Toy Story 3 may be
the highest rated and
highest grossing feature film of 2010 and is surely a shoo-in for the Best Animated Feature Oscar later this month but Pixar's latest was left cold Saturday night at the Annie Awards, as
How to Train Your Dragon scooped up a devastating 10 awards. According to
The Guardian, Toy Story 3 received an outlandish snub due to the frosty relationship between the awards ceremony and Disney who this year refused to "submit movies for consideration, campaign or screen its film for critics." Disney have often been suspicious about the manner in which the International Animated Film Society judge the contenders in spite of the fact that Disney and Pixar films have won the main award for six of the last ten years. It seems they are hurting by the undoubtedly odd decision in 2008 to reward the fun but forgetful Kung Fu Panda over the visual marvel that was Pixar's Wall-E in what was no doubt the animated equivalent of Raging Bull losing to Ordinary People at the Oscars. Otherwise I can't see what the problem is? I mean did Disney really expect The Emperor's New Groove to triumph over Shrek in 2001 - the only other occasion in the past decade where a Dreamworks film has beaten a Disney/Pixar film to the top prize.
It's an even stranger boycott given that Pixar were actually defending the award with Up winning last year and it seemed inevitable that Toy Story 3 would have replicated this success in 2011. Former Disney president Peter Schneider spoke to
The Hollywood Reporter at the awards ceremony and had the following to say about the controversy clouding this year's awards:
"The animation community has been a tight community. Now that animation is starting to have great success in the commercial world, in Hollywood, to see it in fracture in terms of people's support, it makes me sad."
With Toy Story 3 still nominated but out of the running, Dreamworks were able to claim 15 of the 24 awards with How to Train Your Dragon winning 10 prizes including the most prestigious Best Animated Feature accolade. Although the
Annie website claims that its awards are"often a predictor of the Annual Academy for Best Animated Feature" don't expect this to be the case on Oscar night when it will be a near miracle if Toy Story 3 were to lose out in the Animated Feature category.