So what film do you think will screw AOTC out of the VFX Oscar for this year?

'but won editing for some reason unbeknownst to me (3 hours to tell THAT story - WOW!!!!)'

While I appreciate JBFett's attempt to give FOTR an extra Oscar , I must note that it didn't win for best editing.

Best Film Editing went to Pietro Scalia for 'Black Hawk Down'.

FOTR won for Cinematography, Score, Visual Effects, and Make-up.

 

Mini_Yoda, here's scarier... what if Scooby Doo was nominated?....

abmcccray, oh, ok that clears things up. i agree with you, that Anakin animal surfing scene looked as bad as Legolas jumping on the cave troll.

 

He's not rendered, his face definetly isn't, and his body doesn't seem so either.

Actually, if he was rendered, he would have looked faked, but his movements would have been a lot better.

 

If you may recall, several years back, the Academy gave GL some type of achievemnt award. They know that he has been and still is a pioneer in filmmaking, but will continually snub him out of awards because he is outside the Hollywood circle. All this speculation is cool, but bizarre especially as it concerns the FOTR vs SW debate.

Here's one for you to chew on, it's obvious that Tolkein's masterpiece is one of the many influences that GL is drawing from, but isn't it also obvious that the movie adaptation of LOTR owes a lot to SW and GL's filmmaking techniques? This property went unbtouched for so long because it was deemed to difficult to translate to film. GL and ILM paved the way for LOTR, Harry Potter, Matrix and a whole bunch of other films.

I think that the Academy should honor Lucas once again for his incredible contribution to filmmaking, but I doubt that petty Hollywood politics will allow that to happen. (BTW, Lucas is recognized as a filmmaking pioneer in fairly recent introductory textbooks for film studies,so I guess he'll be vindicated in the long run).

 

Yeah, he doesn't like Hollywood, so in turn Hollywood doesn't like him. They really do seem to have their minds made up in advance or something. For example, Titanic swept the Oscars when perhaps it shouldn't have. The Lost World's FX were far more impressive. I mean, what's harder, making a big fake boat, or making many living breathing dinosaurs that must interact realistically with actors? I don't even try to understand all the "high and mighty" film citics or Oscar award voters or whatever the heck they are. I don't care what they have to say.

In this light even if TTT's FX's are inferior to AOTC's, it will probably win. If the second Harry Potter releases this year it may win. I though HP was releasing in yearly installments, but I'm not sure. Whatever...

 

The VFX oscar vote will be an intense race between Seriously, Dude, Where's My Car?, Undercover Brother, and Stuart Little 2.

 

The Lost World's FX were far more impressive

I disagree. I think, while JP2's VFX were outstanding, Titanic's was way more grander and more deserving of the award. The sinking of the boat was exhilarating. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I saw it for the first time.

 

Titanic just looked too fake. It sufferred from the same problems that later plagued LOTR; too little attention paid to the details.

 

I must say, Anakin riding the Shaak on Naboo looked far better on digital than film. I thought it looked really bad the first time I saw the movie on film; but seeing it on digital, it looked just fine.

 

Uh, ANYONE who has rendered CG will place Titanic above TLW. Titanic was far more intricate in rendering than TLW, and still has some of the most impressive rendered humans so far in movies.

 

No, no it doesn't.

I've seen close up footage of the CG extras in Titanic. They are very primitive and aren't very detailed. They look like characters from a computer game cut scene circa 1995.

 

CG has to do with money because the CG artists are very well paid and charge by the hour. That's why Titanic was so good because it cost so much and that's why films like the Mummy Returns don't look so great because they wanted alot done for a lower amount of money. Lucas gets them on a discount.

 

First of all, you don't get to see them "up close" in the movie, secondly, their movements and motions are what I'm talking about. Unlike Spider-Man/AOTC/FotR, people STILL don't know that they're digitized. Thirdly, there was nothing comparable to that at the time.

 

There are also several tiers of quality at ILM. Top-notch talent requires top-notch dollars, and is used for LFL projects or "prestige" projects like PEARL HARBOR. Once those artists are booked for a show, the VFX producers pick from the rest of the pool. The result can be MUMMY RETURNS.

Back to Lucas and the Academy: the lifetime achievement award is just that -- a lifetime award. How can you be given TWO lifetime awards? Lucas has already gotten the Irving Thalberg award, the highest producing award the Academy can give.

 

If any movie beats out AOTC[and I have a sneaking suspicion that it may] I think it will DEFINATLY be TTT. According to a few critics who have seen it un-finished, it is even better than the first one . . . that is bad news for SW.
I don't have much faith in Harry Potter beating AOTC though.

 

Didn't Spielberg get a lifetime achievement
award some time ago?

Going by the trailers, the one film I think
will get the VFX oscar, is none other than
SCOOBY DOO!

If you ever want 2 hours of pure torture, then
this is the movie for you. Can't believe I actually went to a preview screening of this movie.

 

If its gonna be screwed, it'll either be by Spider-Man, Two Towers or Harry Potter 2 (ILM are on the case for this one, unlike Philosopher's Stone). Clones has gotta win this time, TPM deserved to beat the Matrix but the Academy fell for that bullet-time stuff (they'd been using that in commercials a long time before Matrix was relaesed, though obviously not as successfully).
John Williams is also gonna be up for four of the five score nods: AOTC. Minority Report, Potter 2 & Catch Me if you Can (I assume he's doing these last 2).

 

Having viewed both the Matrix and TPM on DVD with a great digital surround system, I can slightly agree that Matrix deserved the Visual effects Oscar...

But the two sound effects Oscars were complete snubs on TPM's part....

 

SFX this year, I think TTT will do it again.

 

The Two Towers will be the favorite for the special effects Oscar in part because it will be released in December.

 

dehrian,

I never saw AOTC on film. I always saw it on digital, which is why neither the shaak or the Reek riding scenes ever looked fake to me.

Out of all of AOTC, I can only pinpoint one shot that bothered me and it was only an early one where Anakin and Padme are being "wheeled out" into the arena.

I personally think that Spiderman's effects are horrible, but it has a better chance of beating AOTC that The Two Towers.

Spiderman's effects had the same kind of 'wow' factor that The Matrix's special effects had (I'm talking about the swinging through the city, and Peter learning to use the web).

The Two Towers really has an uphill battle on this one because you have a bunch talking Trees (the Ents) which will most likely be CG. I personally think there is no way you make a CG Tree act and talk the way the Ents do without them coming off as cartoony. Then you've got Gollum (of which we saw a little in FOTR). Since they've been working on LOTR non-stop, chances are there have not been technilogical advances since the first film was completed. Which means, Gollum will probably look exactly the same as he did in FOTR.

The thing is that ILM pulled off Yoda (a beloved character which everyone grown up with as a puppet), and in fact, one-upped the puppet with the final fight with Dooku. That kind of accomplishment can trump Gollum and a bunch of chattering trees.

But, Spiderman has a buzz going for it, and that buzz is the wow factor. It's too bad though. AOTC really does have the best VFX I've ever scene. But, the oscars aren't about awarding the actual best in each category (otherwise, Russell Crowe would have won for Beautiful Mind, in spite of his rustling up of the British TV producer). It is about awarding the flavor of the month.

Sure TPM getting screwed angers me. But, nothing angers me more than Trisha Biggar not even getting nominated for TPM.

I also thought Starship Troopers had better visual fx than BOTH The Lost World and Titanic. Starship Troopers should have won.

 

Just like how The Matrix robbed TPM, The Matrix Reloaded will probably rob AotC.

 

Nobody robbed anybody. The visual effects in AOTC were nothing special. Just more TPM style CGI. And why are you people assuming that a movie that hasn't been released yet (The Two Towers) is gonna "rob" AOTC of VXF awards?

And for those who think that Starship Troopers & JP 2 had better effects than Titanic....I'd like to have some of that stuff your smoking. The first two films screamed CGI. In Titanic you couldn't even tell it was a VFX (except for a few shots). Titanic was far superior because it used FX only where necessary and didn't bombard the audience with fake looking CGI.

 

I think the problem with the Shaak is primarily from its design -- it's not even remotely a creature that could move (or even exist) in a "real" world like Naboo. Those pencil thin teensy legs and giant bloated belly/backside simply don't feel right, and its movements don't as well. It's moving like a puppy and built like an overweight hippo.

I also think Starship Troopers deserved the VFX oscar in '97 -- in fact, five years later, I'm more impressed with the FX from that film than any other from that time... they hold up remarkably well. While a lot of CG work was done on it, there was TONS of stuff that was traditional animatronic, model/motion-controlled cameras, etc. They even used stop-motion during the "death of the Rodger Young" sequence so that you could see each deck of the ship rippling and twisting as it was torn apart. Little details like that are what make it hold up today.

I liked Titanic -- I thought the effects were solid and even spectacular in places. But Starship Troopers brought a visceral intensity and reality that I've RARELY see in any FX film.

I've observed that in general, the VFX oscar in recent years goes to the film with the biggest buzz factor behind it come Oscar time. The buzz could be critical (Gladiator) or simply "wow! that was cool!" (Matrix) or because of box-office, but the actual technical quality and breakthrough technology has little to do with it, mainly because most Academy members lack the specific knowledge to judge these things. They go for the films they enjoyed.

AOTC has a good chance this year -- there was some wonderful work done on it. It may be hamstrung a bit by the fact that AOTC has been overshadowed by Spidey in the box-office category and possibly by films like Minority Report or TTT in the critical acclaim category. But it'll be nominated, no doubt, and deservedly so.

 

Telamachos:

I agree with you about the FX in Staship Troopers. I don't even think that Starship Troopers even recieved a nomination for Best Special Effects. The only bad effect in that film was the Brainbug which looked like it was made of plastic.