Oscars Going Through Changes; Adds New Category

[Ziggy 11,833]

2 hours ago, Glittertinks said:

Well, not every popular movie is a good movie. And I would hate it for bad movies to get an Oscar just because they were super popular in the first week. This ruins the Academy's reputation even more if you ask me. 

I also don't like them recording the "less interesting" categories. Movies are not only made by actors, because everyone who loves movies knows that sound mixing and film editing are super important. Let's be real these are only two of the less popular categories. 

This could end so tragic 

agreed. I love the technical categories because for something like LaLa Land I thought it had HORRIBLE sound mixing so I was very invested in it not winning (it did anyway). Those are fun awards to root for, though, because they are not so much popularity contests as the big awards are

[Glittertinks 12,455]

3 hours ago, M Monstre said:

A lot of people hate this new category, but in my opinion, I don't understand why the backlash is so big. Like, people keep complaining about the Oscars not recognizing movies that the general public likes, but then complain about how they're recognizing them with this award? That doesn't make sense to me.

The counterargument to that is "Well, the Oscars do need to recognize big blockbuster movies, just not in this manner." And while I do agree with that, people need to separate popularity and the art of film-making. That isn't to say that popular movies are not pieces of 'art,' or that they're not good—because they are—but the problem is is that not every major film is the best for the Academy. Now, this is a personal opinion, but I didn't think Black Panther was all that good. Could it be nominated for Best Picture? Maybe. Should it win? Not in my opinion. While the popularity behind the film was extraordinary, that doesn't necessarily mean that it should win (or to some people, even be nominated) for a Best Picture award.

Besides, haven't people said that they should add like a "Most popular" category for years anyway?

They need to change their voting. In my opinion the specific fields should still only vote for their field in the last voting round. A lot of people vote for Disney movies in the Animation category because they have seen nothing else while people from the actual industry know other projects. This year The Breadwinner for example was overlooked although it was better than Coco. But nobody bothered to see it. And with that comes less votes. It's ridiculous what is going on in that category. 

Also, a Popular Movie category opens up the Oscar's to even more commercial. (they already have a lot of annoying commercial breaks, admit it). For example, recently I've seen the movie Spotlight which won Best Picture in 2016 I believe but I did not remember because Mad Max was more popular. My fear here is, that after some time the Best Picture Award will be forgotten, overshadowed by the popular movies anyways. 

The Oscars become more and more US and commercial centric and tbh there is the possibility that movies and movie making won't soon be the most important part anymore. I mean, essential movie making parts get a background role while they introduce a category for hyper-commercial movies. 

This has turned into a more general rant, I am sorry

[imnotyourbabe10 6,100]

Can we get a Joan Rivers hologram for the red carpet?

 

[zakariah 11,718]

Ok but I hope Black Panther will still be nominated for Best Picture in 2019 though.

[Miel 15,009]

4 hours ago, mariomania1234 said:

Stupid move. A stunt category would’ve been a good way to honor some “popular films” in a way that actually feels meaningful.

That's... actually a great idea, if they put it within the "effects" categories, tbh. Stunt actors definitely deserve more credit at the Oscars!

[Bebe 17,093]

I actually don't hate this at all  

There are blockbuster films that help shift the wider culture, that have an impact on the film industry at large, that deliver incredible performances, that deliver interesting stories. The main categories will remain, the technical categories will remain. 

I mean naturally lists containing the "most influential" movies of all time are filled with giant blockbuster films. Why shouldn't The Oscars recognise some of these films when they have the potential to influence the way the film industry evolves, the way people make films and influence the culture at large. 

The Wizard of Oz, considered to be a great and influential film, won "Best Original Score". A film of it's importance won best score...  The War of The Worlds (1953) won "Best Visual Effects", but it was also the only nominee that year...  Godzilla (1954) obviously won nothing... Psycho won nothing... Planet of the Apes (1968) won nothing but ended up winning an honorary award.

The truth is that popular films have artistic value, very clearly some popular films have more artistic merit than others, but I'd argue that along side the brilliant films already recognised - popular films do deserve some recognition to.

We also don't even know what the category is yet  It could be "Best Stunts" for all we know so lets simmer down a bit until we actually learn what the category is.
 

[GypsyBabe 22,836]

4 hours ago, RAMROD said:

LOTR's Oscars are nothing but technical awards and music. Nothing to do with acting itself. So obviously it is not really considered the same level as something or someone that win Best Pictures and Best actress/actor

LOTR didn’t only win technical stuff. It won best picture for the last film and had actor nominations throughout. 

[REALITY 76,540]

1 hour ago, Glittertinks said:

They need to change their voting. In my opinion the specific fields should still only vote for their field in the last voting round. A lot of people vote for Disney movies in the Animation category because they have seen nothing else while people from the actual industry know other projects. This year The Breadwinner for example was overlooked although it was better than Coco. But nobody bothered to see it. And with that comes less votes. It's ridiculous what is going on in that category. 

Also, a Popular Movie category opens up the Oscar's to even more commercial. (they already have a lot of annoying commercial breaks, admit it). For example, recently I've seen the movie Spotlight which won Best Picture in 2016 I believe but I did not remember because Mad Max was more popular. My fear here is, that after some time the Best Picture Award will be forgotten, overshadowed by the popular movies anyways. 

The Oscars become more and more US and commercial centric and tbh there is the possibility that movies and movie making won't soon be the most important part anymore. I mean, essential movie making parts get a background role while they introduce a category for hyper-commercial movies. 

This has turned into a more general rant, I am sorry

I definitely agree that they should change not only what they're voting for, but who's doing the voting. The Academy is notorious for having not only a traditional voter demographic, but most of them haven't seen half of the movies that have been nominated. 

I actually think that creating this category, though, may help movies that are often overlooked because they're not as popular. For example, blockbuster movies (especially Disney ones) will all probably be nominated for this category, which makes them less likely to be nominated in more categories like Best Picture.

It may be risky though because if they keep getting nominated for the "Most Popular" category, they may never make it to "Best Picture." I don't know...

[Guest Adarsh]

They made a seperate category for Black panther 

[Madam Margolyes 7,783]

So the stunt performers and casting directors remain forgotten, and now they’re presenting some of the below-the-line categories during commercial breaks? THE DISRESPECT, I dont think any branch would agree on this.

5 hours ago, RAMROD said:

LOTR's Oscars are nothing but technical awards and music. Nothing to do with acting itself. So obviously it is not really considered the same level as something or someone that win Best Pictures and Best actress/actor

LOTR return of the king won best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay. That’s 3 win in Oscar’s big 5 categories. Ian McKellen was also nominated for his acting in the first LOTR.

[gag 22,449]

I'm mostly excited about the 'globally accessible telecast' TBH. It's due time for awards show to recognize that people don't watch TV anymore and move their platform over to livestreams. Hopefully this'll become an industry standard because international viewers know how annoying it is to watch on laggy bootleg livestreams on ad-infested websites.

[Glittertinks 12,455]

This twitter thread that I saw last night is actually a very good one that is questioning the decision and some of the things are pretty accurate.

 

6 hours ago, M Monstre said:

I actually think that creating this category, though, may help movies that are often overlooked because they're not as popular. For example, blockbuster movies (especially Disney ones) will all probably be nominated for this category, which makes them less likely to be nominated in more categories like Best Picture.

It may be risky though because if they keep getting nominated for the "Most Popular" category, they may never make it to "Best Picture." I don't know...

I think it is a good thing that they wanna also give popular movies some attention, but I personally think it will backfire in a long term. I love my Disney but honestly, the stuff they put out since 1-2 years is not quality anymore (only a few rare exceptions). But it is already obvious that Disney will be the one benefiting from it most of the time.

It is obvious why this category was created. Add more popular movies to the line up so everyone can make even more money out of it. I just really don't know if this is fair for film makers. It is already happening in a smaller scale in the Animation Category. Disney has money. They can put their characters and movies everywhere. "It's for kids" and nobody cares. Other movies, from European or Asian studios get overlooked. The fun thing here is, US fans of animation always say they want diversity - international studios actually offer diversity It is frustrating because I want to work in this field and it's discouraging when a Studio just gets Awards for its name. It is literally no fair competition anymore.

And this is what is bugging me about this Popular Category, it will be either dominated by one category or it is the one where they all put the movies with some diversity in it, while Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Actors are still filled with white people. Instead of waiting that this develops naturally with their new, more diverse invitations for the Academy Membership. It doesn't change from one day or another. Imo, you could already start feeling that changes are coming but people are impatient and this is what you get.

Why do you trigger me to write whole novels Again, this is just a general thing I wanted to say, based on your comment.

7 hours ago, Miel said:

12 hours ago, mariomania1234 said:

Stupid move. A stunt category would’ve been a good way to honor some “popular films” in a way that actually feels meaningful. 

That's... actually a great idea, if they put it within the "effects" categories, tbh. Stunt actors definitely deserve more credit at the Oscars!

I agree! Also, it's a very dangerous job. Maybe it would even inspire some movie directors to rather use physical stunts again instead of just slapping everything on a green screen. Movies with lots of CGI always feel different than the ones using real sets. And a lot of actors themselves but a lot of work in training for fighting scenes etc. Also, look at what Tom Cruise is doing every damn Mission Impossible.

I am also sure that there are today a lot more options to create interesting categories. Somebody mentioned Casting Directors. That would be interesting imo. Imagine a Category for Concept Artists. Maybe split the international categories even more so more international film makers have a chance. If this is the most important movie award of the world, then show me.

What I would also love would be less commercial breaks, less celebrities in nice clothes telling the audience dumb stuff, but rather show small kind of documentaries what certain people from certain categories do. Get behind the scenes looks, interviews and still try to incorporate this in an evening show.

[Didymus 34,379]

Stupid. The Oscars already award only the most popular, mainstream movies. Compared to other film award organizations it is already a contest among the films who achieved mainstream success.

It seems the only people who are happy about this are those who want to see their favorite films win, and not the best.

[Bradley 59,063]

This is unnecessary in my opinion.

If you want your film to be nominated for an Oscar, then make one worthy of an Oscar. I enjoyed Black Panther, Wonder Woman and Avengers: Infinity War but let's not pretend they are Oscarworthy. They are still movies mainly consisting of brilliant visual effects and action sequences, the actors are good but the depth to their performance usually is not as complex or sophisticated as the acting performance delivered by the usual nominees/winners in the acting categories.

Also why do we need to make a distinction between 'popular films' and 'awardworthy films'? Unlike the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards doesn't make a distinction between musical/comedies and drama, the Best Picture category recognises quality and excellence in all movies regardless of the genre of the film and I think it forces filmmakers who want to be nominated in that category to up the ante and ensure that their films are of good quality.

The introduction of this category will make commercial moviemakers complacent and they'll have the mindset 'Oh since we'll be eligible for the popular movie Oscar, we don't need to make an effort in trying to get nominated under Best Picture'.

I think Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is a perfect example of a blockbuster also being worthy of a Best Picture nomination. In fact movies like Dunkirk, Gravity, Get Out are also Best Picture nominees that are also blockbusters in a way.

Also let's not forget that commercial blockbusters are already recognised in technical categories like Visual Effects, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Makeup, Costume. If they want to be included in Best Picture they need to look like a Best Picture.

[REALITY 76,540]

3 hours ago, Glittertinks said:

I think it is a good thing that they wanna also give popular movies some attention, but I personally think it will backfire in a long term. I love my Disney but honestly, the stuff they put out since 1-2 years is not quality anymore (only a few rare exceptions). But it is already obvious that Disney will be the one benefiting from it most of the time.

It is obvious why this category was created. Add more popular movies to the line up so everyone can make even more money out of it. I just really don't know if this is fair for film makers. It is already happening in a smaller scale in the Animation Category. Disney has money. They can put their characters and movies everywhere. "It's for kids" and nobody cares. Other movies, from European or Asian studios get overlooked. The fun thing here is, US fans of animation always say they want diversity - international studios actually offer diversity It is frustrating because I want to work in this field and it's discouraging when a Studio just gets Awards for its name. It is literally no fair competition anymore.

And this is what is bugging me about this Popular Category, it will be either dominated by one category or it is the one where they all put the movies with some diversity in it, while Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Actors are still filled with white people. Instead of waiting that this develops naturally with their new, more diverse invitations for the Academy Membership. It doesn't change from one day or another. Imo, you could already start feeling that changes are coming but people are impatient and this is what you get.

Why do you trigger me to write whole novels Again, this is just a general thing I wanted to say, based on your comment.

I see what you're saying, and for the most part I agree with it. After taking time to fully digest this information—I don't plan on going to into the industry, but I love movies, and this stuff genuinely interests me—I can definitely understand where a lot of people are coming from. 

That being said, there is one thing that still bugs me, and I probably should have made this more clear in my original post, but what bugs me is the hypocrisy. Haven't people (I'm mainly speaking about the general public, not necessarily people who are 'educated' in the film industry) said that they should add this type of category? I don't know, it just seems very strange and odd that people want to see popular films (like those of Logan and Wonder Woman) get recognized—as they should—but then complain about adding in a category that I've heard so many people say they want? That's what upsets me. It's not necessarily the cateogry itself, or what it represents, but the fact that people are now complaining that they're noticing popular films when they wanted them to do so in the first place.