Should The Avengers Be at the Oscars?

[Moser Grey]

Plot Holes:

1. How can the Hulk, a mindless raging id monster, now suddenly be able to differentiate between friend and foe?

2. Why didn't Loki mind control Fury at the beginning instead of Hawk-Eye?

3. Speaking of Loki's mind control, what a lucky chance that a knock on the head clears it up (more of a plot contrivance than a plot hole I suppose)

 

[honeybakedham]

There need to be new categories created for the Oscars.

Because you want to see how long an awards show can go on?

OT: There probably should be an "exceptional achievement" Oscar for movies like Harry Potter and the Avengers, where there is no justifiable reason to give them one of the main awards, but the movie achieved something unique or a milestone in cinema.

At the very least, they can toss a few technical awards in the Avenger's direction...

Oh they will throw a few technical awards at The Avengers... and will come at the expense of Prometheus, which will likely turn out to be the film that earned those awards.

You gotta go all the way back to 1983, when E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, which was not going to beat Ghandi for Best Picture... but it got the bone tossed in Visual Effects, beating Poltergeist and Blade Runner. The alien puppet movie, with flying bikes, beat Douglas Trumbull's effects team who managed to create the FX for BLADE RUNNER... arguably the greatest visual effects achievement since Star Wars... and created by the man who got snubbed when he did not win the FX statue for 2001: A Space Odyssey

ET beat TRON and Das Boot in sound. Seriously? WTF?

Why? ET earned $359,197,037 in it's release year, compared to Blade Runner's $27,580,111. I'm not gonna argue Blade Runner is better than ET. It is, in my subjective opinion... and it has weathered time better... but better is a tough call because ET is arguably also a great movie. But objectively looking at the achievements of classic films like Blade Runner and Das Boot... Blade Runner featured the greatest FX on screen to date... and Das Boot was a tremendous sound achievement.

I'm tired of seeing, year after year, the technical awards tossed like meat scraps to appease the crowd pleasers. Douglas Trumbull was denied no less than 5 Academy awards. Trumbull has distinguished himself as a visual effects pioneer with major contributions to such films as "2001: A Space Odyssey," "The Andromeda Strain," "Silent Running," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Star Trek ? The Motion Picture," "Blade Runner" and "Tree of Life." He finally received the Gordon E. Sawyer Award in February 2012, an honorary Academy Award given to an "individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry." And he received it at the technical awards show... not on the big night.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Hell no it shouldn't. It's ridiculous. It's an AWESOME movie, not a great one. Granted, it probably has a better right to be nominated than many movies that WILL be up for best picture, but at the end of the day, its a big, dumb action movie with big, dumb fights and snappy witticisms. The Marvel bloc hasn't been this ground-shaking parade of cinema giants, it is just a bunch of very entertaining 'splodefests with a decent script. the only difference between this and Ahnold's work is that they have better reasons for action movie implausibility.
like godhood, robot suits, and magic juice.
deserving of recognition, certainly, but unless NOTHING ELSE IS BETTER THIS YEAR, it shouldn't go up

 

[Silverspetz]

Rebuttals to my plot hole comment:

Why didn't Loki use his powers on the Hulk, even though he was counting on Hulk to kill the rest of the heroes?

Because, the Hulk snuck up on Loki, Loki is a talkative villain, and Loki didn't see Hulk as a threat.

But even though Loki's powers are rather dubiously defined, he clearly showcased his ability to replicate even when surprised. Coulson tried to "ambush" him after all. And the worst is the idea that he didn't see the Hulk as a threat. I'm sure he thought he was smarter than the Hulk, but when his earlier plan was counting on the Hulk to kill all the other superheros, including his brother, who he kind of takes seriously. So the idea that he didn't think the Hulk could hurt him doesn't really hold water.

Why do people keep pointing guns at the Hulk

Because the Hulk is scary and people would therefore react irrationally.

You know what else people do when they're scared? Run. People do a lot of running. Especially when the object of said fear specifically says bullets don't harm him. If the Hulk says to me, "hey I can literally eat bullets" I'm pretty sure my first instinct would be to start running if he starts to show up.

If Bruce Banner is always angry, why isn't he always the Hulk?
I'm not gonna paraphrase the two counter arguments because they are just hilarious as is:

There are different levels of anger dude. Also hulk comes out because of his heart rate not his anger. So him being always angry would allow him to control his heart rate so it wont go up since his attitude gets left out of the equation.

3. The "I'm always angry" line actually make a good deal of sense. One of the defining characteristics of The Hulk is 'The madder he is, the stronger he is.' If he's just a little bit angry all the time, there's no noticeable change(apart from going from looking like Ed Norton to looking like Mark Ruffalo, apparently), but if he's always a bit angry, he's always a bit Hulk, so it becomes simpler to focus the epic-tier asskicking on a specific target.

Okay, that's not how anger works. Anger has physiological symptoms, like any mood. One of those symptoms is an elevated heart rate. Constantly being angry means constantly having an elevated heart rate. And if he's a little angry, then what's the anger level at which the Hulk comes out, and how does he just automatically jump to that level of anger while still remaining in control of the Hulk's actions? This is part of a lot of comic book or sci-fi writer's repertoire: this hero's power will do exactly what the story needs it to do. Personally, I thought it would've been more interesting if Bruce never had control over the Hulk and they had to figure out how to use him without getting themselves killed.

Why didn't Nick Fury send soldiers down to help along with the Helicarrier, along with some of those cool weapons like the one Coulson had.

Because they were trying to keep the helicarrier from coming down, they were useless against Loki, and that weapon was clearly a prototype, so there's no more.

The soldiers probably aren't necessary for the technical maintenance of the ship, and certainly would've been better utilized saving lives. As for the weapon, like I said, they don't necessarily need it. After all, Widow and Hawkeye both proved the aliens could be held back even with less technologically advanced weapons. These are supposed to be elite top-secret soldiers, there's no reason they can't help against aliens that are apparently susceptible to pistol fire and martial arts.

1: Coulsson held Loki at gunpoint for a good amount of time, giving Loki the opportunity to switch himself with an illusion. The Hulk smashed Loki through a window and didn't even let him finish a sentence before pummeling him around. There is a pretty big difference there.

2: Right, because when you are an organization dedicated to protecting people, running is the first thing you do as soon as your first plan (guns) doesn't work. Since when has anyone EVER just put the gun down because they have been told it won't work. At the very least holding on to it shows the adversary that you aren't just going to roll over.

3: Yes, that IS how anger works. You can be angry but still have it subdued. Have you never encountered something that enraged you, and even after the initial moments of heartponding have passed you still feel really pissed off? Even if Banner's heart rate is always elevated, he has become so desensitized that he he doesn't let most things make him MORE angry and thus raise his heart-rate past the breaking point. Unless something extremely sudden and stressful happens (like if a bomb goes off and sends him crashing through the floor) he can keep the hulk down. And if he always has a bit of anger in him, then he can LET that anger boil up at any time too while still retaining a bit of himself so that he doesn't smash his allies. All he has to do is to start to really think about all the things that piss him off and let them get to him. We also saw at the end of "The Incredible Hulk" that he can control his heartbeat through meditation (and in that movie we also saw what the limit for his heart is before the Hulk comes out).

4: The Helicarrier was almost crashing as it was, and a whole lot of soldiers died in the attack on it, leaving it understaffed. So yeah, I do think it is plausible that they were needed on-board. Widow and Hawkeye are the elite of the elite, even if conventional weapons can hurt the aliens, they are the only ones skilled enough to do a damn with them.


As for that bit about Iron-man and a nuke being all that was needed. Not only would a LOT more people have died if the other avengers weren't there to hold back the invasion before the could do the nuke-trick, but Iron-Man wouldn't even have been able to pull that off without the team backing him up (someone still needed to close the portal for instance). Not to mention that the whole thing was a fluke since the counsel really wanted to just blow up NY. This is really the most convoluted complaint for the movie I have ever heard.


Do you have more nitpicks you would like to share?

 

[Stabby Joe]

If they could nominate Avatar they can return the favor with The Avengers.

 

[Galletea]

It doesn't do anything we haven't seen before and it doesn't do anything we do know any better than the other films I've seen this year.
I believe that when a superhero film is something more than flashy effects and one-liners then there might be some awards going that way. But to be taken seriously, you have to take it seriously in the first place. Most superhero films are too light hearted, too tongue in cheek to make you want to believe in it.

 

[370999]

No Harry Potter movie has won a single Oscar.

There's a very simple reason for that: They're not very good films. They're mediocre, ho-hum adaptations of a great series of books that managed to get by on the sheer gargantuan amount of money that WB threw at it. But in their haste to mimic the LotR frenzy, they hired tedious directors to create dull and lifeless phantoms of the books and lost out on their chances for awards that should have been easy grabs.

I tend to agree this. I really like the Potter films but they aren't brilliant. Simply making a series of seven films shouldn't earn you an Oscar.

As for the Avengers. It depends. I haven't seen enough films this year to say, but it would be a poor year for Cinema if the Avengers win.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

No Harry Potter movie has won a single Oscar.

There's a very simple reason for that: They're not very good films. They're mediocre, ho-hum adaptations of a great series of books that managed to get by on the sheer gargantuan amount of money that WB threw at it. But in their haste to mimic the LotR frenzy, they hired tedious directors to create dull and lifeless phantoms of the books and lost out on their chances for awards that should have been easy grabs.

I thought the last couple (the David Yates films) were pretty great (loved Deathly Hallows), but I'd agree that it took those movies FOREVER to get genuinely good. Really inconsistent quality for the first few.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

They wouldn't do it before and they definitely won't do it now when they're going through a hipster phase.

 

[Henkie36]

No, The Avengers was awesome, but not refreshing enough for my taste. At least not in the category Best Movie and Best Script. Because, lets face it, this is the most basic premise in the ever: villain wants to take over the world (Of course!), heroes try to stop him. I am not ruling it out entirley to win something, but this will be like Avatar: it gets the ''best varitions of explosions''-awards. The only serious category I would consider this movie is ''best supporting actor'' for Mark Ruffalo. That said, The Avengers will hit the freakin' jackpot at the Saturn Awards.

 

[dead_rebel]

Who are we to say the Oscar's should change at all? The Academy Awards are awards given based on the Academy's own choice and for us to want to change that because "we are the people" is ridiculous.

You have a choice not to watch or listen to their recommendations, use that choice if you don't like it.
What's next? We rally together to try and tell the Cannes Film Festival who we think they should give the Palm d'Or Award to?
Maybe we should all get together and tell the Nobel Peace Prize people to give Ryan Gosling an award because a lot of people like him?

For all the talk about how 'entitled' we think the Academy are in who they choose to praise, we are sure not stopping to consider how entitled we sound by forcing our own agendas on a private organisation we think isn't praising the films we like.

Get over yourselves.

 

[Badassassin]

I'm not so sure we should be so concerned with the Oscar worthiness of the Avengers. It's not really worth it. We all thought it was a good movie, but lets face it, the academy likes one type of movie. In my mind, trying to get the Avengers on the lineup for best picture is like trying to convince your grandfather how good it was. Even if it DID get on the lineup it would be bordering on sarcastic on the Oscar committee's part, so who wants that?


The real question is if you liked it, and a lot of people like it, and the creators know a lot of people like it, why does it matter if it gets an Oscar or not? Hell, we all know that the best picture is going to be some artsy dramatic film that no one even went to see (coughcoughTheArtist), and that's how it's always been, so why are we expecting anything different?

More to the point however, no, the Avengers would not deserve best picture even if it wasn't the case. It was a good movie and all, but the best? No. Just because they jumped through a lot of hoops to get there doesn't make the movie better than it really is.

 

[MB202]

I dunno... The Avengers is an AWESOME movie, but I don't know if it's really "Oscar-worthy".

 

[Overseer76]

Considering the title is "Should "The Avengers" Be at the Oscars?", I'd say yes. Joss Whedon should be nominated (at least) for Best Director for proving that an ensemble superhero action film is indeed possible to get right.

As for Best Picture, Bob's right about Dark Knight Rises probably being thrown a bone if there is a bone to be thrown. Avengers is big dumb fun, but probably doesn't stack up to the myriad of historicals that frequently populate the category. It would seem too out of place next to this year's "The King's Speech".

That said, I put it to anyone to describe what it actually is to be a Best Picture. Are there quantifiable aspects that a movie must have? Of course not. It's the same as "growing up" or (my least favorite) "being a REAL ______ (usually "man")" everyone has a slightly different idea of what that means and somehow think their description is the only right one. Avengers is such a good roller coaster, you don't even notice the plot holes -- if that makes a best picture, then The Dark Knight should have gotten one because Cracked is right -- just what was Joker's plan anyway? (Try planning out the second half of the movie from the bad guys' point of view...)

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It'd be nice to see it if only for the change to the status quo. But, it's Hollywood. Unless it is specifically designed Oscar bait, it won't.