I'm gonna give you a picture of the inner workings of the average Academy voter: A talking robot that turns into a car has no anchor to reality. No matter how many moving parts, how many tetrabytes of computer power, it's seen as just a robot. You don't have to fool the brain into thinking it is real. Your brain "knows" it's just an effect.

Now, a polar bear, or an ape, or any other living, breathing, animal, has many levels of realism that must be emulated. Breathing, muscle structure, fat layers under the skin, color imperfections, hair textures, all must be incorporated into the effect so that the brain thinks it is seeing a real animal. When it works (RisePOTA), you can't tell the difference. When it doesn't work (king kong) it looks fake and the brain rejects it.

That being said, that's why POTA deserves the Oscar nod over TF. They created apes that looked near perfect (times watching it I swore were real apes, only to learn they WERE cgi). Not once did I think "Yeah, that looks real" while watching TF3.

 

Oscars preferred polar bears. How is winning an award like that a good thing?

 

Unfortunately, this.

I still need to see RotPotA. The more I hear about it, the more I regret not seeing it in theatres. Come on, Christmas! Papa needs a new RotPotA Blu-Ray!  

 

<sarcasm>Yeah, I understand you, surely they don´t look as the real-life Transformers you see everyday....  </sarcasm>

 

While the special effects were great in Dark of the Moon there are a few things that could hurt them in taking the prize.

The film kind of over reached again with the huge character. The robo worm was the biggest thing on the screen but not exactly the most impressive looking character since he's just a big worm with about a billion moving parts.

The building kind of overshadows the robots for part of the movie. Felt like the building was the big focus for the big effects shot of the film.

Planet of the Apes is likely betting it's chances on the apes being able to show emotion while emotion continues to be a bit of a problem for the robot designs. The Academy voters seem to love emotion so if you are betting on the Oscars the safe money is on the film that could show emotions with it's effects.

Technology Dark of the Moon was excellent work. Sadly the technical awards don't always go on technical achievement since we've seen The Golden Compass take a technical award on a member of the effects team passing away.

 

It appalls me that a couple of cgi monkeys can win over tons of cgi robots, a giant cgi metal worm, an entire cgi building falling over, the majority of a city being rendered to look destroyed (in addition to the irl stuff), an entire cgi PLANET being teleported, countless cgi spaceships, etc. etc. etc.

The only reason the Ape-fic is going to win is because of the massive amount of nostalgia emitted by the Academy towards the series..... And the fact that each and every one of them has a personal vendetta against Bay.

 

^they already have...  

 

I'm guessing there's quality over quantity to consider as part of the judging process. But then I've not seen DotM or RotPotA so I have no great personal stake in either winning.

 

Planet of the Apes will also win it because, technically, the feat is far superior. Anyone can make a building falling down look good. I suspect you're being biased.

Also, they're apes. There's a big difference. Look it up.

 

As much as I'd like DOTM to win ROTPOTA will win for sure!
The detail and emotion they got across with those apes was incredible!

 

Michael Bay does not kiss up to the academy so DOTM is not likely to win. I think they really deserve the best special effects award, though. No other movie compares so visually detailed. The script is not good with critics but no one can deny the most technologically advanced CG in a movie yet. Shockwave's Driller alone is reason enough for the award.