It’s game over for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They had a chance to be groundbreaking. They had a chance to write a new cultural narrative.
Instead, they showed fear. What they did is quite ironic, given the name of the movie they chose as they played it safe.
“Wreck-It Ralph” should have won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year.
“Brave” was OK, but “Wreck-It Ralph” held the hopes of a community. “Wreck-It Ralph” validated the place video games have in our society. An Oscar would have reiterated that. “Wreck-It Ralph” was this generation’s “Toy Story.” In hindsight, because it mirrored “Toy Story,” it should have been obvious that all “Wreck-It Ralph” would get was a nomination.
Think about it: “Toy Story” got robbed because enough well-made animated movies could have rearranged the entire industry. The Academy had to snub it, lest directors and actors jump ship. The subject matter of “Wreck-It Ralph” jeopardizes the industry instead of just threatening to rearrange it.
Get past common multiplayer games, and it’s easy to see why: The best story-driven video games can easily replace movies. The stories that carry them are just as incredible, if not even more so, as anything a movie can deliver while engrossing the player for a longer amount of time than a movie can.
I’m biased, though. I like video games.
Let’s take IMDB’s views. Head-to-head, “Brave” manages only one win, which comes from the number of reviews. “Wreck-It Ralph” rated 7.9 out of 10 from more than 75,000. It has a Metascore of 72 out of 100. “Brave” rated more than half a point less — 7.2 — from more than 100,000 users with a Metascore of 69/100.
Well, what about Rotten Tomatoes? “Wreck-It Ralph” cleans house there, too. Eighty-six percent of approved critics gave it a positive review with an average of 7.4 out of 10, and it has an average rating of 4.2 out of five. “Brave” comes in at 78 percent with an average of 6.9 out of 10 and averaged 3.9 out of 5 stars.
Why the blatant snub? The Academy is scared. No movie with a video game basis has ever won an Academy Award. Ever. Maybe the Academy should ask newspapers how disregarding technology-based cultural shifts worked out for them.
Logan Ladnyk is a journalism junior at UF. His column runs on Fridays. You can contact him via opinions@alligator.org.
