Annie Award Winners 2007

Why??!!

What is wrong with Pixar and Aardman, exactly? They both have proven track records and consistently turn out quality product. They both definitely deserve to win anything they're nominated for, especially Ratatouille, which one IMHO the best animated film to be released last year.

What have Pixar and Aardman done to you that's so horrible? Do you honestly hate them because they're winning awards that you would prefer to see go to something else?

You can't please all of the people all of the time, but animation fans are ridiculous.
 
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Persepolis, Creature Comforts, and The Triplets of Belleville were not made in this country, either, and they all got nominations. Japan produces more animation than most other nations, and large quantities of it are distributed here in the United States. That it doesn't win a lot of awards is understandable; that it is pretty much ignored is not.



Paprika, Tekkonkinkreet, Death Note, Hellsing Ultimate, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Appleseed: Ex Machina. I'm limiting the list to what was made available to American audiences in 2007, since the bulk of the voting body is undoubtedly American.
 
Indeed, they deserve every award both sides are nominated for. We are seeing fewer and fewer artist based animation companies, and more marketing places like Dreamworks and Sony popping out. I think that both companies are just amazing, and always turn out a product superior to the competition. I like Dreamworks films and all, but they hardly hold a candle to Increibles, Ratatoullie, and Monsters Inc. And Aardman? I give any studio that still works in claymation/stopmotion when everyone else is doing CGI (even though they dabbled in it) to become the next Pixar credit for that.

I will say, El Tigre (never having seen it in my life) getting awards while being cancelled is like a backhanded complitment. And the Simpsons winning for music with that horrible Sound of Music parody? That's unjustified. It was one of the worst episodes I've seen in a while. Plus, should song parodies be included? You're basically just building up something someone else did.
 
I can't speak for anybody else, but I feel that the animation community, particularly the Hollywood-based groups and individuals that discuss animation history and such, are so biased towards anything PIXAR and Aardman does that they tend to neglect everything else out there. Do both studios produce quality work? Absolutely. But that's not to say other studios aren't. Sure, they'll acknowledge them with nominations, but the general consensus, especially to those that actually pay attention, is that if a PIXAR or an Aardman product gets nominated for something, one of them is going to win.

It's like they're automatically destined to win just because they are from those studios. I'm kind of sick of that arrogance myself from companies, individuals, politicians, groups, and sports teams.

When Happy Feet won for Best Animated Feature at last year's Oscars, many were shocked. Not because Happy Feet won, but rather Cars lost. I personally felt that Corpse Bride was a much better film than Curse of the Wererabbit, and I wasn't alone in that wave of thought.

Noticed you didn't mention A Bugs Life or Cars. Heck, you didn't even mention the Toy Story movies nor Finding Nemo, the few PIXAR movies that truly deserved every praise it got. Dreamworks only shifted to 3D because of mismanagement and pressure to be like PIXAR (at least, that was the idea). I think what's damaging their credibility is the overreliance on the Shrek property, which should have been one and done, move on to something different, and focusing more on the voice talents than the actual project.

Shark Tale was abysmal, as were the Shrek sequels. But Madagascar and Over The Hedge were pretty good. Bee Movie was so-so.

People criticize Dreamworks way more than any other studio, mostly because they're trying to hard to be PIXAR in their eyes, and that's unfortunate. The thing about PIXAR movies is that they're the same story with different elements. Toys, bugs, monsters, fish, superheroes, cars, and rats have all served as the avatar for the same story. The surroundings change, but it's still the same fricking story.

Of course, a lot of stories from other studios are like that, but with PIXAR, it's so obvious. The ones that stray away from that prototypical archetype are the ones that should be honored and celebrated. And the international animation industry aren't trying to be like PIXAR. That's why you see a lot of excellent animated films and shorts from Canada, the UK, France, the Middle East, Japan, and other places. They don't get noticed here because they aren't PIXAR. A lot of those films are just as good as (if not better than) anything PIXAR brings out.

And for the record, other artists and studios are still working on stop-motion projects, but Aardman gets more attention than the ones out there.

And that's . . . unfortunate.
 
Other than them, all I've seen are celebrity voice driven pop films about surfing penguins and Farting ogres. And other than various indie studios, there's not a lot out there that even holds my eye. Now it seems the elitiests just want to hand it to these companies since they're now the Sweethearts of the animation game. I think Dreamworks does do good films, and Blue Sky too (which didn't release anything since Ice Age 2 until this year). I will say, it's unfortunate that Imagi didn't get nominated for TMNT, however.

I didn't feel like listing the entire film catellogue, nor should I. Yes, Bee Movie, Over the hedge, and Madagascar were good. Were they great? No. The best they did, but still, celebrity driven pieces. I think that, yes, Pixar films have celebrity drive to them too, but they usually go for second bananas or B-listers.

I also agree a lot of anime studios got the cold shoulder as well. But what is snubbing Pixar and Aardman going to do? Say, "we think you're too good to be nominated, so we've decided to snub you?" To me, the biggest snubs were Pixar losing to Shrek and Happy Feet (Monster House, I could understand, but Happy Feet) in the Oscars.

I would love to see more indie animation studios get a nod, myself. But Award shows are part popularity contests anyway. And few indie products that aren't bohemian sob fests never get any recognition (NApoleon Dynamite being one of the few exceptions, in any medium).

So it just seems like elitist comments about how the popular over achievers getting more recognition than first timers, or people with more profit minded projects don't do anything for me. It seems like this animation community you speak of is just a bunch of bitter people angry at the most popular thing, insetad of the trashy projects that deserve their scorn.
 
Exactly. Damn everything else. Only PIXAR and Aardman rules in their eyes. And everything else doesn't even get a second glance.

Robots came before Ice Age 2? Hmm. Didn't realize that. But they've been working on a couple of movies as of late, including next month's Horton Hears a Who.

I agree. TMNT got no love from anybody. Neither did Meet The Robinsons, a Disney movie that was a quirky, fun little film but buried by PIXAR's contributions at the studio. It's almost like if it's 3D but not from PIXAR, it's garbage to these people.

That's what I said. The real criticism I have towards Dreamworks is that they're celebrity-driven rather than story-driven. They could get folks like Mike Myers, Bruce Willis, Steve Carrell, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Woody Allen, Will Smith, Jerry Seinfeld and many others on their films, but the stories tend to be on the backburner at the studio. They're animated very well, but the stories tend to be overshadowed by the stars of the film.

The Shrek sequels were awful. Shrek the Halls wasn't, and probably the best Dreamworks television presentation since Invasion America.

I don't think that you should snub PIXAR nor Aardman. Heck, I thought that Monsters, Inc. was a way better movie than Shrek, but I don't think Cars was the best animated film that year. They didn't even nominate Over the Hedge in that category. And there were several animated films, most notably Paprika and even A Scanner Darkly (despite it being evil, evil rotoscoping), that should have at least been nominated. Happy Feet's win was essentially an award for George Miller, whom the Academy has snubbed many times over in the past, especially on Babe. The animation community should at least pretend to acknowledge that other studios exist.

Juno's a quasi-indie pic, and it got five nominations this year. And yes, I'm rooting for them.

I don't think my comments were elitist. I'm just saying that a lot of other projects should get just as much attention as the latest from PIXAR and Aardman does. They should also look at every animated product with an objective eye.

Have you checked out Cartoon Brew lately or at all? That's all they do. Praise PIXAR and Aardman and the random indy short or movie and damn everything else. They hate modern cartoons not made by those two, commercial anime, nearly any show made after 1968, and they really, really, really, really hate Family Guy.
 
If the Annies are really this biased, why don't we, Toon Zone, come up with an awards list to celebrate the best of animation of the year? We have a good, varied amount of fans of the art form who post here, and we could even take this chance to see if the Annies were spot on with their choices. I'd even offer to tally the nominations and votes up myself.

So, what's stopping us?
 
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