Best Animated Feature - 2016: Zootopia, Moana, Kubo, Zucchini, Red Turtle

[WrathOfHan]

1. Zootopia

2. The Red Turtle

3. Finding Dory

4. Moana

5. Kubo

 

Dory definitely isn't locked but I don't see how it misses.

[Mojoguy]

What hurts Dory is that it is a sequel, BUT Dory might be SOOO big that it is impossible to ignore kind of like what happened with Frozen.

[Spidey Freak]

I think Dory may very well be the frontrunner still. Call me cynical but the Academy just does not take the BAF category all that seriously. As Damienroc had once observed, once the nominations are announced, it just becomes a Grammy style vote for the most popular/most $$ making nominee.

Edited June 19, 2016 by Spidey Freak

[cannastop]

5 hours ago, Spidey Freak said:

I think Dory may very well be the frontrunner still. Call me cynical but the Academy just does not take the BAF category all that seriously. As Damienroc had once observed, once the nominations are announced, it just becomes a Grammy style vote for the most popular/most $$ making nominee.

Have you forgotten when The Incredibles beat Shrek 2 at the Oscars? Or when Spirited Away won? Or even Rango. I didn't even know Rango won, actually.

Edited June 19, 2016 by cannastop

[Spidey Freak]

9 hours ago, cannastop said:

Have you forgotten when The Incredibles beat Shrek 2 at the Oscars? Or when Spirited Away won? Or even Rango. I didn't even know Rango won, actually.

 

I think the overwhelming critical reception of SA and TI were kind of hard to ignore. TI was nominated for Best Original Screenplay as well. If it had lost BAF to Shrek 2 then that would have been an upset. I suspect SA also had an edge because it gave the Academy a perfect opportunity to finally honor Miyazaki and his entire career.

 

OTOH the critical reception for Dory isn't that away from Zootopia's. And it comes from a more respected studio and a franchise that is beloved by many, starring a former Oscar host. I'll give you Rango though that was an actual surprise. Let's see, but I think voters will be very divided at the least.

[Ezen Baklattan]

I can still see Finding Dory missing. Moana and Kubo (if the relatively okay Boxtrolls could get in on a competitive year, the academy's clearly loving LAIKA), provided they live up to the hype, seem like assured nominations, and the indie lineup is strong enough this year that two might geed nominated. Disney might not campaign Zootopia actively to risk splitting votes with Moana, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of Zootopia or Dory misses the election.

[cannastop]

2 hours ago, Spaghetti said:

I can still see Finding Dory missing. Moana and Kubo (if the relatively okay Boxtrolls could get in on a competitive year, the academy's clearly loving LAIKA), provided they live up to the hype, seem like assured nominations, and the indie lineup is strong enough this year that two might geed nominated. Disney might not campaign Zootopia actively to risk splitting votes with Moana, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of Zootopia or Dory misses the election.

Why do you think Moana will be the favored one? It doesn't have the acclaim or financial success of Zootopia yet.

[Ezen Baklattan]

Maybe not yet, but with two of the most famous Disney directors at the helm, Lin Manuel Miranda doing the music, and then Disney's strong consistency, I'd definitely give Moana the idea that it has more probable prestige with the Oscars, provided it doesn't break Disney's high quality streak. That, and a film released in November is inevitably going to be fresher in the Academy's mind.

 

Zootopia is a fantastic film, not to mention a highly successful one, but I can't get LEGO movie comparisons out of my mind.

[cannastop]

7 minutes ago, Spaghetti said:

Maybe not yet, but with two of the most famous Disney directors at the helm, Lin Manuel Miranda doing the music, and then Disney's strong consistency, I'd definitely give Moana the idea that it has more probable prestige with the Oscars, provided it doesn't break Disney's high quality streak. That, and a film released in November is inevitably going to be fresher in the Academy's mind.

 

Zootopia is a fantastic film, not to mention a highly successful one, but I can't get LEGO movie comparisons out of my mind.

Well, Zootopia actually came out the week after the Oscars, which is an advantage over the February release of The Lego Movie. Plus, it's Disney, plus $1 billion. Harder to ignore, to say the least.

[BadAtGender]

On 6/19/2016 at 0:40 PM, cannastop said:

Have you forgotten when The Incredibles beat Shrek 2 at the Oscars? Or when Spirited Away won? Or even Rango. I didn't even know Rango won, actually.

 

Comparing to earlier years isn't as useful. I believe the nature of how the films are selected has changed, and it's highly unlikely we'll see a year with only three nominees again. So we can look at earlier years (2001-2010) for rough trends, but it's less applicable to how the Academy votes.

 

2011 does remain a strange year. I'd put it as the first in the new era (2010 was the last three nominee year), but it's true that Rango wasn't the highest grossing. I think there might have been some other factors at play. Rango had a non-animation director at the helm and Johnny Depp played a bit part of the film, which appeals to the actor branch (always the largest voting block). Cars 2 had the "cash grab" feel to it, and was a huge flip in quality compared to TS3 (You'd actually see that Pixar backlash come back again. While Brave won, it was original, and had a female director; MU didn't even score a nom, despite the technical achievement it had in comparison to DM2.)

 

Based on the overall trends, FD seems pretty damn likely to be the highest grossing animated film of the year. (I suppose Pets could outgross it, but even if it does, I doubt Illumination is going to score another nom unless they up their budgets considerably. Moana would need to be bigger than Frozen which is unlikely... though who knows what sort of effect LMM has on it. Hamilton's going to remain sold out until Frozen hits the Broadway stage.)

 

The question is really whether FD scores a nom. I think it will. The film is very good, technically, and even if it's derivative of the original in some ways, it does some very interesting new things. (I've seen very few films, period, that have as much care in looking at serious mental impairment.) It's not as good as Zootopia, IMO, either from a technical or storytelling standpoint, but I'm not sure that matters. It's hewing much closer to TS3 than MU.

 

What this means is we're probably looking at one of the most competitive years ever in terms of nominations. if Zoo and FD have two locked up, we're seeing a hard battle for the last three.

 

I still don't see how Kubo misses. Stop motion is too much of an inherent advantage.

 

Moana is going to depend entirely on quality. I think it'll be good and entertaining, but it needs to be great, and not just technically, to get there, because computer animation is held to a higher standard. I won't be surprised if we see a situation where it gets a mid-to-upper 80s RT score (as is typically for WDAS pre-Zootopia) and misses out on a BAF nom, but does score (and win) a Best Song nom. Erryone wants to give LMM his PEGOTarthur. I have a tough time seeing it ending up as good as Zootopia (Musker & Clements are well regarded vets, but even their absolute best film isn't as good as Zoo... and since Aladdin they've been... uneven) so Disney might be seeing its nomination votes split. The better film gets the nom, unless Moana is gobsmackingly good.

 

So, probably one or two free slots.

 

Finding Dory (likely win)

Zootopia

Kubo of the Two Strings

The Red Turtle

Moana (if, say, it's around the 95% RT mark) or something else.

[Jason]

2 hours ago, DamienRoc said:

Comparing to earlier years isn't as useful. I believe the nature of how the films are selected has changed, and it's highly unlikely we'll see a year with only three nominees again. So we can look at earlier years (2001-2010) for rough trends, but it's less applicable to how the Academy votes.

There hasn't been a rule change (or at least not one responsible for the change in the number of nominees). The rule has been if there are 16 or more films eligible for submission, there will be five nominees. If there are 13 to 15 films eligible, four nominees. Fewer than 13 films, three nominees. There have been five nominees in 2002, 2009, and 2011 onwards.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Jason

[Jonwo]

I hope but very much doubt Sausage Party get nominated. I imagine Sony will submit as eligible though. There is enough animated films from each studio to hit the 16 film mark to get five nominated films and not including indie films and foreign animated films.

 

Based on the reviews, the chances of The Secret Life of Pets getting nominated is zero.

 

I do think Tintin should have nominated in 2011 over either KFP2 and Puss in Boots, I get the feeling that Katzenberg basically bought out the vote to get DWA films in the running. 

Edited June 21, 2016 by Jonwo

[Jason]

On 6/18/2016 at 0:30 PM, yjs said:

Nevertheless, Zoo's 98% RT/$340M BO vs. Dory's 95% RT/$450M BO race would be one of the closest ones, if not the closest one ever.

 

Here are some other notable rivalries from the past.

 

(winners in bold)

2001: Shrek 88% RT/$267M BO vs. Monster's Inc 96% RT/$256M BO

2002: Spirited Away 97% RT/$10M BO vs. Lilo & Stitch 86% RT/$146M BO

2004: The Incredibles 97% RT/$261M BO vs. Shrek 2  88% RT/$441M BO

2006: Happy Feet 75% RT/ $198M BO vs. Cars 74% RT/$244M BO

2008: Wall-E 96% RT/$224M BO vs. Kung Fu Panda 86% RT/$215M BO

2011: Rango 87% RT/$123M BO vs. Kung Fu Panda 2 81% RT/$165M BO vs. Puss in Boots 84% RT/$149M BO

2012: Brave 78% RT/$237M BO vs. Wreck-It Ralph 87% RT/$189M BO

2014: Big Hero 6 89% RT/$223M BO vs. How to Train Your Dragon 2 91% RT/$177M BO.

 

I arranged the winners according to whether they did better than their rival in RT% and box office.

 

	Higher BO	Lower BO
Higher RT	Wall-E	Spirited Away, The Incredibles, Happy Feet, Rango
Lower RT	Shrek, Brave, Big Hero 6

 

It's a pretty small sample size, but there seems to be a slight edge for the films with higher RT compared to higher BO. There are a number of examples not on this list where lower RT/higher BO films won over their rivals, but in these cases the lower BO rival has a much lower BO and is from one the foreign/indie studios.

I honestly think Zootopia has an edge over Finding Dory. Moana could definitely be a threat, but I'll reserve judgement until it actually releases.

[AniNate]

Will be very interesting this year. Zoo has the higher RT and more obvious sociopolitical subtext but Dory will likely do better at the box office, has the later release date and reviews almost as good enough to make it worthy of consideration. And Moana could still blow both away.

[Spidey Freak]

IMO this is officially the most cutthroat year for BAF yet, even if Moana underwhelms.

 

7 hours ago, DamienRoc said:

(Musker & Clements are well regarded vets, but even their absolute best film isn't as good as Zoo...)

 

According to whom? Which is their absolute best film? I'm assuming it's between Mermaid and Aladdin. Is it possible to objectively say either of those aren't as good as Zootopia? How do you measure the brilliance of Ashman, Menken and co. in contrast to Zootopia?  

[cannastop]

@DamienRoc

 

Gotta second a motion here. What do you think is John Musker and Ron Clements' best movie?

 

Granted, I agree that Zootopia is better than all of their movies.

[BadAtGender]

Their best extant film is Aladdin, which might arguably be the best of the Renaissance, but it does have weaknesses that somewhat typify that era of Disney animation. Robin Williams' Genie is brilliant, but has a reliance upon pop culture that dates some of the jokes.

 

The Little Mermaid is also great, but it's more for what it did (spur on the Renaissance and a massive increased interest in animated musicals) rather than the film itself, which has some thin characters and (today, at least) questionable gender messages.

 

The Princess and the Frog is conceptually great. Tiana is an excellent character and a perfect update to bring the Princess tropes to contemporary sensibilities. But it's got really uneven delivery and in a lot of ways it feels stuck in the 90s. Not because of the animation, but because of the storytelling. Also, they should have had Anika Noni Rose sing more. Woman's got pipes, let her use them.

 

The Great Mouse Detective might be the best film in that pre-Renaissance era, but it's not up to the same level.

 

Hercules is a mess. I really enjoy it, but it's a film that has very little clue about what it wants to be.

 

Treasure Planet I'd honestly forgotten they directed until I was looking at a list.

 

 

By critical consensus, Zootopia is the better received film than any out of the Renaissance. Based on their history, I don't see Clements and Musker delivering something on that level as a film. Their storytelling and characterization sensibilities don't quite get there.

 

Now, if we're talking about music, then, sure, Moana should be well on top. The music is the weakest part of Zootopia, though.

[Fancyarcher]

1. Zootopia

Finding Dory

Moana

Kubo

The Red Turtle or some other lesser more obscure foreign animated film.

 

I think Dory's too big of a film for the academy to ignore.

[Jason]

Do we know for a fact that The Red Turtle will receive a US release this year? All I can find is that Sony acquired the North American distribution rights.

[yjs]

5 hours ago, Jason said:

Do we know for a fact that The Red Turtle will receive a US release this year? All I can find is that Sony acquired the North American distribution rights.

 

haven't got an official US release date yet.