It’s plain and simple. Pixar offered the world Swan Lake, and the world, as it often does, chose to do the Macarena/Chicken Dance/Soldier Boy/insert-crap-dance-craze here.
Pixar seeks to put out the best story they can, and to do it in a way that best serves that story. I really do think Dreamworks does it for the money.
And pulls it off thanks to the money too, apparently. The Annie Awards should not be sponsored by animation studios period. Get someone else to sponsor it.
That’s ridiculous!!! Wall-E didn’t win one? I can’t believe it! Wall-E should have won all of those awards.
Gah, you really got me for a second…
This is a travesty! For WALL•E, despite being the best reviewed animations of 2008, nay, one of the best reviewed films of 2008, and for it to not receive one award is an outrage. I want to know what the deal is. And I agree about the conflict of interest with having animation companies sponsor the awards. That’s a bit wrong.
Oh well. We all know you the real winner is, and which movie will live strong throughout the ages.
The more I research, the more I’m sure it is a matter of money even if some would have you believe otherwise. Not only is DreamWorks their biggest sponsor (fishy), but in order to be a voting member of this group…all you have to do is pay a fee, no matter who you are (fishier).
Yeah but that doesn’t make a lot of sense…
Dreamworks was up against Pixar a number of times, and again, a number of times Pixar won.
So were they mad at Wall-E because it was doing a WHOLE lot better?
But they let Cars win, and I don’t think Dreamworks made Happy Feet… (happy feet got payback at the oscars)
…and a lot of people really didn’t like Cars… (or to go even further they called it the worst pixar film to date)
so they want the losers to win and the winners to lose???
Well actually that part makes sense a little, but then it’d make them look evil, if they aren’t evil already. So they’re trying to make Pixar look bad? But then by trying to make them look bad, they’re making themselves look bad by making the Annies look bad and giving Wall-E even more attention, like Chick Hicks, and the result of stealing Lightning’s spotlight. And eventually Lightning loses the Piston Cup by being the good guy, but wins his spotlight back, and then everyone hates Chick Hicks.
Kinda reminds me of Wall-E and what MIGHT happen at the Oscars.
Because Oscars is to awards as NBA is to basketball.
(is that right? i think that’s right, im not sure, but you get the point)
And the point being that the Annies is not that BIG of an… awarding…thing…
…
That the real worry is the Oscars, and we (including me, big time) are fussing over how Dreamworks bought the Annies… 
If we were only talking about DreamWorks and its sponsorship, you may be right that it doesn’t make sense that they won before. But we’re also talking about the fact that voting members pay to vote, so anyone with enough money can effectively stack the vote however they want. WIth all that KFP money, who’s to say DWA didn’t have its first year in a long time that it could afford to do so?
And there’s no reason to worry about The Oscars. There’s no chance of WALL-E not winning Best Animated Feature there, if for no other reason than the outcry about WALL-E not getting Best Picture and The Academy trying to save face.
But if the votes for the Academy are already in, then this debacle would have no bearing on the Best Animated Feature results… according to something I read, voting only lasts two weeks… (of course, this timeline is set to an end-of-March ceremony; this year the Oscars air the last week of February).
I tend to think that the Academy is out of touch with the rest of the world (why, oh why did Enchanted not win Best Original Song?!?), but this year it might actually work in favor of the deserving movie! (I’m still convinced leaving WALL-E out of Best Picture is a gyp of the highest order, but if they don’t win Best Animated Feature, I’m organizing an Oscar boycott.)
Basically what I think happened this year is like the U.S. Presidential Race. Dreamworks had the extra money to spend, therefore KFP is more visible than WALL-E, which even “reached across the aisle” to the live-action camp… In the end, people think KFP is better, when it probably isn’t.[/politics]
((Disclaimer: No, I am not starting a political discussion here; this is not where it belongs. I just happened to find a parallel between the Annie vote and current events. Feel free to PM me if you’d like to continue this, as long as it’s respectful.))
-The music that won, for Feature was, of course Kung Fu Panda. Hans Zimmer, and John Powell are both amazing composers, and yes I have listened to the 00:30 second clips(!) over and over again on the Paramount Awards site.
For Short Subject the music that won was for Secrets Of The Furious Five, composed by Henry Jackman, Hans Zimmer, and John Powell.
Guys like Hans Zimmer and John Powell, (I don’t know that much about Henry Jackman), are not partial to only one studio. They are not DreamWorks’ composers. Hans Zimmer has done other music for DreamWorks, as has John Powell, but Hans Zimmer also did the amazing music for the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and John Powell did Ice Age - The Meltdown for Blue Sky, Happy Feet for Warner Bros., Horton for Blue Sky, Bolt for Disney, etc. I can’t possibly go through their whole filmography here, since they both have such amazing resumés, but I can tell you right now that they are not DreamWorks’ people. Hans Zimmer did The Lion King, which we all know is Disney, and he also co-scored Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight with James Newton Howard, (Warner Bros.) - their work is amazing stuff. Both Hans Zimmer, and John Powell’s work on it’s own is amazing. When they are working together… well, lets just say that I saw this coming from miles away. I had better stop the music portion of this now, as I will fill up the page if I go on. I have only cracked the tip of the iceberg of their list of respective films.
Now, I have not read the Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa script, but I would love to. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get that link on Paramount’s awards site to work. It is the Kung Fu Panda script that, again, I knew would win here. It is very well written, and after seeing the movie, I can hear all of the voices in my head while reading it, and recall of of the images of the movie - but maybe that’s just me, as I do tend to think in film a lot. But anyway, the point is that in terms of screenwriting, it is a very well written script, and the action sequences, etc. are described very well. (I nearly started to go on about how gripping The Dark Knight script is, and how it should have been nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars, but this is clearly the wrong thread for it. I tend to get carried away in my thoughts on film - but anyway, moving on…)
Why wasn’t WALL•E nominated for score? I don’t honestly know, but I will tell you this. While the Despereaux score is good, I knew that even if WALL•E was nominated, this one would probably still have been going to Kung Fu Panda - and I love the WALL•E score.
Next: Animation - Well, with the minimal experience that I am starting to have with animation, I can tell you that robots would be, in their nature, easier to animated than a character such as Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda, who has all of the muscle, fur, etc. elements. That would be more like animating Sulley. And actually the Character Animation Award did go to Doug Sweetland in 2002 for Monsters, Inc… Soft-bodied characters like in Kung Fu Panda that have to do all of those complicated martial arts movements, would be harder than the robots in WALL•E which, being robots, once the movements are programed in, there are no extra variables, like with a more flesh-like character. I think that the animators who voted here, many from even companies like Warner Bros., and Sony Pictures Animation, who did not have any big films themselves this year, may very well have voted for Kung Fu Panda for those very reasons. Remember that there are voting members from other companies that didn’t have their own films that they may want to vote for this year, so therefor they could choose whatever.
This year, interestingly enough though, the Character Animation award went to James Baxter, who animated on the Dream Sequence and the end credits, I believe. He did very good work indeed.
As for the Rotoscoping for Waltz With Bashir, it probably did get some votes, but as these are mostly CG animators, I believe, they would most likely vote for what they look at, and say… Wow. Now I know that that can be very difficult to achieve in animation, and they pulled it off here.
I think that when animators vote, they would very much be comparing to themselves, if it’s something that they know is very hard to do, they respect the people who can do it, and do it well.
I don’t think that this was a thing done out of spite, or jealousy. Like I already said, even if DreamWorks has many, many voters, there are still companies that would be impartial this year, so they can be the deciding votes, if everyone else is riding the party lines.
You’re right, DreamWorks did not make Happy Feet, as I already mentioned above, Warner Bros. did.
Well, now this is quite long, (sorry!), so I’ll let someone else have a turn, but those are just some of my many, many thoughts. You can direct any questions towards me if you would like my answers, but for now, I will just leave it at that.
C-3PO
Dreamworks have bought Annie, that’s obvious.
KFP is the biggest s*** I saw this year. The only idea I liked was the [spoil]blank scroll[/spoil] and nothing more. I disliked it as much as (sorry mates, it is imho) The Incredibles. Ok, I would understand if KFP got a few, and Wall-e got a few, but that is … don’t know even what to say. Shame for Noobworks and Annies!!! They are not respected by me now! 
Wow. This is quite a shock. I’m very surprised WALL-E didnt win anything. KFP was okay, but it certainly wasnt that great. (then again, I’ve never considered anything Dreamworks has done to be that great). I could see if they each won some but with one movie winning everything there’s a definite snub going on.
Was I shocked to see WALL-E snubbed at the Annies? Yes I was. Was I disappointed? No I wasn’t. I was happy that KFP won. I loved it better than WALL-E so it had my vote.
I know it wasn’t the creators’ fault that their management decided to cheat. But anyway, Dreamworks have been disappointing me for the last five years more and more. I hardly can recall Antz, but I’m sure A Bug’s Life is very similar and better. I remember Chicken Run, and I remember Shrek. The first Shrek was a breakthrough. But I was getting more and more annoyed when they were making more and more sequels.
Shark Tale. Cp. Madagascar - one more cp. KFP was better than those, but still too childish and too outdated. It wasn’t funny for me to watch it. I never smiled while watching it. And, of course, it is not serious. It didn’t ‘create the feelings in me that I myself didn’t understand’. And it is not a matter of principle - even when I didn’t know the difference between Pixar and Dreamworks, I prefered the cartoons, which, as I know now, were made by Pixar. Their creations may be underrated and supposed to be not so brilliant as the dws’, but they are just for me. DW cartoons are for infants!
The fact that Annie Awards were won by DW is not respectful. It shows that DW CEOs are afraid of losing their popularity. They understand that their cartoons are lame, so they want to make them popular artificially. And THIS is disrespectful. Even Chico Hicks from Cars didn’t cheat to get his Piston Cup.
I respectfully disagree with you Actine. I don’t think Madagascar and KFP was c***. I actually liked it. It was a good enjoyable movie.
And I really don’t think Dreamworks paid their way to victory. I think they created a great enough movie to win the annies.
I don’t know if Dreamworks actually paid the voting committee (because that would be a pretty big deal over the little Annies), but it’s hard to deny that there isn’t something up with the results. Not ONE award! This is Wall-E we’re talking about, a contender for Best Picture! KFP was, IMO, like any ordinary animated film, and I honestly didn’t find it that funny (still think it’s better than most DWKs films, though). Critics clearly chose one film over another, and yet the Annies totally went against that. That doesn’t strike you as odd?
And I will never, ever, EVER understand how the direction in KFP was better than Andrew Stanton’s work. Never. It’s like comparing a mediocre comic strip to a masterpiece oil painting. Whether you’re a Wall-E fan or not, Stanton is a terrific director. That’s the one loss that screams “biased voters” to me.
I would like to disagree. First of all, I’ll be honest: I haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda yet. But I have heard about it. I have heard that it is probably Dreamworks’ best yet, but it was nowhere near as good as WALL-E. And I don’t think that after seeing Kung Fu Panda my opinion of it would be any different, because WALL-E is my all time favorite film, let alone animated film. And that isn’t going to change any time soon.
So while there are the occasional few who like Kung Fu Panda more than WALL-E, there aren’t enough for KFP to win all the Annies it was nominated for. It’s simply not possible considering the circumstances. So there has to be something else going on.
And lo and behold, there is:
Not to mention, to vote in the Annie’s, you have to buy a ballot. So Dreamworks has been buying their way to the gold. Lame. Very lame.
I have to admit – Hans Zimmer really does deserve the wins he gets. I think he’d one of the best, if not the very best, musical score-writer in Hollywood today.
Yeah, he’s good, but not the best, in my opinion. The composers on the top of my list are John Williams, Thomas Newman, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, and James Newton Howard.
Sweet, Bolt won best animated feature! That movie was flawless in my opinion.
Im also glad to see that Presto! atleast made the list for best animated short.
Although im dissapointed that Family Guy was not on best TV animation production.
Dead space definetally deserved best animated game!
As for animated effects i think the entire list is highly honorable.
Thanks for posting the results, good stuff!