Well, anyway, while I'm here and already griping about animated movie awards and how people gripe about them, I might as well break down the way it's shaping up.
Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio is the one to beat. I'm repeating myself from the article, but a Turning Red win would be an upset, but not too big of an upset. Turning Red would probably still be the favorite straight out if there wasn't that streaming snafu, which may hurt it. Disney had kind of an off year (Lightyear and Strange World are dead in the water commercial flops with mediocre critics scores, so they're riding the bench), so this is the year for the "Animated Oscar Bait" to capitalize. But, the Academy as a whole likes voting for Disney in this category, and hate giving Netflix actual awards rather than just nominations (see the colossal crash-and-burns of Roma, Power of the Dog and The Irishman). On Pinocchio's positive side, everybody seems to actually like GDT, which does help, and Netflix just doesn't really have any big players, so they will push it. Pinocchio will probably also be the only animated movie to get additional nominations; it's got probable Song and Score nominations, which are not historically big signs that a movie is winning Animated Feature, though it obviously doesn't hurt. If it could actually get Screenplay or even Best Picture noms, it would be over, but nobody's predicting that right now. Anyway, upshot is Pinocchio and Turning Red are safe nominees.
I'd say sitting a distant third, and not impossible to miss, is Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It's feeling like a "welcome back, DreamWorks!" kind of year, and it's the bigger, more recent movie of the two. I'm personally predicting The Bad Guys get nominated as well, and it's a two nominee year for DreamWorks, as The Bad Guys is well loved by animators. But I'm currently on my own with that, I just have misgivings about a movie other people are much bigger on.
That movie is Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It's the safe third for basically everyone but me, as far as I can tell, but I just don't think it's actually an animated movie (haven't seen it so can't say anything about quality, but I gather no problem there). People complain that the Academy Branch doesn't get to exclusively vote for the Best Animated Feature category, but this ignores that not all Academy animators are in the animation branch (a lot are scattered around Visual Effects, Writing and even the Directing branches) and there are a lot of non-animators in the Animation andShort Film branch. The vast majority people voting for the Best Animated Feature category are actually animators, or at least animation fans, and they do a good job picking nominees. (You can complain about the whole Academy's choice of winners, but that applies to all categories, so people arguing that only animators should vote for the winners better be arguing only sound people should vote for sound, visual effects people for visual effects, costumers for costuming, etc., etc.) Marcel has been popping up in a lot of precursors, but most of those precursors actually don't have a large voting pool of animators or even animation afficionados, unlike the Academy. The place to look here is the Annies, which has become just about useless since it split the Feature category in two for predicting, but in this special case may be useful. If Marcel manages to miss there, it's over. If it gets in, I'll shrug and predict it. But right now, I expect it to miss, and am basically replacing it with The Bad Guys.
For the final spot, it's between Wendell and Wild from Henry Selick, who has the advantage of being a major name, plus stop motion, which whoever the voters for this category are have a bit of a fetish for, and My Father's Dragon from Cartoon Saloon, which has yet to miss in the category. I'm going to give the edge to My Father's Dragon, as we've already got a major stop motion contender but no traditional, hand drawn contender, plus, though it was weak critically for a Cartoon Saloon picture, Wendell and Wild was weaker. Both are from Netflix, but the disadvantage there seems to be about winning rather than nominations, which is what these to movies are playing for. Really, The Bad Guys should go in this category; these three movies are competing for either the last two spots (if I'm right about Marcel) or one spot (If I'm wrong). I'd say My Father's Dragon over The Bad Guys if it comes down to it.
There's a couple wild cards in play, with Inu-Oh getting a surprise Golden Globe nomination, and though it doesn't have any heat on it, Mad God has basically the exact same behind the scenes story as Pinocchio, except even moreso, as it's a passion project gestating twice as long, and unlike Pinocchio, is actually walks the walk of being an animated movie for adults instead of just talking the talk (to the point it's biggest drawback, other than the tiny specialty distributor, is it's kind of a tough sit).
So, Pinocchio and Turning Red, definite nominations, Puss in Boots, really safe, Marcel, wait for the Annies, The Bad Guys, My Father's Dragon and Wendell and Wild fighting for the leftover spots, with my guess being no Marcel and DreamWorks and Cartoon Saloon over Selick.
Well, anyway, while I'm here and already griping about animated movie awards and how people gripe about them, I might as well break down the way it's shaping up.
Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio is the one to beat. I'm repeating myself from the article, but a Turning Red win would be an upset, but not too big of an upset. Turning Red would probably still be the favorite straight out if there wasn't that streaming snafu, which may hurt it. Disney had kind of an off year (Lightyear and Strange World are dead in the water commercial flops with mediocre critics scores, so they're riding the bench), so this is the year for the "Animated Oscar Bait" to capitalize. But, the Academy as a whole likes voting for Disney in this category, and hate giving Netflix actual awards rather than just nominations (see the colossal crash-and-burns of Roma, Power of the Dog and The Irishman). On Pinocchio's positive side, everybody seems to actually like GDT, which does help, and Netflix just doesn't really have any big players, so they will push it. Pinocchio will probably also be the only animated movie to get additional nominations; it's got probable Song and Score nominations, which are not historically big signs that a movie is winning Animated Feature, though it obviously doesn't hurt. If it could actually get Screenplay or even Best Picture noms, it would be over, but nobody's predicting that right now. Anyway, upshot is Pinocchio and Turning Red are safe nominees.
I'd say sitting a distant third, and not impossible to miss, is Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It's feeling like a "welcome back, DreamWorks!" kind of year, and it's the bigger, more recent movie of the two. I'm personally predicting The Bad Guys get nominated as well, and it's a two nominee year for DreamWorks, as The Bad Guys is well loved by animators. But I'm currently on my own with that, I just have misgivings about a movie other people are much bigger on.
That movie is Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It's the safe third for basically everyone but me, as far as I can tell, but I just don't think it's actually an animated movie (haven't seen it so can't say anything about quality, but I gather no problem there). People complain that the Academy Branch doesn't get to exclusively vote for the Best Animated Feature category, but this ignores that not all Academy animators are in the animation branch (a lot are scattered around Visual Effects, Writing and even the Directing branches) and there are a lot of non-animators in the Animation and Short Film branch. The vast majority people voting for the Best Animated Feature category are actually animators, or at least animation fans, and they do a good job picking nominees. (You can complain about the whole Academy's choice of winners, but that applies to all categories, so people arguing that only animators should vote for the winners better be arguing only sound people should vote for sound, visual effects people for visual effects, costumers for costuming, etc., etc.) Marcel has been popping up in a lot of precursors, but most of those precursors actually don't have a large voting pool of animators or even animation afficionados, unlike the Academy. The place to look here is the Annies, which has become just about useless since it split the Feature category in two for predicting, but in this special case may be useful. If Marcel manages to miss there, it's over. If it gets in, I'll shrug and predict it. But right now, I expect it to miss, and am basically replacing it with The Bad Guys.
For the final spot, it's between Wendell and Wild from Henry Selick, who has the advantage of being a major name, plus stop motion, which whoever the voters for this category are have a bit of a fetish for, and My Father's Dragon from Cartoon Saloon, which has yet to miss in the category. I'm going to give the edge to My Father's Dragon, as we've already got a major stop motion contender but no traditional, hand drawn contender, plus, though it was weak critically for a Cartoon Saloon picture, Wendell and Wild was weaker. Both are from Netflix, but the disadvantage there seems to be about winning rather than nominations, which is what these to movies are playing for. Really, The Bad Guys should go in this category; these three movies are competing for either the last two spots (if I'm right about Marcel) or one spot (If I'm wrong). I'd say My Father's Dragon over The Bad Guys if it comes down to it.
There's a couple wild cards in play, with Inu-Oh getting a surprise Golden Globe nomination, and though it doesn't have any heat on it, Mad God has basically the exact same behind the scenes story as Pinocchio, except even moreso, as it's a passion project gestating twice as long, and unlike Pinocchio, is actually walks the walk of being an animated movie for adults instead of just talking the talk (to the point it's biggest drawback, other than the tiny specialty distributor, is it's kind of a tough sit).
So, Pinocchio and Turning Red, definite nominations, Puss in Boots, really safe, Marcel, wait for the Annies, The Bad Guys, My Father's Dragon and Wendell and Wild fighting for the leftover spots, with my guess being no Marcel and DreamWorks and Cartoon Saloon over Selick.