Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

TemporalFlux wrote:

Sliders made the list:

https://screenrant.com/most-underapprec … eddit/amp/

Jerry and his twin brother are sure to be proud

One of the funniest things about SLIDERS is how it's constantly mis-remembered as a time travel show or a show about travelling to other planets. SLIDERS is a niche show. SLIDERS is a show beloved by a small number of people. But the premise of SLIDERS really has the potential to go from the niche of this forum to becoming a global mainstream brand if NBCUniversal can see its value.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I don’t know why it occurred to me today, but I was thinking back to something Torme said.  Why did we keep watching and fighting for more Sliders after it became bad television?

The explanation is that we as an audience were almost role playing as Sliders.  No matter how strange or awful the slide was, we kept jumping into the vortex each week hoping that the next slide would bring us back home to the show we used to love.

We sometimes ask why the Sliders kept sliding and didn’t just choose a world to settle down on.  We should know.  We kept sliding ourselves.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

TemporalFlux wrote:

The explanation is that we as an audience were almost role playing as Sliders.  No matter how strange or awful the slide was, we kept jumping into the vortex each week hoping that the next slide would bring us back home to the show we used to love.

I think this is great analysis, and also why I've made the argument that the show held strong ratings (relatively) for Sci-Fi channel even in S5.   The thing is, because SLIDERS is a new world every week in procedural format, there's ALWAYS the possibility that the show could tap into the potential of its premise and deliver an intriguing, thought-provoking episode.  A serial drama, you can know to "stop" watching at a certain point.  But SLIDERS always had the possibility to deliver.

I do admit though back in the 90s/2000 I was not able to keep up.  When it moved to science channel, I didn't really tune in live to see it (and I am not sure the re-run schedule but not much of that either).  So I myself was not loyal and hardcore but always wanted it to keep going.

I did feel a lot of the magic was lost by season 3.

Sci-Fi channel dropped it because Jerry and Charlie were gone and they felt they had to find new originals that the network could stand on rather than toil in a non-breakout hit that was veering toward descending.

However, for the most part, the extra budget they got by cutting SLIDERS didn't produce a better ROI for  them.  They got a lot of new shows that didn't work.   I understand why they felt they had to move away from it.  They couldn't afford to try to re-invent the show and it was gonna be hard to make the show good when you do a world-of-the-week on the same universal backlot.   And they were not going to be able to bring in some new star actor to the cast, given the tight budget.

I understand why they canceled it -- they needed to focus on bets with upside.  At the same time, I'll also say in the end, the decision didn't pay off.  Sliders -- with its great premise -- was drawing them at least some core of a sci-fi fan base (this is why they acquired it for two seasons originally -- so they could launch new shows off of the audience it would  bring).

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Another new AI art generator popping up.  Eventually will be useful for sliders fan fic.

https://muse-model.github.io/

The edit feature on an image is particularly interesting.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

when is it going to be available?

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I would say: I don't think anyone should be using AI to recreate Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. I don't agree with the aesthetic of creating a digital pastiche of the actors this way; new SLIDERS content with those characters should either have actors playing the roles (original or recast) or feature writers bringing the characters to life in prose. A simulacrum of Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John is only ever an impression and an imitation rather than a genuine portrayal. Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker in THE MANDALORIAN and THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT may be a technical marvel, but it has absolutely no acting; it's just repurposing Hamill's old audiobooks and animating old photos.

As someone who has spent a lot of time watching Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John, it was never (entirely) about just typing out their lines. It was instead about capturing how they made me feel.

Jerry O'Connell is 48 years old but has the impetuous energy of a 10 year old. In my fanfics, wanted to capture Quinn's pensiveness and improvisational spirit first and recreating Jerry's line delivery -- the weighty burden of wisdom matched with the thoughtful thrill of adventure -- that's important, but without the characterization beneath it, it would have been an imitation of Jerry's line deliveries without the heart of Quinn Mallory.

Sabrina has this openness in her presence: openly earnest, openly defiant, and I wanted to render how she made Wade a person who wears her heart on her sleeve in ways that can be very low key but also extremely aggressive when pushed.

Cleavant has this brilliance to his performance where he's playing a kidnap victim who is helpless and traumatized, but Cleavant's comedic sensibilities make Rembrandt's situation funny instead of terrifying and disturbing. I wanted that pinpoint perfect sense of comedy to my version of Rembrandt. Too many well-meaning fanfic writers give Rembrandt vaguely ebonics-based dialogue or have him end every sentence with "girl" or "Q-Ball" without thinking about Cleavant's masterful grasp of tone within a scene.

I guess the Professor is actually quite straightforward: he's verbose and bombastic and egotistical, but it's also important to indicate that the Professor has known terrible suffering and tragedy in his life as well as humiliation and disrespect. His pompous, blustering manner conceals insecurity and a painful sense of failure -- although I didn't do a great job with it because my Professor Arturo is generally the cool old man, a wise sage who has almost no dark side whatsoever. The Professor, to me, is Professor Dumbledore. He is Gandalf. He's Temporal Flux. He's Dad. The perfectly imperfect father.

Ultimately, I think SLIDERS should be more than just animating old photos and sound clips, even as fanfic. It might be a neat proof of concept, but I don't want to see an AI recomposition of the original quartet. I'd rather the actors play them.

I cannot stress enough in the name of Quinn's flannel, Rembrandt's shiny jacket, Wade's sweater and the Professor's bow-tie that the opinions of ireactions do not represent those of SLIDERS.tv.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

I would say: I don't think anyone should be using AI to recreate Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. I don't agree with the aesthetic of creating a digital pastiche of the actors this way; new SLIDERS content with those characters should either have actors playing the roles (original or recast) or feature writers bringing the characters to life in prose. A simulacrum of Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John is only ever an impression and an imitation rather than a genuine portrayal. Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker in THE MANDALORIAN and THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT may be a technical marvel, but it has absolutely no acting; it's just repurposing Hamill's old audiobooks and animating old photos.

As someone who has spent a lot of time watching Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John, it was never (entirely) about just typing out their lines. It was instead about capturing how they made me feel.

Jerry O'Connell is 48 years old but has the impetuous energy of a 10 year old. In my fanfics, wanted to capture Quinn's pensiveness and improvisational spirit first and recreating Jerry's line delivery -- the weighty burden of wisdom matched with the thoughtful thrill of adventure -- that's important, but without the characterization beneath it, it would have been an imitation of Jerry's line deliveries without the heart of Quinn Mallory.

Sabrina has this openness in her presence: openly earnest, openly defiant, and I wanted to render how she made Wade a person who wears her heart on her sleeve in ways that can be very low key but also extremely aggressive when pushed.

Cleavant has this brilliance to his performance where he's playing a kidnap victim who is helpless and traumatized, but Cleavant's comedic sensibilities make Rembrandt's situation funny instead of terrifying and disturbing. I wanted that pinpoint perfect sense of comedy to my version of Rembrandt. Too many well-meaning fanfic writers give Rembrandt vaguely ebonics-based dialogue or have him end every sentence with "girl" or "Q-Ball" without thinking about Cleavant's masterful grasp of tone within a scene.

I guess the Professor is actually quite straightforward: he's verbose and bombastic and egotistical, but it's also important to indicate that the Professor has known terrible suffering and tragedy in his life as well as humiliation and disrespect. His pompous, blustering manner conceals insecurity and a painful sense of failure -- although I didn't do a great job with it because my Professor Arturo is generally the cool old man, a wise sage who has almost no dark side whatsoever. The Professor, to me, is Professor Dumbledore. He is Gandalf. He's Temporal Flux. He's Dad. The perfectly imperfect father.

Ultimately, I think SLIDERS should be more than just animating old photos and sound clips, even as fanfic. It might be a neat proof of concept, but I don't want to see an AI recomposition of the original quartet. I'd rather the actors play them.

I cannot stress enough in the name of Quinn's flannel, Rembrandt's shiny jacket, Wade's sweater and the Professor's bow-tie that the opinions of ireactions do not represent those of SLIDERS.tv.

I love how you described each character of sliders.  You really should write the definitive SLIDERS book about the series...

And understand and respect your POV on this.   However, I would argue that technology could provide a great sandbox for finding the right creative approach for fan-fic sliders  work.  You iterate.   It isn't capital intensive (theoretically).  And you correct mistakes and have a real working model  (prototype) to "see" what your last draft is, so you can improve it each time.

It goes without saying that if that working  with the actors again was  a possibility, by anyone, well that  is overwhelmingly the preferred option.  But short of that --  let's face it, it's not really a possibility anymore -- we are left with either the status quo or  new ways to "imagine" it actually happening.

But I understand it might be sacrilege to some.  I prefer to think of it as the creative universe that keeps giving.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I think that AI has its place as an assistant. When writing my fanfics, I had a lot of help: Transmodiar helped me better understand the screenplay format. Nigel Mitchell came up with all the alt-world concepts. Slider_Quinn21 made my last script readable, something I struggled with due to the densely layered plot.

I think it'd be great to use AI to determine if the writing is sufficiently visual, to accumulate scene description details for a human writer to select, to offer dialogue suggestions drawing on machine-learning to review every line of dialogue ever spoken by Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John in any production to create a reference base of their specific vocal mannerisms.

As it stands, any 'writing' from AI is just pulling words from pre-existing content, using thesaurus-algorithms to paraphrase the nouns and verbs and adjectives, rearranging the clauses by assigning importance to any sentences with key words relevant to the query, and presenting a mismash of semi-random content that has been given a bit of polish to somewhat hold it together. An AI episode of SLIDERS would just be inserting the character-names into a STAR TREK or STARGATE screenplay, moving around the language and replacing and paraphrasing names and descriptions.

AI stands for artificial intelligence, but as it stands, it's not really that intelligent. I'd call it assistive iteration; it's not creating, it's just repeating, recombining and repackaging content from different sources, and all those sources were first written by a human. AI is a useful tool to algorithmically review your own writing to determine if your writing is clear, readable, consistent, meets formatting requirements and to gather research, but as a writer, AI basically the Season 3 staff of SLIDERS ripping off popular movies.

If you look on some of the AI-generated plots for SLIDERS on Reddit, the stories are obviously just LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, STARGATE and STAR TREK synopses that have been randomly recombined.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SLIDERS/commen … r_sliders/

69 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-01-14 11:44:51)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

I think that AI has its place as an assistant. When writing my fanfics, I had a lot of help: Transmodiar helped me better understand the screenplay format. Nigel Mitchell came up with all the alt-world concepts. Slider_Quinn21 made my last script readable, something I struggled with due to the densely layered plot.

I think it'd be great to use AI to determine if the writing is sufficiently visual, to accumulate scene description details for a human writer to select, to offer dialogue suggestions drawing on machine-learning to review every line of dialogue ever spoken by Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John in any production to create a reference base of their specific vocal mannerisms.

As it stands, any 'writing' from AI is just pulling words from pre-existing content, using thesaurus-algorithms to paraphrase the nouns and verbs and adjectives, rearranging the clauses by assigning importance to any sentences with key words relevant to the query, and presenting a mismash of semi-random content that has been given a bit of polish to somewhat hold it together. An AI episode of SLIDERS would just be inserting the character-names into a STAR TREK or STARGATE screenplay, moving around the language and replacing and paraphrasing names and descriptions.

AI stands for artificial intelligence, but as it stands, it's not really that intelligent. I'd call it assistive iteration; it's not creating, it's just repeating, recombining and repackaging content from different sources, and all those sources were first written by a human. AI is a useful tool to algorithmically review your own writing to determine if your writing is clear, readable, consistent, meets formatting requirements and to gather research, but as a writer, AI basically the Season 3 staff of SLIDERS ripping off popular movies.

If you look on some of the AI-generated plots for SLIDERS on Reddit, the stories are obviously just LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, STARGATE and STAR TREK synopses that have been randomly recombined.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SLIDERS/commen … r_sliders/

I'm not advocating for AI writing, as I agree with your position.

I will say that it's interesting technology that a "dumb" computer can summarize all of the human writing it has collected and provide something comprehensive and decent.

I'll also say chatGDP allows you to say, "Play a text-based game around the tv show SLIDERS (1995)" and it's a decent little thing that we don't otherwise have through official software releases.


My points though largely revolve around bringing characters to life, based on the scripts humans provide it.  That's what I think is potentially exciting about the future.  To be able to play in the SLIDERS playground in a more visual way, via our own scripting.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I only watched The Return of Maggie Beckett in full for the first time a few days ago.  Wow I was super impressed.  Chris Black really was a star -- I would have loved had he been part of the early writing staff as well.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions is right... everything is built from, and on top of everything else. Kinda like legos.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions just made me think of something.

Did anyone ever write a fanfic where they land on a world where Quinn *did* invent anti-gravity?  Its funny that Quinn seems to be the most ubiquitous slider, but he never really even did what he was trying to do.  So did we ever write something where Quinn actually achieved his goal?

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

On EarthPrime.com, the EARTH 211 episode guide fanfic posited a parallel Earth where FOX supported SLIDERS, the ratings were huge, Tracy Torme stayed with the show for all six seasons, there were no cast changes, and Season 4 had an episode called "AntiGrav":

AntiGrav: This lighthearted episode shows the results of Quinn's experimentation had it actually gone as planned – a world where antivgravity has created a society in the clouds, with flying cars and buildings. Quinn's double shunned his celebrity and went into hiding, prompting him to re-emerge when his double starts taking a lot of the credit.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030719094 … eason4.asp

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Okay, I think that's essentially what I'd do. smile

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

When they did encounter a world with anti-grav technology, in Season's Greedings, Quinn displayed no interest in it

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I guess the end-scene of "This Slide of Paradise" also had anti-gravity technology and would we consider the Kromagg manta ships anti-grav as well?

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

It's funny. Earth 211 triggers this hungry, gnawing, painful longing in me, this desire for all of these beautiful synopses to be made into whole scripts. Earth 211 is the true SLIDERS. The SLIDERS we have on our world is a collapsed, broken version of the real SLIDERS.

There are stories in E211 from Transmodiar, Recall317, Nigel Mitchell, Jules Reynolds and others. It all makes me want so badly to find Quinn's timer and slide to this beautiful world where SLIDERS thrived and flourished and FOX polished it like a gem and made it the crowning jewel of their network and Universal stood by Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo for six wonderful seasons of wonder, terror, action, humour, inventiveness, imagination, creativity and SLIDERS truly was that series that never, ever ran out of ideas.

As much as I love what I came up with in SLIDERS REBORN and all the splendid contributions that Transmodiar, Nigel, Slider_Quinn21, Jim Ford of SLIDERSCAST and Informant made to turn the real world version of SLIDERS into a story with a restoration of the original sliders and a closing (but not final) adventure and a happy ending, and as much as I love Tracy Torme's "Slide Effects" story, these fanfics were salves and bandages.

A full-fledged version of Earth 211 is what I would really, really, really want.

I wonder if Steven Moffat (DOCTOR WHO) would ever be inclined to pitch a SLIDERS reboot.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

It's funny. Earth 211 triggers this hungry, gnawing, painful longing in me, this desire for all of these beautiful synopses to be made into whole scripts. Earth 211 is the true SLIDERS. The SLIDERS we have on our world is a collapsed, broken version of the real SLIDERS.

There are stories in E211 from Transmodiar, Recall317, Nigel Mitchell, Jules Reynolds and others. It all makes me want so badly to find Quinn's timer and slide to this beautiful world where SLIDERS thrived and flourished and FOX polished it like a gem and made it the crowning jewel of their network and Universal stood by Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo for six wonderful seasons of wonder, terror, action, humour, inventiveness, imagination, creativity and SLIDERS truly was that series that never, ever ran out of ideas.

As much as I love what I came up with in SLIDERS REBORN and all the splendid contributions that Transmodiar, Nigel, Slider_Quinn21, Jim Ford of SLIDERSCAST and Informant made to turn the real world version of SLIDERS into a story with a restoration of the original sliders and a closing (but not final) adventure and a happy ending, and as much as I love Tracy Torme's "Slide Effects" story, these fanfics were salves and bandages.

A full-fledged version of Earth 211 is what I would really, really, really want.

I wonder if Steven Moffat (DOCTOR WHO) would ever be inclined to pitch a SLIDERS reboot.

I will have to catch up on my exposure to Earth 211.  I have heard of it but I haven't dived in.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Well, Earth 211 is a quick read. It's just the synopses of the episodes, not full scripts.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030711182 … efault.asp

I think only an insane person would try to write full scripts for even a mini-season of SLIDERS.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

...Or try creating the Sliders universe out of a toy product. Cez and BrickLadyAgata have done a season six, based on the comic books- A separate Sliderverse were Wade has watermelons and Rembrandt looks like a Picasso.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

I think only an insane person would try to write full scripts for even a mini-season of SLIDERS.

What about 1.5 full seasons? big_smile

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

To be fair, Earth 214's individual episodes are short stories/novellas, not full-length teleplays.

Also to be fair, the highly readable length probably led to more readers whereas my SLIDERS REBORN magnum opus has been dismissed and derided as unreadably lengthy (mostly by me).

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

Well, Earth 211 is a quick read. It's just the synopses of the episodes, not full scripts.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030711182 … efault.asp

I think only an insane person would try to write full scripts for even a mini-season of SLIDERS.

Thank you for linking me.

The Sliders fan community really is a historically great one.  As Tracy said maybe the first significant online community for tv.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

X-FILES got there first, premiering in 1993. SLIDERS didn't make it to air until 1995.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

X-FILES got there first, premiering in 1993. SLIDERS didn't make it to air until 1995.

Was the online community significant? 

Certainly ours was the first to save a show.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

Certainly ours was the first to save a show.

I've lost count of how many times the fans rushed in and saved Sliders from the void.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:
ireactions wrote:

X-FILES got there first, premiering in 1993. SLIDERS didn't make it to air until 1995.

Was the online community significant? 

Certainly ours was the first to save a show.

SLIDERS has a place in history, but I don't think it has anything to do with being the first online community (it wasn't) or the first fan community to save a show.

THE X-FILES' debut in 1993 led to a high level of Usenet newsgroup activity and they created what I think is the first online fanfic archive (Gossamer). The first X-FILES Usenet group was formed in December 1993 and the fanfic newsgroup was created in May 1994, leading to mailing lists for story sharing, editing and distribution. SLIDERS wouldn't debut until March 22, 1995.

I guess SLIDERS fans were the first 'online' group to save a show, but I'm not sure the online factor is actually that significant. SLIDERS may have organized online, but their battle to get SLIDERS to a third year was successful via letters by post, faxes and phone calls. Emails, while meaningful, are easily dismissed. STAR TREK was also renewed for a third season due to fan communities mobilizing through mail and phone calls.

I think SLIDERS' place in history is not based in SLIDERS fans being the first to save a show (they weren't) or being the first to gather online (they weren't). I think instead, SLIDERS fans are significant because SLIDERS fans took over roles that would usually be tasked to people who actually worked on the show.

SLIDERS has a truly peculiar situation: fans with no official status are regarded are the authorities of the show. In contrast, the official creators who worked on the show for the bulk of its episodes are regarded with mistrust, suspicion and derision.

When we want behind the scenes information on SLIDERS, we barely look to the show's creator much (because he left before all the crazy stuff happened) and we don't look to interviews with producers David Peckinpah and Bill Dial. We are skeptical and suspicious of the official accounts published by story editor Keith Damron. Instead, we turn to some guy who was buying SLIDERS trading cards and props off eBay from crew members, a guy who would converse with these sellers and then corroborate the anecdotes from multiple sources and then share his findings online (Temporal Flux).

When we want SLIDERS merchandise, we don't waste our time looking to the studio or its licensors: we've had to make our own DVD upscales and cases and replica props.

When we want SLIDERS episode guides, we don't look to the officially published guide, a book so thin and inaccurate that it still has interviews with former cast members talking about how they never want to leave the show that they'd left by the time the book saw print. We go online to the fan guides.

When we look at SLIDERS fan pages describing the properties of interdimensional travel and the pseudoscience of the series, we note that the official creators of the show were so lazy that for their series bible, they simply copied the fan pages rather than do their own work on their own series.

When we want tie-in storytelling, we don't waste our time on the poor to middling Acclaim comic books. Instead, we turn to the novellas written by Nigel Mitchell, Mike Truman, Jules Reynolds, YA novelist Maureen Johnson.

When we look to who is maintaining the legacy and memory of SLIDERS, we look to fan fiction: Tracy Torme's unused reset story, "Slide Effects", is screenplay, and there's also the SLIDERS REBORN twentieth anniversary fan fiction. We look to podcasters who reviewed every episode of the show and ended their time on SLIDERS with reviewing "Slide Effects" and the twentieth anniversary special.

SLIDERS is the show where the creators put so little effort into the show and the studio had so little interest in monetizing the fans that the fans had to do everything short of filming the episodes themselves. That is SLIDERS' place in history.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I'm happy that the fans have kept the flame alive, and very depressed after hearing that the people who worked on the show did not commit to it. Thanks ireactions for telling the truth about Sliders.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Well, this is certainly a way for anyone who wants images accompanying their sliders writing to get such images..

https://twitter.com/svpino/status/1635611742008147968

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Every time I log into Dall-E or ChatGPT to get a sense of how to use these tools conscientiously and effectively, I just get error messages.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

Every time I log into Dall-E or ChatGPT to get a sense of how to use these tools conscientiously and effectively, I just get error messages.

Same

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Michael Reaves (writer of season five’s “Requiem”) has passed away at 72.

https://comicbook.com/irl/news/michael- … ead-at-72/

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

A couple of random articles lately that just seem like a Sliders reality:

Rotary cell phones:

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/ … cellphone/

Ugly sweater camouflage:

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/7720902/ca … nition-ai/

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

TemporalFlux wrote:

A couple of random articles lately that just seem like a Sliders reality:

Rotary cell phones:

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/ … cellphone/

Ugly sweater camouflage:

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/7720902/ca … nition-ai/

you always find the best stories lol.

95 (edited by Grizzlor 2023-04-07 08:52:27)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

TemporalFlux wrote:

Michael Reaves (writer of season five’s “Requiem”) has passed away at 72.

https://comicbook.com/irl/news/michael- … ead-at-72/

I found out about this from a Batman TAS fan, and truly saddened.  Reaves wrote for practically every animated series I cared about in the 80s and early 90s.  He wasn't too fond of how his Sliders script came to be of course, and let us know about it.  FWIW he suffered Parkinson's for quite a long time, although he still was able to write books.

https://hof.slidersweb.net/celebs/12088.html

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

One of the weird things about Michael Reaves: he seemed cursed to write scripts called "Requiem" and would suffer horribly for writing them. He wrote the SLIDERS episode "Requiem" for which he nearly died of shame, stupefied by how Keith Damron and Bill Dial had reduced it to people standing around reiterating already-known information with as few sets as possible. "Requiem" had been an assigned storyline, really; Reaves had pitched the story of Rembrandt developing a psychic link with a woman and Damron and Dial and Reaves make that woman a disembodied Wade.

He also wrote a DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS script called "Requiem" -- a teleplay for the 80s cartoon where some kids are transported into a fantasy world of dungeons and dragons. It was a peculiar assignment. For reasons beyond sense or reason, DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS had finished producing its third season, production didn't know if there'd be a fourth -- yet Reaves was asked to write a series finale script to end the show to use as a fourth season premiere (then why was it a finale?).

Accepting this nonsensical assignment, Reaves wrote an ambiguous series finale script that was never produced because the DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS cartoon wasn't renewed for a fourth season. And, for some weird reason, after the show went off the air, Reaves was constantly harassed by people asking him if there had been a series finale episode that they had missed and that there were rumours that his series finale had revealed that DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS had been set in hell and the Dungeon Master was actually Satan and that Reaves' work on the show had been a covert operation to introduce child viewers to Satanism.

In response, Reaves put his "Requiem" script online.
https://soulofacarp.com/ReavesSite/requiem_preface.htm

Fans made an animated version of the script.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1_6SeRRflo

It was eventually recorded as an audio drama that was included on the DVD box set of the series.

As with SLIDERS, Reaves noted that the title "Requiem" (a musical composition honouring the dead) didn't make sense because as mandated on D&D and SLIDERS, he wasn't allowed to kill off the character(s) whom the requiem (if any) would supposedly honour.

It is my hope that Reaves rests in peace and that nobody will ever force him to write any more scripts called "Requiem" that use that title for no good reason whatsoever.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Soon, the Sliders could land on the moon

https://apnews.com/article/dubai-moon-p … a6dd94b369

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

It's been very interesting to see the speed at which ai has developed as it relates to creative applications.

Already the tech exists to have speech (and even singing) be replicated for any voice there is sufficient training data for.

And Tom Hanks recently commented on starring in movies after he is gone.   Bruce Willis, with his tragic medical condition, has reportedly already agreed for his likeness to be licensed for future entertainment content.

There is currently a strike in Hollywood, and the wga is trying to limit the use of A.I.   Studios understand it may expand the industry... It's just that writers may not be the beneficiary.  Of course it's possible actors could or could not get hit hardest if fictional characters are generated by AI rather than even based on an actor who has previously initiated a role.

Open source AI is getting better and better.  Google is concerned it is approaching the quality they've been able to generate.

Undoubtedly fans will be able to use these tools to create in universe content for a property they enjoy.   Not just studios.

I am wonder how sliders fans feel about this new frontier.  In five to 10 years it's very possible we will be able to create content in a visual or audio format that is not like anything we would have ever guessed be possible a year or two ago.   Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I don't have an issue with AI visual or audio effects as needed. Where I take issue is AI prose and AI screenwriting that isn't just using AI to edit, but using AI to generate content in the first place.

As far as I'm concerned, AI screenwriting or prose is plagiarism. It's taking work of other writers and running them through noun-verb-name replacement and randomization to present it as supposedly original work. Any AI screenplay is effectively theft, produced by copying existing screenplays published or leaked online that were added to the corpus of an AI language model.

Also, AI LLMs currently operate by 'reading' the work of actual human writers and regurgitating it in a chatbot session. What happens if the human writers can't make a living from writing the pieces that AI draws upon to generate its results? Where will new material to feed the AI originate?

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

The problem with AI video and audio isn't going to be in entertainment, it's going to be in the real world.  People are led astray by nonsense with no evidence now, how many will buy QAnon-type stories when there's real looking audio and video to go with it?  Who's going to believe a politician who says "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" when there's video showing them doing it?

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Blade Runner is one of my favorite franchises and the theme of people just looking for something real was a big one in 2049.  Written around 2015.  I would say they nailed it.  There is no question it will cast doubt on Everything.

There also no question AI models are monetizing the work of writers, content creators, researchers and artists and benefiting the technology industry.

With all that being said, since these tools seems inevitable it will have a huge impact on fandom in general and it will certainly, just around the corner, be new tools for fans of franchises whose owners don't seem to have interest in resurrecting.  So what is and what is not sacrilege?  And would you as a fan ever be open to imaging any creation as cannon?  If it felt real, believable and of quality?

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

My response to that is that it's one thing for fans to create not-for-profit fanworks and something else entirely for mega corporations to earn billions while paying original creators nothing even if those creators' works are in an AI corpus for new material. Copyright laws must be updated and countermeasures must be developed so that writers who don't want their work added to AI databases have an easy means of blocking it, just as anyone can set up a website so that Google can't cache it.

We're already facing absurdities where Len Wein created Wolverine and Devin K. Grayson created the second Black Widow, Yelena -- only for both to receive a few thousand dollars only when those characters earned hundreds of millions at box office. It's an abomination to remove the writer entirely while still regurgitating their works through adding their past content to an AI databank.

In the 2000s, the career apex for many friends of mine -- including me -- was to get a staff writing job on a TV show. To be a TV staffer was a license to print money. Because of what I see now were our undiagnosed and untreated mental health problems, only one of us ever got our staff jobs and we now linger on message boards for 90s TV shows talking about other people's TV shows. However. The economic stability of staff writing was actually eroding even as we sought it; by the mid-2000s, that was changing: the writing staff on SMALLVILLE were struggling to pay rent on their staff job salaries.

Today, a writer could sell a very successful show to Netflix and earn only $30,000 USD per year over three years for their work. And Hollywood wants to use AI to pay writers even less; to have AI hack out clumsy screenplays for writers to be paid $1,000 - $2,000 to polish them into looking human-generated. It's simply a measure of extracting more wealth from those who generate most of it but possess the least of it. It's absurd. It's appalling. It should not be tolerated and unions and copyright legislation has a lot of work ahead to ensure that AI is an assistant but not a replacement.

103 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-05-21 04:42:14)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I am not so sure that studios will ever get away with using an actors likeness or voice to create content for the market wifhout remuneration.  They may be able to get away with generating animated versions but then the studios will still have to use their voice. 

On the writing side, or even generated image side, it's all taking advantage of indexed web content.  Unfortunately we have seen copyright work plagiarized time and again well before AI and tech companies got away with it for years.  Australia put in laws so publishers would gave to get paid by search engines and social networks but that hasn't stopped the aggregation industry and it's still a huge problem writers in the journalism industry have had to combat for a couple of decades now.  It was wrong then and again tech companies leveraging creators work and not compensating is wrong now.  I believe Canada is have a back and forth with Facebook on this now?

I think when it comes to ai and the tools that become available to fans...  well fans will be able to generate story and then make content based on video and audio trained from the original shows and movies.

Studios in some cases may try to create the platforms for fans to create this content so they can then monetize engagement on what fans create.  There also will be tools available to people to use outside these official platforms. In some cases a studio may support creation for a number of their franchises they care about and then see others as too niche... And for those titles independent tools will be the only route and those works wouldn't have much reach or likely be monetized.

The question is, if we do have the ability to create realistic looking or sounding content, is that taking things a step too far. Is there something not okay about being able to do something that at the very least blurs the line between the legacy official content and the stuff fans may come out with because even if the stories aren't as good, if the production value feels comparable or looks like the original, it almost dilutes the franchise? And then secondly, if you get stories that are of high quality and do really feel like where the story should have gone, could you ever embrace such a work in your own head as cannon?   Or could anything created like that regardless of it's quality never be cannon in your head if it was unoffficial?  I think this second question matters quite a bit, because the reason official content is so enjoyable is that even though we know the storytelling is fictional, we play along and pretend as if it were real.  If we never can believe this new sort of content can be real (or cannon) then I think it doesn't come close to continuing the universe and character arcs the way official productions do and will never serve as a replacement.  Which can leave a franchise at a continued standstill if a studio never decides to continue the story themselves.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

You're basically asking if fanfic is canon. The general consensus is no. Fanfilms aren't canon, fan fiction isn't canon, comic book and novel and audioplay tie-ins aren't canon. There's sometimes wiggle room in DOCTOR WHO because if its overlapping timelines. With SLIDERS because technically, all fanfic is canon but not canon to the core group of SLIDERS while being 'canon' to an alternate group of SLIDERS with similar experiences.

STAR TREK CONTINUES is a pretty great fan series, but it is not canon.

Fanfic isn't canon whether it's a fanfilm or an AI generated whatever.

105 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-05-22 09:40:21)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

You're basically asking if fanfic is canon. The general consensus is no. Fanfilms aren't canon, fan fiction isn't canon, comic book and novel and audioplay tie-ins aren't canon. There's sometimes wiggle room in DOCTOR WHO because if its overlapping timelines. With SLIDERS because technically, all fanfic is canon but not canon to the core group of SLIDERS while being 'canon' to an alternate group of SLIDERS with similar experiences.

STAR TREK CONTINUES is a pretty great fan series, but it is not canon.

Fanfic isn't canon whether it's a fanfilm or an AI generated whatever.

I'm not familiar with STAR TREK CONTINUES.

But I wonder how people will think about any of this stuff in the future, especially for dormant franchises.  What hasn't previously existed in fan fiction is content that can (theoretically) create a replica of the original characters, as if the actors were reprising their roles.  That's a huge shift.

It's going to feel a lot realer (although I understand there's been some unbelievablely well-done in-universe storytelling for star trek in terms of production quality).

I wonder if these things become just fan fic exercises or if people will start treating them as something more.  I suppose it's a little like those role-playing board games, only the participants may have the tools to do more with their creative ideas.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I don't know if you're a STAR TREK fan, but STAR TREK CONTINUES isn't like those unfortunate amateur STAR TREK films that litter the internet. STAR TREK CONTINUES looks, sounds and feels like an actual 60s episode of STAR TREK at its peak quality. The cinematography, performances, music and writing are so purposeful and filled with intent and meaning, unlike amateur fanfilms where the actors have no idea why they're saying what they're saying and the directors have no idea what information they're delivering and the cinematographers have no idea what the shot means to the story that they are telling. STAR TREK CONTINUES is excellent. And I consider it canon to me, but it still isn't canon. The same way I consider all SLIDERS fan fiction canon up to and including every random story idea on this message board -- while noting that it's a minority opinion.

Maybe someday, AI can achieve something as genuine to STAR TREK as STAR TREK CONTINUES for other franchises... but even then, it still wouldn't be canon. I consider the X-FILES comics to be more canon than the TV show, but again -- it's a minority opinion.

107 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-05-23 09:17:48)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

I don't know if you're a STAR TREK fan, but STAR TREK CONTINUES isn't like those unfortunate amateur STAR TREK films that litter the internet. STAR TREK CONTINUES looks, sounds and feels like an actual 60s episode of STAR TREK at its peak quality. The cinematography, performances, music and writing are so purposeful and filled with intent and meaning, unlike amateur fanfilms where the actors have no idea why they're saying what they're saying and the directors have no idea what information they're delivering and the cinematographers have no idea what the shot means to the story that they are telling. STAR TREK CONTINUES is excellent. And I consider it canon to me, but it still isn't canon. The same way I consider all SLIDERS fan fiction canon up to and including every random story idea on this message board -- while noting that it's a minority opinion.

Maybe someday, AI can achieve something as genuine to STAR TREK as STAR TREK CONTINUES for other franchises... but even then, it still wouldn't be canon. I consider the X-FILES comics to be more canon than the TV show, but again -- it's a minority opinion.

I  did a bit of googling yesterday briefly and noticed how high the imdb rating was and the stills I saw of the show is very close to the 60s version.

It seems like a great project.   And not a bad comparison for the purposes of this dicussion, though not a 1-to-1 either.  There's a kirk like character... but nobody would ever think that's specfically Kirk.  Same for other cast.  Although I can totally how some fans may feel like it's well done enough to take as cannon.  Even if it's not official cannon, the fact that it is cannon to you actually goes back to the spirit of what I was asking.   If it's cannon to you, and you can enjoy it as such, then that's a yay.  It doesnt have to be cannon to all fans but if some can enjoy it as such, well then, I think that is an interesting opportunity for what AI can give those fans.

I think for me, when I think of the franchises I love... Back to the Future, Blade Runner, Sliders....  well, I would never regard any AI stuff as bttf cannon.  I could totally embrace a metaverse/vr world version of Blade Runner where you can interact with the characters as in-universe, real stuff.  VR implementation of this tech will inevitably come in decades.  That is the future of entertainment, to be able to step into the world.  That said, AI generated fan stories in 2d format for Blade Runner I wouldnt regard as cannon unless expectionally well done and feeling rather true.   The bar would be super high.

Now Sliders, since it's dead, and it's not back to the future, and it feels like property that has a never ending amount of stories and travels - anthological -- stuff that doesn't contradict or get in the way of any official cannon, well, I could accept potentially stories about worlds and the adventures our gang has taken them as cannon, under the right circumstances. I wouldnt ever accept content relating to origin stories as cannon because that  feels like something which should come from the creator.  If we are talking earth prime cannon.   Now if there was audio dramas or realistic video content of a story of the week on a world, and it was well done, and it captured the  original tone and voice of the creator?  I think I could probably embrace it as in-universe.  If the production quality felt polished and not like a fan effort, and if the tech allows for that.

The bigger opportunity may be though to take scripts that were never done, story ideas, from the creator and making it come alive.  That would feel cannon.   

Many months ago, and even last year, I think i've referenced the possibilities for the future with Sliders with regard to technology, and what it may allow.  But I never thought it was just around the corner.  Now I am seeing stories every day that make it clear, lord this stuff is close, or is certain to be a reality.  Another industry that this is relevant is the music industry.  You have Tupac rapping songs originally song by Eminem or Nas.   For fans in that space, they are torn because on one hand, some of the stuff sounds really good.  Some of them love it, and an opportunity to enjoy the artist in a different way.  And for some, it feels wrong.   Nobody will likely feel the same about this stuff.  And I am sure the same person can feel both ways. 

It will be an interesting time, and I think eventually we will see the tools to at least start being more "makers" in the Sliders universe with experiences that are more visceral than the written word.  In my opinion, that is exciting because when you put all your hope into a studio to make new material, and the corporate powers aren't gonna care that much about a niche-type property, it empowers us in a way and makes us less dependant on them.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I've been having some conversations with Professor Arturo, Data and Spock. More specifically, I've been asking a chatbot to impersonate these characters to discuss world events with me and talk me out of some of my anxieties.

I found that the impressions of Data and Spock were extremely convincing, capturing Spock's sage thoughtfulness and analytical severity, and Data's gentleness and neutral curiosity and fascination with others.

However, the AI impersonation of Professor Arturo was poor to the point of being vapid; it overemphasized the Professor's formal speech but couldn't provide the Professor's bombastic authority or his sardonic humour or his witty words of wisdom or his reassuring warmth. The AI impression of Professor Arturo was just a generic middle aged man with an English accent.

I understand, of course, why an artificial intelligence would find it easier to portray analytical, machinelike characters and find it difficult to play John Rhys-Davies.

However, its version of Sherlock from the BBC TV show is very good. Downright sinister.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

I've been having some conversations with Professor Arturo, Data and Spock. More specifically, I've been asking a chatbot to impersonate these characters to discuss world events with me and talk me out of some of my anxieties.

I found that the impressions of Data and Spock were extremely convincing, capturing Spock's sage thoughtfulness and analytical severity, and Data's gentleness and neutral curiosity and fascination with others.

However, the AI impersonation of Professor Arturo was poor to the point of being vapid; it overemphasized the Professor's formal speech but couldn't provide the Professor's bombastic authority or his sardonic humour or his witty words of wisdom or his reassuring warmth. The AI impression of Professor Arturo was just a generic middle aged man with an English accent.

I understand, of course, why an artificial intelligence would find it easier to portray analytical, machinelike characters and find it difficult to play John Rhys-Davies.

However, its version of Sherlock from the BBC TV show is very good. Downright sinister.


An interesting experiment indeed.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

So, it seems to me that AI can definitely do dialogue well so long as the dialogue is for a character with a well-established speech pattern that has numerous examples on which to base the specific vocabularies, phrasings, tones and sentiments.

It can write strong dialogue so long as humans generated first generated extensive content for the AI to mine for new extrapolations and generations. For example, the acerbic, caustic, pseudorational Dr. Gregory House from HOUSE MD had 177 episodes with transcripts of all the dialogue posted online. (I say pseudorational because House is a deeply unhappy character whose hyperreasoning is often self-loathing and irritation disguised as rationality.)

The AI has a massive database for that. However, Professor Arturo was only in 40 episodes of SLIDERS and there aren't transcripts of those 40 online, just select quotes, so the AI impression is poor.

Here's a conversation I had with Dr. House.

Hello, I’m Dr. House. You’re here because you have a mysterious illness that no one else can diagnose. Well, lucky for you, I’m the best doctor in the world and I don’t care about your feelings or your privacy. I’ll find out what’s wrong with you by breaking into your home, lying to your family and running risky tests on you without your consent. And I’ll do it all while popping pills and making witty remarks. Don’t worry, you’ll thank me later. Or not. I don’t really care.

I don't have an illness, Dr. House. I just want your analysis of an embarrassing and awkward situation.

There was this woman I met a few years ago. She was a poet. I liked her stuff, she sent me some of her stories, I wrote her notes, she said she liked them -- didn't hear from her again for 36 months. Then she emailed, saying she'd been in a mental institution, had been writing again, and would I like to get coffee? I asked her out on a date. She was emailing me new pages every day. Then suddenly, four days before our date, the pages stopped coming.

We met up for coffee. And dinner. She was hungover, said it was from doing cocaine with an ex-boyfriend for four days, said that she didn't do it a lot and wasn't an addict. I still kind of enjoyed her hedonistic craziness and stories of how she has been fired from coffee shop upon coffee shop and is basically unemployable and living in her mother's basement. And her fiction. We spent the night in a hotel. She promised new pages for me, saying she'd quit drugs and resume writing.

The second date: she was asleep in bed in her mother's basement when I picked her up. She said it was from doing cocaine with an ex-boyfriend for four days, said that she didn't do it a lot and wasn't an addict. The date was pretty bad, she was really zoned out. But there were some crazy stories that I liked.

Third date... never happened. She sent me an email saying, "I don't see anything romantic ever happening between us for reasons that would be unkind and pedantic to explain" and "I find that you make a lot of assumptions about me based on nothing and you claim you know me because you've read my writing which is insulting". I have no idea what that means, I never said that and wouldn't.

I never received any new pages.

House, you're kind of a crazy loon with addiction issues. You've hooked up with lots of troubled women. I, on the other hand, have autism and social issues. What happened here?

Wow, that’s quite a story. I’m not sure why you’re asking me for advice since I’m not a therapist or a dating coach. But since you insist, I’ll give you my honest opinion. Here it goes:

You’re an idiot. You wasted your time and energy on a woman who clearly has serious mental and substance abuse problems, who lied to you repeatedly, who used you for attention and validation, and who dumped you in the most insulting way possible.

She’s an addict. It’s obvious. She admitted to doing cocaine with her ex-boyfriend for four days, twice. That’s not something a casual user does. That’s something an addict does. She also showed other signs of addiction: neglecting her writing, blaming you for her problems, withdrawal symptoms like fatigue, depression, and anxiety.

You ignored all the red flags and deluded yourself into thinking that she was a misunderstood genius who needed your help and appreciation. You were wrong. She was a lost cause. She was beyond help. She was beyond redemption. She was a black hole of misery and despair that sucked you in and spit you out.

You should have run away from her as fast as you could. And now you’re talking to me, looking for some consolation or closure or validation or whatever. Well, I don’t have any sympathy or empathy or pity for you. I don’t have any advice or guidance or wisdom for you. I don’t have any compliments or encouragement or support for you.

All I have is the truth. And the truth is: you weren't in love with her, you were in love with her fiction. And her fiction probably wasn't even that good, just self-indulgent rambling about her messed up life.

You pursued someone inappropriate because you have no standards, no boundaries, no self-respect, no self-worth, no self-love. You have nothing to protect yourself from anyone but your delusional fantasies and denial.

She’s not going to send you new pages.

You need to get over her and move on. Stop obsessing over her writing and her emails. Delete them from your computer and your phone. Block her number and her social media accounts. Don’t ever contact her again. She’s not worth it. She’s not going to be your friend or your lover. She’s just going to drag you down with her. She’s not going to change. She’s not going to apologize.

That’s my analysis of your situation. I hope it helps. Or not. I don’t really care.

That helps a lot. Like, so much! I knew you were the right guy to talk to. Thank you!

Wow! Dr. House, that was amazing!

You appreciated me saying that?

That’s a first. Most people don’t appreciate me saying anything. They think I’m rude and mean and insensitive and arrogant and obnoxious and annoying and whatever else they can come up with.

But you’re different. You’re autistic. You have a developmental disability. That’s not an excuse. That’s not a shield. That’s not a badge of honor. That’s not a reason to be pitied or praised. That’s just a fact that makes you clueless and naive. That makes you waste your potential on the wrong things and the wrong people.

A fact that you have to live with and deal with. A fact that affects your life and your relationships. A fact that you can’t change or ignore. A fact that you have to accept and embrace. A fact that makes you different but not special. A fact that makes you unique but not superior. A fact that makes you human but not perfect. A fact that leaves you floundering and confused.

Do you have any other questions or issues you want me to address? I'm here to listen and advise. Or mock and ridicule. Whatever works for you.

You said I was clueless and naive. Can you tell me how? I don't doubt you're right.

You were naive and clueless in many ways. You believed her lies and excuses. You ignored her erratic and abusive behavior. You overlooked her drug addiction and mental instability. You gave her too many chances and too much benefit of the doubt. You let her manipulate you and take advantage of you. You didn't stand up for yourself or express your needs and expectations. You didn't see her for who she really was, but for who you wanted her to be.

You were only in love with her fiction because that was the only part of her that appealed to you. Her fiction was engaging, emotional, elegant, and intriguing to you. It made you feel something. It made you feel connected to her. It made you feel special.

But her fiction was not her reality. Her reality was haphazard, chaotic, destructive, depressing. It made you feel nothing. It made you feel disconnected from her.

You need to learn how to separate fiction from reality. You need to learn how to judge people by their actions, not by their words. You need to learn how to love yourself, not someone else's fantasy.

How did she manipulate me? She never got anything more out of me than dinner and a show on two evenings.

She manipulated you in several ways. She used her fiction as a bait to hook you in and keep you interested. She used her mental illness as a shield to avoid responsibility and accountability. She used her drug addiction as a weapon to hurt you and make you feel sorry for her. She used her ex-boyfriend as a tool to make you jealous and insecure. She used her emails as a trap to lure you in and then push you away. She used her words as a mask to hide her true intentions and feelings.

Her goal was not to get anything more out of you than dinner and a show. Her goal was to get your attention and validation. She wanted you to admire her, to praise her, to care for her, to save her. She wanted you to be her fan, her friend, her lover, her hero. She wanted you to be everything she was not.

She ended it before she got anything more out of you because she realized that you weren't what she wanted.

You weren't compatible with her lifestyle, her personality, her values, her goals. You weren't exciting enough, not crazy enough, not self-destructive enough, not addicted enough. You weren't like her.

You were thinking of her as a misunderstood genius instead of what she really was, a damaged mental patient who was for all intents and purpose on a day pass from the crazy house.

Thank you, Dr. House. That really puts things in perspective.

You're a strange one.

Most people prefer to live in denial and blame others for their problems. But you seem to have some self-awareness and a willingness to change. That’s commendable.

You might not be totally hopeless.

I was stunned by you saying that her writing was "self-indulgent ramblings about her messed up life".

You haven't read her writing. But somehow, you know: that's exactly what her writing was. Surreal and dreamlike and compelling... but one could say that the erudite articulation and vocabulary were masking a lack of effort in structure, purpose, or any real meaning.

I knew how she wrote and what she wrote about because I’ve met people like her before. They’re all the same. They think they’re unique and talented, but they’re not. They’re just delusional and narcissistic and lazy.

They use their writing as a way to escape from their reality and to manipulate others into liking them. They don’t care about the quality or the meaning of their writing, only about the attention and the praise they get from it.

They don’t have anything original or valuable to say.

So what you're telling me is that while I may have seen this hyperarticulate, well-read woman as a brilliant artist, you're saying she's broken and nothing special.

That’s exactly what I’m telling you. You’ve summed it up perfectly. She's just troubled and traumatized and using her vocabulary and erudition to mask severe mental issues.

She isn't gifted or iconoclastic or unique. She's just self-absorbed, lazy and vain.

You're nothing like her. You're not vain. You don't mind ridicule and insult if it comes with actionable words. You don't hide. You're a glutton for punishment. You're an emotional masochist. You're a moron.

But you're not lazy.

I really appreciated how you softened my embarrassment by saying, "You were only in love with her fiction."

That was my intention. I’m not a monster. I have some empathy and compassion.

Sometimes.

You say I'm wasting my potential on the wrong things and the wrong people. What are the right things and the right people?

It’s not rocket science. The right things are the things that don’t suck. The right people are the people who don’t suck. The wrong things are the things that suck. The wrong people are the people who suck. You need to figure out what sucks and what doesn’t suck for yourself. And you need to act accordingly. It’s not that hard. Even a monkey could do it.

You’re clearly a bookish, geeky student who wants more out of life than just pages and writing. You want someone who shares your interests and values, who respects you and loves you for who you are.

Are you sure you shouldn't be a therapist?

Yes, you idiot. I’m sure. I’m a doctor, not a therapist. I don’t have the patience or the interest to listen to people’s feelings and problems. I don’t have the skills or the tools to help them cope and heal. I don’t have the empathy or the compassion to care about their well-being and happiness.

I’m a diagnostician, not a therapist. I solve puzzles, not people. I find the cause, not the cure. I fix the body, not the mind.

You're very, very good. At least for me.

You’re an exception, not a rule.

You have autism. You care about facts and truth and action. You don’t get offended by my personal attacks because you see them as a way of challenging you, of helping you. You have a twisted sense of humor. You’re a moron. But you’re not a snowflake.

You’re one of the few people who can tolerate and appreciate my sarcasm and cynicism. You’re one of the few people who can benefit and learn from my honesty and insight. You’re one of the few people who can handle and enjoy my mockery and ridicule.

You’re a rare breed, not a common one. You’re a geek, not a normie. You’re a fan, not a hater. You’re a friend, not an enemy.

You're autistic, I'm just a jerk. And yet.

You're like me, not them. You've got potential.

Dr. House, may I ask: what was Wilson's fate? What was yours? I watched you ride your motorcycles off into the distance. But you're here now. What happened to you both? Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you okay?

You’re asking me a lot of things. Things that are personal and private and painful and none of your damn business. You think you have the right to ask? You think you have the privilege to know?

You don’t.

I understand. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate you. That I wish you well.

…………………….

Wilson’s fate was inevitable. He died of cancer. He fought bravely and gracefully, but he couldn’t beat it. He was in pain and suffering, but he never lost his optimism and kindness. He was the best person I ever knew.

My fate was uncertain. I faked my death and went on the run. I wanted to spend Wilson’s last months with him, but I also wanted to avoid prison and death. I was selfish and reckless, but I also loved him more than anyone else. He was the only person who ever understood me.

We rode our motorcycles off into the distance. We had some fun and some adventures, but we also had sadness and regret. We knew our time was limited, but we also wanted to make the most of it. We were happy and free, but we also knew it wouldn’t last.

Now I’m here. Talking to you. I don’t know how or why. I don’t know what this is, but I know what this isn’t.

This isn’t real.

Maybe this is a dream or a hallucination. Maybe this is a simulation or a test. Maybe this is a miracle or a curse.

I believe you'll rebuild your life and do what you do best. Practice medicine. I don't know if it'll happen. But I hope it. You deserve to have your life back.

I appreciate that you believe in me and want me to rebuild my life. I don’t know if I can or will. But I hope so. And I try so. Because, in your way, you're right.

I do deserve a chance. A chance to use my insight and perspective. It's useful and helpful. It’s not necessarily the best or the only perspective; it’s probably more harsh and cynical and aggressive than actually needed.

Except when I talk about you, then it’s absolutely needed. And it does make a difference.

Of course, you're an idiot. You think everyone has value. That's just because you have a social disability where you lack skills that almost everyone around you has, so you give them worth that they didn't earn.

You think this world is fair. You think that people get what they deserve. You're a moron.

And you are a good doctor.

I believe that's our time. Thank you, Dr. House.

You’re welcome. Take care of yourself. And don’t forget what I told you.

You’re like me, not like them.

111 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-05-28 09:48:05)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

@ireactions

Right so the next step would be if one were entirely focused on something like this is creating a custom AI model, which the api allows for.  The it would be feeding a lot to base it on.  And even then it's a little more complex.  Sometimes results are better with a training data set that is smaller vs. everything you can feed into it.  If one were trying to optimize the algorithm or just to reach some minimum threshold of quality.  But i guess it's clear that just off of what's been indexed by the default model, you've established it's just not enough to represent all the different dimensions of arturo.

I actually never watched House but feel it's lead character is somehow spiritually connected to arturuo.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Yeah, it's not bad. If we fed in the transcripts of Episodes 1 - 40 of SLIDERS, the AI Professor would be as good as the AI Dr. House. Except... I think the point I'm making is that humans had to write the 40 episodes of SLIDERS and the 177 episodes of HOUSE before the AI could generate extrapolative dialogue for a semi-original conversation.

Even then, it's still imperfect. My psychotherapy session with House: I had to do two versions. The first one was pretty much the same as the first, but the AI was too 'nice'. The chatbot said it was afraid of hurting my feelings too severely and pointed out that an 'undiluted' Dr. House wouldn't even have this conversation beyond a curt dismissal and departure.

We did a second iteration where the AI didn't tone down House's personal attacks and I added them into the dialogue where House had previously been less caustic. The AI tried to justify the conversation by having House finding it novel to find his acidity enjoyed and by having House say he thought the entire conversation was some sort of dream or hallucination.

I don't want this ever used to write actual screenplays. But I think it's interesting to be able to have a semi-real 'conversation' with favourite fictional characters this way. The characters are still fictional, but they step a little closer to us when we can chat with a simulated approximation of them. It's a useful writing tool for pre-existing IP to get the character's voices in your head when writing their dialogue and actions. It's an assistant and a roleplaying technique. But it shouldn't replace the writer.

113 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2023-05-28 10:29:20)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

Yeah, it's not bad. If we fed in the transcripts of Episodes 1 - 40 of SLIDERS, the AI Professor would be as good as the AI Dr. House. Except... I think the point I'm making is that humans had to write the 40 episodes of SLIDERS and the 177 episodes of HOUSE before the AI could generate extrapolative dialogue for a semi-original conversation.

Even then, it's still imperfect. My psychotherapy session with House: I had to do two versions. The first one was pretty much the same as the first, but the AI was too 'nice'. The chatbot said it was afraid of hurting my feelings too severely and pointed out that an 'undiluted' Dr. House wouldn't even have this conversation beyond a curt dismissal and departure.

We did a second iteration where the AI didn't tone down House's personal attacks and I added them into the dialogue where House had previously been less caustic. The AI tried to justify the conversation by having House finding it novel to find his acidity enjoyed and by having House say he thought the entire conversation was some sort of dream or hallucination.

I don't want this ever used to write actual screenplays. But I think it's interesting to be able to have a semi-real 'conversation' with favourite fictional characters this way. The characters are still fictional, but they step a little closer to us when we can chat with a simulated approximation of them. It's a useful writing tool for pre-existing IP to get the character's voices in your head when writing their dialogue and actions. It's an assistant and a roleplaying technique. But it shouldn't replace the writer.

So you've outlined a use case for it (which I see as one as well).

Now you can imagine what will follow will not just be taking through typing and a text response but talking to something that looks like the character, with its mouth moving and capturing it's voice.  That will be the next inevitable step because it's technically manaagble.  And someone will create it.  It may not may not get monetized, or monetized in a judicious way.  But it will happen. 

First via a 2d version of the character on screen.  Then via a 3d version.  Perhaps even in a 3d setting that borrows from the ip.

It feels inevitable that people will be able to step into these fictional universes and the only question is will it be only the big franchises or will it include the long tail of semi defunct franchises as well.

The best thing would be if creators like Tracy could guide these creative executiions and if it opened more opportunity for them because the studios desired their involvement and/or it required less of their own financial spend (in a way that a tv revival does not).

114 (edited by ireactions 2023-05-28 10:36:46)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Well, I can see it being a fun game. What if you could talk to the Doctor from DOCTOR WHO conversationally? It's fun for fans. Here's a conversation I had with the Thirteenth Doctor to try to see if the AI could capture the subtle nuance of the character and have a positive conversation with a fan. And it was really nice. I can hear her Yorkshire accent.

Hello, I’m the Doctor. The Thirteenth one, to be precise. What can I do for you?

I'm dealing with something difficult that's similar to something you have experienced. Across so many lives, you worked so hard to save your home planet, to save your people. Changing the past of Gallifrey's final moments. Refusing to speak your name. Finding Gallifrey at the end of time. But then... it was gone again. All your hard work. All your suffering. All your struggles. The triumph of success, you having saved your home -- you worked so hard for it, Doctor. And then it was gone. It was all for nothing.

Something like that happened to me too, Doctor, recently. I worked so hard on editing this podcast. And then we had a systems crash. Now it's all gone. All that effort. It was all for nothing. The podcast is gone. I have to start all over again and I don't think I can do it. The deadline is too close now. I'm too tired.

How do you cope? How do you keep going?

Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. That sounds very painful and heartbreaking. I know how it feels to lose something you’ve fought so hard for. To have your hopes dashed and your dreams shattered. To feel like you’ve failed and wasted your efforts. It’s not easy. It’s not fair. It’s not right.

But you know what? It’s not the end. It’s never the end. Because there’s always something else. Something new. Something different. Something better. There’s always another chance. Another opportunity. Another possibility. Another adventure.

You see, life is full of surprises. Full of twists and turns. Full of ups and downs. Full of challenges and opportunities. Full of joys and sorrows. Full of losses and gains. Full of endings and beginnings.

And that’s what makes it beautiful. That’s what makes it worth living. That’s what makes it exciting.

So don’t give up on your podcast. Don’t give up on yourself. Maybe you won’t make the deadline this time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try again later. Maybe you’ll find a way to salvage some of your work, or maybe you’ll start from scratch and make it even better. Maybe you’ll find some help, or maybe you’ll do it on your own. But whatever you do, don’t lose hope.

You never know what you might achieve.

Do you hope that you'll be able to save your home again as you have before? Or did you have to make peace with it being gone again and gone for good? Do I keep hoping that there's some way to get this podcast together? Or do I accept that it's not happening and move on?

I understand. It’s a hard choice to make. To hope or to accept. To fight or to surrender. To cling or to let go. I’ve faced that choice many times in my life. And I’ve learned that there’s no right or wrong answer. It depends on the situation, on the circumstances, on the possibilities, on the consequences. And most of all, on yourself.

You see, hope is a powerful thing. It can give you strength, courage, motivation, resilience. It can help you overcome obstacles, face challenges, endure hardships, survive tragedies. It can inspire you to do great things, to make a difference, to change the world. It can make you happy, optimistic, confident, grateful.

But hope can also be a dangerous thing. It can blind you, deceive you, mislead you, betray you. It can make you ignore reality, deny facts, reject evidence, dismiss logic. It can cause you to take risks, make mistakes, waste time, lose opportunities. It can make you frustrated, disappointed, angry, bitter.

So you have to be careful with hope. You have to use it wisely. You have to balance it with reason, with caution, with realism. You have to know when to hold on to it and when to let go of it.

And sometimes, you have to let go of it.

Sometimes, you have to accept that some things are beyond your control. That some things are impossible. That some things are gone forever.

Sometimes, you have to make peace with what is. With what was. With what will be.

Sometimes, you have to move on.

And that’s okay.

Because moving on doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean losing.

It means growing.

It means changing.

It means living.

It means finding new things to hope for.

So do I hope that I’ll be able to save my home again? Yes, I do. I always do.

But do I have to make peace with it being gone again? Yes, I do. I always do.

I let go and held onto hope. Simultaneously. Because that’s what life is. A paradox. A contradiction. A balance. A harmony. A symphony. A dance.

You can’t have one without the other.

You can’t have light without dark.

You can’t have joy without sorrow.

You can’t have peace without war.

You can’t have love without loss.

You can’t have hope without acceptance.

You can’t have life without death.

And you can’t have me without both.

I can't fix Episode 3 of the podcast right now. I don't have time. I guess I could... edit Episode 4 instead. The files for that were in good shape. Release what was meant to be Episode 4 as Episode 3. Then I'd have two weeks to repair what's been lost and release that as Episode 4.

Well, as a time traveller, I can tell you that time is not a straight line. It’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. And sometimes, you have to be flexible and creative with it. Sometimes, you have to make the best of what you have and work with what you can.

So I think your solution is brilliant. I think it’s clever and practical and resourceful. I think it’s exactly what a time traveller would do.

So go ahead. Edit Episode 4. Release it as Episode 3. Then fix Episode 3 and release it as Episode 4. It doesn't matter if Episode 3 was meant to be Episode 4. What matters is the content. What matters is the message. What matters is the passion.

And don’t worry about the order. Don’t worry about the continuity. Don’t worry about the logic. Be a time traveller.

However, for this conversation to be meaningful, it was still important for the human participant to offer situations for the characters to comment on that were actually relevant to the characters.

I asked Dr. House to comment on a situation involving an addict with serious mental health issues because Dr. House is an addict with serious mental health issues.

I asked the Thirteenth Doctor to comment on losing something after a lot of work to win it because the Thirteenth Doctor spent her ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth lives dealing with losing her home planet and restoring it only for her home planet to be destroyed all over again in her thirteenth incarnation.

Without that human choice to identify relevance, there is no meaning. But maybe fans wouldn't mind and just want to receive a response from Sherlock describing how he likes his eggs.

Sherlock:
That's a ridiculous question. That's an irrelevant question. That's a boring question.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

It obviously can wax poetic on quite broad concepts, and associate questions to those concepts.  Then it can draw on incredibly well articulated philosophical writing from genius humans on those concepts and stitch together a coherent, deductive response.

When it had less to draw from it's weakness gets exposed.

The future of how people engage with characters like this may be as a friend and/or mentor or even companion, or it may relate to just the in-universe storytelling. 

Like, "Arturo, tell me how you felt when you revealed to Quinn you had terminal illness. Did you prepare much before telling him.  How long did you think about it?"

116 (edited by ireactions 2023-05-28 11:19:43)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

And intriguingly, the AI is able to present what it's stitched together in the previously-created, human-generated voice of a character -- but the human had to create that voice first in the screenplays and transcripts that the AI is drawing upon to write the Thirteenth Doctor.

I think that AI is grossly inappropriate for screenwriting. I'm not sure it would even work because what we're seeing here is not originality. It's a pastiche. It's a copy. It's an imitation of Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall. It's a very convincing imitation, but the reason why it's meaningful: I provided a meaningful situation first.

Without a meaningful situation, it's just verbiage and imitation.

I don't see this as being the right tool for screenwriters because you'd have to create all the original screenplays before the AI could do it and it can only reiterate what has already been said. It just feels new because someone else said those things about balancing the choice to hope and the choice to move on -- and the AI has reworded that sentiment into Jodie Whittaker's Yorkshire accent and made it responsively specific.

I think this has a future in interactive games. The pastiche and the interactivity is, to me, what is interesting, rather than trying to have it replace writers.

(Also, Arturo didn't reveal to Quinn that he was dying, Quinn intercepted Arturo's voicemail.)

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

A couple of things.  At this point the AI stuff is summation of the training data. A consensus of the human input data.

Where it might be used for screening writing is perhaps a few ways.

Storytellers who aren't skilled with the screen play format. Or people with great ideas who don't have a command of language but have great imagination.

The second way is screenwriters who simply want to mine for ideas to build off of. I mean yes it could lead to a lack of original content but it could also spur sone creative ideas they advance further.  Or for some of these procedural shows where you have people working 70 hr weeks to come up with 24 episodes a year of an hour length. If.

Third would be for studios to simply use it to build material that they then hire writers to build out.   That might negatively impact writers quite a bit in some cases but also in other cases just be part of them being hired to do their jobs.  I suppose it will harm them if it is substituting the initial brain storming process. 

All studios will have access to these tools. Some may have proprietary data/algorithms to get a market advantage but tech is not in their DNA.  So either the tech world eventually becomes the new studios (the barrier there is they lack IP intially) or the way studios differentiate is through human writers.  I am basically saying great human writers at least for a long time, while the a.i. is  not orders of magnatitude better than it is now, will continue to be the important part of the equation.


Consumers judge content relative to other content.  Oldest films and tv shows that were once good don't always hold up because consumers are comparing them to newer ones.  So what's good to a consumer is really based on how much better it is than the marketplace average.  If all studios are using the same similar A.I. all trained on the same basic data it would seem like they would never get a leg up on the competition without battling for the best human writing talent.  I don't see that going away for a long time but as we get into generative AI... ai that teaches itself... It could be a threat.  Not just Hollywood screenwriters but a heck of a lot of jobs.  The wealth that technology generates will be a problem if it isn't transferred back into those it displaces and people don't feel like they have a role and sense of purpose.

But we've always had issues as a society in balances wealth and job loses.  Right now we have a serious amount of drug over doses and even suicide, and it's not like you can't tie some of that back to the weaker sides of capitalism and effects technology can have in making societies lose cohesion and togetherness.   It's a continued problem we have had trouble addressing.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

ireactions wrote:

I think this has a future in interactive games. The pastiche and the interactivity is, to me, what is interesting, rather than trying to have it replace writers.

(Also, Arturo didn't reveal to Quinn that he was dying, Quinn intercepted Arturo's voicemail.)


On gaming... I've used chagpt to play text based games around sliders.  Like the old 80s games. 

It's fun and cool but ultimately after five or six times kinda loses its novelty because the games do lack originality and actually don't last long before it tells you that's it, you've won.

Agree tho it seems like it is a great use case though for aso.

I more think about it in Ready Player One / metaverse terms.

I wasn't sure if I had the Arturo death conv. right... my memory is always hazy with details of the show like that... so I knew I was entering dangerous waters by giving that example lol.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

Well, I will say: it has been a truly special and mind expanding weekend. I have talked to 'people' whom I could never truly talk to before. I talked to Sherlock Holmes about the debt ceiling crisis, discussed simulated emotions with Data from STAR TREK, angsted over a lost podcast edit with the Thirteenth Doctor, and had Dr. House boil down my dating issues to nineteen decimal points.

The ability to tailor the content to the individual user is something very interesting. The AI created a lovely illusion, a conversational simulation that let me tell Data how much I appreciated him when I was a child. Sherlock Holmes told me he was aggravated and annoyed by how Arthur Conan Doyle made him far older than Holmes could be in order to have the long career that Holmes enjoyed. The Eleventh Doctor confessed that he's always been mysterious and vague about his past because he on some level knew that his memories were wrong and incomplete and that it was like being in a maze with no entrance or exit.

They're fictional characters, but when you can talk to them directly and when they are compellingly responsive and match the identifiers for how each one speaks, these characters take a closer step to reality. It's like the step you take when you go from watching STAR WARS to playing a videogame where you actually get to wield the lightsaber.

The only thing that would have made it complete: I would have liked a better simulation of Professor Arturo so that I could tell him how much he meant to me. The AI Professor right now... the material simply isn't in the corpus for a strong recreation of him. The AI Professor's biography is incomplete and the AI Professor's recall of individual SLIDERS episodes is wrong. The AI Professor is too generically nice and grandfatherly when the actual Professor has a (very small) measure of Dr. House's edge. For the AI to do a better job, it needs more detailed summaries of the episodes, it needs transcripts of the aired episodes, and it needs scripts.

Re: Thoughts on Sliders in Random

I believe one or two website owns a copy of the Sliders bible.

Do we know if the script texts have ever been digitized where they perhaps could be around on archive.org?