Bell and Whistle Cage Match: Movies

Qualifications for entry: movie must have been release last November and either a) star someone with the last name "Hemsworth" or b) be based on a book with the word "Game" or "Games" in the title.

The contenders:

 vs.vs.

That's right, kids, a three-way showdown!

Fight!


Round 1: Release Date

Ender's Game was released on November 1st, the Feast of All Saints, and a Holy Day of Obligation.

Thor: The Dark World was released on November 8th (USA), a ferial day, or the optional feast of the Four Crowned Martyrs in the old calendar.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was released on November 22nd, the Feast of St. Cecilia, virgin and martyr, and the patroness of musicians.

Point goes to:

Round 2: Eye Candy

Ender's Game stars Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford.

Thor: The Dark World stars Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson.

While I totally used to have a crush on Natalie Portman, and Jennifer Lawrence is so thoroughly charming, I really gotta go with the Ford here.

Point goes to:

Round 3: Fulfillment of Entry Criteria for this Cage Match

Ender's Game is based on a book that contains the word "Game" in its title.

Thor: The Dark World stars Chris Hemsworth.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire stars Liam Hemsworth and is based on a book with the word "Games" in the title.

Point goes to:

Round 4: Faithfulness to the Source Material

Ender's Game is extremely faithful to the book, except that they left out the whole slower-than-light travel/time dilation/bug home planet was, like, 80 years away/Ender only found the bug egg years after the battle thing/and several battles in the battle room.

Thor: The Dark World does not have Thor wearing a helmet with wings on it.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is extremely faithful to the book, except they still haven't mentioned avoxes; and they left out the scene where Katniss meets the two women trying to make their way to District 13; and in the book Gale gets whipped for trying to sell turkeys to the new head of security, not for punching him out (which would more likely have got him shot); and Katniss actually discovered the riots in the other districts when visiting her friend, the mayor's daughter (who still isn't in the movie, even though she gives Katniss the Mockingjay pin in the book); and Katniss shoots the arrow through the weakness in the force field that Beetee teaches her how to recognize, not at the ceiling; and they sort of forgot to include her hearing loss from the first book in the first movie so they had to leave out the whole thing of her faking to be able to hear the force field because of her new reconstructed ear.

Point goes to:
Draw

Round 5: Usage of Punctuation in the Title

Ender's Game does not have a colon, but an inferior apostrophe.

Thor: The Dark World features a colon and subtitle

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire also features a colon and subtitle.

Point goes to:
Tie

Round 6: Google Fight!

Fight 1: "Ender's Game is the best movie of the year" vs. "Thor 2 is the best movie of the year"
16,000,000 vs 45,900,000, Thor

Fight 2: "the female lead in Thor 2 is teh hawt" vs. "the female lead in Catching Fire is teh hawt"
11,400,000 vs 574,000, Thor

Fight 3: "Catching Fire is true to the book" vs. "Ender's Game is true to the book"
14,000,000 vs. 2,000,000, Catching Fire

Point goes to:

Round 7: Random Number Generator

A fair Monte Carlo simulator was used, provided by (that company I work for). Each movie was assigned a lognormal distribution, μ=1, σ=1. 100 simulations performed.

Results (lower score is better):

ID	Description	MTTO
Ender's Game		1.01
Thor	The Dark World	0.8908
The Hunger Games	Catching Fire	0.8326

Point goes to:

The Winner is:

Teh. Hawt. (Somewhat literally)

Thus, it is demonstrated, using this totally legit, objective, and incontrovertible proof, that The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was the best movie released last November that featured either an actor named "Hemsworth" or was based on a book with the word "Game" or "Games" in the title.