If you were an Academy member, for whom would you vote?
Full Disclosure: I didn’t see Prometheus or Snow White/Huntsman.
While The Avengers and certainly The Hobbit sure had a LOT of visual effects, I voted for Life of Pi, because 1) Richard Parker was utterly convincing - had I not known he was a CGI tiger going in, I would have wondered how they coaxed a real tiger into that performance; and 2) the look of the movie was stunning, whereas the other two had just the typical “CGI extravaganza” look to them.
The Hobbit should not get it, because the whole Goblin Town sequence looked like something out of a George Lucas overkill sequence (and yes, I know the OP has actually worked for George Lucas). That scene could have come out of any of the 3* Star Wars* prequels.
A similar point for The Avengers, though, is that the whole movie falls apart if the Hulk looks even a little bit silly. Sure, kudos to Life of Pi for making a CGI tiger look like a real one – but making a green cartoon look like a brawny and menacing Mark Ruffalo is a triumph that could’ve gone very wrong. He needs to be a manlike presence genuinely interacting with the other characters, scaring the hell out of other people who can smell his sweat, instead of being a goofy and unreal image.
I’ve only seen The Avengers, so I didn’t vote. But if I was an Academy Member, I’d do what many of them do and vote for my friends.
OK, so I haven’t seen Life of Pi - but part of the reason I haven’t seen it is that the visual effects in the trailer look absolutely horrible.
I have not seen Snow White but I doubt it achieved the same level of, uh, achievement, as the the ones I did see.
The visual effects of Pi were phenominal. Not just Richard Parker, but all the sea/storm/underwater shots as well. The shots of the lifeboat looking up from underwater so that the boat appeared to be floating in a sea of stars. The luminescent whale. The island of meerkats.
The Avenger effects were good, and convincing. Hulk looked real. The flying aircraft carrier was convincing. The battle scenes were epic. But Life of Pi gets my vote because it was sheer visual poetry from beginning to end.
Yeah, I agree: Avengers was amazing, but Life of Pi was beautiful.
The effects in Life of Pi are stunning, and not just the animals. If that’s your reason for not seeing it, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
And who should know better than the man who directed Life of Pi. Nice little irony, there.
I have seen all 5, Prometheus and Snow White on DVD, the others on the big screen.
I would vote for The Avengers because I want it to win an Oscar, secure in the knowledge that Life of Pi or Snow White will probably win it.
That had never occurred to me! But very true.
What Pi does is short of miraculous, since for most of the movie, the tiger and the ocean is all there is, and it stays intensely believable throughout.
The quality of the work across-the-board this year is generally very good (The Hobbit was a bit too same-old-same-old), but Ang’s film gets my vote.
I’m surprised that “The Dark Knight Rises” didn’t get an effects nod, or any technical nominations for that matter.
I have seen all 5 and it was no contest: Life of Pi. Just absolutely breathtaking in its beauty.
Life of Pi…the CGI Richard Parker convincingly completed the “impossible” trifecta in movie making/directing…water, child, animal.