MTV's Movie Smackdown 2012 Contest

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Thanks for the link to the article, jimbo.    Though things are apparently happening so fast in the poll that its info is already a bit dated. John Carter has faded somewhat, and both DS and Snow White And The Huntsman have more than double its percentage, but it is still holding at 5th. And DS is amazingly still holding 3rd over Snow White And The Huntsman - though the percentages for both have gone down from earlier today because some of the films with small percentages are rallying (yay, The Woman in Black - I love that film's trailers). Though, of course, The Hunger Games and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 are still heavily dominating (and seemingly switching spots almost every time I check into the poll):

The Hunger Games  44.9%   
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2  42.68%   
Dark Shadows  3.51%   
Snow White And The Huntsman  3.3%   
John Carter  1.27%   
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey  1.08%   
The Dark Knight Rises  0.96% 
The Woman in Black  0.59%   
Marvel's The Avengers  0.48%   
Prometheus  0.24%   
The Great Gatsby  0.18%   
The Amazing Spider-Man  0.11%   
Les Miserables  0.1%   
Men In Black III  0.09%   
Taken 2  0.06%
21 Jump Street  0.05%
American Reunion  0.05%

Though to me the really shocking thing is that The Dark Knight Rises and Marvel's The Avengers are garnering so few votes. Sure, the voters would seem to mostly be young women - but do those two films appeal exclusively to young men or men in general? I wouldn't think so...

[jimbo]

Thanks MB. I think MTV is also asking the same questions. Not too long ago they seem to be recruiting fans of the Avengers and Spiderman to participate in its poll. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1676744/avengers-spider-man-movie-brawl-2012.jhtml

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Hmmm - I do believe someone in the Snow White and the Huntsman camp is using voting software to increase the film's percentage. And the reason I'm saying that is that its percentage has been steadily climbing at a set rate since I first noticed it was climbing at 10:30pm ET. So, unless someone has been sitting at their computer or with their phone and methodically clicking the "vote" button at exactly the same rate of speed for at least 4 hours now without taking a break so that the percentage is climbing at a constant and predictable rate, voting software is definitely involved. 

The good news at the moment is that Snow White and the Huntsman hasn't overtaken DS yet (DS is at 4.22%, SWatH is at 4.02%). But if things continue the way they are much longer, it certainly will. And if things continue beyond that, who knows what its percentage is likely to end up being...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, DS is now at 3.92% and SWatH is at 5.59% and still predictably climbing at the same steady rate, so who knows when it will stop...

Of course, in the grand scheme of things so far as this round in the poll goes, it really doesn't matter what either percentage is because the only goal is to get into the top group of 16 - and considering the percentages of the films below them, I doubt there's any danger that either film won't do that. But I can't help but think that the resorting to using software is at least one person in the SWatH camp's way of signalling to DS fans that they're not about to let DS overtake their film for any real period of time. Even if DS manages to overtake SWatH again, the software can just be trotted out again and set to remedy the situation. And if that is their thinking, that completely destroys the notion of friendly competition...

[jimbo]

DS is down to 2.92 but still not a bad showing to date.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Though notice that Snow White and the Huntsman is now up to 6.5% (and still climbing from what I can see). And in a truly bizarre turn, some film named Cosmopolis, one of the five wild cards just added today, surged right past both to currently have a percentage of 7.13! Can you say more use of voting software because there's no way that a film just added today could have humanly amassed the thousands of votes needed to have a percentage that high. 

[jimbo]

This means war! jk We need our own special DS software to level the playing field. There goes the integrity of this poll. Perhaps this is the type of action MTV is looking for.

[jimbo]

Voting bracket is open. Dark Shadows vs. Spiderman
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/01/09/mtv-movie-brawl-2012-bracket/

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Interesting pairings - especially The Dark Knight Rises vs. Avengers so that only one of those will make it through the first round. But then one of them will go against whichever film wins in DS' battle.

IF things go similarly to the qualification round, it could be DS vs. TDKR in the next round. But who knows? Particularly if anyone in those two battles trots out the voting software...

[jimbo]

It seems early on that there are many Spider-man fans. Again you can vote more than once but that cannot overcome the voting software monster.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Yes, it seems like many more Amazing Spider-Man fans are showing up in this round than in the qualifying round as I see that DS is currently ahead - but not by much: 52.03% vs 47.97%.

Apparently getting DS through to the second round is going to be a battle .

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Wow, now DS is only leading 51.28% vs 48.72%...

[Cousin_Barnabas]

And before I added some votes, it was trailing! 

Anyone else getting an error message for the poll now?

[jimbo]

It seems fine. I just voted. Real close.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Just did a little experiment.  A person (or one IP) is limited to voting 70 times in a (roughly) 2.5 hour time frame.  Would this stop the voting programs?