This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
// As a note, this is my first category, please be gentle. :) -- Kendra Kirai
Looney Toons: I'll try.
Thomas The Rhymer: Not sure if this is the place, but the bottom of the sea is noisy too. I just watched a documentary with sounds of crabs scuttling and even hitting the camera, quite blatantly dubbed on.
Kendra Kirai: Actually, sound travels better underwater than it does through the air. It travels faster, and farther because of the greater density, allowing the vibrations of sound to propogate more efficiently. It could have been dubbed in, true, but sound at least can travel through water.
Mercy: I was just reading the paragraphs about sound, point of view, and "the rules of cinema" that attempt to justify sound in space, but they sound like a load of old dingo's kidneys! It is common for example in scenes showing travel by train to include shots from outside which represent no character's point of view, and in which the sound-track exhibits a doppler shift as the train passes that passengers on the train would never hear. The same applies to scenes of aircraft in flight, cars moving along a road etc. Surely that too kicks a hole in the 4th Wall?
What about Fire in space? Separate trope?
Seven Seals: I don't think that's common or glaring enough, and it would get bogged down in pedantry, since fire in space is actually a serious problem -- on the inside, that is. The few times I can recall seeing fire (not just explosions or exhaust fumes), they usually make a point of demonstrating how it extinguishes when exposed to the vacuum (because somehow everyone remembers how fire needs oxygen and there's no oxygen in a vacuum, but they don't seem to know how sound works).
Morgan Wick: Because sound is so critical to most shows and indeed to our existence.
Seven Seals: As opposed to combustion.
Sorry, couldn't resist that one. I know what you mean, of course.
Sci Vo: Should we split Space Is Quiet, so that all those exceptions have something to be an example of?
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Supposedly, George Lucas, in a press conference shortly after the release of the initial Star Wars, entered the podium and stated "I know that one cannot hear sound in space. Now ask your questions, please." Anybody else heard this story?
Peteman: Why was the justification for the last spaceship battle of the Serenity movie taken out? It was done in the upper atmosphere of a planet/moon.
Ninjacrat: 'Justifications' are bad. If an example is inaccureate, you'd better remove it yourself.
