The Academy has revealed all the after months of speculation over who exactly would pick up top honours this time around. It turns out 2023 was one hell of a year for film, with the likes of Barbie, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Oppenheimer, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Killers of The Flower Moon, Poor Things, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Godzilla Minus One and so many others picking up deserved noms.
I won’t pretend that I’m a cinema aficionado, however, that title goes to our Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley. But I adore animation in𓂃 all its forms, appreciating it similarly to video games in ways the medium can tell incredible stories with fascinating characters that aren’t possible in the realm 💯of live action. Especially if they happen to be queer, combining that element with an animated production of any kind is bound to grasp my attention.
Because we are always ahead of the curve, we’ve also put together 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:our predictions f🍰or the 2024/2025 Oscars season.
Nimona and Robot Dreams Land Deserved Yet Surprising Spots
After The Golden Globes, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Annie Awards, and Critic Choice Award nominations and winners began to emerge, it became increasingly clear that Best Animated Feature was going to be very different this year. Disney and Pixar, which usually have a surefire winner, were suddenly in competition with international productions, streaming underdogs, and innovative efforts from Sony like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Verse that shook up the status quo.
Not to mention, we’ve seen a greater appreciation for international productions like Suzume and The Boy and The Heron, alongside the incredibly surprising appearance of Robot Dreams. Which, at the time of writing, is yet to be released in certain regions. Nimona, which was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:previou✨sly in the work🐓s at Blue Sky Studios prior to its shuttering by Disney and subsequent revival by Netflix and Annapurna, celebrates a well-earned comeback tour with a nomination alone, let alone whether it manages to pic🗹k up the win. Then you’ve got Elemental, ꦡwhich is your token pick from Disney, despite underwhelming reviews and a modest return at the box office.
It’s a diverse, somewhat unexpected, line-up that hopefully acts as a sign that, this year, the Academy is going to treat animation as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:more than a plaything for children. Of course, this is not to say animated films aimed at children cওan’t be nominated —given the medium, that will always happen — but this year alone we have films about race, identity, grief, and precisely what it means to be human.𒉰 All powerful themes expressed through animation, and all of them deserving of the nominations now thrust upon them. But who missed out this year?
Suzume and Turtles Have Been Left Out To Dry
I had a list of nominees in my head prior to the reveal event earlier today, and I’ll be real with you - Suzume and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem were both accounted for. Robot Dreams was🔯 not, but given it’s yet to re𝔉lease in the UK, please cut me some slack.
It felt like it was finally time for Your Name director Makoto Shinkai to receive due credit on an international stage, especially given that his earlier films like Garden of Words, 5 Centimeters Per Second, and The Place Promised In Early Days were not only emotionally poignant, but helped to usher in what has become a new visual and narrative style for anime pictures. 💟At least he got a nod at the Golden Globes, and there’s always a chance his next film will help light the world on fire like Your Name did several years ago. If it does, the Academy should take notice.
Meanwhile, Mutant Mayhem not only builds upon the innovative yet unorthodox animation principles of Spider-Verse, it also lends the beloved characters a new lease on life that perfectly matches the current generation. Most importantly, this meant actually casting young actors as the turtles and allowing them to not only improv♊ise, but also project parts of who they are onto the characters. Not to mention, it manages to look gorgeous, packs in a bunch of laughs, and gives me hope for where the iconic series goes next. Maybe mutant animals who eat pizza and live in the sewers was too low brow or something.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was the second-🃏highest grossing movie of the year after Barbie, but never had much of a shot here.
Who Will Win Best Animated Feature?
My little gay heart is with Nimona, and not just bec🅷ause I’ve covered the film so much here at TheGamer, I’ve followed its creation and the work of its author for most of my adult life, so to see it reach this kind o𓃲f artistic milestone feels like a big deal. If it wins, I’ll be delighted.
But if I’m being realistic and critical about the whole situation, no film deserves it more than Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron. While it might feel understated compared to director Hayao M🐟iyazaki’s other epics like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, it remains a brutally profound and heartfelt examination of grief in the aftermath of World War 2. It’s beautiful and bold in everything it does, leaving behind a moral message I’m still pondering even now. It’d be lovely to see an underdog like Robot Dreams pick up the win too, but considering how the Academy has positioned animation this year wiꦰth such a variety of picks, it has to be Heron.
