A science fiction community and weblog
Which science fiction movie could win the Oscar for best motion picture this year?
Submitted by Capt. Xerox on December 23, 2009 - 11:58pm.
A science fiction film has never won the Academy Award for best motion picture, but this year they are expanding the number of nominees from the usual five to ten. That may increase the odds that a genre film gets nominated, but I doubt that any will win.
Hollywood trade magazine Variety wrote recently about the possiblity of a science fiction film taking the top honour this year. In the end, they concluded that the odds were long.
That didn't stop a bevy of commentators from weighing in on which sci-fi films they thought would merit the nomination. Movies like Moon, District 9, Avatar, The Road and even Star Trek are being bandied about as potential nominees.
Some believe the snub of The Dark Knight last year for the award will prompt Hollywood to add crowd-pleasing genre films to its best-picture list this year. As if.
I predict the genre movies will win the usual technical achievement awards, but few, if any, will be nominated for major awards. I can see some of them being nominated for best original or best adapted screenplay and maybe Sam Rockwell for actor, but the only SF movie that I can see making the cut for best picture is The Road because it's the most mainstream of the lot.
My gut instinct tells me the George Clooney movie Up in the Air will win best picture this year because it perfectly captures the zeitgeist.
Do you think a science fiction movie can win the best picture award this year, or even be nominated?
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Up in the air will win.
I agree that while the Oscar's have given the nod to a couple of science fiction movies this year, they are not quite ready to award the Best Film Oscar. Some critics are arguing that to win the award is more than simply producing a good movie, but also about producing great performances from the actors - some science fiction movies don't do this, not because the acting isn't great, but because the combination of real-life acting and animation make it hard to know if the performance is down to the actor or the technical director.
I also don't think that the movies listed for the award are good enough anyway - sure they are all very good movies, but they are no where near the quality of a Lord of the Rings that uses special effects to compliment the movie rather than 'being' the movie - until that balance is found in a science fiction movie, then we'll probably see them as good runners up for a while.
Post new comment