Since the 70s Final Four is decided we can do this concurrently without conflict.

There are 2 Contests:
1. Best FILM first by genre across decades, and then a final four across genres to a final Best Film.
2. Decade vs Decade on the collection of 4 films to determine the best decade *only using those 4 films.

These 4 films from each decade are the winners of each of the genres (action, sci-fi, comedy, drama) from the individual 70s 80s 90s and 00s texags ENT board polls in 2020. In the case of the 00s which had more genres the top 3 (which were from action, sci-fi, drama) and the top comedy (#5 overall) Hangover were used. #4 Oceans 11 was also a drama but does not qualify here using the 4 main genres since it was 2nd in it's genre to Gladiator.

As for seeding - I found it impossible to figure out how to seed anything with any semblance of fairness. there really isn't a good basis for comparison across polls, across decades, very different box office numbers, etc. except personal opinion. And I don't want my personal opinion involved at all.

So I used a random number generator to decide the matchups and they will not change. also don't bother arguing them with me since I did not decide them myself. It is what it is.

I used a 1-4 random number generator online from google and assigned the numbers like this below. Then I auto generated 2 random numbers to determine one matchup and the other was then defaulted to the 2 remaining films.
1 - 70s
2 - 80s
3 - 90s
4 - 00s

So I did each genre in order and finally I also did the genres to see which would match up with which for the semifinals, etc.

The random numbers were noted - although if a number repeated it was skipped until the next unique number which only happened once. FYI I reset the number generator after each round.
Drama 2,3
Comedy 1,4
Sci-Fi 4,1
Action 3,4

And then between genres I drew 1,2 so Drama vs Comedy and Sci-Fi vs Action

i have also included a DECADE vs DECADE matchup and again drew random numbers 1,3 so 70s vs 90s and 80s vs 00s in the semifinals.

So here is the opening Round of 16 in the Best Films and the Semifinals of the Best Decade

VOTE HERE NOW


Drama
Karate Kid vs Shawshank Redemption
Godfather vs Gladiator

Comedy
Animal House vs Hangover
Ghostbusters vs Office Space

Sci-Fi
Star Wars vs LOTR III
Empire Strikes Back vs Jurassic Park

Action
Tombstone vs The Dark Knight
Jaws vs Raiders of the Lost Ark

And in DECADE vs DECADE we have (see ballot for films):

70s vs 90s
80s vs 00s


VOTING WILL BE AS FOLLOWS:

Mon-Tue: Sweet 16 for Best Film and Semifinals of Decades
Wed-Thu: Genre Finals for Films and Finals for Decades
Fri-Sat: Semifinals across genres for Best Film
Sun-Mon: Finals

Zombie Jon Snow said:

---

also don't bother arguing them with me since I did not decide them myself. It is what it is.

---

First day on TexAgs?

Nope that's why i did it the way i did it. Hard to argue with a computer.

take it up with the guy that ran the 80s poll - Muck - and everyone else that voted in it I guess.

FWIW I agree.

There some really tough choices on that. Gladiator v Godfather and JP v ESB would have different answers depending on the day.

Admittedly I'm rather biased, but even just using the four films listed for each decade, I don't see how the '70s doesn't win.. Then again, TexAgs does love Shawshank, Jurassic Park and Tombstone. Now by me stating my thoughts, watch both decades go down in the first round.

How does one choose between Office Space and Ghostbusters?

Or Jaws vs. Raiders?

MW03 said:

---

How does one choose between Office Space and Ghostbusters?

Or Jaws vs. Raiders?

---

You choose Office Space and Raiders.

double aught said:

---

MW03 said:

---

How does one choose between Office Space and Ghostbusters?

Or Jaws vs. Raiders?

---

You choose Office Space and Raiders.

---

Office Space and Jaws

voting in this round will end tonight by midnight.

Bruce Almighty said:

---

double aught said:

---

MW03 said:

---

How does one choose between Office Space and Ghostbusters?

Or Jaws vs. Raiders?

---

You choose Office Space and Raiders.

---

Office Space and Jaws

---

Ummm


Raiders and Ghostbusters.

RESULTS ARE IN

Drama: No surprise here
90s Shawshank Redemption defeated 80s Karate Kid 61-18
70s Godfather defeated 00s Gladiator 46-33

Comedy: Wow!!
70s Animal House defeated 00s Hangover 43-36
90s Office Space defeated Ghostbusters 42-37

Sci-Fi: This was a given
70s Star Wars defeated 00s LOTR III 57-21
80s Empire Strikes Back defeated 90s Jurassic Park 52-27

Action: At least a bit surprising
00s The Dark Knight defeated 90s Tombstone 50-28
80s Raiders of the Lost Ark defeated 70s Jaws 60-20

Two of those shocked me. Office Space beating Ghostbusters and the margin that Raiders beat Jaws by really surprising. It was the second biggest margin (Shawshank over Karate Kid was the biggest which was no surprise)

And in the DECADES fittingly and expected but one was close:

the 70s defeated the 90s 54-26
the 80s defeated the 00s 41-37 in a very close race.



Finals of the Genre brackets

Drama: 90s Shawshank vs 70s Godfather

Comedy: 70s Animal House vs 90s Office Space

Sci-Fi: 70s Star Wars vs 80s Empire Strikes Back

Action: 00s The Dark Knight vs 80s Raiders of the Lost Ark


70s represented. by 3 films in the Genre Finals, the 80s and 90s have 2 each and the 00s has just one film.

Finals of the Decades: the 70s vs the 80s


VOTE HERE

just 22 votes into this round.....at this point my reaction is..... completely stunned at the results for ALL 5 matchups.

Jaw on the floor.

bump voting in this round ends at midnight tonight.

I'm on vacation so I can't vote for star wars 50 times.

What's hard about this is they are all pretty close except for karate kid vs godfather. Godfather is so overwhelmingly better, that for me, it would make up for any small deficit the rest of the 80s movies have over their 70s counterpart. I like karate kid, but GF is a top 3 movie of all time and KK is probably not in any top 200 lists.

So the results were really really interesting - the DECADES vote could have gone either way and the other was a runaway.

There was also an odd anomaly which I left in the results - did not want to have to intervene unless it affected the end result and it did not. So apparently initially I had the questions/form as a "checkbox grid" style which meant that you could actually vote for both films in the voting (for example both SW and ESB). In that way you could split your vote if you were undecided. ONE person voted that way actually - and specifically for both SW and ESB. no other entries did that and no other categories of the Shawshank/Godfather matchup although it was possible.

It should have been set up as a "multiple choice grid" which would enforce only voting for one of the two films or criteria. I changed this after I saw that one entry and so nobody else was able to vote that way. I decided I would have to intervene only if that one vote removed from either SW or ESB would change the overall result (I did not know which was preferred for that voter). But it did not affect either the individual films voting result or the overall.

It was incredibly close though.

In DECADES runoff the voting was split with 2 films winning for each decade.

80s Empire Strikes Back beat 70s Star Wars 21-18*
*note the extra vote is here totalling 39 instead of 38
*and ESB would have won even if the extraneous vote is removed from ESB 20-18

80s Raiders of the Lost Ark beat 70s Jaws 28-10

70s Godfather beat 80s Karate Kid 30-8

70s Animal House beat 80s Ghostbuster 20-18

Therefore the decade winner went to TOTAL votes:
70s: 78*
80s: 75

*and note 70s still wins if you remove the extraneous vote from 70s by the narrowest possible margin 77-75


In the Godfather vs Shawshank runoff matchup after tying in an overall vote it was a blowout in this format.

Godfather won all 5 categories although some were close and obviously the overall as well.

Acting: 21-17
Direction: 26-12
Cinematography: 25-13
Screenwriting: 22-16
Music/Score: 31-7
TOTAL: 125-65








SO 70s is the all-time champ of DECADES.

Micah97 said:

---

What's hard about this is they are all pretty close except for karate kid vs godfather. Godfather is so overwhelmingly better, that for me, it would make up for any small deficit the rest of the 80s movies have over their 70s counterpart. I like karate kid, but GF is a top 3 movie of all time and KK is probably not in any top 200 lists.

---

pretty much what happened. It was split 2-2 on films but the huge difference for Godfather vs Karate Kid put the 70s over the top.

On to the Semifinals of the 70s to 00s film poll.

Recall that by random number determination it will be drama vs comedy and action vs Sci-Fi.


We have:

70s Godfather vs 90s Office Space

80s Empire Strikes Back vs 80s Raider of the Lost Ark


Voting will be open until midnight Monday.

VOTE HERE

Marvel Moments Tournament will begin Wednesday.

Well I never thought I'd see the day on Texags but.......

The Empire Strikes Back has lost a poll here for the first time that I have ever seen. And even the other Semifinal was surprising in the margin.

Voting has been odd throughout this entire poll and even some of the previous ones. Either tastes are changing due to the age of some of voters here changing OR people are tired of polls and intentionally skewing things OR for some reason certain movies are growing in favor while others are diminishing. But anyway....




70s Godfather defeated 90s Office Space 27-18
and
80s Raiders of the Lost Ark defeated 80s The Empire Strikes Back 23-22






The fact that Office Space got 40% of the vote against Godfather makes me question the validity of this entire thing. And I was tempted to throw out the entire thing based on that. But it is what it is. There has certainly been more love for Raiders than I have seen before but I'm still shocked it won even barely. Raiders was ahead or tied throughout almost the entire voting period I think ESB took the lead by 1 maybe once.


So the Final of the Ultimate 70s-00s Best Movie Texags poll is

70s Godfather
vs
80s Raiders of the Lost Ark

Voting will run through Wednesday at midnight.

VOTE HERE

I'm with you on your suspicions. Aliens beat out all other Cameron movies in my Cameron/Fincher tournament, in convincing fashion. To be honest it felt slightly suspect that it beat T2, but...it is what it is. Votes are votes I guess.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

---

I'm with you on your suspicions. Aliens beat out all other Cameron movies in my Cameron/Fincher tournament, in convincing fashion. To be honest it felt slightly suspect that it beat T2, but...it is what it is. Votes are votes I guess.

---

If only we had an electoral college instead of popular vote!!!

Yeah.

I've been thinking about it and Empire is just a bit older than many of these 80s movies that are gaining favor since it came out in 1980. It's almost like it is a 70s movie. I think "80s kids" more identify with later 80s movies actually.

And many later 80s movies are gaining favor. Although Raiders was only a year later in 81. But other 80s movies like Ghostbusters and Aliens are later and maybe the demographic is just shifting enough that people who were of the perfect age (say 9-14 after 1981) for those movies to galvanize for them the way movies from '75-80 did for me with Jaws, SW, Animal House, and Empire.

I think you should consider the age of the average TexAgs user at this point compared to the movies going against each other. Office Space is probably less than 2 hours long and was made in an era where it was available for purchase and watching it at home very soon after it left theaters, and it's on TV constantly. And it is the way a whole generation of people feel about their jobs - it captures a zillion nuances that anyone who has ever worked in an office knows all too well.

The Godfather came out way before probably 75-80% of posters were born. I'm 46 and I wasn't alive when it came out. It's enormously long, which limits how often it's on TV and lowers its watchability significantly. Most people don't happen on the Godfather on AMC at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday night and say, "OH cool, the Godfather's on, let me sit here for the next 4 hours and watch it." But if Office Space is on Comedy Central, you can sit for 45 minutes and laugh your ass off.

And with due respect to the Godfather, which I like quite a bit, for me it's the kind of movie that a lot of people just inherently think is great because we're all told that, but a lot of people haven't seen all the way through or seen at all. If you're 30 years old and posting on TexAgs in 2020, you were born in 1990 and the Godfather came out 18 years before you were born.

I was born in 1974. The only movie I've seen from that 18 years before I was born (1956) in its entirety is The Ten Commandments, and only because I was forced to watch it on Easter Night by my parents as they pretended to be religious once a year. There are some movies I know from that year to be great like the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The King and I, Giant, Forbidden Planet, and The Searchers, but I don't think I've seen more than 5 minutes of any of those movies.

Spoiler alert: I voted for Office Space over the Godfather. If I was home alone on a Saturday because the pandemic was over and my wife and kids were spending $400 to eat lunch and "browse" at the American Girl store and I had the choice to watch The Godfather or Office Space, I'd choose Office Space 9 times out of 10. The Godfather is an exquisitely made movie, but that's not what I'm here for. I'd pick the one I'd rather watch.