Oscar Poll: Best Visual Effects 2014

For our final Oscar poll today (yes, I promise that this is the last one!), let’s take a look at a technical category that we film nerds typically care a lot about: Best Visual Effects.

Is there any way that ‘Gravity’ doesn’t win this one? I’m sure that the VFX were competent in the other nominees, but c’mon, this one’s a gimme.

Which Movie WILL Win Best Visual Effects 2014?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Josh’s prediction: ‘Gravity’.

Were there any VFX movies this year that didn’t get nominated but you feel should have been? I’m surprised not to see ‘Pacific Rim’ or ‘Man of Steel’ in here, for example. They both certainly had visual effects more memorable than anything in ‘Star Trek into Darkness’.

8 comments

    • David Staschke

      I’ve noticed this trend too lately. The Golden Compass winning over Transformers, Hugo winning over Transformers 3, Life of Pie beating out The Avengers and Prometheus and the first Hobbit movie. They keep giving the Oscar to the best movie, not the movie with the best visual effects. Sorry but Hugo, Golden Compass, and Life of Pi all had many unrealistic/fake-looking/obviously CG effects. While fun and visually beautiful, that’s not what I would consider the “best.” Visual effects that fool you and that you don’t realize are visual effects are the one that are best.

      • Josh Zyber
        Author

        I wouldn’t really call The Golden Compass a “better” movie than Transformers. Frankly, they both sucked. As far as I can tell, what the Academy voters responded to in both that movie and Life of Pi was the CG animals being fairly convincing. Making a big robot look photorealistic is actually much easier than overcoming the “Uncanney Valley” effect of digital animals or people.

        With that said, I didn’t think that Golden Compass deserved the award that year. While most of the animals in the beginning looked pretty good, the polar bear stuff at the end was really, really cartoony and awful, and barely better than those old Coke commercials from the ’90s.

        • David Staschke

          Yeah, good point about the animals. It is much harder to render photo-realistic skin and fur than metal. I’m still pissed about Hugo though…

  1. Depending on the movie, VFX doesn’t have to be memorable to be good. The best VFX in many cases, are the ones you never know are there.

    In this company, though, Gravity should take this easily.

  2. NJScorpio

    I’ll be watching ‘Gravity’ this weekend, but I gotta say, I’m shocked ‘Pacific Rim’ wasn’t nominated.

    Of those nominated, as of right now, I’d vote for ‘Lone Ranger’ for it’s impressive practical effects.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *