It's Official: Best Animated Feature Will Be Presented ...

Well, it's now official. This week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that there will be a brand new Academy Award presented for the first time at the 74th Annual Oscars. The new Best Animated Feature Oscar will be presented in March along with all the other regular Oscars. It's the first new Academy Award category introduced since Best Makeup became a regular competitive Oscar in 1981.

Of course they had announced the approval of this new Academy Award last September, but stipulated that there had to be a certain number of eligible films submitted for entry, or they could end up opting not to give the award. Well, nine films have been deemed eligible to compete for the first ever Animated Feature Oscar, and the Academy released the names of the nine films that will vye for this first coveted prize for feature animation. The Short Films and Feature Animation branch of the Academy recommended to the board of governors that the award should indeed be given this year.

The nine films eligible will be:
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu
Monsters, Inc.
Osmosis Jones
The Prince of Light
Shrek
The Trumpet of the Swan
Waking Life

Two of the films, Jimmy Neutron and Marco Polo have yet to open, and must open this month to be able to qualify for Oscar consideration. One of the most interesting things I found from this list of eligible films is a major omission ... where is Disney's Atlantis? I certainly thought that film would be at least an eligible film, and I'm curious as to why the film is not even included in the list of eligible films. Somebody at Disney perhaps forget to file their papers??? Very interesting indeed ... while certainly not one of the greatest of Disney films, I still thought it was an enjoyable departure for the Disney animated classics, and deserves to sit alongside these as the best animated achievements of the year.

The way the nominating for this Oscar will work is that a 100 member screening committee chaired by Academy Governor Tom Hanks will view all the films and vote on the ultimate three nominees. Then of course all Academy members would vote on the final three for the one to win the Oscar.

So from this eligible list, I think it's easy to predict which three will end up being nominated for the Animated Feature Oscar, unless there's something about some of these that ends up surprising all of us. The three nominees for the very first Animated Feature Oscar will be:

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