Early last Thursday morning, ‘Thor: The Dark World’ star Chris Hemsworth and AMPAS president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the nominees for the 86th Academy Awards. Naturally, films like ‘American Hustle’, ‘Her’, ’12 Years A Slave’, ‘Gravity’, and ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ received nods, but a number of deserving films were unceremoniously snubbed this year. Many are disappointed by ‘Saving Mr. Banks’, ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’, and ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’ not getting the recognition they deserve, but there is a glaring omission from the Best Visual Effects category that everyone should be talking about too. The category is filled with great films (and ‘The Lone Ranger’) that deserve the honor, but Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’ is noticeably absent.
Even though it didn’t have a great domestic opening, the epic Kaiju vs. Jaeger action film ended up grossing more than any other original live-action film this year. It even landed on our list of top five movies of 2013. Despite those achievements, the film was still snubbed by the Academy in the one category it most definitely deserved to be in. I mean, they even threw a bone to ‘Jackass: Bad Grandpa’ for something!
Anyway, Academy Award-winning special effects company Industrial Light & Magic won’t be adding a statue to their shelves this year for ‘Pacific Rim’, but it’s hard to argue that they did a phenomenal job with all the effects in the film. Recently, The Verge released a VFX breakdown video of how they brought the Hong Kong battle between Gypsy Danger and the category 4 Kaiju called Leatherback to life using digital effects and miniatures:
The Academy and I have been at odds for years due to their choices of which films get nominations, but this is a downright atrocity. How can they not recognize the excellence in visual effects contained in ‘Pacific Rim’?! Oh well. This isn’t the first time that they’ve disappointed me and it surely won’t be the last. What do you think about Del Toro’s giant monster movie being snubbed at this year’s Oscars? Are you as disappointed as I am? Do you really think that ‘The Lone Ranger’ had better visual effects than ‘Pacific Rim’? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
