SOD and VFX versus dialogue

[Eframepilot]

One example of a place where the SoD method totally fails is the Universal Translator. The best example of this is in "Little Green Men" when Quark, Rom and Nog are stranded in Roswell in 1947 with a broken Universal Translator. From the Ferengi's perspective, they are shown as speaking English with the humans speaking gibberish, while from the humans' perspective, the humans are the ones speaking English and the Ferengi are speaking gibberish (which is presumably the real Ferengi language). Then Rom fixes the Universal Translator in Nog's ear, and magically, everyone is speaking English.

There is no way to resolve this incident in the SoD method. linearA's method, however, assumes that the episode is a recreation of an historic event and may have taken liberties with the workings of the Universal Translator. Specifically, the humans always spoke English, the Ferengi always spoke Ferengi, and the Universal Translator did not operate in real time, but these were changed to simplify the experience for the viewers. This is true not only in "Little Green Men" but in every scene where the Universal Translator magically translates previously unknown alien languages in real time with perfect lipsynching.

So what about the visuals of battles and weapon discharges? Can we trust that they have not been similarly modified in order to enhance the experience for the audience? I don't think so. Science is only useful because reality is internally consistent and follows unchanging laws. But Star Trek is only as consistent as the writers bother to adhere to continuity. More importantly, the visuals were not created for the purpose of extracting quantifiable scientific data. Is it really honest to make measurements of these pretty light shows and expect the results to hold any meaning? Does drawing numbers from images generated for entertainment have any real difference from mathematically looking for hidden messages in the Bible?

Finally, the necessity of drawing an objective conclusion is not a valid reason for adopting a flawed method. Imposing the rule, "Heads Federation, tails Empire," and then flipping a coin would yield an equally definite and objective answer, yet no one would agree that such a method holds any validity. Science is about the pursuit of truth, not the quest for a definite result. When the uncertainty principle was formulated, physicists did not decide to ignore its ramifications and pretend that particles had both definite position and momentum because it was more convenient to do so.

[Darth Wong]

One example of a place where the SoD method totally fails is the Universal Translator. The best example of this is in "Little Green Men" when Quark, Rom and Nog are stranded in Roswell in 1947 with a broken Universal Translator. From the Ferengi's perspective, they are shown as speaking English with the humans speaking gibberish, while from the humans' perspective, the humans are the ones speaking English and the Ferengi are speaking gibberish (which is presumably the real Ferengi language). Then Rom fixes the Universal Translator in Nog's ear, and magically, everyone is speaking English.

Even in real documentaries, sounds are often added that did not occur in the actual filmed events. So what?

There is no way to resolve this incident in the SoD method.

What do you mean by "resolve"? What data are you extracting from this scene with linearA's method that you can't get with SoD?

linearA's method, however, assumes that the episode is a recreation of an historic event and may have taken liberties with the workings of the Universal Translator. Specifically, the humans always spoke English, the Ferengi always spoke Ferengi, and the Universal Translator did not operate in real time, but these were changed to simplify the experience for the viewers. This is true not only in "Little Green Men" but in every scene where the Universal Translator magically translates previously unknown alien languages in real time with perfect lipsynching.

So can linearA show us what their lip movements really were? Or give us the actual sounds they made? Whatever inaccuracies exist in their lip movements, I don't see how they can be improved upon with linearA's method, which can't tell us anything about their lip movements at all. And as clumsy as it may be to assume that our hypothetical documentarian simply dubbed the voices and CGI lip-synced the people onscreen, that's still better than appealing to the ultimate authority of "author's intent" which you can neither evaluate or analyze.

So what about the visuals of battles and weapon discharges? Can we trust that they have not been similarly modified in order to enhance the experience for the audience? I don't think so.

I see you decided to totally ignore my post about ST2, and the fact that visuals made for audience entertainment become part of the writers' context and gain predictive power for future events.

Science is only useful because reality is internally consistent and follows unchanging laws.

And it is agreed by all parties so far that the visuals are more consistent than anything else we've got to go with, so the only data from which we can extract scientific conclusions should be the visuals.

If your argument is that analysis can't be done at all, that's fine. Go with it. It's certainly a reasonable position. Just don't come back to me with scientific analysis of author's intent.

[The Silence and I]

Why don't you perform an analysis of Star Trek phasers using this method then, in order to demonstrate its superiority?

It would be a good test. I have demonstrated with Voyager's Rise torpedo incident, but never actually produced numbers--whatever else this method may be, it is time heavy.

It's easy to say that method A is not perfect; in the scientific arena, creationists are experts at pointing out the imperfections and uncertainties in science. But proving that method A is not perfect does not automatically lead to the conclusion that method B will produce superior results, and linearA has concentrated all of his efforts on proving that method A is not perfect.

Indeed, the classical method of attack on evolution. We are no doubt all aware of the claimed limitations of SoD by now. You are right, without testing I cannot be sure a historical approach is better. I can say that from my perspective, because I happen to think startrek visuals are by and large utter crap, almost ANYTHING else is an improvement. I would be a fool to claim the same thing for Star Wars, or B5, or neoBSG or any other SF show I have not looked into as much as I have startrek. I may be a fool yet, but I do not actually try to use this approach here in real debate.

He harps on the recasting of Saavik, without explaining how his method would show us what Saavik really looks like. He harps on identical-looking cities due to reuse of sets and mattes, without explaining how his method would show us what these cities really look like. He harps on reused footage in movies like the BOP explosion in Generations and ST6, without explaining how his method would show us what this scene really looked like.

Indeed, there is no way to determine what these people, places and events really look like. That is not ideal. But visuals in startrek are so unreliable in my mind that even seeing a picture of these things does not help, because I find their uncanny similarity or difference so absurd that I cannot accept the image on my screen as reality. So I don't know what Saavik looks like, and I don't know if any of the six worlds featuring the Angel One painting actually looks like that painting and I certainly don't know which one that might be. But I cannot really accept the images anyway, so I may as well use a method that works with more than these images so I might find answers where the method can provide them.

When you can't trust what you see, you can't put a lot of faith in anything depending on what was seen. And in the case of startrek, I cannot trust what I see much of the time.

[Darth Wong]

When you can't trust what you see, you can't put a lot of faith in anything depending on what was seen. And in the case of startrek, I cannot trust what I see much of the time.

Which is why Star Trek analysis will never be even remotely as accurate as real-life scientific analysis of astronomical photographs: it is far less trustworthy because of the limitations and inconsistencies of the information. That does not, however, change the fact that the visuals are still the best way of attempting this kind of analysis. As I said before, if you're trying to say that no analysis at all should be done, more power to you. In many ways, you would have a very good point. Just don't come back to me with scientific analysis of even less reliable data, which is what most of the anti-SoD people end up trying to do. After all, what other kind of data apart from visuals has ever had the power to force writers to change the way they conceptualize events?

[Eframepilot]

So can linearA show us what their lip movements really were? Or give us the actual sounds they made? Whatever inaccuracies exist in their lip movements, I don't see how they can be improved upon with linearA's method, which can't tell us anything about their lip movements at all. And as clumsy as it may be to assume that our hypothetical documentarian simply dubbed the voices and CGI lip-synced the people onscreen, that's still better than appealing to the ultimate authority of "author's intent" which you can neither evaluate or analyze.

The problem with the SoD method is that it leads to logical paradoxes which can only be solved by assuming that the author deliberately altered the film, as you do above. However, by admitting that this takes place, you already cross into linearA's method. Clearly some scenes of space visuals cannot possibly have taken place as shown, like the Excelsior's being hit with a narrow 2D shockwave from Praxis that was shown as moving much slower than light. So we now face a question of how much the author has modified the film... which ties directly into author's intent.

I see you decided to totally ignore my post about ST2, and the fact that visuals made for audience entertainment become part of the writers' context and gain predictive power for future events.

What predictive power? That battles will tend to look about the same? The visuals will tend to look like previous ones, but it is very difficult to draw useful predictions from them. I have seen the same class of Jem'Hadar bug being taken out by a single quantum torpedo and also not going down until it had been hit by six of them.

And it is agreed by all parties so far that the visuals are more consistent than anything else we've got to go with, so the only data from which we can extract scientific conclusions should be the visuals.

If your argument is that analysis can't be done at all, that's fine. Go with it. It's certainly a reasonable position. Just don't come back to me with scientific analysis of author's intent.

linearA's method would not be analyzing author's intent, but rather focusing on the content of Star Trek and Star Wars that is least likely to have been altered - the events themselves. Determining those could be tricky, but the same process is done in history and with the written EU. Overall, the amount of information that we could extract would be considerably smaller, but we could be far more certain of the remainder's validity.

[The Silence and I]

When you can't trust what you see, you can't put a lot of faith in anything depending on what was seen. And in the case of startrek, I cannot trust what I see much of the time.

Which is why Star Trek analysis will never be even remotely as accurate as real-life scientific analysis of astronomical photographs: it is far less trustworthy because of the limitations and inconsistencies of the information. That does not, however, change the fact that the visuals are still the best way of attempting this kind of analysis. As I said before, if you're trying to say that no analysis at all should be done, more power to you. In many ways, you would have a very good point. Just don't come back to me with scientific analysis of even less reliable data, which is what most of the anti-SoD people end up trying to do.

I can't really disagree very strongly here. By and large there is little to work with that has any kind of firm footing. This is very annoying, but it also allows me to generate my own version of events in my head which is much more satisfactory. *shrug* Not that it has any claim to being correct.

After all, what other kind of data apart from visuals has ever had the power to force writers to change the way they conceptualize events?

I'd say the new and 'improved' Klingon dialog didn't help the previously established concept of smart, dangerous and clever Klingons. There are also visuals at work here of course: eating food by hand in ... ST VI? Using swords in Day Of The Dove, the new costumes etc. But I think it would be short sighted to think the dialog was powerless here. 'Battle' this and 'glorious' that and so on. But your point is taken, visuals are a more powerful influence on future writing than past writing.

[Darth Wong]

So can linearA show us what their lip movements really were? Or give us the actual sounds they made? Whatever inaccuracies exist in their lip movements, I don't see how they can be improved upon with linearA's method, which can't tell us anything about their lip movements at all. And as clumsy as it may be to assume that our hypothetical documentarian simply dubbed the voices and CGI lip-synced the people onscreen, that's still better than appealing to the ultimate authority of "author's intent" which you can neither evaluate or analyze.

The problem with the SoD method is that it leads to logical paradoxes which can only be solved by assuming that the author deliberately altered the film, as you do above. However, by admitting that this takes place, you already cross into linearA's method.

Not at all; after all, I recognize that the lip movements must be unreliable so I would not attempt to measure them for data. You're still not getting this. The SoD method was never predicated upon the notion that the picture is perfect; when there is reason to believe there is a problem with some part of the picture, you simply can't use that as a source of evidence.

I see you decided to totally ignore my post about ST2, and the fact that visuals made for audience entertainment become part of the writers' context and gain predictive power for future events.

What predictive power? That battles will tend to look about the same? The visuals will tend to look like previous ones, but it is very difficult to draw useful predictions from them. I have seen the same class of Jem'Hadar bug being taken out by a single quantum torpedo and also not going down until it had been hit by six of them.

Care to actually read that post, asshole? It goes beyond future battles merely looking the same. Events are written under the assumption that they occur as they appear, because that's the natural tendency of writers. They visualize. They do not create physics models in their heads. I gave many examples of this, and I do not appreciate having my argument distorted in such a manner that it appears you didn't even bother reading it.

If your argument is that analysis can't be done at all, that's fine. Go with it. It's certainly a reasonable position. Just don't come back to me with scientific analysis of author's intent.

linearA's method would not be analyzing author's intent, but rather focusing on the content of Star Trek and Star Wars that is least likely to have been altered - the events themselves.

I hate to break it to you, but "the events themselves" do not exist and never did. What we have are visuals and dialogue, and we try to construct a history out of that information.

[The Silence and I]

I hate to break it to you, but "the events themselves" do not exist and never did. What we have are visuals and dialogue, and we try to construct a history out of that information.

I'm a little confused here.

It goes without saying that we have visuals and dialog with which to build a history. But when Eframepilot says 'the events themselves' I take it to mean 'what we can be sure happened.' I.e. The events of BOBW included a Borg attack on the Federation, which involved the Enterprise (I'm generalizing more than I need to here). I can be sure the Borg attacked the Federation in BOBW because if it did not happen then the entire episode is fabricated and worthless and I have no purpose analyzing it.

You seem to be focusing on a different meaning of 'the events themselves.' Or I am, well, confused. Perhaps I am making an assumption you are not?

When I read what you said, it sounds right, I agree with it--we do have visuals and dialog to work with. But when Eframepilot says 'the events themselves' I also agree. So where is the disconnect I'm experiencing? How can I percieve both of you as correct?

[Eframepilot]

Not at all; after all, I recognize that the lip movements must be unreliable so I would not attempt to measure them for data. You're still not getting this. The SoD method was never predicated upon the notion that the picture is perfect; when there is reason to believe there is a problem with some part of the picture, you simply can't use that as a source of evidence.

I guess that I share The Silence and I's views on the reliability of visuals in general. You assume that the visuals are accurate unless proven otherwise, but since before ever I got into versus debating, I usually assumed that the visuals were an imperfect representation of what was actually happening. This attitude was encouraged by reading some of Ron D. Moore's comments in which he said (IIRC) that hand phasers were so powerful that ground battles should actually be fought at distances of km but are compressed for the sake of drama. So I never fully suspended my disbelief for the visuals, and I was astonished upon coming to ASVS that it was the accepted policy to take them literally.

Care to actually read that post, asshole? It goes beyond future battles merely looking the same. Events are written under the assumption that they occur as they appear, because that's the natural tendency of writers. They visualize. They do not create physics models in their heads. I gave many examples of this, and I do not appreciate having my argument distorted in such a manner that it appears you didn't even bother reading it.

Sorry. I read your argument, but I was thinking of predictions solely in terms of the type that we can make and not as the influence that the visuals have on the creators themselves.

I hate to break it to you, but "the events themselves" do not exist and never did. What we have are visuals and dialogue, and we try to construct a history out of that information.

From that perspective, the SoD method and linearA's method are the same, differing only in the way that the history is constructed. But I see that leads back to the old reliability debate over visuals, dialogue and the intent of the writers.

[Ted C]

I’m not arguing that we ignore visuals. I’m arguing that we treat them as accounts rather than photographs.

It sounds like you think that we should regard televised episodes of Star Trek as reenactments rather than as live footage of events. Is that what you're getting at?

[Darth Wong]

I hate to break it to you, but "the events themselves" do not exist and never did. What we have are visuals and dialogue, and we try to construct a history out of that information.

I'm a little confused here.
It goes without saying that we have visuals and dialog with which to build a history. But when Eframepilot says 'the events themselves' I take it to mean 'what we can be sure happened.'

But those events never did actually happen, and without suspension of disbelief, you're not even supposed to pretend that they happened. You're supposed to figure that it's all just "writer's intent", and the writers, not being physicists, never envisioned completely realistic physics environments and events when they wrote those stories. They simply visualized the way it would look onscreen, which is precisely what I'm analyzing. Look at the way script writers write; they even write in fade-outs, fade-ins, where the camera is, etc. RIKER (enters from left). What they create, and what they envision, is a visual experience.

I.e. The events of BOBW included a Borg attack on the Federation, which involved the Enterprise (I'm generalizing more than I need to here). I can be sure the Borg attacked the Federation in BOBW because if it did not happen then the entire episode is fabricated and worthless and I have no purpose analyzing it.

Actually, you can't be sure of anything, but if you suspend disbelief and apply a scientific approach, the best theory is that the event actually happened because any other theory is rather unparsimonious.

You seem to be focusing on a different meaning of 'the events themselves.' Or I am, well, confused. Perhaps I am making an assumption you are not?

I'm simply pointing out 3 things:

1. Events defined more thoroughly than what you see on the screen never actually existed, since this is fiction.
2. If you choose to voluntarily suspend disbelief and pretend that such well-defined physically comprehensive events took place, then they certainly didn't take place in the mind of the writer, who knows perfectly well that he's making a TV show rather than a physics model, so appealing to "writer's intent" is a lousy way to determine what they are.
3. From examples, we can see that "writer's intent" has often been subverted by the visuals, in such a manner that future writing was consistent with the visuals rather than the original writer's intent. So the visuals are clearly closest to the imaginary "reality" we're dealing with here.

EFramepilot is assuming that there is some kind of "real" event out there, but how does he know what it is? If he goes with writer's intent, we have already seen that this is not only virtually impossible to evaluate, but there is precedent for it being subordinate to the visuals. Even Paramount's canon policies, as explained by the writers of the TV shows, simply tell them to be consistent with prior TV shows; they do not define a greater reality which exists above and beyond what we see onscreen and which they should keep in mind.

When I read what you said, it sounds right, I agree with it--we do have visuals and dialog to work with. But when Eframepilot says 'the events themselves' I also agree. So where is the disconnect I'm experiencing? How can I percieve both of you as correct?

EFramepilot refered to linearA's technique as an analysis of "the events themselves". In that context, "the events themselves" clearly means linearA's idea of what those events were, rather than mine. Hence, it actually means "writer's intent".

[OmegaGuy]

Okay, I have a question.

If there's a TV show where, for example, a spaceship traverses a distance at a speed that can be calculated at 1000 times the speed of light, but later the writer makes a direct statement that he actually meant for the spaceship to be moving at 2000 times the speed of light, then which number do we use?

[Darth Servo]

Okay, I have a question.

If there's a TV show where, for example, a spaceship traverses a distance at a speed that can be calculated at 1000 times the speed of light, but later the writer makes a direct statement that he actually meant for the spaceship to be moving at 2000 times the speed of light, then which number do we use?

Thats just like Mike's example from ST TWOK where the "intent" was long range battles but what we saw was short range and it was the short range that set the precedent and became the standard/norm. So the answer to your question is "the former"

[Darth Wong]

Okay, I have a question.

If there's a TV show where, for example, a spaceship traverses a distance at a speed that can be calculated at 1000 times the speed of light, but later the writer makes a direct statement that he actually meant for the spaceship to be moving at 2000 times the speed of light, then which number do we use?

The observed speed. The writer made a mistake, and what made it onto the screen overrides what his original intention was. He's even acknowledging his mistake in this example. Of course, if this speed is horribly anomalous in the context of the universe in question, you need to explain this somehow. Worst-case scenario, it's an outlier because it doesn't happen again so it can't be consistently reproduced (that's how real scientific outliers are assessed).

[The Silence and I]

EFramepilot is assuming that there is some kind of "real" event out there, but how does he know what it is? If he goes with writer's intent, we have already seen that this is not only virtually impossible to evaluate, but there is precedent for it being subordinate to the visuals. Even Paramount's canon policies, as explained by the writers of the TV shows, simply tell them to be consistent with prior TV shows; they do not define a greater reality which exists above and beyond what we see onscreen and which they should keep in mind.

I also have been assuming there is a 'real' event. Although I'd like to think I am not leaning on writer's intent to determine what is 'real.' I'm thinking of using a round about method of removing things and seeing what happens. The goal is to preserve the basic story elements (I admit this is arbitrary, my reason is that I watch the damn show for the stories/characters, and I find it fitting -- for me -- to hold that in highest regard). So if I watch an episode and determine what is important to the story, everything else can go if worst comes to worse. In TNG: Angel One, among other things it is important to the story that the crew be on a planet ruled by women somewhere relatively near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Remove any of these story elements and you don't have TNG: Angel One anymore, you have something entirely else. I can justify ignoring the matte painting which is used in some fashion 5 other times because Angel One has to be a planet ruled by women near the Neutral Zone for the story to work. The visual suggests this planet might be the same as one with a large Starbase in orbit--which makes no sense as Angel One is not a Federation member and the Enterprise would never have been needed there had there been a starbase the whole time.

Or something like that. I dunno, I think more than one rule set is needed to make any sense out of this series. It is certainly possible it cannot be analyzed at all, although I still want to try.

EFramepilot refered to linearA's technique as an analysis of "the events themselves". In that context, "the events themselves" clearly means linearA's idea of what those events were, rather than mine. Hence, it actually means "writer's intent".

That makes sense.

[NecronLord]

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.

Bullshit.

Have you ever heard of the hard wing of history? It's called Archeology. You know why historians absolutely love archeology? Oh yes. Because large data sets and reliable measurements are perfect and preffered for history, as is objective evidence and discovery. In the same way, in analysis of events of recent history, filmatic and other directly recorded evidence is preffered to jouranalistic writing and recollections. A recording of one of Hitler's speeches will trump any textual source, including his own notes.

If a historian wants to answer the question "What was the size of the roman force Spartacus annihalated at Vesuvius?" first he'll look for archeological digs in the area - quantitive analysis - and then he'll go for textual sources - primary first, then secondary, and so on. And if the sources contradict the quantative analysis, and they can't be reconciled, guess which one gets dismissed as unreliable?

No proper historian - like say, Dr. David West Reynolds, author of the TPM ICS and more than one Visual Dictionary - would favour disgarding visual/objective evidence in favour of dialogue/subjective unless it were clear the visual evidence was tampered with or otherwise misleading.

Don't think that simply because Historians don't have all that much objective evidence, they disapprove of it or don't preffer it. Many of them spend great amounts of time scrabbling about in the dirt in order to find it, and even greater amounts of time scrabbling about for funding in order to go looking for it.

What you're talking about isn't a historical approach - which favours direct, varifiable evidence wherever possible - at all. It is a religious approach.

[FOG3]

How about you look at it this way:

Your "job" is to create a model that accurately relates to whatever you're talking about. No more no less.

Author's intent is rarely valid, because it's fundamentally pure supposition. As is anything relying on a character's interpretation. Supposition doesn't hold up worth anything because ultimately everything is based on you supposing something.

Let's take an all too common example. Let's say some crank writer writes out a piece of work where he spends pages wanking off the characters, but when it comes follow through time, they're less then impressive. Which is a better model, to accurately model what is actually followed through on and discredit the wank, or take the other and turn out a model that gives results that don't even begin to resemble what we see actually happening?

Of course, the worst thing is things along of ST fanboys and vaporization. As the phrase implies if you "vaporize" something you're turning it into a vapor. Do we see things being turned into a vapor or the effects so as to render the model valid and thus any values derived from assuming it's valid meaningful?

No, it comes down to "Trektard want power. Trektard have inkling that vaporize is powerful. Trektard will claim vaporization to win." I hate this garbage regardless of which group of bottom feeding fan boys are up to it.

[Darth Wong]

One of the best rebuttals I've heard against the supremacy of "author's intent" was to point out that the authors intended Captain Janeway of Voyager to be smart, principled, and sexy. Yet virtually anyone who watched the show came away with conclusions that were ... ummmm ... considerably different than that.

[Batman]

Well she was principled after a fashion. She stuck with making decisions that would fuck her crew over throughout the series.

[Darth Wong]

Well she was principled after a fashion. She stuck with making decisions that would fuck her crew over throughout the series.

That's the thing; if an author came out personally and said that he intended something in an episode, that's useful information. If there's some ambiguity onscreen, that could help clear it up. But if an author intends something which is simply not reconcilable with the episode at all, you have to chalk that up to a failure to achieve the desired result. Every author who writes a novel intends to write a good book, and that doesn't necessarily work out either. In any case, the assumption that a physically rational universe exists in the mind of the writer is beyond preposterous; very few writers could claim to have the technical chops to even imagine that.

[linearA]

And with suspension of disbelief, the ships are 50 kilometers away because in the rest of Star Trek ships always fight in close range and to have one piece of dialogue override all the other visuals we have is inconsistent.

Okay, fair enough. But you determined this using the sort of methodology I'm proposing here: by weighing up a body of evidence, and throwing away an outlier. Since we almost always see Star Trek ships fighting at close range, we throw out Riker's outlier dialogue which contradicts this trend.

You seem to believe there is no need to maintain consistency with suspension of disbelief. I do not throw my hands in the air and say it is hopeless when contradictions occur. VFX errors are acknowledged, the limitations of the medium are acknowledged because we assume the director is trying to truthfully represent the ideas but may be limited. The burden of proof is on you when you claim a VFX error.

Fine. But VFX errors are not the focus of my argument here, but rather the numerous medium-related problems which render visuals inaccurate in one way or another – like recastings and stock footage.

I also wanted to add that your firepower calculations for the incident in Voyager would necessarily be based on dialogue. How else would you know the asteroid is made of nickel-iron? As far as I know, only a small percentage of asteroids are actually composed of nickel-iron, so this is not an obvious assumption. You’d need to rely on the dialogue to even attempt to calculate the upper limit.

Wrong, because knowledge of nickel-iron as being a small percentage of asteroids is independent of the dialogue as you say and using nickel-iron would create an upper limit.

I see. In that case, I admit you can legitimately calculate an upper limit based on the visual evidence in this case. But my point remains. Visuals cannot always be taken at face value. Since this particular visual, as you say, depicts the asteroid being fragmented by the phaser blast, rather than vaporized, it does not depict anything extraordinary anyway – so my methodology would admit it as reliable evidence.

It is adopted but you do not seem to realize the problems in using it in a science fiction debate intended in determining the winner of a galactic war. In high school, New Criticism is taught. Treat the text as standalone. Do not interpret authorial intent, do not do biographical research, do not attempt to acertain its effect and influence by the works around it.

This approach is absurd. You can't possibly hope to really understand any sort of text without an understanding of the historical context.

Do you know why? Because all other techniques are easily abused and difficult to master. Anybody can make claims about what an author says or thinks, but it is impossible to prove without doing massive amounts of research.

It depends on what you're trying to prove. But I agree that it takes a much greater degree of devotion to study something contextually than it does to simply interpret it on the fly.

See The Silence and I's long post. Only rational, reasonable people can analyze anything with literary techniques because anything but considering the work as standalone requires research, and it is easy to lie about research and quotations, while the visual material is accessible. It is unsuited to debating a science fiction war.

People will lie regardless of what methodology you're using.

You see the fragmentation, there is no vaporization. You resort to the visual whether you admit it or not, so your entire objection appears to be a "grevious nitpick" as DW put it.

Again, I'm not saying visuals are totally useless. Far from it. I'm just saying they should be treated as accounts whose validity is measured by other accounts, rather than stand-alone hard evidence.

So you concede that your example of millions of Persians was full of shit? Get used to right or wrong, yes or no on this board, because if you sit on the fence when you're wrong people will flame you.

The Persians example is completely accurate. It describes how historians weed out unreliable accounts. We know, independently of any historical account, that a Persian army during the Classical era could not possibly have millions of soldiers. That's probably larger than the modern Iranian army. Therefore, we can safely dismiss that statement by Herodotus. Similarly, we could probably dismiss the statement in Voyager, because there is no corroborating evidence that Voyager can vaporize an asteroid.

In what way? In a way that will settle a debate about a war between science fiction powers? You do realize you are posting in the forum titled Star Trek versus Star Wars.

Yes. I think the historical methodology can work in such a debate.

Ah, I knew this, linearA linearB Mesopotamia good you at least know something.

Thanks.

And I right now do not care about those shortcomings.

The shortcomings in SoD are what prompted me to think about this in the first place, so clearly they are very important to the discussion at hand.

Those are dealt with by other people's posts. My point is your methodology's shortcomings are far more severe when dealing with the question : "Who will win in a war?" If your methodology cannot come to a definite conclusion, then it is unsuited to debating Star Trek versus Star Wars. Hint : How many different history essays does a teacher mark in a year? Your methodology will generate endless debate with no conclusion.

My methodology does not provide the same level of certainty that we get with SoD. But I am arguing that SoD provides a false certainty because it inconsistently attributes a high degree of reliability to visuals while ignoring obvious problems like stock footage reuse – problems which can only be reasonably resolved by appealing to directorial intent and treating the imagery as accounts rather than hard, stand-alone evidence.

It is not worth endless debate. It is easily abused. It takes far more work. It takes research beyond the medium itself. In short, it sucks for answering the question who will win in a galactic war.

If you use literary analysis you will find that the Empire will win anyway. The Empire was intended to be a galaxy spanning military organization, with planet destroying weapons and body armor and armored vehicles and so on. Not comparable to a civilization with a mere 150 planets. But you will not get people to admit this because they subvert what literary analysis truly is, because they refuse to consider the whole. Then you get retards and endless debate over this quote and that quote.

The very fact that there are countless Internet sites which claim that Star Trek has superior technology to Star Wars indicates that your methodology of debating is not as successful or persuasive as you seem to think it is. Or, to put it another way, the fact that stupid people exist is not sufficient reason alone to use one methodology over another. There will always be idiots who intentionally distort the truth, no matter what methodology you use for any debate.

But surely common sense tells us that when the director reuses a matte painting, we’re not actually supposed to imagine this is the same planet. But under SoD, the only evidence we have that we’re on another planet is the dialogue. So under SoD, we should assume that various episodes actually occur on the same planet, because we saw the same city. Since this is clearly preposterous, I’m saying my methodology is probably better.

It is not better for determining who will win in a galactic war. For that you require... numbers. Heard of them?

Evidently you have not seen the level of idiocy of certain people who believe a civilization the size of the galaxy and with planet destroying moons will have trouble destroying the Federation. Your methodology will inevitably come to the same conclusion, only it will take far longer and is easily abused.

Any methodology is easily abused. SoD is hardly idiot proof.

Instead ground rules of visuals only allows for a numerical quantifiable approach that is based on the director getting mostly what he wants with his visuals. In other words your objections are "a grevious nitpick."

Again, my methodology is meant to correct some inconsistencies in SoD. It is not meant to serve as a superior method of information extraction. I have readily admitted, from the very first post, that my method will introduce a greater degree of subjectivity to the debate arena. But I say that is the price of consistency, since it does not ignore problems such as recasting, stock footage, or as Eframepilot recently mentioned, the universal translator; problems which SoD just ignores.

[Darth Wong]

LinearA, you're full of shit. At worst, you can show where there are ambiguities in SoD that cannot be resolved. Fair enough, but all that means is that we have to leave it as an unknown, eg- what does Saavik really look like? We don't know. However, you have never explained how your method can resolve these ambiguities, therefore your continually repeating claim that it can solve these problems is nothing more than a broken-record song and dance.

It's all well and good to say "the SoD method is imperfect", but you have not produced even a single example where your method can solve one of these problem issues better than SoD can. You just say it can, without showing us the actual solution. What does Saavik really look like, Mr. "Recasting beats SoD"? What do those colonies look like, Mr. "Matte Paintings beat SoD?" You don't know, so your method doesn't accomplish jack shit that SoD doesn't, and it fails to achieve a lot of things that SoD does. Your whole argument is identical to the idiotic creationist argument that because science doesn't know everything, it actually knows nothing. It's a black/white fallacy where you assume that anything less than absolute certainty means that we can't trust anything deriving from this whole method.

[brianeyci]

And with suspension of disbelief, the ships are 50 kilometers away because in the rest of Star Trek ships always fight in close range and to have one piece of dialogue override all the other visuals we have is inconsistent.

Okay, fair enough. But you determined this using the sort of methodology I'm proposing here: by weighing up a body of evidence, and throwing away an outlier. Since we almost always see Star Trek ships fighting at close range, we throw out Riker's outlier dialogue which contradicts this trend.

We weigh bodies of evidence in suspension of disbelief too, or do you think that visuals are never contradictory?

Fine. But VFX errors are not the focus of my argument here, but rather the numerous medium-related problems which render visuals inaccurate in one way or another – like recastings and stock footage.

I'm stealing Mike's argument, since you seem to be ignoring it. Why don't you tell me what Savvik looks like.

I see. In that case, I admit you can legitimately calculate an upper limit based on the visual evidence in this case. But my point remains. Visuals cannot always be taken at face value. Since this particular visual, as you say, depicts the asteroid being fragmented by the phaser blast, rather than vaporized, it does not depict anything extraordinary anyway – so my methodology would admit it as reliable evidence.

Who takes visuals "always at face value"? I certainly didn't take the visual at face value or the dialogue when Janeway evolved the dinosaur to a human being with a holodeck.

It is adopted but you do not seem to realize the problems in using it in a science fiction debate intended in determining the winner of a galactic war. In high school, New Criticism is taught. Treat the text as standalone. Do not interpret authorial intent, do not do biographical research, do not attempt to acertain its effect and influence by the works around it.

This approach is absurd. You can't possibly hope to really understand any sort of text without an understanding of the historical context.

Do you have any formal training in literary analysis at all? New Criticism is no more absurd than any other method of literary analysis, of which there are many. It all depends on what kind of results you want, which in a science fiction debate about a war, we want numbers.

As for the rest of your post it just repeats the same things over and over "SoD ignores recasting problems and stock footage" and "People will lie regardless of what method you use." You're ignoring that my point is that it's easier to lie with a subjective method than an objective one. You also can't tell us what Savvik looks like or what the locale looks like any better than SoD, so saying it's superior is disingenuous.

[linearA]

LinearA, you're full of shit. At worst, you can show where there are ambiguities in SoD that cannot be resolved. Fair enough, but all that means is that we have to leave it as an unknown, eg- what does Saavik really look like? We don't know. However, you have never explained how your method can resolve these ambiguities, therefore your continually repeating claim that it can solve these problems is nothing more than a broken-record song and dance.

Of course I never explained that. Read my first post. I never once claimed that my method would somehow allow us to extract more information than SoD. In fact, I said the exact opposite in my first post. I readily admitted, from the start, that it is more subjective. I said only that it is more consistent. It only solves the problems inherent in SoD by treating them as accounts, rather than actual documentary footage. I have no clue what Saavik actually looks like, or what those matte paintings are supposed to look like, and I never said I did. But under my methodology, those matte paintings are not bound to be interpreted as accurate depictions, so the question is irrelevant.

It's all well and good to say "the SoD method is imperfect", but you have not produced even a single example where your method can solve one of these problem issues better than SoD can. You just say it can, without showing us the actual solution. What does Saavik really look like, Mr. "Recasting beats SoD"? What do those colonies look like, Mr. "Matte Paintings beat SoD?" You don't know, so your method doesn't accomplish jack shit that SoD doesn't, and it fails to achieve a lot of things that SoD does.

You’re merely projecting the problems with your methodology onto mine. Under the methodology I propose, we wouldn’t need to ask what Saavik actually looks like, or what those colonies actually look like, because we interpret them as accounts rather than actual documentary footage. SoD claims that this footage is actual documentary footage, so SoD is burdened with explaining things like the sort of questions you’re asking about Saavik, etc. My answer to “what does Saavik look like” is we don’t know, because the available evidence is contradictory. What is yours?

Your whole argument is identical to the idiotic creationist argument that because science doesn't know everything, it actually knows nothing. It's a black/white fallacy where you assume that anything less than absolute certainty means that we can't trust anything deriving from this whole method.

That’s ridiculous. I never said we can’t trust anything deriving from SoD. I said a historical approach to the source material would be superior, because we wouldn’t need to explain visual discrepancies such as recasting and stock footage. Furthermore, the methodology I’m proposing is nothing like creationism. Creationism sets out with the stated goal of explaining the existence we observe, but it offers little or no positive evidence for the cosmological model it advocates, instead focusing on negative evidence against the opposition. What I’m doing is pointing out the flaws in the methodology of SoD, and explaining how my methodology can correct them by reinterpreting the source material. I’m not claiming my methodology can extract information more accurately than SoD. In fact, I’m claiming the opposite.

And as long as we’re throwing half-baked Creationist analogies around, perhaps it is you who more closely represents the creationist mindset in this case, in that you wish to hold on to the higher degree of certainty provided by your methodology, even though it yields inconsistent results and needs to clumsily explain away obvious problems, similar to the way creationists refuse to believe that the Bible may contain inaccurate passages.

[linearA]

We weigh bodies of evidence in suspension of disbelief too, or do you think that visuals are never contradictory?

SoD consistently prefers visuals over dialog and operates under the assumption that “it is true because we saw it happen.” This is a lot stricter than the idea of weighing up various accounts which I propose.

I'm stealing Mike's argument, since you seem to be ignoring it. Why don't you tell me what Savvik looks like.

I have no idea what Saavik looks like. See my response above.

Who takes visuals "always at face value"? I certainly didn't take the visual at face value or the dialogue when Janeway evolved the dinosaur to a human being with a holodeck.

Please elaborate further. I don’t know what you mean. Are you saying that you saw something happen onscreen which you don’t interpret as actually having occurred?

Do you have any formal training in literary analysis at all? New Criticism is no more absurd than any other method of literary analysis, of which there are many. It all depends on what kind of results you want, which in a science fiction debate about a war, we want numbers.

New Criticism is absurd because it fails to account for contextual information. You can’t simply interpret things in a vacuum and expect to arrive at any useful conclusions.

As for the rest of your post it just repeats the same things over and over "SoD ignores recasting problems and stock footage" and "People will lie regardless of what method you use."

The latter was only repeated twice, and was a response to a specific point you made.

You're ignoring that my point is that it's easier to lie with a subjective method than an objective one.

Perhaps it is. But the increased risk of ambiguity, and thus potential abuse, which is introduced by my method, is worth the consistency offered.

You also can't tell us what Savvik looks like or what the locale looks like any better than SoD, so saying it's superior is disingenuous.

It would be disingenuous if I claimed, somewhere in this thread, that my method was capable of extracting information more accurately than SoD. But in fact, I claimed the opposite. I claim it’s superior because of the way it interprets the source material, NOT because it is capable of extracting more accurate information.

I thought that was made clear in my first post, but apparently not.