This year the visual effects branch of the Academy followed the lead of the sound editing category and widened its net to five nominees. It did not, however, follow suit by eliminating the superfluous bake-off process, which whittles the contenders down to seven before deciding on the ultimate slate of nominees.
This year the two films that missed the cut after making the bake-off were the inventive “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and, famously, the effects beast of the year “TRON Legacy.” The latter was shunned as a result of shoddy de-aging work despite having quality in spades throughout the rest of the film, but regardless, a drama with a single effects scene of note and a sequel with nothing new to offer managed to slide in instead.
The nominees are:
“Alice in Wonderland” (Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips)
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi)
“Hereafter” (Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell)
“Inception” (Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb)
“Iron Man 2” (Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick)