I hope the Blu-ray is LOADED with extras! I’m currently saving for an HDTV right now. My goal is to have the money saved up, so that when I go to Best Buy to buy the Blu-ray the day it comes out, I’ll also be able to buy the HDTV I want. I want my first viewing experience of this movie at home to be in HD. People always wonder why I like to have Tuesday and Wednesday off from my job, when I can get Thursday and Friday off, or Saturday and Sunday. This may seem silly, but I love to have new DVD release day off. And I like to be able to go home and enjoy my purchases, without worrying out going to work. I don’t like to party, I love to watch movies! 
I guess I’m in the minority with you! I love both soundtracks, but I’m a sap for Randy Newman.
I love the TS3 track, too, and I think everyone’s giving it waaaaay too little credit. But, anyway, when does this one come to DVD? My little sister wants it.
IncredigirlVirginia: The release date is October 15… my sis has a countdown clock on the computer.
So… according to that, it is exactly 1 month, 12 days, 3 hours, 32 minutes, and 12 seconds until it’s release. 
THOR ALMIGHTY! 
THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!
Seriously though, if Best Picture contenders are weak this year, HTTYD has a decent chance of getting a nod.
Compared with Up’s beautiful For Your Consideration ads, and also from some images I have seen in little chef’s graphics, I am surprised this ad isn’t more “wow, what an inspiring movie.”
It is very ambitious of Dreamworks to suddenly shoot for the Best pIcture award… One good film and they think they can just do what ever they want 
Too much. I’m sorry for sounding really rude in this comment, I don’t mean it all. It is rather difficult to portray sarcasm over text.
I know you’re being sarcastic here, but I still have to say; HTTYD is one of the best reviewed films of the year so far.
so was Wall-E.
That was back when 1) there were only five nominees for best picture, and 2) there was still extreme prejudice against animated films in the award circles. Granted, I still think WALL-E should have got a nomination over The Reader and Frost / Nixon, and granted further, there still is a bit of prejudice, but the amount of prejudice itself has gone down greatly. This year, practically anything is possible.
I hope either HTTYD or TS3 that they’ll get best picture. I can’t choose between the two because I like both TS3 and HTTYD equally. Does that count?
My comments on HTTYD’s Oscar chances (nomination and win), for each category:
Best Visual Effects: In all honesty, you’d think animated films would own this category, since all their visual material is done with special effects. Reality is different, as I can’t recall a single instance of an animated film winning this category, and there’s generally one animated nomination at best. We all know which animated movie about flying animals is going to get that nomination, and it’s not this one. NO CHANCE OF NOMINATION.
Best sound editing/mixing: I have no idea how to properly judge these categories, and I get the feeling that most Academy members don’t either (how did WALL-E not win these, again?). I don’t see HTTYD as having sufficiently good sound to overcome the anti-animation bias for a win, but since most Academy members don’t have a clue here, a nomination is possible. POSSIBLE NOMINATION, NO CHANCE OF WIN.
Best art direction: I’m not sure offhand how many nominations there are for this, but Inception will definitely get one, and I doubt there’ll be more than two animated nominations. Any of HTTYD, TS3 and LOTG (henceforth referred to as “the big three”) could get a nomination here, and a win is quite possible if there’s only one animated nomination (the animation fans would probably spread the vote too thin if there were any more). POSSIBLE WIN.
Best film editing: This is a tricky category at best. Again, expect Inception to use up one of the nominations, which makes things trickier, since there are always going to be some well-edited films, often ones that you might not think of. HTTYD’s flight scenes may get it through to a nomination, though, especially if enough of the Academy saw it in 3D. I couldn’t possibly comment on chances of a win, though. POSSIBLE NOMINATION.
Best Original Song: These nominations often come out of nowhere for me. Espect “We Belong Together” to use up a nomination, because Randy Newman is of the most regular nominees for this Oscar. Otherwise, it’s completely open, and although I can’t think of anything better than Sticks and Stones (other than the aforementioned We Belong Together, but that’s not so much a competitor as a lock in), nominations for this Oscar are often surprising. I’m fairly sure Randy Newman will be clutching another Oscar on the awards night, though, just because people will want to give TS3 a proper send-off (hey, it worked for Lord of the Rings). POSSIBLE NOMINATION, LITTLE TO NO CHANCE OF A WIN.
Best Original Score: We’ve been discussing it on here recently, and I think most of us agree that this film has the best score of the year so far. In fact, I’m just going to go out there and say that this has the best score of any animated film since The Lion King, which is the last animated film I can think of to win this Oscar. NEAR-CERTAIN WIN.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Frankly, calling it an adapted screenplay is pushing it a bit. Besides, this generally goes to something based on some novel no one’s ever heard of. The lack of competition from TS3 could help HTTYD sneak a nomination through, but I think LOTG will stop it. I’d need to know how many nominees there are to state this with any degree of certainty. UNLIKELY NOMINATION.
Best Animated Feature. Okay, find me a single person in the world who thinks that there are three better animated films (heck, you may have to find five) than this released this year. I think you’ll fail. Now, find me a person who doesn’t love Toy Story in general, and TS3 in particular, and isn’t a troll. You’ll probably fail as well. CERTAIN NOMINATION, NO CHANCE OF A WIN.
Best Picture: Utterly impossible to judge for certain at this point, as most Oscar bait is released closer to the Oscars for obvious reasons. I’m going to give TS3 a certain nomination for this, again for the farewell factor, so HTTYD would have to make history by forming part of the first pair of animated films to get nominated for Best Picture in the same year. I can’t see it happen. The vast majority of critics liked it, but I don’t think enough loved it. I could be wrong, though. IMPOSSIBLE TO CALL AT THIS POINT.
So, in summary, my predictions:
Nominations: Best Art Direction (I’m giving this by a whisker over TS3 and LOTG, but I could easily be wrong).
Best Original Song
Best Original Score
Best Animated Feature
Wins: Best Original Score
If I’m right about all this, you all owe me a cookie… or a fish, but definitely not an eel!
I do have to give credit to Dreamworks for putting in a decent attempt to get HTTYD nominated in a variety of categories, not just the obvious Best Animated Feature. I would have gone with the climatic shot of the Forbidden Friendship scene, but that’s just me, and I honestly hope such trifling matters don’t make a huge differece. It does strike me as odd that they didn’t put it properly forward for best director, though. Is there some sort of rule against two-director teams getting nominated?
I liked reading all of your thoughts, but I am surprised that you don’t know that Up won Best Original Score last year.
Well, it does some a little subdued, but I did like their choice of image and the clouds at the bottom. This is how the invitation card looks like in its entirety:
Haha, no probs. But by sarcastic, do you mean it in the sense that Dreamworks does deserve the awards?
Yep, well said. It’s a true shame, cos’ Wall-E still remains in my mind one of the best animated films in recent memory to stand the chance of Best Pic. Up at least redeemed Pixar with a nom, but we won’t know whether that was just the Academy’s ‘lip-service’ after bumping up the contestant-slots.
It certainly does! I’m rooting for both as well, though personally I’m leaning to Dragons cos’ it’s ‘underrated’ in my mind. Not that Toy Story 3 being overrated discredits it from merit, but I have a ‘support-the-underdog’ complex (You can blame the Aussies for teaching me that value).
Well-written analysis, nintendofreak. You made some great points, like on Visual Effects, which traditionally goes to live-action movies, the Randy-Newman bias, and the annual ‘Oscar-bait’ season of erudite, esoteric, eccentric and emotionally-excessive movies. I’d add Despicable Me to the ‘Big Three’ for Animated Feature, though. And I think the changes HTTYD made to Cowell’s material made it much, much better and poignant, while from what I’ve seen of LOTG trailers, they’ve done some ‘copping-out’ of the more intense or sensitive materials of the original novels. So HTTYD probably stands a better chance at Adapted Screenplay than LOTG, in my books. 
Those seem like very fair and reasonable predictions, nintendofreakgcn. I think it seems a bit pretentious for Dreamworks to submit HtTYD for consideration in all categories like that, but I really do hope that it takes home Best Original Score, if anything. Best Animated seems like such a watered-down category, and as much as I love HtTYD and would like to see that award go to it, TS3 is probably going to take it anyway.
Inception will probably end up hogging a lot of these categories, so I don’t see HtTYD taking home many awards - let alone nominations.
Best Picture would be absolutely wonderful and well-deserved. ;U; But again no chance of that. Besides, Dreamworks really doesn’t need an award like that to get them all puffed up with themselves any more than they already are.
love70ways: lol, they should have asked me to design that poster. I would have made the movie look a billion times more amazing. Haha, jk. That sounded really bragadocious, sorry. xDD
little chef
Geesh, I don’t see why people start hating again. If you have an awesome title on your name that is one of the best reviewed movies of the year, wouldn’t you go for it? 
Czarine: I think little_chef’s on our side, and she was probably referring to Jeff and his marketing cronies more than Chris and the filmmakers. I’m just surprised that they haven’t capitalized on HTTYD’s success in the Shrek 4 and Megamind trailers yet.
tdit
That is so true! Dreamworks really should take a cue from Pixar!
"From the makers of How to Train Your Dragon, the only good movie we ever made, comes…
Megamind!"
No but really, in all seriousness Dreamworks should play up HtTYD’s success for their other releases this year.
And Czarine: I hope you don’t think I was hatin’ on this movie. I was only poking fun at how ambitious Dreamworks is in their campaign.
They did a great job, give them a break…
And it’s not the only good movie they ever made. You can’t say that without having seen all of them… I have, and I can honestly say there were 2 good movies, not just 1. 
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why one should not attempt to perform Oscar analyses while tired. I actually watched last year’s Oscar ceremony, but somehow that escaped my memory.
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I’ll probably wait for the review of Despicable Me in my state’s daily newspaper before deciding whether to go see it. I’ve found my opinions on mainstream films line up quite closely with those of the main critic.
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HTTYD may well have a better screenplay than LOTG, but I think the latter will be a better (closer without being slavish) adaptation of the original work.