Should There Be a Sci-Fi Category At the Oscars?

An anonymous reader writes "In this chat with the originator of the light-saber in Star Wars and the Nostromo in Alien, director Roger Christian argues that the Academy Awards needs a special category for 'best science-fiction film.' It's a thorny subject, since such a new category would inevitably either get lumped in with fantasy/horror or further 'ghetto-ise' the genre. But with 2001 and Avatar snubbed for best picture, among many others over the years, does ANY sci-fi film ever have a shot at Best Picture?"

Comments

Every time a bell rings

[alphatel]

Avatar was about as sci-fi as Lord of the Rings which won the Oscar. Just because we geeks love sci-fi/fantasy/gore/zombies/pizza doesn't mean they all need categories. If you want to change the over-65 AA voters, become one of them. Get Cameron in there, Lucas, Spielberg, etc. You will have your own category and they will destroy it like everything else. Then of course we'll all be complaining that we need a true sci-fi category while we watch Forbidden Planet for the 40th time.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Suferick]

'Proper' SF (which I dare not attempt to define, but feel free to have a go) will always be too 'niche' for the general public to appreciate in this way. Perhaps there should be a Best Picture category at the Hugos instead.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[scottrocket]

Who cares whether or not Science Fiction films receive Oscars? I just enjoy watching them (aside: I just ordered another copy of "Forbidden Planet" : ) ).

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Joce640k]

Sort version: NO

Longer version: If we start down the 'categories' road then everybody will want one.

The Oscars are bullshit anyway. eg. Look at how many winners weren't released in the couple of months leading up to the awards, it's close to zero. Conclusion: We're asking a bunch of fashion designers what the best movies are.

Which is also why geek movies never win unless they're exceptionally pretty or family oriented.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Z00L00K]

You still have the Hugo and Nebula awards for Science Fiction.

But the sad thing is that sometimes a movie is done in a Science Fiction style with no concerns about providing a good story and is just using the genre to permit an overabundance of special effects.

The best special effects is when the viewer thinks it's a natural part of the set and it appears realistic. A lot of the computer generated special effects you see today are still not having a natural appearance, even if there are cases where it's hard to tell. One example of a good computer generation is the much hated figure JarJar Binks in Star Wars (not perfect, but a well done), but sometimes you see animations of snakes in other movies where the snake looks like it's levitating.

B.t.w. if you want to see a movie in the Science Fiction category that's good and has very little special effects I suggest that you watch K-Pax with Kevin Spacey.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Richard_at_work]

Actual "proper" scifi is extremely hard to get both correct and entertaining at the same time - very few authors have achieved both.

Which is why scifi is generally accepted and tolerated to have elements of fantasy rather than be chained to actual science.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[alphatel]

Which is why scifi is generally accepted and tolerated to have elements of fantasy rather than be chained to actual science.

We tolerate nothing!

Signed,
the Zombie Apocalypse
P.S. - No we aren't sci-fi either but we occasionally eat Bladerunner enthusiasts

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Zediker]

When you get down to it... "Proper" Sci-Fi is a thought experiment (philosophical or otherwise) made manifest through media.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

This. And it is why I hate SyFy so incredibly much for what they have done in recent years.
And just generally destroying shows as well, changing times around, etc.

I actually want them to die. They have done more damage than good to SciFi.

I'll stick with amateur productions, online productions and the like. Hell, even animation (anime in particular) has more hard SciFi than anything put out the last decade in film. That's just sad.
They are better than the trash put out these days. It is all action action action now to try pull in the action kiddies. No thanks, I like substance. (Even if it was acted by people in school for an English class!)

Re:Every time a bell rings

[wisty]

Not really. There's endless debates over what constitutes "proper" sci-fi. It can be "hard" (nothing which a few engineers, and slightly better tools can make), "medium" (hard, with one or two "breakthroughs"), "light" (lots of breakthroughs, ancient powers, remnant gods, aliens with unlimited power) and fantasy (anything goes).

Some of the best Sci-Fi is set ~30 years in the future.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Xiaran]

Sci-fi can be succinctly defined as speculation, whether based on established scientific facts or on logical pseudo-facts consistent with the framework of the fiction in question, involving smelly green pimply aliens furiously raping or eating, or both, beautiful naked bare-breasted chicks, covering them in slime, red, oozing, living slime, dribbling from every horrific orifice, squeezing out between bulbous pulpy lips onto the sensuous velvety skin of the writhing sweating slave-girls, their bodies cut and bruised by knotted whips brandished by giant blond vast-biceped androids called Simon, and written in the Gothic mode. -- Peter Nicholls, True Rat 7 (1976)

Re:Every time a bell rings

[zippthorne]

"Proper" SF isn't "hard SF" Although they're both difficult to get right, especially if you also want to be entertaining.

The idea of sci fi in general, and its main strength over other forms of literature, is to explore some social issue using fantastic elements to disguise the bits that would prejudice the reader. Like the film Gattaca, which explorers racism without prejudicing white viewers with actual race differences. (speaking of which.. why does the title have an extra letter?)

Hard scifi doesn't necessarily don't explore real issues, but instead plays with the what if [thing that's impossible] were everyday and commonplace scenario. Sometimes you get a story that's engrossing. Sometimes you get a product manual for products you can never buy. Frequently, you miss out on the "permanent and universal interest" part of enduring literature, though.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort version: NO

ok, fine I'll do it

"eiNnOorsv:"

Re:Every time a bell rings

[SuricouRaven]

Note that all of those tend towards the soft end of the scale, ranging from 'marshmellow' for Minority Report to 'thick fog' for Dr Who. Hard sci-fi tends to have less mass-appeal and so be less likely to get the big-budget movie or TV treatment.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Kjella]

The obsession over "proper" sci-fi is to me a bit like wanting more fancy graphics over game play in computer games. Yes, a hardcore scientific look at the feasibility of a Ringworld is great, but put it on Discovery or National Geographic and don't call it a movie. Any good movie depends on the characters and the story, not the scientific accuracy of the setting. A good sci-fi movie is to me one that makes a good connection between the technology and the storyline, if it's just a normal series put in a futuristic setting with lasers instead of bullets then that doesn't get any points with me. Like they say, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic so I consider both of them forms of "what if" stories. Some are closer to technological advances we can imagine than others, but that in itself doesn't make it a better movie.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[BarryHaworth]

Perhaps there should be a Best Picture category at the Hugos instead.

There already is. The Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation has been in operation since 1958. 2001 won the award in 1968, Avatar was nominated in 2010, but lost to Moon (which is arguably a better movie).

I discovered this category a couple of years ago, and have found the list of winners and nominees very instructive. It's alerted me to a lot of good movies which I would otherwise have missed.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[vlad30]

I always liked this definition Spoken by the character Douglas Anders "Grell" in the SG1 episode 200

Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

Re:Every time a bell rings

[SerpentMage]

No actually you are wrong and missing the intent of science fiction. Take Star Trek for example, which went from good ol SciFi, to hand waving fantasy land. Yes I blame the writers.

Let's say I am writing a story and in the story I hit what I would call a dead end. In the case of Lord of the Rings it is when Gandor is taken down the bridge and "dies". At this point the question becomes how does the story adjust when it hits a dead end? In the case of fantasy a wand is waved and Gandor comes back as a new Gandor the white, who has progressed to the next level. In fantasy we accept that, but from a story line its hand waving and taking a short cut to get out of a story.

In contrast when a story hits a dead in with science fiction you can't hand wave. You HAVE TO figure it out as a puzzle with limits and boundaries. This is what makes SciFi so hard because it has limits on what is believable and what is not believable. Getting back to Star Trek in later episodes there was a quite a bit of hand waving. When the plot became difficult and hitting a dead end some magical technology appeared and all is ok in the Federation. That is violating the rules of Science Fiction.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[icebraining]

Moon and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind easily top any of those, in my opinion.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Comboman]

They tried to have a Best Western category, but they were sued by some hotel chain.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Phrogman]

Yeah, none of my friends were even remotely interested in seeing it, but I decided to pony up the cash to go see Avatar. The special effects were pretty decent for the most part, although it didn't quite blow me away as I had hoped it would, but the plot, OMFG the plot was so insipid. It was so identical to so many other films I have seen. With all the hype I had expected an intelligent and complex plot - but instead got "Corporations bad, control the military, exploit indigenous people, destroy their culture". Yes, and I already knew that, except that when the natives fight back, the forces of "civilization" always win in the end and get to do their best to destroy the indigenous people, their culture, and in particular their language.
I would say Avatar was an okay film, but I doubt I would recommend it to anyone and I certainly don't think it deserved any awards outside of Special Effects or Animation, where it obviously excelled.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[icebraining]

You mean Gandalf.

While I agree with your point, I don't think that was a good example. It's unfair to Tolkien to call it mere hand waving to fix a problem in the story, when his death and rebirth is obviously done on purpose, and the whole background is explained in The Silmarillion, which he had written years before.

There's still no real boundaries - after all, it was a direct intervention by Eru Ilúvatar - but it's not just hand waving.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[InsertCleverUsername]

Exactly. The only reason the wife and I can both enjoy BSG and The Walking Dead together (and that's about all we can agree on) is that the sci-fi worlds these series are built around create such a rich ecosystem for real human drama. Good sci-fi creates truly novel, yet believable, situations that plumb the depths of what it means to be human.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Moon was absolutely fantastic and deserving of that award in every way. if you haven't seen it, you must!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

Indeed. Star Wars is "sci-fi". Or is it "space opera"? Or is it "modern fantasy/mythology"? I've seen it described in each way.

The other thing you have to get over, if you want the Academy to accept sci-fi as relevant, is the special effects. The over-65 academy voters came from a time when special effects weren't that grand. They couldn't do many of the things we can do today. So they look at a movie like LOTR, which is extremely driven from a book, and they love it. Then they look at sci-fi and... I'm sorry, but Avatar was crappy, shitty done story with too much politics covered over by extremely well-done special effects. Strip out the effects, leave in the story, and Avatar is just boring. Likewise, the Academy looks at the genre in its entirety and we're looking at the likes of The Last Starfighter, or the alternating passable/awful/passable/awful Star Trek line that peaked with Wrath of Khan (though I did like the reboot). Or they look at ANYTHING AT ALL MICHAEL BAY HAS DONE... why the fuck do studios keep letting him keep ruining franchises?

The point being, the over-65 AA crowd voting looks at sci-fi and they assume (because it's true 99.9% of the time!) that there isn't a story there, that it's all barebones covered up in special effects and explosions. Serenity was cool, but if you didn't watch Firefly beforehand (note: I've never been able to see Firefly in sequence, and my friends took me to see Serenity anyways so I have this perspective) you didn't know what the fuck was going on going into it and you probably, like me, walked out half confused as to what the point of some of the characters was at all. "Pivotal moments", like Wash's flight/death or River's badass moments, mean NOTHING if you haven't seen the TV show. The movie just doesn't stand on its own - kinda like trying to watch Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith, where if you didn't watch the Clone Wars animated series, you have NO FUCKING CLUE who half these characters are and Lucas is too lazy to give even the most barebones of exposition to why they're storyline-relevant.

You want sci-fi to be respected in the Academy, you need to do 3 things:

#1 - you need to let the explosions and CGI take a back seat. That's one of the major things in LOTR that worked: the CGI didn't make Gollum, it just made Gollum possible - Gollum was totally the acting work of Andy Serkis (especially the schizophrenia scene!).

#2 - you have to make sure your movie contains the entire story. Big one here. Drop in a bunch of characters, fail to introduce them because "well the audience knows them from the TV show", and you run the trap that both Star Wars and Serenity failed on: the academy is not your fucking audience and has no goddamn clue who the characters are or why they should care because you left the entire character development process out of the fucking movie. Take a clue from Pixar - they made a better love story in 10 minutes than that hack bitch Stephanie Meyer did in 4 whole movies, AND without that 10 minute montage, the entire rest of the story in Up just doesn't work.

#3 - you need to be sure your story is accessible to the older Academy viewers. Again, this is something Pixar are geniuses at - they can make a G-rated movie that 5 year olds and 65 year olds alike watch, and love, and enjoy because it's accessible to all ages. And they can do it without even shooting the dog or giving someone cancer.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

That reminds me:

Hey engineers/scientists, you've got 3 years to come up with Mr. Fusion and hovercar conversions or else Marty McFly will never get home to 1985!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[hal2814]

Looking at the list of nominees tells me exactly why the Oscars doesn't have a scifi category. Flesh Gordon? Zardoz? Outland? Brainstorm? These were all Hugo nominees! There just aren't enough good scifi movies in any given year to guarantee enough viable nominees. There are some bumper crop years (1983 for example), but if you're scrounging so much for material that you're willing to consider Sean Connery in a red leather codpiece, you need to just burn the damn awards show to the ground.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[tophermeyer]

Also concur. Good drama is stories about people. Sci-fi allows authors incredible opportunities to set whatever backdrop they wish to tell, at the core, stories about people. There are also great opportunities to address current social issues in isolation. BSG had some great story arcs that dealt with terrorism and the moral issues surrounding how societies respond to terror. BSG was able to address this irrespective of our current political context, and made the issue a little more generalizable.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Canazza]

They've got Roland Emmerich doing Asimov's Foundation trilogy.
We're all fucking doomed.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

It can't be as bad as Will Smith's absolute butchering of "I, Robot"...

Re:Every time a bell rings

[JoeDuncan]

You mean like in the Babylon 5 season 3 finale, where Sheridan jumps to his death on Z'ha'dum and is brought back to life to lead the alliance against the Shadows and Vorlons?

Oh wait, that's the opposite of what you were trying to say.

And Babylon 5 was the best SF to ever hit TV...

Re:Every time a bell rings

[rilian4]

Avatar didn't win because it was a bad movie. It had great special effects, for which it did win. It went viral and thus made a lot of money. It was NOT snubbed. That's not to say other movies haven't been snubbed. LOTR:FOTR was snubbed. It was by far the best of the 3 movies but didn't get much come Oscar time. The film studio therefore campaigned hard *cough* bribed *cough cough* for more notice and got it for ROTK. As for sci-fi pictures getting Best Picture nods, Star Wars in 1977 was nominated for it but lost. For those too young to remember, SW was a freaking big deal in 1977. It was nominated for 10 or 11 awards and actually won 6 or 7.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[elrous0]

Producer: We've obtained this thoughtful science fiction story about the passengers finding meaning in their lives aboard a generation ship, dealing with relationships and aging in lives where they know they will never live to see their ship's destination. It's a very thoughtful story on human individualism and purpose vs. the common social good.

Studio: Great. Cast an A-list action star. Call Michael Bay and see if he's available to direct. Add a subplot with a murder investigation...no fuck it, make that the main plot. Write in at least four good chase scenes. Cast a hot young actress, see if you can get one with nice tits--just not Lindsay Lohan, no way the insurance would cover us on that. Have the CGI boys start working on the chase sequences, tell them we need it yesterday. And make sure there's a happy ending and all that shit.

Producer: But what about the story of humanity on the generation ship?

Studio: What the fuck is a generation ship? Look, just put one of those young guys with the 6-pack abs in the lead and don't even worry about a script. And tell the marketing boys to get to work on some internet viral promotion crap. See if you can get some decent product placement deals in place before we start filming this bastard too. All that CGI ain't going to be cheap.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

Bullshit - Will Smith, Executive Producer. He didn't just "act the part given to him", he was involved in ruining it and defining his own part.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[thrich81]

I know I'll be demolished for this but, "I, Robot" takes a lot of undeserved criticism because it took some of the Asimov themes and characters but wasn't a direct copy of an Asimov story. I heard it got retitled at the last minute to drum up interest. The movie had some good, insightful moments (interview where the Robot asks Will Smith's character if HE could write a symphony, etc). By the way, the Asimov 'I, Robot' and 'Foundation'' series both jumped the shark when he tried to bring them together at the end. The movie was better than that.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

You're not referring to the right books.

It wasn't "I, Robot" (which was a short-story collection) he merged with Foundation. It was the Daneel Olivaw line (Caves of Steel / The Naked Sun / The Robots of Dawn / Robots and Empire) that he merged with Foundation at the end. At best, the I, Robot short stories (along with several other short stories, novelettes, and novels like Pebble in the Sky) provided a theoretical "history" of the human-centric universe he eventually wrote the Foundation series within.

Asimov's stories were a lot like Tolkien's stuff in a way. He had an idea of a long-running universe, and he would place various stories at various points within the universes. The long-running character Daneel Olivaw is really not so different from Gandalf in a way, doing a lot of things "behind the scenes" that are hard to ferret out until you start looking at the long view as well - and they take much the same turn, with Gandalf bailing out to the East with the Elves at the end of LOTR just like Olivaw tries to get "a few more years" to finish his work and set humanity onto a new evolution before he has to finally die.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Grishnakh]

Drop in a bunch of characters, fail to introduce them because "well the audience knows them from the TV show", and you run the trap that both Star Wars and Serenity failed on

I'd like to make a side point here: Serenity was never meant to be Oscar material, or even a movie for people who've never seen Firefly to watch. It was meant to be a final episode of Firefly, to satisfy all the angry Firefly fans who had their series canceled so abruptly. Serenity was a decent movie from that standpoint, because it tied up the loose plot ends and answered all the questions that were left open in the series. It wasn't great, because it couldn't be: it only had two hours to do what was originally planned for another half-season of episodes, or perhaps another full season or two. Don't think of Serenity as a stand-alone movie, because it isn't; think of it as an extra-long episode #15 that ends the season and the series, which Joss Whedon managed to con the movie execs into showing in theaters instead of on TV. It was a nice treat for the fans, but that's all it was for, the fans of the series. It wasn't meant for other people.

The Star Wars prequels were never Oscar material, of course, because they were crap. I don't care how good your FX are, when the story, acting, and dialog are that horrifically bad, the quality of the FX are irrelevant.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[tlhIngan]

Good sci-fi creates truly novel, yet believable, situations that plumb the depths of what it means to be human.

Exactky, It's why Star Trek was popular and many other Sci-Fi TV series and movies seem very real.

The "technology" behind it only exists to lend background. E.g., GATTACA explores what it means to be human in a world where genetic testing is so cheap and easy it's done religiously - the technology enables exploration and thinking on the human condition.

Ditto BSG - the technology exists merely to explore humanity in situations that may not exist now, later, or ever, but to see what reasonable actions may occur and draw parallels to normal life.

Good sci-fi is really just a form of social and political commentary, often re-imagined to make it easier to see it "from the outside". It's often easier to tackle difficult subjects if the situation is reframed (especially if the subject is controversial and can lead to people digging in their heels).

Heck, one of Star Trek's recurring themes (back in the Roddenberry days) was to explore how the Prime Directive conflicts with basic human responses to help and provide for the less fortunate.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Mac Scientist]

'Proper' SF (which I dare not attempt to define, but feel free to have a go) will always be too 'niche' for the general public to appreciate in this way. Perhaps there should be a Best Picture category at the Hugos instead.

There is an SF film award. From Wikipedia: "The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video."

They break the award down by category. Started in 1972. Impressive list!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[jellomizer]

Why yes, you can summarize most stories to basic plot elements. However Avatar did it in a way that was much too predictable.

What made "Classic" Pixar Movies so much more interesting then their Disney counterparts wasn't as much the CGI but the details in the general story plot.

For Pixar their normal trend is making the main characters, unlikable at first, they are usually very flawed you really are not sure if they are going to end up being the good guys or the bad guys. If they turn out to be a Bad Guy they often have a reason to be as such. Then the interesting part of the movie is seeing how the characters change and grow over time and often they will end up in a more of an unexpected growth.

For Avatar, there wasn't that much growth, it was more of yea I picked which side I want to be on.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone has to piss in it."

I'm acquainted* with a well known SF author who told some stories about going through the book-2-movie gristmill. His first book won both Huga and Nebula, and some years later, someone got a project going to make a movie out of it. His take on the process was (paraphrasing): "Everyone has to piss in it. You know, there's the screenwriter, and the producer, and the director, and the stars... each one has to piss in it, you know, to mark their territory. Everyone has to 'add' something to the story... and at the end of the process, what you end up with is a bucket of warm piss."

* "Acquainted" means: We have a lot of mutual friends, but only ever meet at SF cons every few years.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Boy you entirely missed the point with Gandalf. Tolkien's world is very religious, though it's mostly hinted at. That Gandalf had been walking Middle Earth for two thousand years by the time of the events of the Lord of the Rings should have been the first clue that he wasn't a man. Even mortals have spirits in that world which persist, though they are almost never let back like Gandalf was. But Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron, their type are seen being destroyed and reforming over time -- Sauron is "destroyed" at the flashback which starts the films, and yet he'd returned by the events of the Ring.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[mattcoz]

They both received nominations.

Um, no

[Y2KDragon]

And while 2001 is a fantastic movie, comparing it to the other movies in question, it's not even close. It's like making the equivalent of an NIT tournament in College Basketball. No, if a Sci-Fi movie cannot stand on it's own against the other top movies, it's not worthy of a "best movie" award. This, from a long-time sci-fi fan, who wants to see a sci-fi movie win because it really was the best movie of the year. Sci-Fi movies already clean up in most of the effects, makeup, and other technical fields. Even soundtracks from sci-fi movies get nods. This is the big league. Step up to the plate or go home. But don't whine about not going to the All-Star game when you are just average (at best).

Re:Um, no

[Richard_at_work]

I agree with the parent.

There is no special category for romance, comedy, action or other types of live action film, so why should there be one for science fiction? As much as I love scifi myself, its not worthy of an entirely separate category at the awards, over and above every other sub-category within the live action category.

The fact that Avatar was "snubbed" has nothing to do with it being scifi, as it simply wasn't the best actual film - it won "Best Cinematography" and "Best Art Direction" because it was a treat for the eyes, but as a film it was really quite poor.

As for 2001, it won "Best Visual Effects", but wasn't even nominated for "Best Picture" - again, there were better films that year.

So no, it doesn't deserve a special category all of its own. This meritocracy only goes so far.

Re:Um, no

[Richard_at_work]

In addition, Avatar won "Best Visual Effects" as well - so basically it won in every category in which people were talking about it before it was released anyway. People didn't go to the cinema to see Avatar for the plot, they went to see it because of the fantastic visual elements that were being raved about - and surprisingly, Avatar won in all of those categories at the awards...

Not much more to say really.

Re:Um, no

[Ginger Unicorn]

Never having seen Dances with Wolves or Ferngully the Last Rainforest, I even enjoyed the plot of Avatar when I went to see it. I was convinced it would be the new Star Wars, then I came out of the cinema and everyone thought it was shit. I still thinks it's brilliant though, in my own little world...

Re:Um, no

[tverbeek]

A friend of mine bitches about the Oscars because movies like The Hurt Locker, No Country For Old Men, and Crash win Best Picture instead of Trasformers, Night at the Museum, or Meet the Fockers, which did so much better at the box office. In other words, he complains that the Oscars are.... the Oscars. The Academy isn't interested in presenting awards for Best Screwball Comedy or Best Action Film. They aren't trying to re-reward financial or popular success. They're honoring what they consider achievements in acting, direction, etc. If you want an award for Best Science Fiction Film, look to the Saturns or Hugos.

Re:Um, no

[itsdapead]

Never having seen Dances with Wolves or Ferngully the Last Rainforest, I even enjoyed the plot of Avatar when I went to see it.

All these people saying that Avatar was just a ripoff of "Ferngully, the Last Dances With Pocahontas" are completely missing the point.

...which is that Avatar was a dumbed-down version of Dune :-).

Re:Um, no

[dj245]

And while 2001 is a fantastic movie, comparing it to the other movies in question, it's not even close. It's like making the equivalent of an NIT tournament in College Basketball. No, if a Sci-Fi movie cannot stand on it's own against the other top movies, it's not worthy of a "best movie" award.

The winner of the Oscar and the Golden Globe that year for best picture was Oliver. Nobody has ever asked me if I saw Oliver. Nobody has ever told me I should watch that movie. 2001 became the classic. That isn't even just my opinion. 2001 is on the National Film Preservation Board registry. Oliver, while it may be a good movie, was mostly forgotten after 1969.

You can argue about these awards actually choosing the best picture or not. But they don't seem to be choosing the memorable movies that become classics in many cases.

Special Effects

[SJHillman]

Science Fiction films tend to be subsets of either action or drama films, but with more special effects. Just because it's a different setting doesn't change that it's an action and/or drama with a lot of special effects.

Re:Special Effects

[Tom Christiansen]

Science Fiction films tend to be subsets of either action or drama films, but with more special effects.

Not necessarily. Gattaca certainly was not full of special effects; neither, really, was Blade Runner, and both were better movies than 99% of the dreck that purports to be science fiction.

Simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Creating a ghetto-like category so that science fiction prizes can be awareded each year is stupid.
A science fiction film is still a film. There are historicals films, realistic films, war films etc... Science fiction films are not a special category.
The reason most of them don't get a prize can be reduced to 2 reasons :
- one is that they suck and suck royally
- two there is still a prejudice to look at science fiction films as class z films.

Re:Simple answer

[Stoopiduk]

Best 'bad guy'.

"And for the 35th consecutive year, the award goes to... Darth Vader!"

Apples and apples

[Patchw0rk F0g]

I'd like to see more sci-fi win the big ticket, but I don't think we need, nor even want, a new category. Whether a movie is set in Cow-tip, New Hampshire or a galaxy far, far away, it's the merit of the movie itself, the characterization, cinematography, direction etc. that makes a great movie. Let the science fiction be graded on the same merits as other movies. If it's good, it'll be rewarded as such. Otherwise, perhaps the musical numbers from Mr. Lucas might be compared to "Chicago"?

Ugh. Just grossed myself out there.

Soon everyone will want their own category . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . best Drama, best Romance, best Action, best Boy & His Dog, best Thriller, best Childrens', and even the Best of the Best . . .

The Academy Awards will become a week long event.

So many fake smiles in the news would kill folks.

If Sci-Fi films were good enough, they would win

[BillCable]

No need for a new category... the notion itself is ridiculous. Are Sci-Fi geeks really pining so badly for an Oscar for one of "their" films? Do they need that validation? I don't. I'm just happy to see a good film from time to time. Hell - be happy we're going to see Avengers, Dark Knight, and Prometheus this year. I'm a hell of a lot more excited about that than I am the prospect of someone getting a little gold man.

If someone ever creates a Sci-Fi film that deserves an Oscar more than all the other films that year, it'll win one. Win because of quality, not because the suits created a little sub-award to placate you.

PS: Avatar didn't deserve a nomination, much less the award. I think that was a gesture for making a couple billion dollars while hitting all the correct political points.

Avatar wasn't that good.

[Nyder]

I saw Avatar and it's not that good of a movie. Sure, it's not bad, but movie of the year good? Oh, hell no.

It was a 3D Selling Gimmick, not a great movie.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[Tyler Eaves]

Trying watching Star Wars with a fresh mind. It's a terrible, terrible movie with bad dialogue and worse acting. It was a novelty that many of us remember fondly because we saw it when we were kids, but it's very much a B-movie.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[michael_cain]

Yep. I was in graduate school when it first came out, and saw it with my housemate who wasn't a sci-fi fan. On the way out of the theater, we agreed that it was fun and the effects were great (for the time), but the plot was a B-grade western with some odds and ends tacked on.

An alternative

[windcask]

Start ignoring Hollywood's self-congratulatory circle jerk events (Golden Globes, Oscars, Grammy Awards, etc) and start forming your own opinions on art and media. They won't think twice about deputizing the FBI to kick in your door if you so much as rip a DVD to your computer, so why do you feel you owe them your attention?

Re:At the Oscars?

[Shimbo]

Actaully, this might be a good place to ask - does anyone know the name of a scifi series based around humanity being enslaved by an ancient alien race who created a huge empire out of thousands of enslaved races, with the series starting as the very last member of that master race dying and the rest of the series involving a civil war within the now leaderless empire? The main characters were a male and a female, with the male going on to revolutionise tactics within the fleet.

I read it ages ago but can't remember what its called.

You are thinking of the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy by Walter Jon Williams.

I see how you are

[Garybaldy]

Just ignore Babylon 5. Probably to old for you.

And while we're at it ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... could we have a category for "Best Left-handed Actor"? I mean, it isn't like the awards are already bloated, largely meaningless, self-congratulatory or just plain boring, is it?

Of course, the awards are really for the public. The studios only care about the money.

.

Any movie witht the Internet, or a Cell Phone...

[DontScotty]

Any movie witht the Internet, or a Cell Phone... would instantly fall into this category.

We KNOW the internet isn't that fast.

And, there is NO WAY they could move that much on a cell phone and not drop the call.

#COMPLETE FICTION

Snubbed?

[thesandtiger]

Avatar was a beautiful film with interesting technology behind it, but the story was trite, the dialogue was inane, and the acting was adequate to the task without anyone standing out.

2001 was a beautiful film with interesting technology behind it the story was novel, but much of it was plodding, the dialogue was serviceable and quotable but not particularly brilliant, and the acting was - well, pretty much anyone could handle that.

To be honest, if you wanted to talk about a sci-fi film getting snubbed, you would be be better off throwing out Moon - well crafted visually, interesting and well written story, very solid performances, realistic dialogue and by and large a superior film all around.

Hell, Wall-E was a superior sci-fi film to both Avatar and 2001 (at least the first part while on Earth).

Science-fiction -or- fantasy?

[RogueWarrior65]

IMHO, there's a lot of content out there that's not "science" fiction but rather fantasy and the two tend to get lumped together. If you're going to go down this road, you need to separate the two. Imagine if you had to pit Fellowship of the Ring against A New Hope or Avatar against Wrath of Khan.

Re:Oscar is useless

[tompaulco]

I'll agree and add my two cents. These people already get paid crap-tons of money, and then they feel the need to have half a dozen or more awards shows a year to "recognize" them for what they were already paid for. We don't have awards shows for chefs, computer programmers, or sanitation workers. Why should we for actors?
I heard an interesting statistic on the radio the other day. Apparently the average celebrity receives $200,000 in donations and gifts a year. Given that there are literally thousands of celebrities, this means over $200 million is freely given to people who can afford to buy stuff on their own. Why not take all the money that is given to celebrities and give it to people who need it instead?

I saw Pandorum

[Tekfactory]

it wasn't as bad as you make it out to be.

Re: Don't Stop the Serenity

[billstewart]

I hadn't seen the Firefly TV show, because my cable company wasn't carrying the Skiffy Channel on analog cable on my side of town that year, and I haven't watched much of it on DVD because there's some stupid copy protection thing that either doesn't like the DVD player in my Tivo or the built-in VCR in my TV or something.

But even without having seen the TV show, the movie still rocked. Sure, maybe I missed some context, emotional back-story, and in-jokes, and there's less complete world-building shown in the movie than in the TV, but I do read science fiction, and the skills for reading it carry over into watching movies. And enough of the theater audience had seen the show that there may have been some extra cues. And, well, Nathan Fillion, and Summer Glau!

And it means that when I'm watching Castle, I at least get most of the in-jokes about Castle speaking Mandarin because of a TV show that he used to watch and having a space cowboy Halloween costume that his daughter rolls her eyes about.