Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by ryandrake on Saturday September 17, 2022 @10:06PM (#32883671)

> I think I'd rather characters that are truer to life than sound like they're acting on stage, personally.

You can have both though. A great example is Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’s never mumbled a line in his life and you can understand everything he says during quiet dialog. You can be true to life, quiet AND understandable.

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Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by least on Sunday September 18, 2022 @12:13AM (#32884367)

Jean-Luc Picard is quite intelligible even when he is soft spoken like you said. There's quite a few reasons for this. One is obvious. Patrick Stewart is a shakespearean actor so he learned how to speak in such a way. The other thing is his accent. It's an accent that lends itself well to intelligibility. Pidgin or Mountain talk or bayou certainly do not if you want something credible or authentic, for example. Thirdly, the character Jean-Luc Picard is one who has always carried himself properly and with dignity, so a voice that is loud and properly enunciated matches him perfectly.

I think that you can have both, but you can't always have both. Because it doesn't always make sense to.

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Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by vel0city on Sunday September 18, 2022 @12:11AM (#32884354)

> He’s never mumbled a line in his life and you can understand everything he says during quiet dialog. You can be true to life, quiet AND understandable.

Its almost all about projection. You can come across as a "quiet" speaker and still manage to be heard when you're projecting and enunciating properly. Projecting isn't about being loud, its about being heard.

I have a tendency to mumble a lot when I'm not thinking about it. Thinking about projecting my voice brings things across better, and its not really all about being louder.

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Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by marginalia_nu on Sunday September 18, 2022 @04:43AM (#32885668)

I do think Stewart's stage training shines through quite a lot. He does dial it back, but his performance is hardly realistic. (I'd also note how important recurring locations are even set up like a stage -- open with a clear unobstructed focus point for action to happen in; the bridge, ten forward and engineering especially notable).

On the other hand, I'm not sure what hyper-realism would contribute to something like Star Trek. The show confidently embraces the fact that it's basically a bunch of fairy tales for nerds. That's what allows it to be as great as it is.

Not everything needs to be The Wire (even though that was great too, if you enabled subtitles).

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Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by samatman on Sunday September 18, 2022 @06:56AM (#32886409)

Wow I don't agree at all (haven't seen the latest series, talking about TNG and the movies).

But, if I hadn't seen maybe two episodes, I might have the same impression.

How often do you see Captain (!) Picard out of uniform? The character of Picard-as-officer is constantly on stage, he's the master and commander of an entire starship!

Second most often, we see him on the Holodeck, where he's playing a captain playing an actor playing a role! Of course he chews the scenery there.

But when we see Jean-Luc, the civilian, something changes. All the Royal Shakespeare is invisible, he's an old man who carries a great burden, and has put it down for just a moment.

Patrick Steward is very, very good at what he does.

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Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by marginalia_nu on Sunday September 18, 2022 @07:06AM (#32886463)

I don't deny he has range, but at the same time, it's hard to get way from the fact he is a stage actor playing a character that sounds and acts like a stage actor in almost every scene. He fits the role like a glove, and the role makes a lot of sense in the show (his dignity and gravitas is something that is arguably missing in the reboots and new takes on the show).

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Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by jakzurr on Sunday September 18, 2022 @05:40AM (#32885970)

... it's basically a bunch of fairy tales for nerds.

omg that's embarrassing, but I guess it's true

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Re:Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turne... by zh3 on Sunday September 18, 2022 @03:07AM (#32885196)

I recall an episode where it's all going to hell due to the holodeck, and Picard asks what happened. Geordie, I think, explains they asked the holodeck to create a character that could outsmart Data...at which point Picard lowers his head into his hands and mumbles "Merde!" (pretty clear, despite the mumble).

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