I don't know if it necessarily got snubbed. I have no experience with the How to Train Your Dragon movies, but they seem horrible. Maybe it should have been included over that, but I can't say.
How To Train Your Dragon 1 & 2 are incredible. I'd say they are the best Dreamworks movies and the 2nd one is the perfect follow-up to what was established in the first movie and the Riders of Berk series.
It wasn't witty for me at all, I could identify what the writers wanted to be funny to a fault. "Hey look laugh here audience we're pointing to it so hard, please laugh at this." Come on guys we made a clever joke about political systems right there, better laugh. Not sure about a kids perspective but I think I would have thought it was stupid if I was 5 or 6 years old. The movie was not well crafted enough for adults. An example of what you are describing are the Toy Story films.
The Lego Movie is the new Toy Story for this decade. Children play with toys based on famous properties like Lego or Batman. All the themes I listed are present in both, but this one applies satire to the over-saturated nature of our franchise filled childhoods. It's deliberately making fun of this kind of obvious Hollywood story because a child WOULD create a story like that with his favorite characters/self-inserts in mind. The audience I saw who watched The Lego Movie were also incredibly quiet when they were not laughing.
I don't know if it necessarily got snubbed. I have no experience with the How to Train Your Dragon movies, but they seem horrible. Maybe it should have been included over that, but I can't say.
How To Train Your Dragon 1 & 2 are incredible. I'd say they are the best Dreamworks movies and the 2nd one is the perfect follow-up to what was established in the first movie and the Riders of Berk series.
It wasn't witty for me at all, I could identify what the writers wanted to be funny to a fault. "Hey look laugh here audience we're pointing to it so hard, please laugh at this." Come on guys we made a clever joke about political systems right there, better laugh. Not sure about a kids perspective but I think I would have thought it was stupid if I was 5 or 6 years old. The movie was not well crafted enough for adults. An example of what you are describing are the Toy Story films.
The Lego Movie is the new Toy Story for this decade. Children play with toys based on famous properties like Lego or Batman. All the themes I listed are present in both, but this one applies satire to the over-saturated nature of our franchise filled childhoods. It's deliberately making fun of this kind of obvious Hollywood story because a child WOULD create a story like that with his favorite characters/self-inserts in mind. The audience I saw who watched The Lego Movie were also incredibly quiet when they were not laughing.
LEGO movie isn't even on the same planet as Toy Story.
It wasn't witty for me at all, I could identify what the writers wanted to be funny to a fault. "Hey look laugh here audience we're pointing to it so hard, please laugh at this." Come on guys we made a clever joke about political systems right there, better laugh. Not sure about a kids perspective but I think I would have thought it was stupid if I was 5 or 6 years old. The movie was not well crafted enough for adults. An example of what you are describing are the Toy Story films.
The Lego Movie is the new Toy Story for this decade. Children play with toys based on famous properties like Lego or Batman. All the themes I listed are present in both, but this one applies satire to the over-saturated nature of our franchise filled childhoods. It's deliberately making fun of this kind of obvious Hollywood story because a child WOULD create a story like that with his favorite characters/self-inserts in mind. The audience I saw who watched The Lego Movie were also incredibly quiet when they were not laughing.
How is the Lego Movie the new Toy Story? Children have been playing with Lego and Batman Toys since the middle of last century. Toy Story reinvigorated old toy lines and made toy IP, I bought a Buzz Lightyear plush last year for my nephew.
My franchise filled childhood is better represented in Toy Story because I played with all those types of toys when I was a kid.
I don't understand what you mean by Hollywood story, it is a Monomyth or Hero's Journey, the oldest type of story.
Self insertion is key to these types of stories. The reason that they pick the blandest actors for the visual mediums of these stories is for the audience to insert themselves instead. Mark Hamill in Star Wars is a blank slate, Keanu Reeves in The Matrix is a blank slate, Asa Butterfield in Ender's Game is a blank slate. They are picked to be mundane for the audience to self insert. This character is then surrounded by interesting characters like Han Solo, Morpheus, Mazer Rakham. You cannot parody a base story structure. If you understand it as a parody then you have to agree that it is also parodying the stories of Gautam Buddha, Moses, Jesus Christ, the Mahbharath and Lord of the Rings.
Everything in the Lego movie is a one scene gag that becomes useless / annoying every time it is forcefully repeated. It creates an atmosphere of fake enjoyment where the viewer is asked to be surprised or be happy for every new gag but the viewer lets subsequent iterations of the gag become part of the bland background of the story.
I will choose to disagree with your opinion and agree with Scott's opinion -
LEGO movie isn't even on the same planet as Toy Story
Awards don't mean shit anyway, if you enjoy the Lego movie that's great I'm not going to stop your enjoyment, however stating that it is an epic, humorous or amazing film for everyone is incorrect.
Awards don't mean shit anyway, if you enjoy the Lego movie that's great I'm not going to stop your enjoyment, however stating that it is an epic, humorous or amazing film for everyone is incorrect.
Have you seen the critics or public's reaction to The Lego Movie as a whole? It's overwhelmingly positive for several of the reasons I mentioned and it is being analyzed as such. It's the highest acclaimed animated movie this year that received a wide release. (Song of the Sea/Kaguya being Limited) Much more so than other nominations like How To Train Your Dragon 2, Boxtrolls, and Big Hero 6. But I think that's the key issue here, you felt that humor or meta placed in the story was beating you over the head to like it when I didn't feel that way at all.
People associate "The Hero's Journey" storytelling with Hollywood even coming from ancient resources. As you listed with Star Wars and The Matrix, it applies to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter; the "special," the "one." You CAN parody the tropes associated with this story as you can with anything else.
Unlike the Avengers which is a good movie but will not be forgotten in five years, because well there will be an Avengers film coming out that year :-p
Mark my words: the LEGO movie is a good movie, but it's one that will be largely forgotten within 5 years.
Has there been any sequel talk? I could see it getting run into the ground, ala Shrek.
"The Lego Movie 2" is slated for a 2018 release, with a script penned by Lord and Miller. There's also going to be a spin-off movie "The LEGO Batman Movie" for 2017 with a different director/scriptwriter which centers around the question if Batman can be happy.
Gonna give them the benefit of the doubt, but I will tread lightly with these sequels without full Miller/Lord control. Shrek didn't get horrible until Shrek The Third after all.
While I would agree that LEGO is most likely nowhere near the artistic achievements of Song of the Sea or Kaguya (have heard very mixed things on Boxtrolls and HTTYD2, so I can't judge for sure), and that it almost certainly doesn't deserve to win this year, I'd say it's a more deserving nomination than Big Hero 6 at least. BH6 isn't bad, and is in fact a little better than some of the complainers would have you believe, but it is definitely a lesser kind of good. If LEGO is this year's Toy Story (for the sake of argument), then BH6 is more like this year's Shrek -- perfectly enjoyable, funny, even has a few good messages to give, but it's not really too special beyond that.
Incidentally, in 2001, Shrek won the first Best Animated Feature award over Pixar's Monsters, Inc. Just sayin'. The Academy don't always know what's good for 'em.
Anyway, LEGO, like Toy Story, had all that BH6 had to offer plus a buttload of groundbreaking CG work and, not only a message, but a fully self-consistent set of complex themes and metaphors, in this case about things like the creative process, the nature of Hero's Journey stories (both why they work and why they don't) and the relationship between adults/those with power vs. children/those without. Film Crit Hulk summed up a lot of those themes best, and for convenience's sake, I've converted his essay on the movie into Bruce Banner mode for ease of reading (spoiler warning, obviously): http://pastebin.com/mqWAxNDW
Soooo yeah. I think a lot of people would agree LEGO shouldn't necessarily win, but is at least more deserving of a nomination than a couple of the other movies on the ballot. Not that that makes a difference, considering the Oscars never nominate all the films people agree are worthy, but it's fun to make a case for what one personally thinks is worth nominating all the same.
It's also been established that the people nominated animation movies and voting on them don't care a lick about Animation past what their kids like... if you remember that article from last year on the subject.
Comments
My franchise filled childhood is better represented in Toy Story because I played with all those types of toys when I was a kid.
I don't understand what you mean by Hollywood story, it is a Monomyth or Hero's Journey, the oldest type of story.
Self insertion is key to these types of stories. The reason that they pick the blandest actors for the visual mediums of these stories is for the audience to insert themselves instead. Mark Hamill in Star Wars is a blank slate, Keanu Reeves in The Matrix is a blank slate, Asa Butterfield in Ender's Game is a blank slate. They are picked to be mundane for the audience to self insert. This character is then surrounded by interesting characters like Han Solo, Morpheus, Mazer Rakham. You cannot parody a base story structure. If you understand it as a parody then you have to agree that it is also parodying the stories of Gautam Buddha, Moses, Jesus Christ, the Mahbharath and Lord of the Rings.
Everything in the Lego movie is a one scene gag that becomes useless / annoying every time it is forcefully repeated. It creates an atmosphere of fake enjoyment where the viewer is asked to be surprised or be happy for every new gag but the viewer lets subsequent iterations of the gag become part of the bland background of the story.
I will choose to disagree with your opinion and agree with Scott's opinion - Awards don't mean shit anyway, if you enjoy the Lego movie that's great I'm not going to stop your enjoyment, however stating that it is an epic, humorous or amazing film for everyone is incorrect.
People associate "The Hero's Journey" storytelling with Hollywood even coming from ancient resources. As you listed with Star Wars and The Matrix, it applies to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter; the "special," the "one." You CAN parody the tropes associated with this story as you can with anything else.
Gonna give them the benefit of the doubt, but I will tread lightly with these sequels without full Miller/Lord control. Shrek didn't get horrible until Shrek The Third after all.
EDIT: Nevermind apparently they only directed that movie. I thought they wrote it too.
Incidentally, in 2001, Shrek won the first Best Animated Feature award over Pixar's Monsters, Inc. Just sayin'. The Academy don't always know what's good for 'em.
Anyway, LEGO, like Toy Story, had all that BH6 had to offer plus a buttload of groundbreaking CG work and, not only a message, but a fully self-consistent set of complex themes and metaphors, in this case about things like the creative process, the nature of Hero's Journey stories (both why they work and why they don't) and the relationship between adults/those with power vs. children/those without. Film Crit Hulk summed up a lot of those themes best, and for convenience's sake, I've converted his essay on the movie into Bruce Banner mode for ease of reading (spoiler warning, obviously): http://pastebin.com/mqWAxNDW
Soooo yeah. I think a lot of people would agree LEGO shouldn't necessarily win, but is at least more deserving of a nomination than a couple of the other movies on the ballot. Not that that makes a difference, considering the Oscars never nominate all the films people agree are worthy, but it's fun to make a case for what one personally thinks is worth nominating all the same.
Also, be sure to fill out this survey to get it greenlit for a full series.