EVE-aaaaaaaaa!
By the way, I still think it is ridiculous how animated films are ghettoized to the “Best Animated Film” category in the Golden Globes and Oscars. Wall-E was easily one of the top 5 movies of 2008, including live-action work.
Wall-E on DVD
I agree with you completely on WALL-E being in the top 5 of last year…
I suspect the Academy ghettoized Animation so as to allow live-action Stars to get more face-time when the Award is handed out. Gotta placate the union(s), lest they recommend a wildcat strike and put Hollywood to bed for months (/snark)
Top five? It’s the best I’ve seen.
WALL-E will likely earn a couple nominations outside Best Animated Feature, and hopefully it will win. Eventually, there will be an Animated film nominated for Best Picture, but I doubt it will be this year.
Actually, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture in ‘92.
I love you Oliver…but I disagree with you on this one.
I still believe in the Thespian…WALL-E would have done well with pretty much anyone delivering the lines given enough retakes. However, I believe a live actor can turn a mediocre, or acceptable script, into a masterpiece if he/she can deliver the lines with the right emotion and attitude.
I belive that the script, the animation, the acting and the presentation are Oscar worthy when rolle all together.
Right. It’s been so long I had forgotten.
I still believe in the Thespian…WALL-E would have done well with pretty much anyone delivering the lines given enough retakes.
That just ain’t true. First of all for most animation, they go through as many takes with the voice actors as they do with live action. And I’ll take some of the great animators and the work they’ve done over 90% of Hollywood’s drek. For instance, Glen Keane on the Genie in Alladin – or especially the combination of Jeremy Irons’ voice plus Andreas Dejas’ work on Scar in The Lion King? No sir, animation stands right next to live action for pathos, emotion, etc. If you could make a movie like Wall-E just through trial and error, why do so many animated films suck? I just recently watched Kung Fu Panda (so-so) and Space Chimps (horrible) and that reminded me of just how good the Pixar folks are at what it is they do. It’s not brute force computations. It’s art. And its some of the best of it.
By the way, I think its agreed that Robert Deniro is probably one of our best actors. Check him out on Saturday Night Live from a couple years ago. He sucked.
Game. Set. Match. I win.
They ought to be eligible for the big category, but since so few get any recognition there it’s better there’s a separate category as well, imo.
It’s unlikely that an animated star will ever win “Best Actor” because it is a composite performance, made up of the voice talent and the animators.
In live action, the two are perceived to be the same, so there is only one person to give the statue to (even though the director, lighting guy, scriptwriter, etc also contribute to an actor’s performance in composite ways).
If a director made a serious live action film where the dialog was dubbed over the top by different actors from the body acting, then it would be interesting to see what the academy did with it. Then it may make more sense to have an explicit “Best Voice Actor” category.
Should animated films be up for Best Film? Best Script? Best Score? Absolutely.
I think the “best voice actor” category idea is a brilliant one.
Actually, I would be pretty surprised if Wall-E doesn’t get a Best Picture nomination. The Best Animated Feature award is designed to give animated features the chance to compete for their own award but it doesn’t been that animated features are ineligible for Best Picture. This seems like a year when Wall-E could get one of the five Best Picture nominations and it might even be a dark horse choice to win the award.
For what it’s worth, Wall-E and EVE couldn’t be up for acting performances, as their work is actually less a feat of acting and more a feat of sound design.
I will say, on this topic, that Andy Serkis was robbed: there was an actual performance going on under the animation effects used to create Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films, and the Academy was too blind to see anything other than “special effect.”
Just a quick FYI – Eric Goldberg was the supervising animator on the Genie. Glen was the supervisor on the character Aladdin. Both are amazing animators – easily rank among the best living animators today. Also, some may know, some may not, Glen Keane’s father was Bil Keane – creator of Family Circus. Just an interesting tidbit I suppose.
Spider, I’ve got to disagree with you. The sound design only provides one aspect of their respective character. The great thing about Wall-E is that the acting performances created by the animators would come through, even if there was no sound. You’ve got to remember that in CG animation, the animator is creating everything that the character does in a given scene or sequence of scenes. Not only are they making Wall-E roll from point A to point B, but they’re also creating every little nuance as he goes from point to point. The shudder that moves up the entire body as one track rolls over a rock. The slight tilt to Wall-E’s head as he looks this way and that, combined with just a bit of overshoot and settle so that the motion looks robotic, but not “computer-perfect” robotic. There’s a ton of little details that the animator brings to the table, all of which combine to create a realistic performance, not one that feels lifeless and dead.
Maybe the best example would be after Wall-E is shocked by the Auto-pilot and falls into the trash area of the ship. Wall-E’s entire performance changes – he’s gravely injured he knows it, and the performance reflects that…but his personality remains – he wants Eve to fulfill her mission and bring the plant to the scanner at the Lido deck.
You’re correct. Keane did Belle, from Beauty and the Beast though, right?
JWeidner; my error, I was simply trying to point out that there was no voice work put into the characters of Wall-E and Eve. Their distinctive vocalizations were all the work of the film’s sound designer, who created the lilts and emotional shadings out of otherwise innocuous machine sounds. You are right, of course, in stating that a large part of their performance was the work of PIXAR animators.
Oliver, Glen was the supervisor on Beast. James Baxter – quite possibly THE greatest living animator – was the supervisor for Belle. That doesn’t mean they didn’t work on each other’s characters – for a great example of how talented James is, check out the ballroom dancing scene from Beauty and the Beast – there’s a moment where the camera swoops in from a high shot, and tracks around the 2 of them as they twirl – James did all that animation. The link is to a youtube video segment showing his pencil tests – the narrator is Don Hahn, the producer of Beauty and the Beast.
Also, if you’re interested, I’d suggest checking out The Animation Podcast by Clay Kaytis. He’s a Disney animator, and the podcasts are his interviews with a lot of the greats – Baxter, Goldberg, Keane, Andreas Deja, Ray Harryhousen(!), and more.
And Spider, no worries, and sorry if I came off harsh in any way, wasn’t my intent. But I understand what you’re saying.
The “Best Animated Feature” category was created after “Beauty and the Beast” was nominated for Best Picture, because they didn’t want animated films dirtying up the Very Important Best Picture category.
There’s still a huge amount of snobbery in the industry towards animation vs. live-action film. At the Golden Globes, if you’re eligible for Best Animated Feature, you can’t even be nominated for Best Drama or Best Comedy or Musical.
Oh, and since it seems almost no one got to see it, let me do a little plug for “Bolt.” It’s not “Wall-E,” but it’s a solid little movie with some really amazing character animation. There are moments with the animals (especially the dog and the pigeons) where you would almost swear they used live-action footage, it’s so close to the way those animals really move.