OVP: Best Visual Effects (2004)
The Nominees Were...
Roger Guyett, Tim Burke, John Richardson, & Bill George, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
John Nelson, Andrew R. Jones, Erik Nash, & Joe Letteri, I, Robot
John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara, & John Frazier, Spider-Man 2
My Thoughts: Like the Makeup race we profiled on Monday (all of the links for other 2004 races, as well as past Visual Effects contests, are at the bottom of this article), this field is three-wide. Unlike Makeup, though, you kind of start to see why Oscar kept his contests three-wide (when we do my ballots, for the record, we'll stay five-wide in all categories as I like the challenge). In 2004, on the eve of movies like Avatar and Transformers, special effects films were box office behemoths, but they weren't common, and the year after Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy was done, they were in some ways a bit of an afterthought.
The Harry Potter series, for example, got its first nomination after two previous misses (the Hogwarts films would only amass three VFX nominations despite them all being loaded with effects). The movie is one of the series' best at making the effects feel seamless and creative in the confines of the picture. I loved the way that the Knight Bus played onscreen, and the complete realism of the Buckbeak character, believable as its own creature. Yes, the werewolf was not realistic & needed edits, but the matte work is strong, the time turner moving backward is a neat trick, and while it's hard not to think of the spellbinding Middle Earth we'd been spoiled with for three years at that point, we need to take every year as it is, and Prisoner of Azkaban stepped up the effects game royally for JK Rowling's series, and did so in service to its movie.
Of these films, the one that arguably has the most prevalent effects is I, Robot, a dismissible Will Smith action-adventure that is set in a world where robots & humans coexist. I know I should give the film a pass on the uncanny valley page (the humanoid characters are robots...they're not meant to be real), but the Alan Tudyk character Sonny, while continuing the advances in motion-capture, always feels a bit off, and the sameness of the designs had me yawning (yes, the action scenes are impressive, but they all feature the same robot design/moves). I, Robot is not a great effects job housed in a lousy movie...it's just a movie where the effects are the only part worth salvaging, even if they aren't all that special to begin with.
Spider-Man 2 also struggles with the Uncanny Valley, though here it does so with actual human characters. Particularly Alfred Molina's Dr. Octopus alternates between just jaw-droppingly real when he's shot in close up, his tentacles behind him, and then in wider shots where the effects are more focused on his multiple arms, his face almost looks like rubber, as if the pixels that are helping to animate him in this shot have overpowered the motion capture technology. This is a big step up from the initial Spider-Man, and a formative entry in the superhero realm, but if Harry Potter loses points for that werewolf in the wake of Peter Jackson's opulence the years before, I can't ignore that Spider-Man 2 is not melding its impressive CGI with the practical effects a movie in 2004 was still reliant upon in order to finish.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Visual Effects Society splits its nominations between effects-driven films (the ones that actually get nominated at the Oscars) and the ones with supporting effects (which only rarely get cited with AMPAS, but are usually a more interesting lineup). The former went with Harry Potter as its winner, besting Spider-Man 2 and The Day After Tomorrow, while the latter went to The Aviator over Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Troy. The BAFTA Awards were five-wide for VFX in 2004, and they gave the top prize to The Day After Tomorrow, here over Aviator, Harry Potter, House of Flying Daggers, and Spider-Man 2. The bakeoff in 2004 included four more names: The Aviator, The Day After Tomorrow, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In terms of fourth place...
Films I Would Have Nominated: ...how the hell did they skip Day After Tomorrow? I get that the film was a bust with critics, but come on! This is a gigantic, incredible achievement, just a truly stunning look at entire cities being wiped out by waves...it would have been an easy winner in my book, and proof that Oscar can't always look beyond the critics, even in the tech categories. I would have also made room for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which didn't always succeed but was such a momentous look ahead at CGI (I'd honestly consider it an animated movie in a similar vein to Space Jam it's so filled with effects) that it deserved a place here (also, it looks awesome, which has to count for something).
Oscar’s Choice: The box office bonanza that was Spider-Man 2 kept it above the giant pile of gold that was Harry Potter's best chance at an Oscar.
My Choice: I'm going to go with Harry Potter, which wasn't something I was expecting a few weeks ago when I prepped this. Spider-Man 2 is impressive but upon revisiting it it shows its lines more than the boy wizard, and it doesn't use technology as fully to convey the otherworldliness that it wants to achieve. It's a close race though (I, Robot, obviously, is in third).
And those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are you with me over at Hogwarts, or do you prefer the does what ever a spider can Tobey Maguire sequel? When do you think was the right year for Oscar to go five-wide for VFX? And, again, why did they skip Day After Tomorrow? Share below!
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