12 Days till Oscar - What will win Best Animated Feature?
Tuesday, January 28, 2020 at 1:00PM by Nathaniel R
With just 12 days till Oscar most of the big ticket races are feeling quite locked up apart from arguably Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature. The latter is particularly volatile...
Missing Link won the Globe and Laika has never won the Oscar so why not hand it to them?
I Lost My Body is the unique indie / critical darling.
Klaus is super fresh in its visual look, combining classic and new styles of animation. Plus it just proved the surprise winner at the Annie Awards.
Toy Story 4 is a box office juggernaut from a beloved series. On the other hand Oscar has already gone here multiple times (the series has already won 3 Oscars) and this category will increasingly look stingy if it's just the "Best Pixar Award" (they've won exactly 50% of the time) every year so why not spread the wealth?
Just about the only title that seems far-fetched for an actual win is How to Train Your Dragon The Hidden World (which is the 12th nominee from Dreamworks, though they've won only once). And should that actually feel so far-fetched given that it's a successful series finally achieving closure and the other two installments both looked like runner-ups for the win in their years. Perhaps it could shock for the stealth win?
Who are you rooting for and which do you think will win? Though the safest bet is surely Toy Story 4 (in the last nailbiter year, 2012, Brave triumphed) we genuinely think the votes will be quite scattered this year.
Reader Comments (10)
I have yet to see KLAUS, but if I was being polled I would SAY I'm voting for I LOST MY BODY but then secretly vote for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. It's just crazy to me that it hasn't won one yet. That said, the fact that Laika also hasn't won one yet is just as crazy. I just wish I liked MISSING LINK as much as I've loved their previous films (visually it's breathtaking, but the story feels so limp to me).
ryan -- yeah, i do think story problems could undo some of Toy Story's rivals. Toy Story 4 totally works but i just dont want it to win again since it's not anything new (they really didn't even try new story beats!) but just another film in that series. it does feel like none of the films have unequivocal support though which i think will help Pixar.
Anything but Toy Story 4, please. The film is effective at grabbing emotions (Pixar motto: We make children’s films that make adults cry) but it doesn’t stand for very much, unlike its predecessors.
Woody continues to go in full determination mode at a time when the stakes have never been lower. It was very hard to care about him preserving Forky as if he were preserving Bonnie’s fragile psyche. He was weird and intense, and it took a somewhat surprising ending to gloss over all of that.
(Side note: I recently watched a YouTube video where Harry Potter fans sorted Pixar characters into Hogwarts houses. They argued that Woody, despite his good nature, was a Slytherin, and there’s some merit to that. He is often taken over by his own ambition and willingness to break rules to achieve a desired result.)
I thought Toy Story 3 was too emotionally manipulative — shock moments added to give the film extra gravity — but it did complete a nice trilogy. The 4th film diminishes that, and tells a tacked-on, non-canonical story that deserved something less than a theatrical release (Disney+ would have been a better fit, cash grab be damned).
I'm actually rooting for HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON to win this. The franchise has never won before, the film was a great culmination of the series, and DreamWorks only has 1 animated film Oscar out of all their nominations. While I'd love to see Laika finally win an Oscar, MISSING LINK, though cute, is not in the same league as their best films (Kubo, Coraline, & ParaNorman). KLAUS has a fresh, interesting visual style but the film itself really isn't that special. I was shocked it was nominated. It would be an extremely ODD winner (like Rango). I haven't yet watched I LOST MY BODY, but considering the critical acclaim, I'd be okay if it won.
You can’t believe how much toy story collection means to me ! I actually grew up watching toy story 1 and 2 over and over but we didn’t need a number 4 when the story has been told before!
this year I’m rooting for missing link and after that globe surprise it has a chance!
Haven’t seen How to train your dragon though
Actual ranking of the nominees (haven't seen Missing Link yet)
1. Toy Story 4 ***** / A
2. I lost my body ***** / A
3. Klaus **** / B
4. How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World *** 1/2 / C+
The very same night Klaus swept the Annies... it lost the Spanish Goya for Animated Feature to the snubbed Buñuel in the Labyrinth of Turtles.
I will always root for Laika, but Missing Link was the least of their film canon so far. The best part was the bonus features that show how they made it.
I wonder if MISSING LINK will get a bump from its upset win at the Golden Globes.
i wanted to read another screed against toy story 4 but i was too distracted by the fyc ads for toy story 4 on the page
;-)
I really think Missing Link is going to take it. The due factor can come into play and all of their features have been nominated in the category. Shoot, the one film they did animation work on but didn't produce (Corpse Bride) also got nominated. They're loved enough to always get in, so the win has to happen eventually. I think the biggest competition is I Lost My Body. The big strike there is we've only had one foreign language winner in the category (Spirited Away), though the ease of being able to just watch it on Netflix could make it accessible enough to get the trophy.