It may be a stereotypically male, techie thing to say but I find it hard to work out what people are feeling or thinking. Of coure it may not be just me, it may be that everyone has this difficulty, but that I'm unable to see this.

So, this idea is for optional subtitles on DVDs to tell you what the character is feeling or thinking when that is not obvious from the dialogue. Further levels of this would show what the character would like us to think that they're thinking, etc.
-- hippo, Apr 18 2004

Brain circuitry http://qnc.queensu....hp?id=407ead54cf944
[Fussass, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

I've always wondered what the 'baddies' in Batman movies were thinking. Didn't they watch the prequals? Why not just perform their fiendish plans in a neighbouring <super hero-less> city?
-- Cunninglinguist, Apr 18 2004


"I could tell that from the moment this dame set foot on my doorstep that she was trouble."

Body language, man. It's all about the body language.

And then there are some that just aren't thinking at all.
-- RayfordSteele, Apr 18 2004


I think it's just you, hipp.
-- waugsqueke, Apr 18 2004


And what the writer intended us to think while we watch one character trying to figure out what another character is thinking. There would be a lot of subtitles. Maybe some colour-coded emotion-flags could appear above the heads of the actors.

Humans evolved dialogue to disinform as much as to communicate. Next it was necessary to evolve skepticism and physiology to defend against disinformation. Decoding is all the more interesting when the speaker has gotten confused and has lied to himself. All this is presumably fun for Humans, but us techies can find it tedious.

Anyway the LINK describes the location of some of the brain circuitry involved.
-- Fussass, Apr 19 2004


When I started reading this I was not aware hippo was referring to movies, I thought real-life was the cause of concern so I began musing just how we'd each display our individual subtitles.
Would we use a hi-tech video display? <oops, I meant to key in "pheasant plucker">
Write our feelings out on flash cards? <damn, I dropped my Sharpie!>
Learn ASL? <which finger was that again?>
The possibilities are mind-boggling!
-- Canuck, Apr 19 2004


+ There are a lot of people who have trouble reading emotions. Empathy subtitles might help them to understand and enjoy a movie that otherwise they would not, similar to the way that closed captions and descriptive audio help deaf and blind people. The subtitles would be largely based on the interpretation of the person who writes them, and may not reflect accurately the intention of the filmmakers, but the same could be said for foreign-languages subtitles.
-- AO, Apr 19 2004


From reading the title of this idea, I thought it was to let the viewer know the appropriate response to the action onscreen. If a puppy gets hurt, the subtitle reads "Awwwwwww." If someone gets his head whacked off by a serial killer, the subtitle reads, "Ewwwwww, Yuck!" For a surprise ending, it's "What???!!!"
-- tchaikovsky, Apr 20 2004



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