Swans, boxers, dreamers, lesbians, kings, thrill-seekers, computer geeks, cowboys, and Ozarkians… (OK, so I cheated on the last one, but I didn’t manage to see that film), such is the competition at this year’s Academy Awards for Best Picture. It’s quite the eclectic collection, to be sure. And sharing the spotlight with that menagerie is a humble little group of toys who find themselves the subject of one of the most successful film trilogies of all time.
Being the third installment of the series, it’s appropriate that Toy Story 3 is also the third animated feature to ever be nominated for the Best Picture category. Disney has been campaigning like crazy since mid-December to hopefully make it the first animated movie to win the coveted title.
It’s a nice thought, for a lot of reasons. First of all, it’s a great movie. I mean, who doesn’t love Woody or Buzz? It may be cliché to say, but Pixar has created a real classic. There is such a warm heart to this film, but also a humor and integrity. You know that anyone who says they did not cringe in terror at the pseudo-ending (pre: three-eyed alien deus ex machina) or tear up openly during the true ending scene is flat out lying. These characters and their story about the power of loyalty and friendship move in on you, finding that connection to childhood simplicity that grown-ups often forget about but never lose. Warm-fuzzies aside, Pixar has honestly yet to disappoint me in their successful additions to the tally of CG features, and this movie is no exception. TS3 has several things going for it that are company staples – personable characters, engaging story, spectacular effects, technical innovation – all factors which make it worthy of a Best Picture spotlight.
The fact that this movie is also the third installment of a franchise makes its success even more impressive. It’s a general rule that sequels are never as good as their originals, but leave it to Pixar to take another of our standard assumptions about filmmaking and toss it into the trash. TS3 defies convention as one of those rare just-as-good-as-the-original installments, and can certainly stand as a fine film all on its own miniature feet. There have been two other trilogies to obtain Academy praise for each of their parts, The Godfather (with a Part II win in 1974 and Part III nomination in 1990) and The Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers nomination in 2002 and The Return of the King win in 2003). An Academy-honored sequel can usually be viewed as an appreciative nod to the complete series, as was apparent with the LOTR trilogy’s success. Backed by two outstanding prior installments, one of which was the first of its kind in feature filmmaking, (earning director John Lasseter a Special Achievement Award in 1995 for the original Toy Story), a Best Picture win for TS3 would be no surprise as an acknowledgment of Pixar’s fine achievements to date.
However, with all these wonderful selling points, TS3 does have one major characteristic riding against its probability of receiving the Oscar: it’s animated.
"Now where did I put that Oscar?"
Animation has never been a focal point of the Academy Awards. The Animated Short Film category, introduced in the awards’ fifth year, has been a small but steady recognition of achievements in this field. In 1991, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast managed to secure a nomination for Best Picture, a monumental feat. Once the Academy established the category for best Animated Feature Film in 2001, it seemed that animation would finally receive the proper recognition it had deserved for decades.
It also seemed that animated movies would no longer be in the running for the Best Picture category. With their own field of merit, animated films would have no need to encroach on the broader category historically reserved for live-action films. Since then the Academy has recognized several stellar animated features that would most likely never have been acknowledged without the existence of a separate playing field. Up managed to defy all this logic last year. The fact that the film managed a nomination in both the categories of Animated Feature Film (which it won) and Best Picture is a testament to the quality of which the Academy held it. However, as the Best Picture category was expanded to include ten nominations, some people might say it was more like the film simply slid into one of those extra slots the voters had to fill. Don’t get me wrong, Up was a wonderful movie, animated or otherwise, but I do see the justification in arguing that if the Academy recognizes animated achievements in one category, there is less need for them to be included in another. One would argue that this dual nomination is a bit redundant.
It seems that, to be fair, the Academy should go one of two ways: one, stipulate that animated movies should be restricted to nominations only in categories honoring animation, officially segregating them from live-action films; or two, do include them in the running for Best Picture, but eliminate the separate Animated Feature Film category. The later scenario would ensure animated films receive the same status recognition as any other film (i.e. – not just kids’ movies). However, some may counter that animated features would never receive proper recognition by the Academy without a separate category reserved just for them… which of course is one of the main reasons why they category was introduced in the first place, so they would probably be right.
The man himself
The Academy has never been a truly all-inclusive club. Comedies and science-fiction and fantasy movies are often left in the cinematic dust in favor of dramas. Horror is virtually ignored as an honor-worthy film genre. In short, preference and favoritism typically dictate the nomination rosters, which then extend to the winners’ circle along with the aid of strategic campaigning by the studios. At the end of the day, then, movies are judged less by their cinematic achievements or their individual contributions to motion picture history, and more by their ability to be sold, like so many other products in our consumerist society. Now of course most all films included annually in the awards deserve to be there for their own particular reasons, but the rest is an unfortunate reality of the nature of the business.
Lately, though, it seems as if the Academy recognizes some of its shortcomings, and the evidence is there in the nominations: two science-fiction films received Best Picture nominations last year (Avatar and District 9), as did three films with strong comedic elements (Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air and Up). By doubling the number of Best Picture candidates, the Academy can pick from a greater variety in type, providing films that would otherwise be overlooked with a viable opportunity to garner recognition. Animated features now have their own platform from which to receive tribute, and I, for one, would hate to see that go. Both these changes to Academy procedures serve a greater purpose for the benefit of the myriad films (and filmmakers) on the market, and they should stay. As for the inclusion of animated features within the Best Picture category, it all depends on the level at which the Academy holds such films – at the same level as all other features or not – and that is for the Oscar powers-that-be to decide. Filmmakers from both animated and live-action films are honored together in the same technical awards categories (writing, sound, editing, etc), so it would seem that the Academy holds the individual films’ parts at the same level of worthiness. Why not the whole?
Yet, the question remains: will TS3 bring home the golden bacon come Oscar night? With How to Train Your Dragon in the running, it’s a tough battle for best Animated Feature Film. Dragon was, quite simply and with no exaggeration on my part, one of the most visually pleasing and moving films I have ever had the pleasure of watching (and for once, the digital 3-D truly enhanced its world rather than detracted from the story). Still, with the backing of four total nominations for TS3 (Sound Editing and Writing included) and all the hard-core campaigning done by Disney for the awards, I put my money on the toys. Then what about Best Picture for TS3? Can the film secure both titles? Only the envelope and a mass amount of company-funded campaigning will tell. … but I’ll probably be disappointed like almost every other year.
Regardless, animation deserves as much recognition from the Academy Awards as the voters are willing to give the moving-picture method of filmmaking. And then some.
