What is a "Documentary"? What is its legal definition?

[Scoundrl]

Ya, what Chris said.

To summarize...

You have been told MANY times why you were left out of the movie, you just dont believe it. There is nothing compelling or entertaining about you, your score or your part in the history of Donkey Kong.

[marinomitch13]

Oh no you didunt!

The best reverse-trolling is always done through simple logic and facts! Love it, Chris! 

[hchien]

There are actually 2 places in KoK where Tim Sczerby is "in" the film.  Shortly after Wiebe set the live score at Funspot:

1- Brian Kuh says: "Steve Wiebe has become the third person to reach Donkey Kong's kill screen."  In fact, in an early release of the KoK, there was a caption saying Wiebe was actually the 2nd.  This inconsistency is what clued me into discovering Tim the first time I watched KoK.

2- When Walter is entering Wiebe's new score into the database, a snapshot of the TG scoreboard appears for a couple of frames.  You can see Tim Sczerby's name if you pause at the right time.

Anyhow this does show that the producers/editors were aware of Tim Sczerby's existence and that (at least one of) the players did acknowledge Wiebe wasn't the one who beat Billy's score.  My personal theory is that Tim was edited out to make for a better and simpler story.  It's a much more compelling rivalry without a 3rd wheel.

[corey.chambers]

Wow, Chris, that is an awesome post. I honestly did not know some of that stuff and to be honest I need to go through it again. Without knowing all of that stuff I could not logically address any particular argument, all I could do was to address the mannerism involved. Thank you Chris, I actually like this thread now. Tim troll along so we can look at this logically together. Perhaps I should have had more faith in the communities ability to address this situation. Sorry for the poll, lol.

[ChrisP]

Hank, just for the record on that "the third person" line, if you listen to the audio commentary on the DVD during that scene, Seth Gordon says that Brian Kuh was referring to himself there. (According to Seth, Brian was claiming to have done it in private, but he wanted to be the first to do it at Funspot.) Take that with a grain of salt, because I have no idea if he was right, but according to Seth, Brian was talking about himself.

I have to admit, it makes sense to me. Does Brian seem like the kind of guy who (at the time) would acknowledge anyone other than Billy or himself as a top DK player? He had a chip on his shoulder about it from the minute Steve walked into Funspot. "He'd like to tell you that he's the Donkey Kong champion, but all of us have not seen him play Donkey Kong." (And, of course, the silly backroom dissection of Steve's gameplay that we all saw on YouTube, which any KS-capable player should have known was totally legit, unless their judgment was clouded. "This isn't Level 5 behavior!" Oh please. You may have a point with the extra joystick clicks, but a room full of gaming experts, including Brian, seriously couldn't recognize that the barrels were properly "aggressive" on L5, or acknowledge that wild barrels can be leeched safely? GTFO.)

I've also seen that early screener cut (go to 56 seconds in on this clip for anybody who wants to watch), and yes, they (wisely) deleted that onscreen caption from the final cut. Maybe they didn't want to accuse Brian of lying, or for some other reason, but it was definitely the right thing to do.

Steve Wiebe mentioned (maybe it was during his talk a couple months ago at that event in Washington(?) that there's actually a longer version of the movie that exists somewhere, just not publicly. Like a 2-hour cut with Double Donkey Kong and everything. That, obviously, is a holy grail.

The producers were definitely aware of Tim. I'm certainly not disputing that! But the fact of the matter is that you have several people in the movie saying, on camera, and with no possibility of editing, "Steve was the first to beat Billy". It wasn't just those onscreen graphics. So I just can't hold "the usual suspects" (KoK producers, Walter, Billy, Steve) solely responsible. The community clearly didn't assure the movie guys that Tim was legit. When nobody is talking about Tim, and Robert is expressing skepticism about Tim's tape because he never saw it, what are the filmmakers supposed to conclude, other than it was, indeed, "consistently disputed"?

I honestly believe that the omission happened in good faith, or at least, not in bad faith. Everybody just plain dropped the ball.

And while it definitely made the movie better, and definitely figured into their decision (since it's their job to make the best movie they can) the fact remains that Tim never actually had the highest DK score!

Let's say Hank had never officially submitted his 1,138,600, but it was known and acknowledged that it happened, even uploaded to YouTube or something, and Vincent had beaten his 1,127,700 score last January when he got 1,135,900. Vincent would have been "the world record holder" on TG, but would anybody have considered him the actual world record holder?

Leaving Tim out was just shorthand for the fact that Steve (and Billy) had beaten Tim long before Tim got the "record."

[ChrisP]

Attached is Robert Mruczek's report on Steve's original 947K submission from July 2003.

Search through this PDF and you will find no mention of Tim Sczerby (but several of Billy).

Again, in an article about a record that Steve is taking FROM TIM, *Robert doesn't even mention Tim's name*, and this is years before KoK is a gleam in anybody's eye. Seriously, blame Hollywood all you want, but the community had a major part in this.

[xelnia]

Attached is Robert Mruczek's report on Steve's original 947K submission from July 2003.

"Overall, Steve's average per "Elevator Stage" was approx 9,300, adjusted for loss of life."


Somebody call Dean; there's another 37k to be had just on the springs! 

[ChrisP]

Also, "mine carts." 

WTF Robert??

[xelnia]

Leaving Tim out was just shorthand for the fact that Steve (and Billy) had beaten Tim long before Tim got the "record."

I don't want to muddy the waters, but since MAME has become pretty important in the evolution of this game (yeah, yeah...insert derogatory comment from the arcade purists here) it should also be noted that Ben Jos Walbeehm posted a 893,400 score on MARP on September 12, 1999. Donkey Kong was added to the MAME games list on February 13, 1997.


Ben Jos discusses the effect his 893k (September 12, 1999) and 904k (November 30, 2001) scores had on the DK community here:
http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php/topic,1437.msg23404.html#msg23404


The INPs for those two games are attached to this post. If any one can get the older MAME versions working so I can watch them, let me know. 


MAME version for 893k game, according to MARP: win35
MAME version for 904k game, according to MARP: m35tg3b

[giv]

They should have called it a Donkeymentary.

[Xermon54]

They should have called it a Donkeymentary.

This play on word brings me tears to my eyes. It takes a genius to think about that! 

[Hawkins]

Ben Jos discusses the effect his 893k (September 12, 1999) and 904k (November 30, 2001) scores had on the DK community here:
http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php/topic,1437.msg23404.html#msg23404

The INPs for those two games are attached to this post. If any one can get the older MAME versions working so I can watch them, let me know. 

Ben Jos's 904,100 game*:
http://www.twitch.tv/stormdata/b/470396183
http://www.twitch.tv/stormdata/b/470400789 (from 5-3)

*replayed with m35tg3b.exe in Windows 98

[lakeman421]

Hank, just for the record on that "the third person" line, if you listen to the audio commentary on the DVD during that scene, Seth Gordon says that Brian Kuh was referring to himself there. (According to Seth, Brian was claiming to have done it in private, but he wanted to be the first to do it at Funspot.) Take that with a grain of salt, because I have no idea if he was right, but according to Seth, Brian was talking about himself.

When Vincent, Craig, and myself met Brian Kuh at Funspot this past tournament, he actually brought that up.  He told us that he hit the killscreen in 2000 I believe, and it was done on his machine at home.  He wanted to be the first at Funspot and he was a serious contender at the time.  I believed him, because he said that about hitting the kill screen in such a sure way.  But then he was afraid to tell us little things like how he once jumped 3 fireballs and said he had to check his notes first.  Obviously now he doesn't go to Funspot other than the tournament and he doesnt post on the internet, so some things I guess we will never know. 

[Mary McManus]

Tim, I'm not going to argue about the process and philosophy behind storytelling and filmmaking, because a person can only discern that kind of stuff themselves. Nobody is going to convince you, with the bias that you have, that it made artistic sense to omit you from the movie. You either get that or you don't. No argument can transmit that understanding. And while I don't know what the "legal" definition of a documentary is, I know that it is not the responsibility of a documentary to be encyclopedic or comprehensive. Documentary filmmaking is an art, not a science.

You asked for fact-based rationale behind why you were omitted, so I'll be more black-and-white about it. You can ignore the facts or engage them, up to you, I'm just posting this for your edification because it's been a while since anyone introduced anything new to this discussion, at least in terms of specifics and primary sources (though some great points are being made).

In any case, you need to stop dropping the entirety of the blame on Ed and Seth for your score not being mentioned. Not only are they not solely responsible, I would go further to say that, of all the players involved, they were probably the LEAST responsible.

The fact of the matter is this: while the filmmakers didn't acknowledge you, the people in the scene didn't acknowledge you either, and that is, without a doubt, a major contributing factor for why the filmmakers made the determination that they made.

Let's start with their official position:

Here's the quote from the old KoK official site (which is now gone BTW):

"While our movie focuses on the rivalry between Billy and Steve, one other gamer has a very high-score in the Twin Galaxies database on Donkey Kong, Tim Sczerby. After repeated investigations into the validity of Tim's score, and after finding one dead end after another in our Twin-Galaxies-assisted attempts to reach Mr. Sczerby, we determined that his consistently disputed record was impossible to verify and did not merit inclusion in the film. The experts on the subject of Donkey Kong, especially Brian Kuh, always referred to Billy Mitchell as the reigning champion and maintained that his unrivaled skill put him on top of the record holder chart."

So are they telling the truth, or is this smoke-screening bullshit?

The cynical view is that it's bullshit, but it's not that simple.

Some direct quotes from the movie:

Greg Bond:
"Steve deserves a lot of credit for that because he also... He also broke the record on Donkey Kong Jr. So he--he took two--He took two of Billy's titles, like, right away from him. And l don't mean to sound, you know, crude or anything. But he did. He did. Officially, he did."

Brian Kuh:
"Um, for years and years, it was believed that Billy's record of 874,000 in 1982 was really the highest score anyone would ever get. And in fact, some of us have played this game every day or every week or every month since then, and no one's gotten close to that."

Roy Shildt:
"That was the last world record that Bill ever had. That was the last one to go. He had five world records in 1985, he had the Donkey Kong, and then Steve Wiebe took it away."

Billy Mitchell:
"The people who could get, besides myself, that have been seen getting to the end of Donkey Kong? Gee, now that I think about it, I don't think anybody has."

And then we have Robert Mruczek, quoted earlier in this thread, who didn't exactly give your score a ringing endorsement. He talks about it in this shadowy, mysterious way: "I've never seen it, I don't know who verified it," etc.

With how suspicious Robert tends to be about everything and everyone who isn't known to the scene, I would not be surprised if he had an off-camera discussion with the filmmakers where he cast doubt on the score.

In any case, that's five people from the scene who say, in no uncertain terms, that Steve was the one to take Billy's 1982 record.
 
That doesn't make it true of course, but THE FILMMAKERS WERE RELYING ON THESE PEOPLE FOR THEIR INFORMATION.

When they hear "Billy was the champion until Steve came along", from one person after another, is it not understandable for them to come to the conclusion that this might be true? When not a single person from the scene acknowledged you (until of course after the movie came out and everybody in it wanted to complain about how "inaccurate" it was for pointing cameras at them as they said things that they later found embarrassing), what did you expect the filmmakers to do, other than to decide that it was probably best to stick to what they could be sure of, and steer clear of your score?

Or were all of those quotes scripted? What, was everybody in on the conspiracy?

It wasn't a conspiracy, and there was no malice either. People either didn't realize, didn't care, or had forgotten that you'd beaten Billy.

Even in this very tight-knit DK community, not everybody is aware of everything (to put it mildly). I see over and over, and am often surprised by, how much gets missed. The extent to which you have to smash people over the head with even the simplest things to actually get them into everybody's line of sight can be very frustrating.

In any case, not everybody always knows who beat whom, where everybody stands on every high score list, etc. It's a lot to keep track of.

The Donkey Kong world record was not on many peoples' radars in 2000. CAG as a whole was very "sleepy" at the time. Beating a (top-hammer only) world record by 5K was not huge news, and at least a couple of the people I quoted probably weren't even aware that it had happened.

Nobody sent Greg Bond or Roy Shildt or Brian Kuh certified letters letting them know that you had squeaked past Billy (and even if they had, all of them knew that Billy's PB was higher than 879K anyway).

And then in 2003 the "Billy vs. Steve" thing started, which was not, by the way, manufactured by the filmmakers. It was exaggerated and stylized a little, and simplified a lot, but it was definitely underway long before the movie was even a concept.

This interview is from Classic Gaming Expo, 2004. Two years before KoK. You were not mentioned in this interview either.

(Incidentally, Billy got 933K live at that very event, putting both Steve and Billy way ahead of you by the time the documentary got rolling.)

Skip to 13:00. Steve describes his history with DK.

Wiebe:
"I was scoring in the 900 thousands, encountered this kill screen, I go, 'well I have to get to that level again to see what happens'. The next time I got there I had two men so I was killed twice. So then I said, 'well what's the point of continuing?', that's probably what Billy thought. So I sold it, and I was always curious what the high score was so I looked on the Internet, about 5 years ago, and Twin Galaxies had a list of scores, and I saw it was 874,000 by Billy Mitchell... and I said 'well, I know I can beat 874,000' so I went and I bought another machine off Ebay."

Steve isn't lying or covering you up here because this interview is from 2004 and he said that he checked out the record 5 years before, which would be 1999, before you came along, and when Billy was still on top.

And again, he's saying this before any movie of any kind had ever been thought of, so he's not strategically avoiding mention of you for the purpose of some grand scheme. There was no cover-up, because at that point there was no reason to cover anything up. Steve bought the machine and went after Junior and DK with the understanding that it was Billy's scores he was coming after. You came along inbetween.

Also, at 14:05, Steve says he bought his first DK machine in 1990, meaning that he was scoring in the 900Ks in 1990. Ten years before you took down Billy's 1982 score. I've said this before and I'll say it again: you never had the highest DK score, and you were not the first to beat Billy. Just because you appeared at the top of the TG list for a few years doesn't mean that you were the true record holder. This really is important.

In fact, omitting your score is not so much a lie as a simplification, one that actually serves the truth. The real-world fact is that Steve was ahead of you the whole time. They did a lot of condensing of reality in that movie, like combining what was actually four world record submissions into one, because it was completely necessary to do that in an 80-minute film aimed at non-CAG people who don't want to hear a bunch of boring details about Double Donkey Kong that they can't even understand.

So there you go. Ed and Seth didn't think that you were a significant part of this because the community didn't regard you as a significant part of this. Most in the community were (evidently) either unaware of you, or had forgotten you by the time the documentary got rolling. Given the circumstances of what was happening then between Billy and Steve, it's not hard to see why.

Why was my previous post on this where I just shreaded your arguments here deleted?

[Mary McManus]

Wow, Chris, that is an awesome post. I honestly did not know some of that stuff and to be honest I need to go through it again. Without knowing all of that stuff I could not logically address any particular argument, all I could do was to address the mannerism involved. Thank you Chris, I actually like this thread now. Tim troll along so we can look at this logically together. Perhaps I should have had more faith in the communities ability to address this situation. Sorry for the poll, lol.

Too bad my response to it got deleted as I blew his awesome post right out.