So, I was to burnt out yesterday to write my opinion about the win of Big Hero 6 at the Academy Awards this year, but I am doing it now.
Overall……………….. not impressed. I should have expected it in hindsight, but …. I just cannot get behind the idea that this film is the best animated film of 2014, especially over How To Train Your Dragon 2 (and some of the other films who either were not nominated, or did not get the award). I like Big Hero 6, but……. I just do not see how the film is that creative, innovative, or anything out of the normal for animated films or superhero films. I just thought that the latter had a lot more depth, interesting twists, a fuller story, and a more developed cast. Big Hero 6 would have been my second choice behind Dragon 2.
I guess what is bothering me, and what has bothered me with the wins of Frozen and Big Hero 6 with their Oscars is that I feel like WDAS is just being handed awards now, especially with the rumored decline of Pixar, and the complaints for over a decade that the studio has not had an award for Best Animated Feature at that point in time, but films like Tangled and Wreck-it Ralph gets snubbed. It is just a bit disappointing to me that the wrong films (in my opinion) are getting the glory, especially with all of the controversies with animation in the Academy Awards.
It just seems like as of late, Disney is getting awards because of their names, and because Pixar is seen as lesser now, the flops DreamWorks has been having, and the other companies not being international. It is even worse when the voters did not watch any, or did not watch a majority of the films. The Academy Awards needs to start taking animation more seriously, and they need to have voters and judges who are actually knowledgeable in the animation field.
For years, the Academy Awards always gives the awards to the “most sophisticated” instead of the best quality films in the categories, which is also who some complained about Wreck-it Ralph not winning 2 years ago, and The Lego Movie not even being nominated. It just seems like they go for the “classiest”, the “most sophisticated”, and the “best known” instead of taking the time to watch, and analyze the films before casting a vote or a proper critique for it.
Well, this is my opinion, and I do not mean to offend anyone. If anyone is interested in discussing this with me, comment below.
animatedkid 
I 100 percent agree with you about Big Hero 6 winning for that Category. It was expected for HTTYD2 to win but i was hoping for a win from either Song of the Sea or The Tale of Princess Kaguya . You rarely heard about both movies in the press and the story line and animation that went into both films is truly spectacular. I also didn’t like how to Oscars snubbed the Lego movie if it was intentional or not. Big Hero 6 had some good animation but for the overall plot i was not impressed. It was just like any other action / superhero movie and I’m sure a sequel is already in the works as well as many of it’s merchandise.
It is definitely disappointing, especially when the reasoning for the win being so shallow in the first place. I have not seen Song of the Sea or The Tale of Princess Kaguya yet (there has been like no promotion for them), but I have heard great things about both.
I am still shocked that The Lego Movie was not nominated, but The Boxtrolls was.
Sequels never win many awards, and neither do gaming movies (both Lego and Wreck-It Ralph proves this), and it is clear that the image is what is more important to them.
Both films are great and Studio Ghibli and Cartoon Saloon both have interesting and unique qualities. I still would like to know as to why, The Lego movie was not nominated but if you take in the factors of, The Boxtrolls and the stop motion / design they did do a fantastic job. I heard rumors that it was either The Boxtrolls or The Lego Movie. The story wasn’t great from the Boxtrolls but Laika always does a great job with animation / design if that was one of the top contributors. Laika will be creating a new film titled, kubo and the two strings that has been getting a lot of attention lately. Let’s just hope with the upcoming animations for this year, which are suppose to have very strong contenders that the Academy will have more of a variety to choose from.
I think of all the CGI movies, Big Hero 6 has the best design and was the most creative. I was really impressed. And the theme they choose to tackle excuses for me that they focussed on Hiro and Tadashi and not on the other characters.
I was routing for Song of the Seas, but I had overall four movies on my “not upset if that one wins” list. Big Hero 6 was one of them. Lego Movie wasn’t.
Song of the Sea was one of my top contenders and I was sad to see Cartoon Saloon get rejected by another Oscar. ( They were nominated for one for the movie, The Secret of Kells.) Most likely a sequel or more sequels will take place for Big Hero 6 considering the movie is based off of a comic / manga. Which i find strange because when Disney bought the rights they took all the original content off the shelves
Yeah, I know…but I think Song of the Sea is even better, especially when it comes to the animation. It is so fluent, unlike the one of Secret of Kells.
Not sure if there will be sequels for Big Hero 6. We’ll see. I think it would work the best as TV series.
Agreed with you completely and yes, Song of the Sea was better than Secret of Kells
Terribly sorry to be asking you this because I don’t know if i can message people on wordpress but i really enjoy your honoring the heroines page. Curious to know if you’ve watched the web series, carmilla? It reminded me of it for some reason
No, I didn’t.
I’m really happy to hear you enjoyed it Swanpride. So ridiculous how long they made you all wait.
Honestly, I think the long wait kind of ruined the experience for me. I was so careful to go into the movie unspoiled, but I already knew that it was about a sibling dying despite doing my best to avoid all information.
I was worried about that. Bummer.
The trailers gave that away for all of us stateside too. Luckily I am somewhat impervious to spoilers but that’s too bad
I am okay with both wins. Frozen because it was a bad year for animation, and Big Hero 6 because it was a good year, but there wasn’t THE stand-out movie. I would have been okay with each of the nominees winning, except the Boxtrolls, so I am not angry even though I routed for Song of the Seas. Since none of the wins were undeserved, I think it is unfair to complain about Disney winning it.
I am still mixed on both winning the awards, but I cannot ignore the bother that I get from it. I still do not get how The Boxtrolls was nominated, especially over The Lego Movie, but it is still a good movie.
I am not complaining about Disney winning it, and I am proud that they are finally getting recognition when it comes to awards, but it just seems to me like the wrong films are getting the awards.
Boxtrolls was most likely nominated because they wanted a stop motion movie in the mix…so one of the CGI movies had to go, and between the three, I think Lego movie was the weakest. Not totally fair, but I am not too upset about it. I am a huge fan of lego and I really like the movie, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is basically a long toy commercial. A really good one, but between a movie which is about how to deal with the loss of a loved one and a movie which is about being creative with your legos, I pick the former.
I agree though that Wreck-if Ralph should have gotten the award…and Tangled should have gotten it if it hadn’t run against Toy Story 3.
With the year Wreck it Ralph was nominated the movies for that year were very strong contenders. Brave should not have won that category but i very much enjoyed Wreck it Ralph, Frankenweenie and ParaNorman. Tangled wasn’t even nominated for an Academy Award which was incredibly surprising.
I’m not upset about it winning, but accept it. And there is some truth to the fact that some people just vote for this category because “their kids like this movie” or because it’s “adorable”.
Next years animation lineup for the Oscars should be interesting 🙂 I’m looking forward to next years and hope Home (Dreamworks) does well to get the company back on track.
I don’t think it’ll be that interesting. I feel the nominees will be Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’ and ‘The Good Dinosaur’, and maybe ‘Minions’ or ‘The Peanuts Film’. I don’t see them having 5 films to be nominated this year.
Inside out, The Good Dinosaur and The peanuts movie are most likely Oscar material for the Academy. I am interested to see Hotel Transylvania 2 and Kahlil Gibran’s, The prophet ( i believe it won an award at TIFF). I’m really looking forward to that film as well as a few international films that are currently being kept under wraps.
Cool! Yeah maybe it’s early in the year so I’m not aware of all the other animated films yet that are planning to be released this year, but we don’t know much about.
Now, I can’t wait for the next Oscars, 😛 !
I think it might be a little to early to say who the top contenders are besides Disney / Pixar and DreamWorks. The Prophet and a few others should be fastly approaching your nearest movie theater 😉
Who knows…if Inside out is really as good as rumors say it is, it might be pretty boring. In the end it depends on the quality of the movies.
I enjoy Disney / Pixar but with the Inside Out movie it very much reminds me of a old cartoon titled, ” Reason and Emotion” from 1943. The story doesn’t look original but with Disney and Pixar having money to advertise and a huge fanbase most likely this film will be the talk of the animation category. Good Dinosaur has had so many alterations that I’m hoping the movie will do well.
Nothing under the sun is new…the Inside out concept reminds me of an old sitcom about a guy who had different emotions in his head. But that doesn’t mean that Pixar won’t do something interesting and meaningful with it.
With Good Dinosaur the development hell worries me, but you never know. Tangled had similar problems and I adore the movie.
Tangled was a great film and i wish it would have been nominated for an Academy Award. The characters were well rounded from development to quality. I don’t think Good Dinosaur is something to worry about. If it didn’t have the potential they would have scrapped it and with Peter Sohn Directing the film i think it will do financially well. Let’s just hope to god it just isn’t about a caveman screaming around with his pet dinosaur… if that’s the case just make it a short haha
Perhaps it is about a dinosaur with it’s pet caveman.
Mind = Blown haha .. If it is I will still be disappointed
If you are right you certainly deserve a high five
I will accept it, since we have no choice to, but it will be something that mildly bothers me. Eligible members of the Academy definitely should not be voting for it because it is “adorable”, or because it “shut their kids up with a smile for 2 hours”. It is what it is.
I disagree. Out of the 3 main films I think Big Hero 6 was the most creative, heartfelt and engaging. Both Dragon and Boxtrolls were great but I have seen movies like them before and to me Big Hero 6 was new and I loved the connection of Hiro Baymax and his brother. I didn’t get that same emotional bond with Dragon or Boxtrolls.
If I was picking my favorite it would be Song of the Sea but honestly Big Hero 6, Simmons and Arquette were the only wins I was happy about
But honestly if Birdman can win over Boyhood the whole thing is a popularity contest not a real sign of the best of the year.
It doesn’t mean much, in my opinion. I’m not sure if Disney will be given the award from now on just because of this incident. Last year, Frozen’s win was at the very least, more “expected,” I suppose. It won almost everything before the Oscars, so it wasn’t surprising. Big Hero 6, though, WAS shocking. Since most of the awards before went to How to Train Your Dragon 2, and The LEGO Movie wasn’t nominated, I figured How to Train Your Dragon 2 would win. I can see why The LEGO Movie wasn’t nominated (it does rely on the humor too much), but I do wonder why the Academy went for Big Hero 6. Hiro and Baymax’s flight scenes were similar to Hiccup and Toothless’.