The 2013 Oscar Nominations Need to Relax and Eat Some Shawarma

Thu
Jan 10 2013 12:30pm

The 2013 Oscar Nominations Need to Relax and Eat Some Shawarma

The 2013 Oscar nominations give no indication of how huge a year this was for science fiction/fantasy movies

The nominations for the 2013 Academy Awards have just been announced, and in spite of all the major SFF films of the past year, genre fans might be a little disappointed with the list. While it’s not totally surprising that very few of the major science fiction and fantasy releases of 2012 got the nod, this was very much the year of The Avengers, The Hunger Games, The Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus (for better or worse), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and so many smaller films, and looking at the full list of nominations, there’s almost no sense of what a huge, milestone year this was for SFF and comics in Hollywood. Beyond the Visual Effects category, barely any of these films rated a mention, in the eyes of the Academy.

In terms of the films that were recognized, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Life of Pi, Moonrise Kingdom, and Argo (some of which are maybe only SFF-adjacent, technically speaking) all received nods. The real genre action was in the Animated Feature Film category, which includes Wreck-It Ralph, Frankenweenie, Brave, ParaNorman…but no Rise of the Guardians? Check out the full list here, and let us know what you think—any other truly egregious oversights, this year?

Image via Serious Film

1. Chris Upton

Thursday January 10, 2013 11:41am EST

TDKR, The Avengers, The Hunger Games and The Hobbit were not nominated because they were not good enough. There should be no contraversey or grouching about this. And I'm speaking as a big genre fan.

2. David Dolling

Thursday January 10, 2013 11:49am EST

Agreed, I'm a big genre fan but also a film fan in general. With the possible exception of TDKR I wouldn't even consider any of these as suitable candidates for best film. TDKR could have just sneaked in now the best film list is expanded to ten in favour of one of the weaker candidates like Les Miserables or perhaps with a best director nod but I'm not going to call foul that it didn't. The quality difference between the likes of Amour and Prometheus is laughable.

3. KarinKross

view all by KarinKross | Thursday January 10, 2013 12:00pm EST

I'm still trying to figure out how Holy Motors missed out on a Foreign Language nomination.

4. hihosilver28

view all by hihosilver28 | Thursday January 10, 2013 03:07pm EST

I'm rather upset that Looper got recognized for nothing. It at the very least deserved an original screenplay nod.

5. driceman

Thursday January 10, 2013 03:11pm EST

I think Dark Knight Rises and maybe The Hobbit deserved a nod. Not so much Avengers (it was great, but not Best Picture-worthy). I'm also a huge Cloud Atlas fan, and that was naturally completely ignored.

Personally, I'd like to see Lincoln win some awards and Brave win Animated Feature.

6. Kasiki

Thursday January 10, 2013 06:33pm EST

Truth be told there is a difference between what makes a good drama and what makes a good action movie. Just about all the genre movies sacrificed story for secial effects, action, or some other reason (Hobbit added plot to sacrifice story). The only nod i see will be if Ann Hathaway wins the oscar, because i believe voters would look at both her role in Les Mis and TDKR together. Great acting in both, in roles very different from each other, and in TDKR she is the only thing that held the story remotly together.

7. Scott G

Friday January 11, 2013 02:38am EST

Don't have to rush to give Hobbit many rewards, there's going to be two more chances to give it some hardware. Let the director's that decided to make a single movie out of a single script have a chance at the podium.

8. Atrus

view all by Atrus | Friday January 11, 2013 05:08am EST

Only one nomination for Moonrise Kingdom and no Directing for Ben Affleck? Really? And TDKR was no Oscar material, but Avengers deserved more than just Visual effects.

The academy awards are becoming every year less and less relevant. Genre movies are relegated to visual and costume awards, animation has itw own ghetto, and anything comedy or that is not drama is quickly swept under the rug. Unless something changes, I don't even know why we bother with them any more.

9. Juanma Ruiz

Friday January 11, 2013 06:58am EST

Let's be honest, the real missing picture up there this year is Skyfall... not technically a SF movie, but a genre film worthy of Tor.com. And, easily, the best genre film this year, a little bit above the Avengers and TDKR.

I find laughable the nominations for Life of Pi, with its campiness, its cheesiness, cheap philosophy and weak leading (and almost only) actor.

10. a1ay

Friday January 11, 2013 08:19am EST

Doesn't Life of Pi count as genre? It's got floating man-eating mangrove plants and weird social meerkats.

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