Another day and another bit of award season news for JJ Abrams Star Trek. Today it was announced that Star Trek is on the final short list of films for a possible Visual Effects Academy Award. Paramount has also started a new online "For Your Consideration Campaign", and finally we have a reminder on the People’s Choice Awards, airing tonight.
Then there were 7 (VFX contenders)
In December the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch released their list of 15 potential nominees for Best Visual Effects. Today they announced the final short list of 7 films, and they are:
“Avatar”
“District 9”
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
“Star Trek”
“Terminator Salvation”
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
“2012”
Members have been invited to a special screening on January 21 where they will watch 15-minute excerpts from each of the shortlisted films. Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate three films for final Oscar consideration.
Of course Avatar is the clear favorite to win, but Star Trek is in the running and certainly has a good chance of being one of the nominees. The only other film in the franchise to be nominated for Visual Effects was Star Trek: The Motion Picture for the 1979 awards, but it lost out to Alien.
Paramount begins online ‘For Your Consideration’ Campaign
With all the big guild awards coming up, as well as the Oscar nominations, Paramount is now starting an online campaign. Large animated ads are starting to show up at industry sites (like "AwardsDaily"), all of which point to the Star Trek section of their special website paramountguilds.com.
One of the new online ads
There is a lot of info on that site for guild and academy members, including a very interesting page of cool before and after images (by rolling over your mouse) of visual effects shots.
One of the many before/after shots from online awards promotion site
People’s Choice Awards Tonight – ST09 up for 5 awards
Tonight the People’s Choice Awards airs on CBS at 9PM. Star Trek is up for four awards:
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Best Movie
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Favorite Franchise
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Breakout Movie Actor (Zachary Quinto & Chris Pine)
Breakout Movie Actress (Zoe Saldana)
You can watch the red carpet and get liveblogging at peopleschoice.com/pca/
Star Trek has done well in some of these popularity contests, like cleaning up at the Scream Awards, but it is hard to see them beating the likes of Twilight and The Hangover at an event like this, but we will see. For what it is worth, Star Trek is ranked #2 amongst the People’s Choice nominees.
“Avatar” will clean up on visuals. “Star Trek” deserves sound effect awards.
As for non-technical? Only “District 9” is deserving of a Best Picture nod.
First! I hope Star Trek wins!
Everyone is voting for Chris Pine in the Peoples choice, but I voted for Zachary Quinto. I hope that Heroes is canceled soon, so Zach won’t be type-cast as a villain.
The final three nominees deserve to be:
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek
All films have impressive visuals, but it really matters how they are woven into the fabric of the film. Avatar is a lock for obvious reasons, and likely will take this award. However, Star Trek used a mixture of old-school and new-school techniques, and the result is seamless and impressive. District 9, for its budget, was simply stunning. The movie lived or died on whether you cared about the aliens or not, and I certainly did.
Wow, that Entertainment Weekly quote isn’t very warm, is it? Pretty much says that Star Trek only belongs in the running because they’ve “supersized” the number of nominees :/
I mean, yeah … but why use such a quote in the campaign? Seems either counterproductive or condescending, depending how you read the spin.
But at any rate, I agree with it: Star Trek should be included in the extended nominee list to show they mean to nominate movies like Star Trek (not award them, of course, but nominate them for the purpose of proving that they will) ;)
If Transformers 2 gets nominated or wins then all my respect for the Oscars will be lost.
Enough said
#6, I don’t think there’s any way in heck that will happen. :)
Star Trek definitely deserves nods in categories like sound and editing, if nothing else – in the filmmaker commentary they talk a lot about the thought that went into those details. (But obviously I’m pulling for a Best Picture nom as well.)
I dont think the new Star Trek movie is going to get Best Film at the Oscars.
Anthony:
Any news as to whether “Trek09” will get a quick re-release in US theaters prior to the Oscars? That used to be the case for “For Your Consideration” films.
Then again, I haven’t lived in the US for most of the past 15 years, so I don’t know. I’m here now, and I would run to catch it on the big screen again.
they really dont do the re releases anymore, they just send out ‘screeners’. Although there may be some screenings that are under the radar at the studio perhaps, but not a theatrical release
Terminator Salvation should get best effects. Only two movies with better SFX are The Motion Picture and 2001: A Space Odyssey (best Special Effects ever).
Metropolis is up there too.
They did a re-release with “The Dark Knight” though I cannot recall if it was connected to the Oscars or just to make more money.
@11… 2001 was a great movie and the effects were way ahead of their time and they also had the benefit of being woven into the story by Stanley Kubrick. But I don’t feel that they are the best FX ever. Well done CG trumps models anyday. It just does.
Wasn’t Star Trek VI nominated for the VFX Oscar in 1992? I distinctly remember seeing it in the list of nominees, and I wasn’t even a Star Trek fan at the time. It lost to Terminator 2 (obviously).
As great as the VFX are for Star Trek, Avatar deserves to, and will, win the Oscar for it. Next time Star Trek….next time…
coool…..first??
But if avatar takes 8 oscars it will be over the top, sincerely. The script is NOT something out of this world nor is the sound editing… i just hope they don’t go over the top like the to each year. Last year’s slumdog millionare was ok at best, maybe for you americans it was incredible to take a good look at a slum or something, but i’m from venezuela no i really didn’t have such an effect for me. he he
I love that Abrams can achieve so much with even the simplest of techniques. Example: major portions of the skydive sequence being shot upside down with the actors standing on mirrors in a parking lot.
Here’s something odd, I was listening to CBS News Radio today and they ran an Oscar-type ad that begins with the line “Remember the movie you loved”… and goes on to cite several major reviews. What’s weird is that it is using the Brian Tyler music from the original trailers, not the score from the film. This strikes me as extremely odd since the score is being pitched for consideration as well, if not false advertising. I am sad to say that Brian’s music was so much more epic than Giacchino’s and I and many others were disappointed to find Brian’s music wasn’t in the film. How odd that going into Oscar season, they are using it to promote Star Trek for Oscar consideration.
well…Twilight dominated. (at least in trek categories) Moving forward….the people choice awards should require you be 18 to vote. The teenyboppers have taken over the peoples choice awards.
As great as ILM’s fx were for Trek, Avatar and Weta deserve notice. BIG TIME.
ILM has, what, FIFTEEN Oscars? Come on….
The People’s Choice Awards are irrelevant. Nonetheless, it will be nice when all these teenyboppers and love-sick ladies finally realize that the Twilight movies are horribly-written, horribly-acted, horribly-directed, horribly BORING fluff and nothing more. Hell, taking into account the ratings from audiences and critics alike, ‘New Moon’ was among the 40 worst movies of the year. It received worse ratings and reviews than such movies as The Final Destination, G-Force, Land of the Lost, Aliens in the Attic, and Transformers 2. Let’s face it, folks, that’s bad. Yet that’s the movie which the “people” have chosen as their favorite? Oh yah, these awards are insignificant. Any awards show that relies on voters who don’t know what a good movie is… yah, it doesn’t matter. None of this is a big deal.
#22 :: I’m a love-sick (okay, not really, haha… I only read Peter David’s “Star Trek TNG: Imzadi” 8 times..) teen, but I don’t go nuts over Twilight. However, I must say, 90% of my friends do.. It’s quite annoying.
But you may want to consider that the franchises that continue are the ones that hit it best in the box office — and the award shows like these. Popularity = Money = Continuations. That is, unfortunately, how the film industry works.
I haven’t seen Avatar yet, (yay college) but I did see District 9 on blu ray and I have to say I was more impressed with the FX from that movie than Star Trek. The great thing about District 9 is they weren’t overly shiny or overdone, they blended perfectly with what was real. The Enterprise looked too CG for me in the new movie, even if the details were amazing. I was more impressed with the big E from Nemesis, it looked real cause at least in some of the shots they used CG enhanced models. True, models cant support the detail that CG can, but they have a realism that can never be matched. As for Transformers, if that movie wins anything I’ll be disgusted. It was pathetic, I still want those 3 hours of my life back, keep the money.
If Trek doesn’t win, then District 9 deserves to. Incredible work, especially for the budget.
#23 Well said. In regards to The People’s Choice Awards, it is just a popularity contest. It is mainly the flavor-of-the-month movies that win. I don’t pay very much attention to awards shows. At the end of the day, “Star Trek” will be considered a better film while “New Moon” will be forgotten about in 5 years.
#15 Mantastic
I believe The Undiscovered Country was nominated for 2 Oscars (Makeup, and Sound Editing).
Other Star Trek movies nominated in any categories were:
Star Trek: First Contact (Makeup)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Cinematography, Best Sound, Original Score, Sound Effects Editing)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Art Direction, Original Score, Visual Effects)
I think Avatar and District 9 will be 2 of the 3 nominated for Best Visual Effects. The 3rd slot will either go to Trek or 2012.
I think they have a good shot at Sounds Effects Editing too.
A Best Picture nomination is a long shot however.
If it weren’t for Avatar I think we would see Trek walk away with it’s first Oscar.
District 9 deserves best picture & best effects.
Twilight is awful and I had no interest in seeing New Moon
Its success makes me question the mentality of teenage girls.
Yet I’m not suprised about Star Trek being overlooked, it always has been at most awards. I was angry that Trek never got nominated for the writing and acting at the Emmys and the Oscaes over the years.
They were deserved but always overlooked, I wanted Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner to have won emmys for their performances.
The bottom line is after so many years of this thought process by the mainstream did you really think things would change because we have a flavour of the month person called JJ Abrams behind and a more mainstream approach was going to make things all different.
This is a fun movie but this is far from the best ever Trek.
As much as I root for Trek, I also think Avatar will clean house in VFX. As promising as things looked this past summer for a major mainstream breakout for Star Trek, it looks like our parade has been rained on yet again. Though the 2012 sequel will still happen, just expect a more modest budget and maybe a different (more old school) approach in how its presented.
JJ Abrams Star Trek was a good movie, but I will always prefer First Contact and Wrath of Khan over all.
Clearly Avatar
Star Trek maybe can hope on sound effects, but probably the end will be: ZERO OSCARS
STXI only could win technical awards, coz neighter story nor actor performance were really, really outstanding (only compared to blockbusters, but not to real character dramas).
And unfortunatelly STXI chose a year with huge competition considering technical awards, especially coz of “Avatar”
#21 – ILM contributed quite a bit to AVATAR, quite a few shots. They also built the R&D platform that made the film possible in the first place.
WETA is infinitely overrated as it is. Many of the VFX for the LOTR trilogy don’t hold up…the upcoming HD Blu-rays will make this even more obvious, such as characters “floating” above their matted-in environments. ILM can make characters seamlessly blend in with their environments no matter the lighting where WETA (with LOTR, KING KONG, etc) require heavy digital picture color grading.
It plays the whole soundtrack!!! Not only the first seconds like the movie website, but the entire CD, apparently :D
Honestly, while Avatar’s CGI was the most detailed, polished, realistic I’ve ever seen, Star Trek’s was more imaginative. Which is ironic since ST had to keep in tune with 40 years of previous work, to an extent. Avatar I felt was really nothing that hadn’t been done before in cartoons. In my book, while I myself wasn’t thrilled with the VFX style in ST, it was better than Avatar.
Avatar…groundbreaking? So they tell me. It looks great, but so does Trek, Terminator Salvation, District 9, etc, etc. Photorealistic is so good these days, everything looks good.
There is supposedly some innovation with motion capture. So they tell me. Jar Jar and Yoda seemed to express every bit as much emotion as the Navi so I’m not sure where the breakthrough was there.
And the 3D was great, but so was the 3D of the Dark Knight. Avatar just happened to be a full movie of it.
Again, I know there were breakthroughs in film-making, but only because the industry tells me so. As a member of the movie-watching audience, I can’t see what all the fuss is about.
Reminds me of a friend wo was a self proclaimed “audiophile” and was helping me install some speakers. He was waiting on me to turn on some switch on the reciever that was supposed to enhance the “sweet spot” of the surround. He sat in the middle of the room and aske me to turn it on…moments later he was gushing…ooohing and aaahing…he then exclaimed “Yes! that’s so much better!!
I then told him I haven’t turned it on yet.
Point being, you can see what you want to see, warranted or not.
“Point being, you can see what you want to see, warranted or not.”
And star trackie, clearly you saw what you wanted to see.
#3 ‘I hope that Heroes is canceled soon, so Zach won’t be type-cast as a villain.’
NO! You miss the point of the duality of sylar, yeah he’s a serial killer but he’s going to save the world!
#3 As opposed to being typecast as Spock? Heh heh!
“I Am Not nu-Spock” by Zachary Quinto, with a special introduction by Leonard Nimoy.
Followed up a few years later by “I Am nu-Spock” also by Zachary Quinto featuring another introduction by Leonard Nimoy, who celebrates his 111th birthday, with a cloned William Shatner just days prior to release.
Someone sent me this link about Avatar and thought considering the debate here, it is really funny and would be appreciated by some:
http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/avatar-spoiler-alert-avatar-spoiler-alert/