Was The Force Awakens Snubbed for Best Picture Nomination?

The films are out and the nominations are in. 2015 was a great year for movies as many iconic performances were seen and many records broken. As fans and Academy members alike start to dissect and analyze each film, questions are asked and hearts are broken. Many Star Wars fans and casual movie goers were puzzled and bewildered to find that The Force Awakens was not nominated for the Academy Award for best picture. Is The Academy too good for fan favorites such as Star Wars? My initial gut reaction confirms that is the case. All fan and critic rating sites put Star Wars right up there with the other films. In-fact, The Force Awakens is up there in nominations, behind The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road, at five. Although not an overly impressive number, you would think that the film would be right up there with the rest of the great films that came out this year.

The Academy Awards has seen many iconic performances and like any voting body of people, is subject to change with the times. Trends now favor the bold, indie and craft like lifestyles that we see today. Therefore successful films must demonstrate these characteristics.  Unfortunately, movies such as The Force Awakens will not be candidates for best picture anytime soon. I would even venture a guess that the original Star Wars film, A New Hope, wouldn’t be a candidate for best picture in this day and age either. The Force Awakens demonstrated fantastic acting, editing, writing, special effects and music mixing.  It should get rewarded for it. However, it seems that The Force Awakens doesn’t fit the mold that The Academy would like to see.

The three big movie rating systems for critics and casual movie goers, MetaCritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb gave The Force Awakens an 81, 93 an 8.3/10 respectively.  Its weighted average between all three is 86/100. The highest weighted average goes to Spotlight which is at 90/100. The Force Awakens is poised to be the biggest film release of all time. Having more nominations than five surely would have increased the viewership of The Oscars. We will see how everything plays out for these fantastic films at the 88th Academy Awards on February 28. And don’t call me “surely”.