10 Oscars The Marvel Cinematic Universe Should Have Won In A Fair World

6. Best Visual Effects - Guardians Of The Galaxy

In one of the rare instances of the Academy actually recognising the existence of Marvel films, James Gunn's Guardians Of The Galaxy was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 2015 Oscars. It lost out, however, to Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, in what was most likely a case of the popular auteur (Nolan) and his moody, 'meaningful' science fiction tale beating out the largely unknown newcomer (Gunn) and his silly comic book film. The effects are indeed spectacular in Interstellar (though Nolan's admirable use of practical sets and props should probably have warranted the Production Design Oscar more), but those in Guardians are superior. Where Interstellar can be by-turns inspiring and drab, Gunn's film is a balls-out, rock 'n' roll sci-fi that looks like it was ripped straight from the comic book pages it was inspired by. The effects team of Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould didn't just seamlessly blend CGI into almost every frame and build convincingly bustling worlds from scratch for Guardians - they made you connect with a talking raccoon/tree double act, then cry when one of them died. Now that's how you do visual effects.
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Contributor

Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1