Oscar's Animation Category In Trouble

By Josh Tyler: 2007-11-01 01:34:04

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces its eligibility list for their animation category next week, and some are already predicting chaos. The problem here is that because there are a limited number of animated films released every year, the number of films eligible for nomination is also limited. The rules about which movies qualify as animated are also complicated, but the big uproar of the moment seems to be over the notion that only three films will be nominated.

HR has run a piece bemoaning the prospect of so many movies being left out, since this year has been so heavy with animation. Except I don’t see the problem.

It’s been a big year for animated movies but very few of them deserve any real consideration for the Academy’s animation Oscar. There’s talk that if more than 16 animated movies end up being made this year they could expand the nominations to five instead of three… but I say forget it. Let’s hope the year ends with only 15, because most of the animated crap this year doesn’t deserve to be remembered, let alone nominated.

After a packed year last year with great movies like Ice Age 2, Monster House, Cars, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away, and Happy Feet this year it’s been more about quantity. There are only three animated movies which deserve any sort of nomination, and the decision is easy. Those three are: Ratatouille, The Simpsons Movie, and even though I haven’t seen it I’ll say Beowulf… since it has to be better than all the other animated dreck we’ve been saddled with in 2007. Maybe the surprisingly enjoyable Disney entry Meet the Robinsons deserves some consideration, but after those four the category runs out of steam quick.

Shrek 3 was an abortion and everyone knows it. Surf’s Up has a handful of deluded supporters, but it’s third rate crap which barely anyone watched. Bee Movie is mildly amusing and incredibly disjointed at best. Happily N’ Ever After may be the worst movie of the year and should only be mentioned in the same breath as words like “Razzie”. What else have you got? TMNT? You have to be kidding me.

The only real controversy here is that for some bizarre reason Beowulf might not qualify, while garbage like Shrek 3, or even Alvin and the Chipmunks gets in. Alvin and the Chipmunks is a mostly live action movie with some animated characters in it, but because of a convoluted quirk of the category’s rules, they measure the percentage of animation in the movie and it might be enough for Alvin to slip past. Meanwhile, they’ve instituted a new rule which requires that “movement and characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique”, which seems targeted at eliminating motion capture animation from the category. Beowulf, a groundbreaking film in that it’s one of the first truly adult-oriented computer animated movies yet made, was done entirely with motion capture and as such may be kicked out in favor of some of this year’s other animated junk. Surfing penguins anyone?

Yes, this year is loaded with all kinds of animated fair. But very little of it has been any good. If anything, 2007 has made a case for doing away with the animation Oscar altogether, or at the very least made the Academy look very smart for limiting the field to a meager three nominations. Animated movies are bigger than ever, unfortunately this year they were also badder than ever. If Beowulf gets disqualified on a technicality, then this is a category with barely enough legitimate contenders to fill even those three meager nominations.

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Kris Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 13:31
Im a Visual Effects major and I have to agree with the MPA, motion capture does not count as Animation. The idea is that an artist is using drawings, or in more modern terms, computers, to animate thier world. In motion capture there are humas acting out the movemtns and the artists are tacking on the skin, so to speak (this is not totally accurate of course, but im trying to make a point). For the artists that really are bring life to characters that dont exist, then they are animators, those who use motion capture are simply creating a complex special effect. If Beowulf was made exactly as it is but without the motion capture it would then count as animation.

Sam Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 13:31
There was a festival fave called Persepolis that I think could be nominated if Beowulf is ineligible.

I think Zemeckis might be trying to keep Beowulf from being eligible for the animated oscar. If every film he is going to direct from now on is going to use motion-capture, as he said they may, the theoretical career implications of motion capture being considered 'animation' for oscar purposes could be not very good.

Emru Townsend Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 15:08
If you only look at Hollywood product, then yes, this year is kind of fallow, like most years. Ratatouille is great, Surf's Up is amusing and Bee Movie is surprisingly enjoyable (though the bar for "enjoyable" isn't *that* high), and that's about it.

But if you look beyond Hollywood, this year's got some good stuff. Persepolis is France's entry for the foreign language feature Oscar, which is kind of a shame. I'd like to see it in the feature animation category, along with Tekkon Kinkreet and Paprika, both of which made their North American debuts this year. (Interestingly, all three of these features were released here by Sony Pictures Classics.) The District (2005) is only just being distributed now beyond the festival circuit, but its irreverent (truly irreverent, not Shrek-irreverent), adult content would put off Academy voters even if it could make the qualifying screenings. There's also Aachi & Ssipak, Free Jimmy, Yobi the Five-Tailed Fox, and everything that will be showing at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema (http://www.wfac.ca) in two weeks.

The real shame, I think, is that so few of the really original and/or engaging features made qualify for the Academy Awards, or simply aren't submitted. It sort of presents the false notion that, as you claim, little of what was produced is any good. That's not at all the case; it's out there, but not enough people are seeing it.

Craig Says:
November 1st, 2007 at 15:08
I think the tagline at the end of the credits for 'Ratatouille' says it all:

“Our Quality Assurance Guarantee: 100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film.”

Beowulf is not an animated film. Beowulf should be ineligible for an Oscar in that catagory. I understand it's use for fantasy characters like King Kong and Gollum, but to use it for the creation of photo-realistic humans is redundant and silly when a flesh and blood actor is much better.

There's a hell of a lot more interesting animated films coming out of Europe that won't hit our shores any time soon. Check out 'Max & Co' and 'Peur(s) du Noir (Fears of the Dark).'

Emru Townsend Says:
November 2nd, 2007 at 01:43
A correction to my earlier post: I went and double-checked and found that Persepolis will be in the feature animation category. I wonder what'll happen when it and Ratatouille square off. (They're the only real contenders, IMHO.)

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Oscar's Animation Category In Trouble

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