Our rounds are now getting shorter. Vote in round six here, and come back next week for round 7. The complete elimination bracket can be seen here. We hit three statistical upsets last week, with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) defeating Ghostbusters (1984), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) defeating Moon (2009) and Blade Runner (1982) defeating Serenity (2005).
Sad to see Ghostbusters and Serenity lose, but we’re getting into some extraordinarily rough territory now.
Heh. I remember complaining how long this was going to take back when it started. Now its almost over.
We all knew it was coming, but damn, there were some hard choices here.
Heh. Looks like I continue my run of contributing towards the statistical upsets… Want my predictions for this round? :p
How exactly is Empire Strikes Back a statistical update over Moon? My mind boggles.
As will be revealed in detail later, “Moon” had a higher round one rating than “Empire.”
Isn’t that more a function of who they were up against in the previous round?
Not for the statistical upsets. Round one was just “is this above, at, or below average, or is it a movie you haven’t seen” voting with Bayesian statistics, using a minimum threshold that was 8-10% of the voting population. (It was the same raw number of votes every week, but voting response varied.) If movie A ranked higher than movie B in that round, it’s a statistical upset in this round. The eight movies in this round ranged from ranks 1-30 in the first round.
Much as I like Empire, I wonder how many people look at it as an incomplete movie. Problem with series– how to rate something that was not intended to be a stand alone? Moon by itself is a better movie in terms of story. Empire forms strong part of a bigger story.
Having to choose between Star Wars and The Matrix was very difficult for me. I discussed it with my wife and in the end I had to go with the one that redefined the genre and gave me plenty of examples for explaining some of my deep philosophical beliefs.
I went with Star Wars. I had to because there were no light sabers in The Matrix and very few things can stand up to the Jedi.
I still feel kind of guilty for choosing that one.