Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

um which ones lol

Big Hero 6 is one. Dunno what the other is.

Oh yeah. I think that was it.

The Incredibles.

Neither of them really count for reasons I mentioned before.

ITSV is a win for the genre whereas those two were "superhero cartoons for people who don't like superheroes".

Big Hero 6 is a more straightforward superhero movie than Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy.

A lot of people say The Iron Giant is the best Superman movie too. But the fact is that it's not a Superman movie or a superhero movie. You can call it a Spiritual Adaptation, but a spiritual adaption is not to be mistaken or confused with an actual adaptation. Likewise, Disney's Hercules was modeled on Superman, and also Rocky.

Big Hero 6 drastically altered the comics it adapted from. The original character wasn't called Hiro Hamada, he was an older mercenary who killed people. Baymax was a green monster robot. Yeah superhero movies change characters too but not to the extent of "Take the title, change the genre, make the characters and tone entirely different". It was more inspired by The Incredibles than by any superhero comics and other stuff.

The people behind that project were offered to look at and find stuff from Marvel to adapt, they chose the most obscure and little known properties specifically to do something that wouldn't be part of the genre. At the end of the day, Disney's animation vertical stands at remote from and Marvel and its superhero stuff, and the animation team are always going to look and approach things from their own point of view and perspective rather than serve the characters and story of the license. And I don't blame them, and that's to their credit and benefit. But that also means that the scraps they offer should not be considered the real thing.

I don't know where we can go with that purist attitude. That's like calling Smash not a fighting game.

And why does the Disney movie sound more like a superhero story than the comic?

Edited by RAlexa21th on Feb 25th 2019 at 7:17:25 AM

Yeah, not a fan of this No True Scotsman thinking. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

When you say it feels like a superhero movie you are saying it feels like a 50s Silver Age superhero story, i.e. something quaint and old-fashioned. When the superhero genre has had a lot of variations and shifts across the period in styles and approaches.

In terms of the Sci Fi Ghetto and other stuff, it becomes a problem if the only entries recognized or rewarded as worthy of consideration is stuff that is promoted and praised as "more than just a science-fiction film" or "more than a fantasy". Many fantasy authors complained about Harry Potter because the author and others kept saying that it's about morals and not about magic or she wasn't steeped in fantasy literature when she wrote it, or you know Margaret Atwood saying her dystopian novels aren't science-fiction. They may have reasons to do that, it might be good ones, but it doesn't lift the boats of the authors who are in that genre.

It at times feels like "appropriation" you know some cartoon adopts superhero concepts, makes fun of capes and monologuing, and gets praised to the hilt and gets awards but regular superhero genre pieces don't get credit. And now that ITSV wins, people try and deny it the claim of being the most acclaimed superhero movie by insisting that non-representative examples came before. ITSV is a licensed superhero story, it wears its comic origins on its sleeves, like a badge of honor, and is a traditional superhero story in every respect.

That is evidently wrong, and a false dilemma.

I don't know how you think that will help your case.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Feb 25th 2019 at 7:48:53 AM

Let's put it more simply: ITSV is the first superhero film not made by Disney to win best animated picture.

How about ITSV is the first film to win an Oscar that features an identifiable known superhero.

I can get behind that, though I don't think that the distinction is that special.

Thus said, I do think that ITSV will lead to more direct adaptations of existing comic books. No need to relegate them to direct to video after it has been proven that they can make the big bucks without the Disney name attached to it. That is pretty much the important part here, not an award in an category in which nobody cares if it is a superhero movie or not, because the mind-set is "it's just for kids" anyway.

Or that too.

…Wait, actually, isn't this the first non-Disney animated film to win?

Edited by Lyendith on Feb 25th 2019 at 5:03:42 PM

Shrek won the very first one

Shrek won, as did Miyazaki's Spirited Away. And I think one another Dreamworks movie won. Shrek I think went against Monsters Inc, which isn't one of the stronger Pixar movies.

I generally do think a Best Animated Feature award was a good call for the same reason you have Best Documentary. They aren't made the same way as others. Not bound by the same rules. I know a lot of people feel Beauty and the Beast was Best Picture and so on. But it's a tough sell to ask actors and actresses (the largest voting bloc in the academy) that a movie with cartoons is better than ones with actual human faces and expressions, body language, and everything. I also have the same problems with getting on the Andy Serkis should win Oscar for Gollum train because many point out that, Serkis' Gollum wasn't entirely mo-cap. And Ahmad Best who created the first all CGI character for The Phantom Menace and who always feels that the Jar Jar backlash denied him the credit that Serkis got, points out that he worked extensively with the animation team and others to create Jar Jar and has always been critical of Serkis trying to claim full credit.

The big problem is when The Lion King 2019 comes. That movie is "live-action" but it has all CGI lions. Unlike the Jungle Book where Mowgli at least was the real boy played by an actor. So Lion King 2019 is definitely as much an animated movie as the first one was.

That's what I mean when I say ITSV was a win for the genre.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Feb 25th 2019 at 8:14:00 AM

Oh yeah, Spirited Away. Wasn't there The Prince of Egypt too?

The Academy still disrespects the Animated Feature category. The released quotes from members still show they never watched all the nominees, and many even just asked their kids which ones were good instead.

I think Prince of Egypt was before they established the award category

The other Dreamworks one was Wallace & Gromit Curse of the Were Rabbit, which was a co-production

also Happy Feet and Rango won in 2006 and 2011 respectively

Edited by Nouct on Feb 25th 2019 at 8:29:05 AM

That's a good question though. I can't remember any of the Disney live-action remakes that won an Oscar, though I know they won a few.

Prince of Egypt was before the category came into being. It originated in 2001. And the number of non-Disney movies winning include: Shrek, Spirited Away (First two years), Wallace and Gromit, Happy Feet, Rango, and now ITSV.

Considering that feature length animation is 1) Expensive, 2) Monopolized by Disney (because they have resources to fund it), it's a miracle that as many non-Disney movies won in a category not even 20 years old. If you see 2001-2006, the first 6 years, Disney won 2 (Finding Nemo, The Incredibles). The Incredibles owes its victory to the fact that its competitors were Shark Tale and Shrek 2.

No, The Prince of Egypt came out in 1998, three years too early to contend for Best Animated Feature.

EDIT:

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Feb 25th 2019 at 11:29:32 AM

I think, Jack, that I do understand what you’re getting at, in that The Incredibles and Big Hero 6 aren’t exactly traditional superhero movies, and thus Spider-Verse is more of a straightforward win for the genre. I can get behind that. I think my issue is more the somewhat dogmatic insistence that they don’t count as superhero movies, period.

There have been 18 awards given out for best animated picture. Pixar won nine of them (the first two before they belonged to Disney btw, so in fact, Disney didn't won a single of award in the first six years of the introduction of the award), The Disney Animation Studios three (Frozen was actually their very first win after over a decade of missing out on the award), Dreamworks once (and sorry, I don't think that Shrek was better than Monsters Inc), Studio Ghibli once (Spirited Away), Aardman once (Wallace and Gromit), Nickelodeon once (Rango), and now Sony once.

One has to add, though, that some studios simply had a bad luck with their release schedule. Ie Coraline was released in the same year as Up, How to Train Your Dragon really had no chance against Toy Story 3, Kubo and the two Strings was up against Zootopia, and there was naturally 2012, the year in which Rise of the Guardians didn't even get nominated, and Wreck it Ralph and Paranormal somehow lost against Brave - to this day easily the most controversial year.

Edited by Swanpride on Feb 25th 2019 at 8:32:19 AM