What I’m saying is Avatar is a special effects-driven film, like The Matrix, that is critically acclaimed and loved by audiences. Both films pushed boundaries of film visual effects and created new technologies. 

The Matrix was nominated – and won – four Academy Awards, for Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. It is my opinion that it should have been nominated for Best Picture that year (and Cinematography – the BAFTAs agreed with me here). It was groundbreaking. The acting (aside from Keanu Reeves) was acclaimed, the screenplay was lauded. It even has an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (higher than Avatar‘s 82%) It, like Avatar, is a stamp in cinematic history. There is a before and an after when it comes to its pioneering effects.

The Academy hadn’t been too friendly to Sci-Fi or Fantasy in the past (save perhaps Star Wars) until The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but even then those are films based on Literature with a capital-L. Something the Academy eats up.

So really is all the praise for Avatar and Oscar Buzz a way of atonement for snubbing The Matrix ten years ago? I don’t have an answer yet because I’ve yet to see the film. But I’m going to see it tonight and I’ll make another post then with my thoughts.