OVP: Best Animated Feature Film (2002)
The Nominees Were...
Chris Wedge, Ice Age
Chris Sanders, Lilo & Stitch
Jeffrey Katzenberg, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away
Ron Clements, Treasure Planet
My Thoughts: Whenever you talk about the animated feature film category, you inevitably talk about Disney. 2002 is a weird year, because it's not entirely clear if Disney lost this or not (unlike 2001, 2006, & 2018, where they had a clear loss, their only three to date). Disney had two films that were very much in contention for the Oscar and that were clearly coming from the Mouse House. But it's worth noting that Spirited Away, a movie we'll kick off with for our discussion, was distributed by Disney, so while it wasn't a Disney feature exactly, it was a film that the studio wanted to succeed in a way that, say, Ice Age wouldn't (though, of course, because we live in a world where the entertainment industry eats itself whole, Ice Age is now also a Disney property).
Spirited Away is a remarkable movie, and possibly the high-mark of Hayao Miyazaki's career, or at least when his films went from being arthouse to being mainstream. It was the first Studio Ghibli film to cross $10 million in the United States (based largely on its Oscar win), and made nearly $275 million on its initial run, putting it in the same company as Scooby-Doo (and ultimately out-earning both of Disney's 2002 releases). It's honestly one of my favorite movies, so I'm not going to be impartial here (it's winning), a gorgeous, tender animation that lends to a really fascinating story and great vocal performances whether you're looking at the original or dubbed version. I love anything related to Alice in Wonderland, and this is the best spin I've seen of the story (yes, even outdoing the original Disney film).
The other box office mammoth (pun intended) that came within the same conversation as Spirited Away was Ice Age. Ice Age is a weird discussion point because the first film is pretty plain-there's not a lot of special going on here save for Scrat, the hilarious saber-toothed squirrel who steals every corner of the movie he occupies. The animation is fine, the story predictable, and the vocal work is not all that inspired. What's weird about this movie is that it launched a $3 billion franchise, which has stretched five films, as well as a Disney+ TV series. It's bizarre to me that this was the movie that somehow did that, and proof that it used to be easier to impress enough to get a proper franchise out of your work (can you imagine, say, The Bad Guys getting a five-film franchise that approached those kinds of numbers?). It's also a testament to just what dire straits Disney was in during the 2000's that this took up a lot of the oxygen.
I am burying this in the middle of my article because I am slightly older than a number of my followers/readers on social media, and as a result I do not have the childhood fascination with Lilo & Stitch younger Millennials do. The movie doesn't really work-it's too thin, even if the animation has aged well, and Stitch is cute. The plot itself is so saccharine, nearly unbearable. This was one of the last films from Disney until Princess and the Frog where the studio clearly was catching the cultural zeitgeist (you saw this movie everywhere), but it also was part of that bizarre Dark Age period between 2000-2008 where nothing that was coming out could remotely compared to the Renaissance movies that had set an impossibly high bar throughout the 1990's. This is fine-it only works if you were a kid when you saw it, and I was a teenager.
Treasure Planet, on the other hand, works at any age and it is a damned shame more people weren't into this movie at the time. The animation is heavenly, with the 2-dimensional drawing combined with the 3-dimensional computer animation...it's gorgeous, perhaps the only movie you can say that about from Disney (note, not Pixar) between Tarzan and Princess and the Frog. I also thought the plot was fun, with a space spoof on the Robert Louis Stevenson tale (though I could've done without Martin Short's sidekick BEN, and I say that as an ardent Marty Short fan). Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the lead, though, is strong, as is Brian Murray as Long John Silver.
Our final nomination is Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, also a hit, and weirdly a movie that decades later would spawn a sequel. Of the movies, this leaves the least impression in the memory, which is weird because it's one of the more unusual films of the bunch. The choice not to give the horses their own language, and instead have them speaking the language of horses (the only animal that "talks" in the movie is the titular Spirit, and only through narration), is kind of cool, making it have an art film aesthetic that you wouldn't have expected from a commercial play. Unfortunately, it doesn't do anything with this idea, and is quite dull. Points for trying, I guess?
Other Precursor Contenders: This was in the era before the Golden Globes had a nomination for Best Animated Feature Film, and as a result our only significant precursor is the Annie Awards, which for some reason nominated Monsters Inc despite that film premiering in early November (i.e. it should've been a 2001 nominee). Spirited Away won, beating Monsters, Ice Age, Lilo & Stitch, and Spirit. In terms of sixth place, I genuinely have no idea. I don't know if The Cat Returns was eligible with Oscar, and honestly they hadn't gotten to the point where they nominated animated films with little following (that started to happen more by the end of the decade), and the only other remotely strong hit was Return to Neverland, which was ill-received by critics. Maybe The Wild Thornberrys Movie, which was nominated for Best Original Song, so it could be on their radar? Honestly, the better question is which films get cut if it was only three nominees.
Films I Would Have Nominated: This was a terrible year to have five films nominated, and so I'll just say we should have edited rather than add new names to the list.
Films I Would Have Nominated: This was a terrible year to have five films nominated, and so I'll just say we should have edited rather than add new names to the list.
Oscar’s Choice: Spirited Away is a win that aged so well that many assume it was a foregone conclusion in 2002. It was not. Ice Age was the frontrunner given its box office, and the bad politics of what a Spirited Away victory would send to the clearly flailing productions (Treasure Planet and Lilo Stitch) that Disney wasn't seeing a victory for (and weren't as critically/commercially-acclaimed as their 1990's counterparts) made it an underdog. However, AMPAS had the good sense to "put the performance above the politics" and give Miyazaki his only trophy in this category (to date).
My Choice: It's Spirited Away, and it ain't close. One of the best films to ever win this award. Behind it is Treasure Planet, Ice Age, Spirit, and Lilo & Stitch, in order.
And that's our Animated Feature film race. Does anyone really want to make the case that it should be something other than Spirited Away, or are we all good saying Oscar made the right call here? Do you think of this as a "Disney loss" if we're keeping track of when the studio missed? And genuinely-who was the sixth place option here, as I have no clue? Share your thoughts below!
Also in 2002: Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2002
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