer intends to be depicting different planets, or different battle shots, but simply can't afford to create unique footage, so you ignore the visual discrepancy. Yet, you refuse to acknowledge you are appealing to authorial intent here.

There is very often reason to assume that what's shown is not what happened. Again, what was Kirk seeing in Star Trek III when he spoke with Saavik? Was he seeing someone who looked like Kirstie Alley?

SFX error.

You said that already. Recasting a character is not an SFX error. It is a limitation of the medium. The point is that Kirk saw something different that we saw, therefore the scene is only an approximation of what actually happened.

Here we have two differing historical accounts, of equal evidential value.

As determined by what? Mike already explained that we make allowances for technical glitches and the like. That obviously falls under that category.
And it's not like there's a contradiction in that in the first place. There's no need for Saavik to look the same in TWOK and TSFS other than for our want for continuity. Under ultrastrict SoD apparently SOMETHING happened that changed her appearance.

I don't understand why there is no need for Saavik to look the same. If she suddenly doesn't look the same, reality has no consistency, so how do you analyze anything?

Clearly, the events in either Star Trek II or Star Trek III do not reflect the actual reality of what happened, but only approximate it to a certain degree.

Garbage. Either both of them do to the detail or both of them do with the exception of Saavik's appearance. We make allowances for movie-making neccessities. We do NOT throw SoD out the window. At worst, for some arcane reason Saaviks appearance changed under SoD. The fact that we have no clue HOW it happened does not mean it didn't. We SAW it, therefore it HAPPENED.

Clearly there must be something wrong with your paradigm when you have to resort to imagining that Saavik is a shape-shifter, or perhaps had groundbreaking cosmetic surgery for some inexplicable reason.

Bzzt. You just stepped out of SoD. You don't do that unless you absolutely have to or it's flat out impossible to debate in the first place.

Why not? I don't think SoD is consistent to begin with.

That negates the fact that it's impossible to Vs debate without a common ground how exactly?

I am proposing an alternative common ground.

I don't go to an optician.

That explains a lot.

Well, I don't wear glasses.

I agree. I'm saying that in many cases we have good reason to assume it isn't – more cases than you're willing to admit it seems.

You have, of course, a lot of examples.

I provided examples involving recasting, reuse of stock footage, such as establishment shots, etc. These shots are frequent enough in Star Trek to describe them as endemic to the series.

You're arguing outside SoD again. You lose.

This is circular. I'm arguing against SoD. You can't counter my argument against SoD by telling me that my argument is outside of SoD.

relegates a lot of debate into the realm of subjectivity. But I would say it's a lot more consistent. A lot of historical debate exists precisely because the sources are only representations of what happened.

How much of said historical sources is filmed? Yes, visuals can be doctored but until you present some evidence that they actually were THOSE FILMS ARE WHAT ACTUALLY TRANSPIRED.
A picture says more than a thousand words is NOT a hollow phrase.
Vs debaters have photographic evidence of a lot of what happened. Historians mostly do NOT.

I am not saying the film is “doctored”, as if to imply tampered with. I am saying it is an intentional recreation of an actual event.

No, a picture only shows what the director wants to.

Bzzt. Wong. A picture shows what a picture shows. The director will go to certain lengths to TRY to make it show what he wants but that's the best he can do.

Right. That's what I'm saying essentially.

While it is superior to a written account, is it not as superior as you claim. If it were, then you should have no trouble telling me who you think Kirk was seeing when he spoke with Saavik in Star Trek III, and how you arrived at that conclusion.

He was talking to Saavik, who for some arcane reason was no longer looking like Kirsty Alley.

SoD does not adequately deal with something like recasting. If you are suggesting that Saavik actually changed appearances in reality, whether through cosmetic surgery or some heretofore unmentioned shape-shifting ability, then I would put forth that adhering to SoD has led you to propose self-evidently absurd conclusions.

[linearA]

A lot of these "dialoge is just as good as SFX" people tend to be just like Biblical fundamentalists not only in they think every word is handed down directly from on high, but they also have a sever case of psychological projection going on. THEY treat their favored method as infalliable and so they assume the other side does the same. Creationist retards try and argue as if we assume scientists are infalliable. Dialogue wankers try and argue that the pro-SOD sees FX as infalliable.

That's not an analysis of anything I've posted here. That sounds like a canned response. I have not claimed that SoD treats visuals as infallible, nor have I suggested that we treat dialogue as infallible. And there is certainly no connection between anything I have said and any form of Biblical literalism.