Kung Fu Panda Sweeps Wall-E at the 2008 Annie Awards
If you thought that fanboys were upset about The Dark Knight not getting a Best Picture nomination at this year’s Academy Awards, just imagine how crushed they will be if Wall-E doesn’t win for Best Animated Feature! Of course, it still seems like a pretty safe bet since it is going up against Kung Fu Panda and Bolt, but here’s the thing: over the weekend, Kung Fu Panda defeated Wall-E in every single category at the 2008 Annie Awards!
That’s right, the Dreamworks production took home awards for Animated Effects, Character Animation, Character Design, Production Design, Directing, Storyboarding, Writing, and the all important Best Animated Feature, completely shutting out Pixar. Now I still have yet to see Kung Fu Panda, so you guys will have to tell me if it actually deserves these awards, but considering that a lot of people thought Wall-E even deserved a Best Picture nod at the Oscars, this is a pretty big upset. The interesting thing is that if you look at the Annie Award winners over the past 7 years, they all went on to win Oscars as well, except for Cars which was trumped by Happy Feet in 2006.
Maybe Wall-E isn’t the lock that everyone thought it was after all!
» Related Link: 2008 Annie Award Winners
Comments (23)
I’m actually a little surprised, and I loved Kung Fu Panda. I think maybe its a case of something universally seen as the underdog, where people voted for it hoping it would get more recognition in at least a couple awards and it somehow completely upset it.
Kung Fu Panda isn’t a particularly deep movie, its simply the best action movie of the year, and its a very good use of Jack Black. It’s also pretty faithful to actual kung fu movies, from the score to a number of storytelling elements.
Posted by Goon on February 2nd, 2009Kung Fu Panda is pretty good, with good action, well designed characters and Jack Black humour. But it’s also pretty shallow, especially compared to Wall-E. I thought Wall-E was a bit overrated though, particularly lacking in the ‘fun’ department…
Posted by Bas on February 2nd, 2009Does anyone really expect a movie about a panda who does kung fu to be particularly deep?
Posted by Goon on February 2nd, 2009Loved Kung-fu Panda. Great movie and it deserves it.
Posted by Peter H. on February 2nd, 2009@Goon: I don’t think anyone expected ‘depth’ from something like Kung Fu Panda, but does it matter if an animated movie has depth when it comes to awards? I guess the ‘Annie’ people are dissecting the nominees and judging mainly on a technical level. The ‘Oscar’ people however don’t care that much about the tech-side and will probably vote for the ‘deepest’ (even if Panda is more fun to watch)…
Posted by Bas on February 2nd, 2009Kung Fu Panda was a horrible, horrible movie. Even just looking at that big, fat, stupid panda makes me cringe.
Posted by Kasper F. Nielsen on February 2nd, 2009I´ve seen both films (Wall.E and Kung Fu Panda) and I have to say I had a more fun time watching “The Panda”. I´m about to watch Wall.E one more time in the coming weeks but after my first viewing I was a bit dissapointed – it just didn´t hook me…
Posted by Andreas on February 2nd, 2009WALL-E is fun to watch…
Posted by Falsk on February 2nd, 2009There has got to be something fishy going on here.
8 Awards (Animated Effects, Character Animation, Character Design, Production Design, Directing, Storyboarding, Writing, Best Animated Feature) and NOTHING for Wall-e?
Look, I’m not much of a fan of Wall-e, but c’mon. Character Animation? Production design? That’s pretty ridiculous that it went in KFP’s favor. Directing and storyboarding maybe, but damn.
Posted by Andrew James on February 2nd, 2009@Andreas
Totally agree. Though I wasn’t a big fan of KFP either. But if I were to be forced to sit down and watch either film in its entirety, I’d pick KFP probably.
as a side note, I saw Waltz with Bashir over the weekend. Whoa nelly is that a great film.
Posted by Andrew James on February 2nd, 2009This is really starting to bug me. Since when is “fun” a valid adjective in describing an award worthy film? Most of my favorite films, or the films I would consider to be great works of art, aren’t “fun”. Is “A Clockwork Orange” fun? Is even a movie like “The Godfather” fun?
This is the same egregious criticism fanboys couldn’t seem to swallow about “The Dark Knight.” I had a great time watching Batman, but there’s no way it was one of the best films of the year. And while I haven’t seen “Kung-Fu Panda,” it seems outrageous that it could have won every single category, and even more outrageous if the reasoning is that it was “more fun” that Wall-E.
Everybody likes to have fun, but they don’t (or shouldn’t) give out awards for it.
Posted by Colin on February 2nd, 2009it beat it in the writing depart? really?…ridiculous…not that it matters.
Posted by Bob The Slob on February 2nd, 2009I love both movies — I saw both in theaters, and bought both on DVD.
Wall-E had my jaw on the floor from minute 1, and kept it there. Kung Fu Panda is fun but plot-wise it’s ultimately standard fare (and buttcheek humor yay!). Both movies are absolutely gorgeous.
But as far as I’m concerned, Wall-E is the better film. It’s not even close.
Posted by Andy on February 2nd, 2009@Colin: I think Kung Fu Panda won its Annie Awards in spite of the fun-factor, not because of it. Writing should have gone to Wall-E, I guess, but as for the other categories I’m not so sure. Aside from its story Wall-E is great because of its mood and ‘heart’, but there are no category-awards for such illusive traits.
Posted by Bas on February 2nd, 2009It is strange that the panda won every single category. I have yet to see KFP but I’m pretty sure that Wall-E is better film making. But then again I have no idea how this award judges the films they see.
Posted by swarez on February 2nd, 2009My vote is definitely for Kung Fu Panda! I love that movie and, of course, it will win because it got way better ratings than all others!!This movie deserves it!
Posted by erin on February 2nd, 2009“Since when is “fun” a valid adjective in describing an award worthy film?”
If you’re going to have that attitude, you just justified Pulp Fiction getting passed over for Best Picture.
Posted by Goon on February 2nd, 2009Kung Fu Panda is the first feature film to convince me that computer-generated animation can come close to matching the quality of traditional animation. The Annie Awards done ‘em right.
Posted by Steven on February 3rd, 2009@Goon
Pulp Fiction wasn’t nominated because the academy thought it was fun, it was nominated because it had an interesting script, great performances, and was well-directed.
It lost to Forrest Gump, but I think Quiz Show or Shawshank Redemption should have won that year.
Posted by Colin on February 3rd, 2009That’s not the point. you said ‘fun’ isnt a proper adjective, and that was one adjective a lot of people use for Pulp Fiction. There are more reasons to defend KFP besides ‘fun’. i mean its hardly profound, but its not the stupidest movie either. A word Kurt uses for certain things is ‘poetry’ and for an animated films there are moments like that.
What about Star Wars’ nomination?
Posted by Goon on February 3rd, 2009@Goon
Star Wars was nominated because of the revolutionary special effects and timeless story arc based on Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth.
There’s no rule that states an award worthy film can’t be fun, and that’s not what I’m advocating. But when you give an award to a film over another because you thought it was “more fun” you’re doing art a disservice.
For example, I’ve seen Austin Powers more times than I’ve seen Citizen Kane, and I’d rather watch Austin Powers because it’s more fun, but there’s no way I would consider it a better film.
You follow me?
Posted by Colin on February 3rd, 2009Where did this whole “fun” thing come from? I would have voted for Kung Fu Panda in most, if not all, of those awards, and it wouldn’t be because it was “fun”. I imagine that the voters all had their reasons, but I doubt the majority voted based on Kung Fu Panda being “fun”. It being a “fun” movie is just icing.
Posted by Steven on February 3rd, 2009Colin, I think you’re actually not following me, the big point of course being that ‘fun’ is just one element, and being ‘fun’ shouldnt be considered a strike against something being award worthy. often films deemed ‘emotional’ are treated as being more worthy, so why shouldnt something that is ‘fun’? People treat ‘fun’ as if its easy. It’s taken for granted.
Some of these arguments are devils advocate type dealies. Yeah Star Wars has more going on, but come on, it the movie was no fun and wasn’t loved/wasn’t a success it certainly wouldn’t have helped it any. Which circles back to the original argument, that KFP is fun, but it has just enough other things going on with it to get it attention and possibly win an award.
And when you consider the lack of competition in the animation category, well there you go, not worth complaining about it being nominated.
I remember people being weirded out by Happy Feet winning a couple years ago over Cars. Well anyone who’s actually seen Happy Feet knows that even though in one sentence you tell people its about a bunch of dancing penguins, that theres more going on than that.
Posted by Goon on February 4th, 2009Leave a Reply