Further clouding the matter, is it possible that a movie like Sky Captain will be considered closer to an animated film by future generations? Let me explain: When I saw Sky Captain in 2004, the special effects were state of the art, and looked very convincing, if deliberately stylized. But, by odd coincidence, I watched it again last night, and compared to, say, Avatar, it is quite cartoony. As special effects progress, I suspect that the look of Sky Captain will be considered “charming” and “artistic,” not “realistic,” similar to the way we view the works of Ray Harryhausen. And, since the look of SC isn’t confined to a monster, or an army of skeletons, but encompasses the entire world…
As of right now, I would say that Sky Captain is not an animated film, but just barely, because the director wasn’t going for a strictly animated look. I would also say that Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly are animated films, also just barely, because the director was going for an animated look.
I think that the ‘animated’ distinction is one importantly uniquely to awards categories, and it’s an ‘inferior’ category - that is, one you nominate your film for if it can’t survive the ‘superior’ category. For example, for any awards show with a ‘comedy’ category, it’s clear that pretty much no comedy film will ever win over a dramatic film, which is why they create a separate category. Same with animated films. I believe films are self-nominated, so which category a film ends up in tends to be whatever category they think they have a chance of winning or at least placing in…
I think a key point to add into the mix is that the people who make animated films don’t like it when their movies are separated into their own sub-genre.
Really, any animated film can be a drama, a comedy, an adventure, a romance, or an action film, just like live-action. The distinction of the art form used to portray that drama should be irrelevant - as long as it’s projected onto a cinematic screen, it’s just like any other movie.