So... Who's Winning The Academy Animation Award This Year?

So it's not even nearly time for the Oscars just yet, but I've seen a handful of people already doing their very early Oscars prediction for Best Animated Feature, and I thought I'd join in as it's currently looking like it's going to be a pretty tight competition. I mean just look at it, you've got Pixar's Inside Out 2, Dreamworks' The Wild Robot, Paramount's Transformers 1, Illumination's Despicable Me 4, just kidding, a new Wallace & Gromit film from Aardman Animation, Pharrell Williams' LEGO over at Warner Bros and Moana 2 Admittedly a bunch of those haven't really released yet, and they could all be awful and Inside Out 2 runs away with it. Though even if that were to happen, I'm sorry Garfield Movie, you're still not getting nominated. And there are many ways it could go, making it kinda difficult to make a call on, but I'm gonna give it a go anyway. Of course, the big thing to bear in mind off the top is sadly, it seems as though a lot of Hollywood are still dismissing animation as a kid genre as highlighted by various Oscar gaffes. And no, not when Oscar the Fish hit Marty the Zebra. It's the only time that joke's ever relevant these days. Oscars only. In a year when Flea was nominated, a documentary about Afghanistan refugees realised in animation we had 3 actresses dress up as their Disney princess counterparts and state how children love these little animated movies. Can't wait to see their kids watching the sing-along version of Flea on Disney+. Nice one. And that's just the most egregious example. Beyond the show itself, the Best Animated Feature category has long been accused as an excuse to not nominate animation in the Best Picture category. Out of the 95 Academy Awards ceremonies, there have only ever been 3 movies nominated. And just between Disney and Pixar, they've released over 100 animated movies all within the period of the Academy existing. And that's not even factoring in 48 movies from Dreamworks, 22 from Studio Ghibli, and not to mention Sony, Laika, Aardman, That Minions One, and the various attempts Warner Brothers has made to establish an animation output. And Netflix if you really wanna go down that rabbit hole. So many incredible movies, yet only Beauty and the Beast, Up, and Toy Story 3 have ever been nominated for Best Picture. Across the Spider-Verse, I contend one of the best movies of last year, no nomination. And so here we are. Just making the most of animation having its own separate category. Which it absolutely should by the way. I just think it's ridiculous that there's been no Best Picture nomination for an animated movie since 2010. The subcategory is not an excuse to exclude these movies from that main category. And let's be honest here, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems with the industry being obsessed with the Oscars. But screw it, let's add that to the problem and talk about some movies there as well. With what we still have coming out, I do not see a nomination for Despicable Me 4, or the Garfield movie. Can we just draw a line under those right away? These were bad movies. And last year showed that the Academy are now a lot better at making sure that smaller international animated projects are recognised. My westernised English speaking existence means I don't know which movie will be candidates for those slots, but you can bet they'll be there. And they'll certainly take those nominations over Garfield and Groon. Please. I wanna have some faith in this industry. It's going quick. Now Kung Fu Panda 4 absolutely SHOULDN'T get nominated. But it's my pick for a mid-movie that absolutely doesn't belong to be there but will be taking up one of the Oscars slots. It could very well sneak up onto the shortlist as far as I'm concerned. I'm gonna keep my faiths up and say hopefully it'll stay off the ballot. If this was 10 years ago, I'd say it could've scrambled onto the nominations. But again, the Academy have become a lot better attuned to the greater international movie sphere. Like Just Take Last year, Boy In The Heron won! Not that Studio Ghibli were exactly strangers to the Oscars, but it winning was certainly a significant moment. As was the nomination of Robot Dreams, and going back stateside, my old champion Nimona. With that in mind, I like to think we won't see Panda on there. Not that that's at the top of Jack Black's concerns at the moment. And really the real contender that really kicks it off the board is the fact that as we'll see, I think Dreamworks will be pushing another movie for this year. Inside Out 2. Now THIS is definitely the current frontrunner. Weirdly, Transformers 1 is only movie to currently be getting hype anywhere close to it. More on that in a second. However, this pretty much had universal acclaim, and while this shouldn't factor into the Oscars, it is still currently the highest grossing movie of the year. As far as I'm aware, unless a movie tops that, we could be approaching the first year an animated movie has ever been THE highest grossing movie of that year since The Lion King in 1994. The first time in 30 years. This movie was well-received in a big way, and I'd not be surprised at all if it won Best Animated Feature. Best Picture as well? I'm not sure. But personally, I think I've seen better get snubbed on that front. It certainly feels like Toy Story 3 and Beauty and the Beast are in that all-time great territory. But you never know. Now Dreamworks is the wild robot. By all accounts, from its reception on the festival circuit, this has already been hyped to be one of the best movies of the year. I may be the only person with some reservations with this movie, but I'm fully prepared for it to be the latest Dreamworks masterpiece. You've got Chris Sanders at the wheel. We've seen with How to Drain Your Dragon what magic he can pull off with Dreamworks. And I'll put the first Croods up there as well. Let's give that some love. I certainly trust he's really thrown everything at this, and not to mention they had an acclaimed novel to jump off of as well. From the art style to the inevitable environmental themes, even in principle, it seems to be all set to be a serious contender. I still need to see it to confirm that, but currently I have it on there as the other frontrunner that could very well challenge Inside Out 2. But then there's always the chance of Paramount's Transformers 1. Yeah, I'm as shocked as you. There's so much praise going around for this of which I thought looked terrible I'll be honest. The animation to me looked childish. The comedy beats in the trailer did not work for me at all. I just wasn't massively impressed with it. So when this movie started doing well at major festivals, you can colour me surprised. This movie, which is following on from a legendarily bad set of Michael Bay movies. Now I'm actually recording this before I've seen and reviewed this movie because I'm doing these videos in advance a little bit. But from what I have seen already, I've seen a few snippets on TikTok of little clips. I dunno how allowed those kind of videos are, but I've seen bits. And honestly, the humour now seems to really really work. I dunno if it was just about the marketing and the trailers that messed it up, but there's a real surprising charm where the movie is happy to really make fun of it's own premise. It's kinda like a parody of itself from what I've seen, and it really really works. To turn such an iconic IP into something genuinely well adapted into a modern script with some great comedic beats. Yeah, I can see why it's a surprise. The actual presentation is a massive departure from the standards. With solid reviews and audience reception, I definitely think this has a shot at being nominated. With one caveat. Yeah, remember how the Academy snubbed the LEGO Movie all those years ago? Not only should it have been nominated, it should have outright won. Big Hero 6 won that year, whilst LEGO Movie, not even nominated. And that's one thing that could go against Transformers. The Academy has been known to go sour on the toy brands. Perhaps seeing them how the original Transformers cartoons in the 80s were. Glorified commercials. And whilst Transformers 1 has a lot of critical acclaim, so did the LEGO Movie. So we'll see. They might change their tone, as they did get a lot of backlash on that one back in the day. Mind you, LEGO may have a legitimate shot this year, as don't forget we've got that Pharrell Williams movie on the way. Peace by peace. Hello there, thank you for making it to the halfway mark of this video, do come along and subscribe, since I've caught your attention this far in, and let us know your Oscar predictions so early on. We've also got a Patreon in case you want to get a back access of bonus content of how I do things in the behind the scenes and bloopers and extra content like that. Completely optional, if you feel like financially supporting us on the side. Just a side hustle amongst side hustles, you know how it is. Anyway, I'll let you get back to the rest of this mini rambling about Oscar predictions. Hope you enjoy! LEGO may have a legitimate shot this year, as don't forget we've got that Pharrell Williams movie on the way. Peace by peace. Perhaps the most rogue prompt for a movie on this list. A biopic animated in LEGO with the subject voicing himself in his own biopic. Yeah, weird idea. When LEGO parted ways with Warner Bros after the declining box office returns on the LEGO movies and moving to Universal, I wasn't expecting anything in the neighbourhood of this for their first movie out. It's such a wild timeline they have for these LEGO movies. We've had LEGO Movie, LEGO Batman, Ninjago, LEGO Movie 2, Pharrell Williams. At the same time, I do have to credit it for such an original take on both of what I guess is a semi-autobiography and LEGO as a franchise. You never know, this could open up the door to a whole new route to use the LEGO animation style to tell stories. Which I guess is what LEGO's all about anyway. We'll see how it goes, but so far it's holding a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes which is pretty decent. And considering Universal are releasing this under their Focus Features label, the one they use for their Oscar bait movies, I could definitely see Pharrell in his big LEGO hat showing up amongst the nominees. It is about who you know as well when it comes to the Oscars. And then from CG made to look like stop motion, to actual stop motion, Aardman's Wallace and Gromit are back ladies and gentlemen. This time in technically their SECOND feature length movie. Just about anyway. Still only 70 minutes long. But to be fair, so's the original Toy Story. Guess not everything has to be 2 hours, who'da thunk. Now it's been a while with these guys. Curse of the Were-Rabbit was back in 2005, and their last film all together was in 2008. In both animated short and animated feature categories, Aardman in general, but specifically Wallace and Gromit, have historically absolutely smashed it out of the park. What makes me think that? Well the fact that ALL OF THEIR MOVIES HAVE BEEN OSCAR NOMINATED. 3 of them have won the Oscar, with Curse of the Were-Rabbit winning the FEATURE category. And in the case of the first Wallace and Gromit short, the only reason it didn't win is because Nick Park lost to himself. He was nominated twice in the same category, and the original Creature Comforts was the one to take home the bacon. It would be no surprise to see these two yet again amongst the nominees. However, there's a couple of bumps this time. One, they're on Netflix this time around. Which in fairness, is not an immediate disqualification, however they will probably need to give this thing some kind of mini theatrical release for it to be included. Which apparently is something Netflix does with a lot of their releases sometimes. Genuinely, as long as it turns up for a couple nights at some obscure theatre in LA, it counts. However the other thing is, is this film actually gonna be any good? At the moment, I'm kinda feeling like it'll be in that kind of harmless fun territory that Chicken Run Dawn of the Nugget occupied. That's the energy I got from the first clip with the gnome anyway. It seemed very standard fare, rather than having it's own energy about it. And whilst it's ultimately a good thing to have Nick Park directing what is very much his characters and films, his last effort wasn't exactly batting a hundred. I stand by that 2018's Early Man is the worst Aardman movie, and that was very much his baby. However as I've said before, it's the only real slip-up this guy has had, and he's going back to what he knows. I think this movie can be good, but will it be enough for that nomination? Maybe. Onto one that I keep forgetting about. The upcoming Lord of the Rings anime they're doing. And this isn't any old studio doing it either. Ahem. Amazon. No, this is a direct companion to the beloved mainline movies. The new line team producing it and everything. Being the first time they've returned to this world since the last Hobbit movie, it's definitely a surprise to a lot of people that anime was gonna be their first visit back to Middle Earth. However I also think it makes a lot of sense, as the Japanese perspective of animation is completely different to our westernized, it's mainly for kids, attitude. Anime has established itself to be a medium for more mature storytelling than a lot of American styles. And with the recent successes of One Piece and Attack on Titan, why not go for this completely different take on an animated extension to Lord of the Rings. And if it does combine the depth you can go with anime with the acclaim behind this particular Lord of the Rings series, I can absolutely see this getting a nomination. Bit of a weird pick, but you never know. Timelines are weird right now. Have you seen the world? And finally, of course, to the movie I think is anyone's guess at this point. Moana 2. From the trailers, I genuinely can't get a read on the quality of this movie. Something I feel I can usually gauge quite well. The animation looks great. The story looks promising. But the rushed Maui reunion at the end with the boat snack joke, kinda gave me pause. Maybe it's just my disdain for the rock nowadays. Anyway, this is truly the movie that can go two ways. We have no early reviews to go off of. No real sample size of a scene from the movie, nor any of the songs. This time flying on without Lin-Manuel Miranda. But that will also be a big factor. Even if everything else works, you can't have a musical with bad songs. And that's why I've left it last. Cause I genuinely haven't got a single clue of whether this is gonna be any good. Which also leads me to floating another rogue possibility. Mufasa The Lion King is technically an animated movie. I hate that fact as much as you do, but if Oscar-winning Barry Jenkins is right that this is somehow his best movie to date, then it's not beyond impossible. I very much doubt it, but I thought I'd better get in to cover all those bases. Can you imagine the uproar from the animation community if this was actually how things turned out? Like yeah I guess you're technically right that it's animation, but for something that looks live action to swamp the only real representation of animation at the Oscars, would be absolutely wild. So really, as per usual, all the big names have all sorts of big projects going. Disney typically have the walk in the park experience either with their mainline movies, or with the Pixar stuff always getting an Oscar, and Inside Out 2 seems to be the ultimate bread winner on that front. But Dreamworks have a pretty solid thing coming out with the Wild Robot. Transformers 1 is a surprising hit amongst fans. Piece by Piece is a modern take with a big celebrity involved so maybe on the networking front the Academy will just give it to him. Aardman and Wallace and Gromit are again icons of Oscar collections. Lord of the Rings is a bit of a weird pick. Oh I'll add another one actually. I don't know if this has had a theatrical release anywhere, but in case it had, a movie I really enjoyed seeing this year, which is just a complete love letter to Studio Ghibli as a style, is The Imaginary. Now this also came out on Netflix, nevermind it came out in 2023. So it's probably already lost it's chance of the Oscars. Wrong year. Even still, I thought it looked bloody brilliant. My first time seeing it, I think it only just came out on Netflix. Fantastically produced, visual eye candy, a real Studio Ghibli love letter. We'll just say it's a love letter, not a ripoff. Nevermind, we'll take that one off the list again. Came in, came away. It was just an imaginary idea anyway. And then yeah, if we don't get the heights of Inside Out 2 or Wild Robot actually taking the spot out of quality and ease, maybe Moana 2 and Mufasa really shows that the industry is soulless. We'll come to see months and months away from now, but either way, that's my early predictions for the Oscars so far. I'd love to hear what are yours. But otherwise, you've heard enough of my opinion. So for now, I'll end things off there. My name's been Dazz, thank you very much for reaching the end of this video, and I shall see you in a little bit. Can't wait to see what drama they cough up this year!