Sci-Fi Storm

The Force may be with Rey and Finn, but the Academy isn’t. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was left out of the “big six” awards when the nominations came out this morning, although Mad Max: Fury Road (who led all nominations with 10) and The Martian snagged Best Picture nods, with Mad Max also getting the nod for Directing for George Miller, and The Martian a Best Actor nomination for Matt Damon. The Martian director Ridley Scott was left off the list.

Star Wars did pick up nominations for Film Editing (Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey), Original Score (John Williams), Visual Effects (Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould), Sound Editing (Matthew Wood and David Acord), and Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson).

Mad Max: Fury Road also received Film Editing (Margaret Sixel), Production Design (Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson), Visual Effects (Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams), Cinematography (John Seale), Costume Design (Jenny Beavan), Makeup and Hairstyling (Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin), Sound Editing (Mark Mangini and David White), and Sound Mixing (Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo).

The Martian also received Production Design (Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Celia Bobak), Visual Effects (Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner), Adapted Screenplay (Drew Goddard), Sound Editing (Oliver Tarney) and Sound Mixing (Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth).

The Oscar nominations are out, and there were some sure things (like Gravity) and surprising snubs (Saving Mr. Banks only getting Original Score and Tom Hanks completely shut out). And of course, other than Gravity (which had Oscar star power to start), it is perhaps not surprising to not see genre movies get much appreciation – even with the expanded 10 film Best Picture slate, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug missed the cut.

Here is a roundup of the nominations of genre-related films and their nominations (forgive me if I miss some):

The Croods
Best animated feature film

Despicable Me 2
Best animated feature film
Original song – “Happy”

Frozen
Best animated feature film
Original song – “Let It Go”

Gravity
Sandra Bullock – Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cinematography
Directing
Film editing
Original score
Best picture
Production design
Sound editing
Sound mixing
Visual effects

Her
Original score
Original song – “The Moon Song”
Best picture
Production design
Original screenplay

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug
Sound editing
Sound mixing
Visual effects

Iron Man 3
Visual effects

The Lone Ranger
Makeup and hairstyling
Visual effects

Star Trek Into Darkness
Visual effects

The Oscars opened up last night to host Seth Macfarlane interrupted by a large-screen bearing the image of Captain James T. Kirk himself, having come back in time to help prevent Seth from being labeled the worst Oscar host ever (whether that was successful of not is a matter of opinion – although a number of jokes fell flat or may have been a little too off color, I think overall he did well – we did laugh hysterically at the “We saw your boobs” number…), but that was about the limit of the genre recognition – not that it was up for many awards. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror all came up empty.

The one place where it couldn’t use was the Animated Feature category, where it was it was generally felt to be a two-film race between Disney features, with Brave beating Wreck-it Ralph for the honor.

Pretty much as usual, a roundup of the Oscars when looking at the science fiction and fantasy genres is a short article. Even with the expanded Best Picture list, nothing made that list, not even The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Probably the highest level award is the Best Animated Feature, which is at least full of genre entries, with Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, and Wreck-It Ralph filling the sheet.

The dueling Snow White movies, Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman, will duke it out again for Achievement in Costume Design, while The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey did receive nods for Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design and Visual Effects, with Snow White and the Huntsman and The Avengers also getting nods in the latter.

Well, it wasn’t the greatest news for genre features this year, despite a lot of hopes…if you followed the nominations (or my tweets), you know that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 got the snub for Best Picture despite the 10-film field (the closest to a genre film was Hugo), while the Academy again shows they don’t know how to deal with motion-capture performances and ignored Andy Serkis yet again for his work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But what did garner nominations?
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This is a new one…with all the turmoil regarding the director and host of the upcoming Oscars, the Academy has produced its own trailer, which…well, I don’t want to spoil it… 🙂

Just a quick recap of any remotely genre related awards gained at last night’s Oscar festivities, beyond the periodic Hugh Jackman/Wolverine references: Inception was the big genre winner, taking Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing; Queen Amidala – or more accurately, Natalie Portman – took home the Best Actress award for her role in Black Swan; Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature, as well as Randy Newman taking the Best Original Music, for the TS3 song, “We Belong Together” (and gave on of the best acceptance speeches of the night); Alice In Wonderland won for Art Direction and Costume Design; and Wolfman won for Makeup (it didn’t have much competition). Tron: Legacy went home with nothing, having only had one nomination in Sound Editing – inexplicably not nominated for at least Visual Effects. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 also received none, but was the subject of an interesting musical montage thanks to AutoTune…

Side note: Star Wars: The Clone Wars fans may have heard a familiar voice. Tom Kane, who narrates the beginning of each episode, was the announcer.

Here’s a quick look at the science fiction and fantasy-related Oscar nominees, announced today, in no particular order:

How To Train Your Dragon – Best Animated Film, Original Score

Iron Man 2 – Visual Effects

Toy Story 3 – Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, Sound Editing, Adapted Screenplay

Alice in Wonderland – Costume Design, Visual Effects, Art Direction

Tangled – Original Song (“I See The Light”)

Tron: Legacy – Sound Editing

Inception – Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Original Score, Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 – Visual Effects, Art Direction

The Wolfman – Makeup

I was going to post something early this morning on the Oscars, but had to give up when there were too may fires to fight…anyways, although the SF&F genres had a good chance to take some top prizes last night, The Hurt Locker ended up the big winner. Avatar did take prizes in Cinematography, Art Direction, and Visual Effects, while Star Trek did get Best Makeup. Avatar and James Cameron did get a lot of attention, however, including Ben Stiller as a snazzy dressed Na’vi.