The 96th Annual Academy Awards (Sunday, 3/10/24)

Clint_L

Legend
I am aware of the reasons. It still makes no sense to me. If I write a story inspired by a real world place, occupation, or generic object, it's original. But if my inspiration came from a product, it's adapted. Not logical.

Adapted should be for adaptations of existing texts. IMO, YVMV, etc.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍⚧️
Admittedly, I think this is the first time an adapted screenplay was based on a physical object, a toy (and, I suppose her backstory/lore), as the character. Previous characters have all been literary or prior movies/TV.
 

Kaodi

Hero
I watched a bit of the Oscars at the end and the thing that disappointed me is that it would have been so easy for the producers of Oppenheimer to say, "We would also like to thank the team that made Barbie for their part in this box office phenomenon," or something to that effect.
 

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist
Supporter
I am aware of the reasons. It still makes no sense to me. If I write a story inspired by a real world place, occupation, or generic object, it's original. But if my inspiration came from a product, it's adapted. Not logical.

Adapted should be for adaptations of existing texts. IMO, YVMV, etc.

That's actually .... not it.

I'll explain again.

To begin with, as you might have surmised from my prior explanation, all sequels are considered adaptations. Full stop. Even though most sequels are completely new scripts- because sequels are based on pre-existing characters.

And to be clear, the category is adapted screenplay. The adaptation can be from a novel, a play, a TV show, a film character, or a character from other media or other products.

No one is seriously disputing that the characters of Barbie and Ken, along with many of the other key components in the film, are adapted from prior Mattel works (toys, shows, commercials, and so on). The film credits state that this is based on "'Barbie' by Mattel." That's the end of the story in terms of the rules.

Within the rules, this makes perfect sense. If someone makes a completely new James Bond movie not based on the books of Ian Fleming,* then it is only eligible for adapted screenplay.

*Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Quantumof Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, No Time To Die.


These are the rules. This is not a surprise. To be eligible for original screenplay, it must be an original screenplay not based on pre-existing characters. Barbie and Ken and many of the characters in the movie existed prior to the movie.
 
Last edited:

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist
Supporter
Admittedly, I think this is the first time an adapted screenplay was based on a physical object, a toy (and, I suppose her backstory/lore), as the character. Previous characters have all been literary or prior movies/TV.


Not exactly. But usually they aren't that great. Still, movies like Clue and Ouija and Battleship and Mars Attacks! would have the same ruling.
 

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍⚧️

Not exactly. But usually they aren't that great. Still, movies like Clue and Ouija and Battleship and Mars Attacks! would have the same ruling.
What I meant was first best adapted screenplay nomination. There are plenty of movies out there based on stuff. But it's not like the Academy Awards ever nominated them before.
 

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist
Supporter
Okay, a deep dive on prior nominations in ADAPTED screenplay to further illustrate the point-

2022- Top Gun Maverick (based on characters from prior movie)
2022- Glass Onion (based on Benoit Blanc from prior movie)
2020- Borat 2 (based on character from TV series)
2019- Joker (based on character from comic book)
2017- Logan (based on character from comic book)
2015- Moonlight (based on unpublished play)
2014- Whiplash (based on prior short film by same person)
2013- Before Midnight (based on characters from Before Sunrise)
2009- In The Loop (based on Malcolm Tucker from TV series)
2009- District 9 (based on prior short film by same person)
2006- Borat (based on character from TV series Da Ali G Show)
2006- The Departed (based on Infernal Affairs)
2004- Before Sunset (based on characters from Before Sunrise)
2000- O Brother Where Art Thou? (based on Odyssey)
1996- Sling Blade (based on prior short film by same person)
1985- Out of Africa (based on a pastiche of a memoir and two books)

And so on. Generally, the rule is that if you are doing any sort of use of a previously-existing work or character, you are in the adapted screenplay category. Even if it is, arguably, an homage or allusion (O Brother Where Art Thou) or if the use is just taking a pre-existing character and creating an entirely new script and story.

The one exception is taking existing actual historical figures and making a new script not based on a pre-existing work.
 

I'm not baiting. It's been discussed several times over the years.

An article about the topic: 40 nominees that should have won. I don't necessarily agree with all the choices but Shakespeare in Love winning over Saving Private Ryan didn't make sense, as do several other wins.

No Oscars crime will ever be as great as the time Crash (2005) won (i.e. the 2006 Oscars), and that article helps show that.

The majority of those, both the movies are genuinely good, and from 1990 onward, the one which is more relevant to milquetoast white Boomers is reliably the winner (I honestly can't judge the reasoning on a lot of the older movies, though I have seen about 80% of them). Often it's pretty narrow - like Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - they're not only kind of similar movies in a lot of ways, but they're of relatively similar quality. So the academy just chooses the one which is more relevant to them personally as aging white people.

You see this over and over. Clearly, from 1990 onwards, it's not possible to argue that Best Picture really represents the greatest feat of movie-making, or even the greatest feat of mainstream, Hollywood-oriented movie-making. But it is possible to argue that, in most cases, it is given to a movie which is at least genuinely a good movie and something of an achievement.

It also helps show the most "worthy" movies don't actually reliably win - only movies which are "worthy" in very specific ways, particularly ones that are exculpatory rather than accusatory re: America's history of racism, and which keep racism very firmly in the past (the other main "worthy" way to get Oscar is "handsome white guy with mental disability does amazing things despite that" - and Tropic Thunder's advice there is also relevant if unprintable).

The entirely exculpatory "both sides" attitude to racism why Crash (2005) won, for example. It's genuinely bad movie, by pretty much any reasonable standard. The plot is beyond contrived and awful, the dialogue is almost physically painfully bad, the performances are not great (and weird casting of a lot of B-tier or lower talent, none of whom gave performances which made you say "Oh, actually X can act!" in this - people acted like Matt Dillon could, but I'm sorry, I've seen that movie - he's better than 90210 but...). Particularly amazingly, it straight-up has a very racist white cop sexually assault a black woman, and then later has him implausibly save her life, and tries to act like "Oh wow gee the world sure is complicated and my film sure is nuanced", and it's like no, you're just trying to make excuses for horrific, prison-worthy behaviour by a white cop. You can't "both sides" a racist police officer committing sex crimes in the name of racial animus! It continues to try and "both sides" everything - for example, the racist cop racially abuses a black woman on the phone, when she can't help him, and later on in the movie, she is shown being racist to an asian guy (who is also racist), which is just grotesque. It may come as no surprise given the plotline that the writer/director (Paul Haggis) was later accused of multiple rapes, and successfully sued for one of them (and lost his own counter-suit).

What's even more bizarre is that the academy has a lot of other easy choices. The nominees that year were:

Crash (2005)
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Good Night, And Good Luck
Munich

All of those movies are, on every level, better movies than Crash. They all have better cinematography, better acting, better scripts, and have all stood the test of time infinitely better than Crash. All of this was obvious at the time and much discussed. That Crash won was extremely surprising. Brokeback Mountain not winning was obviously due to a degree of homophobia, but even if say "Okay, we knew they were homophobes", it doesn't explain why Crash beat the rest. Maybe we can rule out Munich because it made the academy uncomfortable - it's a very well-made movie that draws some interesting parallels and looks at the costs of violence, but is just a little too keen to glorify some guys who are really just thugs committing largely pointless post-facto murders (and repeatedly fail to kill the most valid target - which were it fiction I would give them a bit more credit for as a philosophical point!), but also insufficiently glorifies them for some people's tastes. Still we have Capote and Good Night, And Good Luck. We can't blame homophobia re: Capote because it works around Capote being openly gay before it was "okay", and Good Night, And Good Luck is both a very safe and very good historical drama.

The next-worst Oscars crime is the exact same sort of deal - a weak movie that is exculpatory re: American racism. Green Book is nowhere near as bad as Crash, but it's a profoundly 7/10 kind of movie. Watchable enough, just about, forgettable, okay, fine. But it was very exculpatory re: American racism in the 20th century! The 2019 slate was a bit wild:

Green Book
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice

To be fair, there are multiple 7/10 movies on that list - Bohemian Rhapsody is pretty much a 4/10 movie and most insanely won "Best Editing" despite having genuinely appalling editing (that Best Editing oscar is worthy of its own whole discussion - it has several times gone to straightforwardly badly-edited movies - the people voting on it are clueless re: editing). Black Panther is a fun movie but not a great one and has some genuinely embarrassing SFX in it. Vice is huge fun but also pretty 7/10. A Star is Born is very 7/10. Roma was the best movie on the list, but again, The Favourite, and BlackKkKlansman are far better movies than Green Book.

Re: this year's Oscar, at least Best Picture had multiple strong contenders - I don't think any of them are less than "good" movies (admittedly Maestro might be a tier below but there are years it could have won, and I haven't actually seen it yet so maybe not). I'm delighted Poor Things got at least one Oscar, that was my favourite movie of the ones I've seen from this year, and by far the most amazing movie.




TLDR: If you want to win the Best Picture Oscar, you need to focus entirely on being relevant to Boomers, and it's only ok to talk about racism so long as you are exculpatory about it (Crash) and/or show it very firmly in The Past (12 Years A Slave).
 

Overall, I'd have to say that this was one of the better nights in a while. No slaps. No card mixups. Just breezy and relatively fun.

I was quite pleased by the relative lack of drama surrounding the Oscars this year. It was nice to have a night that just celebrated movies. Maybe my memory is tainted, but it feels like there have been a lot of recent years where the Academy Awards were more about their own story than anything else.
 

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
I watched a bit of the Oscars at the end and the thing that disappointed me is that it would have been so easy for the producers of Oppenheimer to say, "We would also like to thank the team that made Barbie for their part in this box office phenomenon," or something to that effect.
They had a 'bit' earlier in the show which pretty much covered that (albeit jokingly).
 

Remove ads

Top