OVP: Best Visual Effects (2005)
The Nominees Were...
Dean Wright, Bill Westernhofer, Jim Berney, & Scott Farrar, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers, & Richard Taylor, King Kong
Dennis Muren, Pablo Helman, Randal M. Dultra, & Daniel Sudick, War of the Worlds
Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers, & Richard Taylor, King Kong
Dennis Muren, Pablo Helman, Randal M. Dultra, & Daniel Sudick, War of the Worlds
My Thoughts: Just getting in under the buzzer (I'm goaling myself to have two of these a week done so we stick to a ten-week schedule), we move from Makeup into the Visual Effects category. This is a weird time frame for the Academy in this category. The field is itching to get to five-wide at this point (it wouldn't do so until 2010), but the competition was teaming with enough options that there were years that you easily could have gone five-wide without any sort of embarrassment to the category. 2005 was one of those contests-a year brimming with blockbusters and impressive visual feasts in this category, none so big as one of the Grand Tetons of visual effects, King Kong.
Coming off of the Lord of the Rings movies must have been expectations hell for Peter Jackson, who had made three truly mesmerizing pictures in a row, and with them really revolutionized what we expect from an "epic." It makes sense he wouldn't go into another series again, and like a weirdly large number of filmmakers in recent years, his first instinct wasn't to create something new, but instead to go with a remake. We'll discuss Kong quite a bit in the coming weeks, but I think it's worth noting that I was a fan (albeit a fan who doesn't revisit the film as often as some other movies of 2005). Even the detractors have to admit the visual effects are glorious. Andy Serkis' stop-motion work is mesmerizing, creating a creature that feels authentic and real (it helps that Serkis is a genuinely good actor doing this), but pretty much all of the effects are on-point. The battle with the dinosaur, the soaring New York City of the 1930's-it all comes together flawlessly, and the matte work in some of the Skull Island scenes hasn't aged at all.
It's kind of hard to compete with a film like Kong, with unlimited budget and Jackson just coming off of a landmark VFX trilogy. This shows in Chronicles, which never quite lives up to comparisons to either Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, both of which were inspirations. The film's setting and some of the woods & snow effects are lovely, but the battle scenes are less impressive, and Aslan falls too far into the uncanny valley for my taste. It's hard to judge this on a curve (the CGI here would be unacceptable today), but comparing Kong to Narnia it's obvious that sometimes a budget can buy you a better movie. Still, this isn't a tossaway nomination-it's just not in the same league as what Jackson was doing at the time.
War of the Worlds compares better to Kong than Narnia, mostly because they're competing in different fields. War is reliant on aliens and such technology, but it's not a "create a creature" sort of feature like Narnia with Aslan or Kong with the title role. Instead, this is a well-mounted action film, with Tom Cruise also at the peak of his powers, and though the film got a bad rap in retrospect, I don't think this is due to the effects. The action scenes are explosive, huge, and incredible in scale, with entire city blocks being demolished (believably) in a matter of seconds. War is the type of VFX film that would get cited throughout the 90's but would basically be unthinkable as a winner in the CGI-dominated fields of the 2010's. There is a serious question how it made it into this lineup considering some of the competition (and the film getting a bit maligned by early-stage fanboys), but it's well-constructed and the effects are good (at least until we see the alien faces).
Coming off of the Lord of the Rings movies must have been expectations hell for Peter Jackson, who had made three truly mesmerizing pictures in a row, and with them really revolutionized what we expect from an "epic." It makes sense he wouldn't go into another series again, and like a weirdly large number of filmmakers in recent years, his first instinct wasn't to create something new, but instead to go with a remake. We'll discuss Kong quite a bit in the coming weeks, but I think it's worth noting that I was a fan (albeit a fan who doesn't revisit the film as often as some other movies of 2005). Even the detractors have to admit the visual effects are glorious. Andy Serkis' stop-motion work is mesmerizing, creating a creature that feels authentic and real (it helps that Serkis is a genuinely good actor doing this), but pretty much all of the effects are on-point. The battle with the dinosaur, the soaring New York City of the 1930's-it all comes together flawlessly, and the matte work in some of the Skull Island scenes hasn't aged at all.
It's kind of hard to compete with a film like Kong, with unlimited budget and Jackson just coming off of a landmark VFX trilogy. This shows in Chronicles, which never quite lives up to comparisons to either Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, both of which were inspirations. The film's setting and some of the woods & snow effects are lovely, but the battle scenes are less impressive, and Aslan falls too far into the uncanny valley for my taste. It's hard to judge this on a curve (the CGI here would be unacceptable today), but comparing Kong to Narnia it's obvious that sometimes a budget can buy you a better movie. Still, this isn't a tossaway nomination-it's just not in the same league as what Jackson was doing at the time.
War of the Worlds compares better to Kong than Narnia, mostly because they're competing in different fields. War is reliant on aliens and such technology, but it's not a "create a creature" sort of feature like Narnia with Aslan or Kong with the title role. Instead, this is a well-mounted action film, with Tom Cruise also at the peak of his powers, and though the film got a bad rap in retrospect, I don't think this is due to the effects. The action scenes are explosive, huge, and incredible in scale, with entire city blocks being demolished (believably) in a matter of seconds. War is the type of VFX film that would get cited throughout the 90's but would basically be unthinkable as a winner in the CGI-dominated fields of the 2010's. There is a serious question how it made it into this lineup considering some of the competition (and the film getting a bit maligned by early-stage fanboys), but it's well-constructed and the effects are good (at least until we see the alien faces).
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 effects-laden film prize went to King Kong, besting Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, while supporting went with Kingdom of Heaven over Jarhead and Memoirs of a Geisha. BAFTA had five nominees (as Oscar should have by this point), also picking King Kong over Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter. The Visual Effects branch does bakeoffs, so we know that Revenge of the Sith, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman Begins, and Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire (again-why was this only three-wide as any of these would've made respectable nominees?), and my gut says it was Star Wars who was in fourth-this is the only live-action film in the series to ever miss, and so you know it was close.
Films I Would Have Nominated: A tight race here, but I'd definitely have found room for Star Wars-Lucas created terrible movies with the prequels, but they looked incredible and ushered in a new age of visual effects. I'd also probably go with Batman Begins just slightly over Harry Potter, as while the dragons of HP4 were spectacular, I think the practical effects of Batman are just slightly more intriguing. Great year though.
Oscar’s Choice: There was no one that was taking on Kong, and honestly Oscar didn't even nominate some of the movies that might have tried.
My Choice: An easy call for Kong, the best of them all this year, with War in silver and Narnia at the bronze.
And those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are we all basically on the same page that Kong was impossible to beat here? How did Harry Potter and Star Wars both get bumped for War of the Worlds? And what year do you think was the correct one to move VFX to a five-wide category Share below!
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