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Academy Awards Changes Voting Rules for Best Animated Feature Category

KitKat1721 wrote:

This will definitely make things harder for any smaller studio/foreign films to be noticed in a much larger voting pool. Since most voters in the old pool are already involved in some manner with the animation business, they are open to seeing more interesting outliers in the bunch, and more likely to treat them seriously when their target audience isn't just kids.

There is, however, the inversion, in that most of the current voters for Best Animated Picture are in the animation business, and that means they're also more likely to be dead-set in their ways.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

KitKat1721 wrote: This will definitely make things harder for any smaller studio/foreign films to be noticed in a much larger voting pool. Since most voters in the old pool are already involved in some manner with the animation business, they are open to seeing more interesting outliers in the bunch, and more likely to treat them seriously when their target audience isn't just kids. There is, however, the inversion, in that most of the current voters for Best Animated Picture are in the animation business, and that means they're also more likely to be dead-set in their ways.

Although we can also look at the types of films that have been nominated by this branch (films like The Illusionist, The Secret of Kells/Song of the Sea, Waltz with Bashir, Persepolis, Anomalisa, some ghibli films, etc) vs the ones that won, voted on by everyone (pretty much mainly Pixar/Disney with some rare exception. I wouldn't say they are dead set in their ways.

Although we can also look at the types of films that have been nominated by this branch (films like The Illusionist, The Secret of Kells/Song of the Sea, Waltz with Bashir, Persepolis, Anomalisa, some ghibli films, etc) vs the ones that won, voted on by everyone (pretty much mainly Pixar/Disney with some rare exception. I wouldn't say they are dead set in their ways.

The animation branch has been fairly open to nominating foreign and indie films, though they also tend to vote for the major American animation studios due to being involved with them personally. (That's why Lego Movie got snubbed: it was from a smaller studio and wasn't "artsy" enough to appeal otherwise.) Anime films are generally snubbed due to poor visibility, lack of Oscar campaigning, and lack of space in the field for smaller movies (usually only two or three spots a year).

Posts Sometimes wrote:

The animation branch has been fairly open to nominating foreign and indie films, though they also tend to vote for the major American animation studios due to being involved with them personally. (That's why Lego Movie got snubbed: it was from a smaller studio and wasn't "artsy" enough to appeal otherwise.) Anime films are generally snubbed due to poor visibility, lack of Oscar campaigning, and lack of space in the field for smaller movies (usually only two or three spots a year).

Well, The Lego Movie got backing from Warner Bros., which IS big enough to submit stuff. In mean, Disney helped get Spirited Away into the nominations (and helped it win). My impression is that The Lego Movie was rejected at face value for being based on a toy, and some people who didn't pay attention to the mainstream reception might have dismissed it as "120-minute toy commercial." The Dark Knight got snubbed too, and I think that was for a similar reason ("We're too old and mature to be watching Batman").

Warner Bros. is a major studio, but Warner Animation really isn't that big (or at least wasn't at the time). The Lego Movie was their first feature film in more than a decade, so they didn't have the familiarity with voters that the other big animation studios have. Of course, being a giant toy commercial hurt its chances too.

Two Pixar movies; there's Cars 3 and Coco.

I want Your Name. to WIN NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!

It's why serious animation fans should care more about Annie than Oscar, since Annie has a separate "Best Animated Feature - Independent" category where it's largely foreign animated films that are nominated and are often winners.