I'm an illustrator and a big fan of animation, so the Best Animated feature is the only part of the Oscars I really care about.
There were five nominees this year, Brave, Wreck-it-Ralph, ParaNorman, Frankenweenie, and Pirates! I didn't see the latter two-- I don't much like Tim Burton's style anymore, and I missed a chance to see Pirates! earlier in the year.
Wreck-it-Ralph is definitely not to everyone's tastes. As you said, if you don't like video games there's not much point to seeing it. But ParaNorman is worth a watch, I think. I don't know how faithful the trailer was, but not only was that movie much more technically innovative than Brave-- they practically reinvented stop-motion with the film, using a lot of new 3D printing technology and other new tricks-- but it had one of the best stories about bullying I've ever seen. I didn't expect it to get the Oscar-- the Academy doesn't seem to like stop-motion in general, and Laika is a small studio that doesn't get much press, but I had hoped that they would be a little less predictable than simply handing it to Pixar again. I mean, of the 12 years there has been a Best Animated Oscar, Pixar has won it all but 3 times. Kind of reminds me of the episode in Downton Abbey where they're talking about how the Dowager Countess always wins the best roses prize. There's a lot of amazing things happening in modern animated films, and it might get more attention if Pixar were forced to work for their accolades a little more.
Not that Brave was a bad film-- it was very enjoyable and very beautiful. But I thought the story and writing was a bit weak for Pixar.
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There were five nominees this year, Brave, Wreck-it-Ralph, ParaNorman, Frankenweenie, and Pirates! I didn't see the latter two-- I don't much like Tim Burton's style anymore, and I missed a chance to see Pirates! earlier in the year.
Wreck-it-Ralph is definitely not to everyone's tastes. As you said, if you don't like video games there's not much point to seeing it. But ParaNorman is worth a watch, I think. I don't know how faithful the trailer was, but not only was that movie much more technically innovative than Brave-- they practically reinvented stop-motion with the film, using a lot of new 3D printing technology and other new tricks-- but it had one of the best stories about bullying I've ever seen. I didn't expect it to get the Oscar-- the Academy doesn't seem to like stop-motion in general, and Laika is a small studio that doesn't get much press, but I had hoped that they would be a little less predictable than simply handing it to Pixar again. I mean, of the 12 years there has been a Best Animated Oscar, Pixar has won it all but 3 times. Kind of reminds me of the episode in Downton Abbey where they're talking about how the Dowager Countess always wins the best roses prize. There's a lot of amazing things happening in modern animated films, and it might get more attention if Pixar were forced to work for their accolades a little more.
Not that Brave was a bad film-- it was very enjoyable and very beautiful. But I thought the story and writing was a bit weak for Pixar.