Will Sci-Fi Movies ever win an Oscar ??? (1 Viewer)

Kachi Khatri · Feb 7, 2003

Here's my beef...

What will it take for a Sci-Fi flick to win an Oscar???

Don't you folks think it's time the Acadamey Awards recognize Sci-Fi as serious contenders for Oscars? :frowning:

In the past decade or two, we've seen some great sch-fi movies.

Why does it nearly always have to be a drama? Come on! We all know there are many great movies of other geners.

I don't know much of the past Oscar history but I think it was a breakthrough for "Silence of the Lambs", A thriller/horror movie. A great Oscar winner!

Let's hope the Aacademy does something about this!

Kachi

Chris Atkins · Feb 7, 2003

ANH, ESB, Blade Runner, Alien, Aliens, Matrix...

Could Minority Report be the next victim?

Tommy G · Feb 7, 2003

Here are a list of some that should have won:
1964 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey
1971 A Clockwork Orange
1980 The Empire Strikes Back

Chris Atkins · Feb 7, 2003

2001 takes the cake...man I love that movie!

What about ANH over Annie Hall...should ANH have won?

Jason Seaver · Feb 7, 2003

Well, to be fair, there are many more good contemporary/period dramas released every year than there are good science fiction movies. I love sf, but most of what gets released is action movies with laser guns. Then, when a real piece of quality, thought-provoking sf comes out (say, A.I. or Solaris), it's not something that most of the people in the audience are used to wrapping their brains around; the ideas are too abstract.

I'm pretty sure Minority Report won't get nominated for anything but technical awards, and it's a crying shame, because... Well, because it's the best live-action movie of the year, but also because it's one of the most accessible intelligent sf movies to come out in a long time, and is filled with well-respected people. Unfortunately, it's got the misfortune of coming out the same year as The Two Towers (which will, sadly, suck up all the support for sf/f) and Catch Me If You Can (a lesser movie by the same director that was released in a more Oscar-friendly slot).

Chris Atkins · Feb 7, 2003

It's too bad TTT will get the nod over Minority Report...heck, it's too bad there is not room for more than one fantasy/sci-fi movie.

Sean Campbell · Feb 7, 2003

I've never been able to understand the stigma towards genre films when awards time rolls around. After all, fantasy fiction is the core of all storytelling - tribesmen sitting around blazing fires in prehistoric times weren't exactly telling each other legal thrillers now were they?
Imaginative fiction ( sci-fi,fantasy and horror ) is the most important genre that has ever existed. It dares to ask the question of who we are and where we've come from, dares to speculate what the future holds and if there is more to the universe than we know. All legends, myths and religious texts contain strong examples of the fantastic - it's only natural that this deeply engrained quest for 'magic' would carry over into the modern storytelling technique of film. So why are movies of this nature passed over for awards then?
Why was the excellent 2001 passed over for an oscar in favour of 'Oliver'?
Why were Steven Spielberg and James Cameron only given an oscar when they had made a non genre film? As a reward for steering away from sci-fi?
Why didn't 'Solaris' or 'Stalker' get awards for best foreign language movie?
I guess most oscar judges are just too rooted in reality to be capable of fully enjoying these types of movies.

Jason Seaver · Feb 7, 2003

I guess most oscar judges are just too rooted in reality to be capable of fully enjoying these types of movies.

They're from the entertainment industry. I don't think being "rooted in reality" is the problem.

Still, I think SF/F comes by its stigma somewhat honestly. Especially science fiction; if you go to that section in Best Buy, there often doesn't seem a whole lot of middle ground between the flashy but dumb-as-rocks stuff like Armageddon and the cerebral things like 2001 or A.I. which tackle subjects that few members of the audience have had occasion to think about.

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David Rogers · Feb 7, 2003

Particularly when extremely well made, well written, well told, and well directed INTELLIGENT films like Equilibrium get hammered by idiot critics. Then those same critics go and give a passing grade to the latest crap aliens-and-guns SF flick.

Empire deserved a nom. 2001 deserved a nom. Raiders deserved a nom. AI deserved a nom. Minority Report and LOTR:TTT deserve a nom this year (for direction and picture, not technical, though their effects teams deserve noms for various technical awards).

I gave up on the Oscars the year Shakespeare in Love won over Saving Private Ryan. The entire body of the Oscar voters I officially lost all faith in when that travesty happened. I didn't and still don't see any possible realm of comprehension where SiL is even remotely on the same level of storycraft as SPR.

Thus, the Oscars are a sideshow with excellent marketing as far as I'm concerned.

Scott Kimball · Feb 7, 2003

Okay... this is annoying...

ANH?
ESB?

Somebody, quick, find my secret decoder ring!

:frowning:

Simon Massey · Feb 7, 2003

A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back

But you knew that anyway

TheLongshot · Feb 7, 2003

Another film that should had more recognition from the acadamy was Contact, but that was a tough year with some really big films (Including the boat.)

Actually, 1997 was a really good year for SF, with both Contact and Gattica. Course, no one saw Gattica...

Actually, Jeffery Wells is thinking that this might be the year that the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre will be taken seriously by the Acadamy, with the triple threat of RotK and Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. We'll see.

Jason

Chris Atkins · Feb 7, 2003

Gattaca....I forgot about that one! Definitely one of the best films I saw in 1997.

Contact was well made, but I didn't connect too well with the underlying themes.

Mark Kalzer · Feb 7, 2003

I find that Science Fiction too often gets the stigma of being regared purely as action type. While I do enjoy films like The Matrix, The Terminator 1 & 2 and such, it often seems like good science fiction films go a wee bit out of their way to throw in an excuse for action. I can think of The 6th Day as the best example. But Contact proved to me that Science Fiction films need not be action packed. They can, and very well should be considered as deep and meaningful dramatic art.

I'm finding this same problem with the Next Generation Star Trek films. While so many of the series best shows were free of any violence, (The Inner Light, The Offspring, The Measure of a Man, The Drumhead, Darmok), the movies have been structured like full blown James Bond style action films, including a typical evil villian who dies at the end, the action climax, and oh, that terribly out of place off-road jeep scene in Nemisis. Picard is an ass-kicking hero, (How many honestly go into the theatre thinking "Let's see how Picard kicks ass this time!") and most depressingly, everything in Nemisis was solved by way of fighting. I just find that terribly unsatisfying, especially after so many TNG shows where Picard went far out of his way to prevent anyone from being killed. I know that The Motion Picture wasn't too well received by the mainstream audience for being pure science fiction, but I for one love that movie. Ever since then, the only Trek film which doesn't follow that kind of formula was The Voyage Home.

If science fiction needs to be regarded as a serious genre, it needs to free itself of the stigma of gut-wrenching action. It's very possible for a science fiction movie to be a serious drama in the same vein any other Academy Award worthy film would be, see A.I., 2001, The Abyss, Contact

Chris Atkins · Feb 7, 2003

I know that The Motion Picture wasn't too well received by the mainstream audience for being pure science fiction, but I for one love that movie.

Here, here. And the movie only got better in the Director's Edition.

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Jason Seaver · Feb 7, 2003

Actually, Jeffery Wells is thinking that this might be the year that the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre will be taken seriously by the Acadamy, with the triple threat of RotK and Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. We'll see.

Hmmm... While I guess I just have to accept that most people who like Lord Of The Rings like it more than me (I like it but don't love it), I don't know if I'd pin hopes of being "taken seriously" on the Matrix sequels - I enjoyed the first one, but I think the series is a pretty good example of the "action movies with lasers" idea. It's among the better examples of that type of movie, but I'd hardly call the series much more than light entertainment.

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David Rogers · Feb 7, 2003

I don't know if I'd pin hopes of being "taken seriously" on the Matrix sequels - I enjoyed the first one, but I think the series is a pretty good example of the "action movies with lasers" idea. It's among the better examples of that type of movie, but I'd hardly call the series much more than light entertainment.

Okay, that's such a sad thing to say. Does *any* film with *any* action in it automatically become "just light entertainment"?

Matrix is brilliant because it takes a well written and moderately thoughtful concept and wraps eye popping action around it. It asks questions about the nature of reality and how it may or may not affect you.

But hey, it must have just been light entertainment.

It's not your fault Jason, as others in the Terminator 2 thread recently said they'd never had time to notice any sort of story or character development in either Terminator film since they were always only paying attention to "stuff blowing up".

Attitudes like that PISS ME OFF!!!!! I like movies that have story and good action where appropriate; but these reactions mean to be taken seriously everyone in your film has to keep their hands in their pockets and settle differences with words.

S-I-G-H

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Chris Atkins · Feb 7, 2003

Attitudes like that PISS ME OFF!!!!!

Master Yoda just called for you...he said it was urgent.

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Jason Seaver · Feb 7, 2003

It's not your fault Jason, as others in the Terminator 2 thread recently said they'd never had time to notice any sort of story or character development in either Terminator film since they were always only paying attention to "stuff blowing up".

Or, I could have legitimately thought that The Matrix wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

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Dan Rudolph · Feb 7, 2003

While not sci-fi, Carrie got some major awards way back.

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