nAlkaline

If your best rationale for an alternative win is for the "surprise factor", that's pretty telling.

Personal preferences. From an objective standpoint, however, agreed. SLP or LoP winning would be shocking. Lincoln is textbook Academy material.

BP race is over. Lincoln is going to win that handily. SLP is a wonderful story and I realize a lot of people are rooting for it, but the chances of it pulling off this upset are slim to none.Shocked at the Affleck snub...that's a complete travesty. Same for Bigelow, but I'm over it. Thought the film was overrated. Really glad that Hooper didn't get in.

Not seeing any reason for the continued LM love. Unless I'm missing something, the reviews aren't particularly great; it should lose momentum over these next few weeks. Lincoln assumes the position of favorite, with Argo and ZDT playing the possible spoiler.

[*]The Shawshank Redemption - Overrated. So overrated. [*]The Godfather - Not deserving. Top 25 or so for me, however. [*]The Godfather: Part II - YES. Properly rated. Complete masterpiece. Better than the first. [*]Pulp Fiction - Standard Tarantino worship by the Internet. Not deserving. [*]The Good, the Bad And the Ugly - Deserving. Fitting conclusion to one of the best trilogies ever. [*]12 Angry Men - Great movie. I don't know if it's top 10 material. [*]Schindler's List - Deserving. Barely. [*]The Dark Knight - No. Just no. A fun superhero movie and not much more. Place isn't surprising given how overrated Nolan is by the current generation. Worst film in the top ten by far. [*]The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King - I'm a huge LOTR fan, so this is completely biased and I say yes. [*]Fight Club - Top 10 in the "cool" metric. Not top 10 in the "best" metric.

Irrelevant considering the audience. No one is saying BD2 won't have a huge opening. Don't understand why Twilight advocates are getting butthurt over the fact that there isn't a significant overlap between the core audience of that film and Skyfall.

Not sure if serious...but completely false.On the topic of this discussion, it would be Thor in terms of overall power. People are confusing brute strength for power.

I suppose I am one of the few that is really hoping it doesn't go to Fassbender. Please don't give him the license to kill. I love most of his work. I don't see the Bond parallels.

That's an odd collection to group together.1. LOTR: The Two Towers - 972. WALL-E: 963. Up: 954. How to Train Your Dragon: 945. Ratatouille / The Incredibles: 936. Catch Me If You Can / HP: 927. Incredibles / Finding Nemo: 908. Toy Story 3: 87

Avatar. Watch JP again. I think it's another case of nostalgia overriding the truth. It's a decent film, but the sense of wonder it once held is gone. Beneath the amazing VFX (for the time), it's really not that great of a movie at the filmmaking level. Same applies for Avatar, but it at least still blows my mind with the ridiculous visuals presented. I actually tried watching JP a week ago...couldn't get through more than an hour. Differing tastes, I guess.

1. Craig2. Dalton3. Moore4. Connery5. Brosnan6. LazenbyConnery is incredibly overrated. Sue me.

ITT: People using personal convictions to judge movies they have not yet seen. Excellent.

It's not needed whatsoever, with the GOP shooting themselves in the foot. Between the stupidity of the legitimate rape and birther comments and gems like "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers", this entire campaign has been a disaster. Obama's position wasn't strong, as he had failed, though admittedly not by his own fault in some cases, to live up to the promises of his first election. Seize on that. Attack with rational facts, but instead, the GOP chooses a rich buffoon who shifts his position on every major topic if he believes it will land him the job. It won't. The current political stance of the GOP is so far removed from the ideals of a true republican party. It's frightening. I lean sharply to the right with most economic issues and sharply to the left for social thoughts. If this campaign has been built around anything other than attacking Obama's viewpoints and revealing your own backwards, religion-driven stances on the relevant social topics of today, I would have voted for the GOP. Show some common sense with the abortion issue. Doesn't happen. Show some common sense with the gay rights, aka human rights, issue. Doesn't happen. Bible thumping in an increasingly secular world is not going to cut it and for some odd reason, these people don't get it. The party hasn't showed me their plans to continue moving this country in the right direction, and the radical nature of the modern GOP is being slowly revealed. There is no chance they win this election. None. The US political system is just in shambles. It's incredibly disappointing that the election of one of the most powerful men in the world is highlighting the ignorance of a large group of Americans. When one of the most listened-to political authorities in your country is Rush Limbaugh, who alleges things like Obama administration tampering on Hurricane Isaac's path to cancel the GOP convention, it's just embarrassing. Rant aside, expected numbers. Carry on.

Incredible TA numbers, and yet, I can't help but just stare at Avatar's final OS numbers for comparison purposes. It's almost incomprehensible.

It is sad, but to be fair, looking at the slate of crap that viewers are being offered, I can't say I blame them for staying home.

LOTR. It's also the Batman trilogy, not The Dark Knight.

1. The Hobbit2. The Master3. Skyfall4. Django Unchained5. Cloud Atlas6. Lincoln7. Wreck it Ralph8. Les Miserables9. Life of Pi10. How to Survive a Plague

This is poor logic. Avatar and TDKR aren't in the same league when it comes to 2D vs 3D marketing. Avatar was explicitly billed as the next generation of the film experience, and that rested on the 3D. So yes, the 3D had a lot to do with that gross. For future films, this is not the case. No one is saying they are going to see TA because it's solely in 3D. They may have said that for Avatar, because the technology behind the film was revolutionary. As to the TDKR argument, the ONLY demographic that TDKR would have lost would have been the people that place the film's format of 2D vs 3D over the quality of its predecessors. For your argument to be valid, you're implying that this would compose a large group of people. I HIGHLY, HIGHLY doubt that there were millions of Americans that would refuse to watch TDKR if it was released in 3D, especially given it was based on 2 prior, hugely successful films (with TDK receiving absurd WOM). I'm sorry, the logic just does not add up whatsoever.

Not very many. Source: common sense. If anything, the demographic that will only see a movie because it is in 3D doesn't even make much sense, considering the new application of the technology to modern blockbusters. Did the people not go to movies prior to Avatar and suddenly fall in love with the 3D format, rather than the quality of the film? If anything, gripes associated with 3D viewing effects, such as motion sickness and dizziness would imply that the overall impact of this demographic would be negative for the 3D film.I cannot think of a single plausible scenario where these people would greatly impact the gross of a major film. Not one. I would love to see numbers and the breakdown among genres, but I would bet a massive amount of money that the impact on a gross for an event film such as TA would be minute (<1%). And until we have quantitative proof of a major effect, this just seems like conjecture designed for grasping at straws.

Fair, but TA outperformed TDKR in the overwhelming majority of markets, both domestically and abroad. I just assume people on this board are talking about US BO.

Haha, I'm not arguing about the impact of the shootings on TDKR's run. It definitely put a large damper on its BO performance, especially in the first 2 weeks. We will never know where it would have ended up otherwise. I just think there's no harm in comparing the performance of 2D vs 3D films.

Fair enough. I'm not arguing the quality of the films. They're great films, no doubt about it. I have them in the top 3 among trilogies in the last decade. Just think the 2D argument doesn't make sense. Nolan could have made it in 3D if he wanted, and it wouldn't have beat films like TA. I don't think the 2D release is justification for a lack of comparisons between its performance against 3D films, especially given the fact we can account for the gross adjustment because of 3D tickets sales.

Ridiculous argument. I don't think anyone can reasonably say that the amount of people that want to see a movie purely because it's in 3D is relevant. Everyone, kids included, don't care if a terrible movie is in 3D. Say you tell kids that a movie is coming out. It's a serious expose on Shakespeare in Victorian England and the impact of the social environment on his writing. But WAIT, it's in 3D. Kids won't give a damn about the format, if the movie doesn't interest them first. People went to see Avengers because the concept was cool and executed well, not because of the 3D.This conversation will never happen:Kid: I want to see TA.Parent: Why?Kid: It's in 3D!This will.Kid: I want to see TA.Parent: Why?Kid: It's got the Hulk, IM, CA, and Thor wrecking shit up.Sure, the visuals may push people who will go see it to see it in 3D, but we know the 2D/3D split and can adjust for it with the numbers.The only film that you can argue about this absurd 3D effect is Avatar, and that's a completely different ballgame. That movie sold itself on the next generation of film visuals alone. TA did not...and certainly not in any manner to change the facts of its adjusted performance against TDKR. It whipped it, fair and square.

So? What's your actual point? You're just hanging your hat on a pointless argument because you want to put TDKR on a pedestal. The 2D vs. 3D argument makes no sense at all; we have the math to adjust for the impact of 3D viewings on a film's final gross, and it tells us that, 3D or not, films like TA soundly beat TDKR and will continue to do so.You want studios to release movies in a less profitable medium for what purpose? Sure, "purely" 2D films probably won't be beating TDKR in the future, because the overwhelming majority of blockbusters are going to be released in 3D.

Bit of an irrelevant argument. There will be a few movies in the upcoming years that will beat TDKR, after inflation and 3D adjustment. The 2D vs. 3D argument doesn't make sense. Hell, TA spanked TDKR in terms of admissions if you want to go there.