Also, there was wonderful sound editing and mixing by Ben Burtt, he might even deserve a Special Achievement.

And there was a beautful score by Newman. Derserves nomintaion.

Most importantly, Stanton derserves a win for Best Original Screenplay. Beautiful storytelling, beautiful originality.

But what makes those voters discriminate animated movie?

WALL-E FOR BEST PICTURE.

That “arrogence” of Stanton is not arrogence at all. He says he “doesn’t care what the audience thinks.”

He kinda right. After all, the audience grows more narrow-minded as time pass. They want entertainment, not good storyline. WHat do audience these days know about “profound” movies?

So-called Hollywood marketers wouldn’t know what creativity is without dollar signs stamped on it.

If success depends on what Hollywood marketers think, Pixar would have been another Dreamworks. Thankfully, Pixar is always will be Pixar.

Pixar is overdue for a best picture nomination. It’s too bad that Wall-E like Ratatouille will probably be put in the animated feature category.

And to Ricco, above…

How can you quote Stanton and then reply to his comments by saying this is the exact reason attendance is down. Pixar is one of the most successful studios of it’s type in history… they’re doing it the right way, and it’s paying off both financially and artistically.

so i really wonder if Hitchcock, Ford, Wyler, Wilder, Scorsese, Speilberg et al, you know, the GREAT directors, read about market surveys when creating their most famous & artistically significant movies? i mean really, think about it, any of the directors i named, even Speilberg and his sequels, created their best creative works when simply doing a pic based on their own sincere & profound ideas of what makes a great motion picture or on a idea/topic they felt needed to be made into a pic. MANY of these types of films were successful as well as creative. MANY of them TOOK RISKS. MANY of these films did not win an oscar. in Hitch’s case NOTE ONE OF HIS FILMS WON AN OSCAR. CAN YOU IMAGINE? ho lame the oscar can be.

also, if you look at Speilberg for instance, if he only made movies that were based on survey popularity contests, would we have created Close Encounters, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List etc…? In fact, before making Close Encounters, he was offered to do a Jaws 2 sequel because it was popular, yet he rejected doing it. Thank the Lord he did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/movies/22onst.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

Context is everything and once you’ve read it, it’s clear that the marketing peep(s) that NF talked to have an axe to grind. It’ll be interesting to read any follow-ups NF has from anonymous sources on the pro-Stanton side, especially if Wall-E is even a modest hit.

— Rob

Um, what??? What happens? You end up with movies that get 98% positive reviews? And I’ll bet audiences love it as well, and it makes a big pile of money? Yeah, nobody would ever want THAT to happen.

Shyamalan is a guy with a couple early hits under his belt that increasingly seem like flukes. Stanton has hit home runs on every project, with critics, with audiences, with awards, and at the box office.

The folks at Pixar have talent that would probably justify ANY amount of ego, but they still seem pretty down to earth.

There’s no question that Pixar cares about their audience. They absolutely do test screenings and get reactions, and they absolutely do create movies by “committee”. The difference is their team of guys is a bunch of hugely talented creatives, not decisions made by suits. If anything, they tweak based on audience reaction and work as a team way MORE than most other movies, that’s probably the reason they have been so successful and consistent.

They just don’t care about what suits and marketing guys think, nor do they pander to lowest common denominator tastes like Shrek’s pop culture references. They figure out what audiences will like instead of asking audiences what they like via questionnaire or other nonsense (which virtually always gives horrible results).

The marketing people all laughed… “Who the hell wants to see this movie — the ship sinks!!”

Fox was so scared they sold off the domestic rights to Paramount.

Cynical Hollywood folks still know that it’s correct to cringe when the word Titanic is uttered. But last I remember, the thing grossed a gajillion dollars and won a gajillion oscars.

Wall-E will be hugely successful and it will get nominated for Best picture and it might very well win. Pixar is overdue.

Market research does nothing but destroy creativity. Stanton should keep on doing what he’s doing. Nobody else in Hollywood seems to care about originality.