Kung Fu Panda Wins Annie Award

DreamWorks Animation Film Stars Jack Black, Angelina Jolie

Feb 2, 2009

In a shocking upset, DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda beat Disney/Pixar's WALL-E for the 2009 Annie Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

In a move no one saw coming, DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda won The Best Animated Feature Film Award at the 36th Annual Annie Awards on Friday, January 30th.

In fact, Kung Fu Panda was the big winner of the night, taking 10 other awards including:

DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda spin-off, "Secrets of the Furious Five," also won big, taking the Character Animation award (Pierre Perifel), Character Design (Nico Marlet), Best Music (Henry Jackman, Hans Zimmer & John Powell), and Production Design (Tang Heng).

Disney Animation Wins One Annie For "Glago's Guest"

Kung Fu Panda completely blanked its biggest rival WALL-E in every category. The Disney/Pixar film – which received the Golden Tomato Award for Best Reviewed Film of 2008 – rolled home with nothing despite being heavily favoured to win, due to its pedigree and kudos from virtually every critical society.

The only award that any Disney animated affiliate received the entire night was in the Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production or Short Form category. Chris Williams (Bolt) won that award for "Glago's Guest," a short that was originally supposed to run before Bolt during its theatrical run, but got pulled after it apparently didn't test well in front of audiences.

Aardman Animation's "Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death" won the Annie for Best Animated Short, defeating Doug Sweetland's popular short "Presto" and "Glago's Guest."

The other big winner of the night was Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender, mainly because it wasn't nominated against Kung Fu Panda. Avatar received 2 awards: Best Animated Television Production Produced for Children and a directing nod for Joaquim Dos Santos, who directed the episode “Sozin’s Comet Pt. 3: Into the Inferno.”

Annie Bellwether For Oscars

This immediately calls into question whether WALL-E will receive its automatic coronation at the Oscar ceremony on February 22nd. ASIFA-Hollywood (which produces the Annies) has accurately forecast the Best Animated Feature Film winner at the Oscars for every year, save one. In 2006, Warner Bros.' Happy Feet defeated Disney/Pixar's Cars to win the Oscar, despite Cars taking the Annie that year.

Whatever beef ASIFA-Hollywood has with Disney (or perhaps they feel that Pixar's awards cabinet is too full), it's doubtful that AMPAS will share that attitude. Kung Fu Panda was a solid return to form for DreamWorks Animation, but it didn't advance the art of animation to any great degree. Its award for Best Writing appears especially bizarre since, if this article is to be believed, there were more than 20 writers working on the flick.

If WALL-E had been a disappointment, like Cars, it might be understandable for the awards organizations to pick Kung Fu Panda instead, as a tacit warning for the Emeryville studio not to get complacent.

However, Disney/Pixar appears to be moving from strength to strength with their films, and WALL-E was one of its best to date. It toppled Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away as the most beloved animated film on IMDb, and celebrity critics Roger Ebert and The Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern both felt the Andrew Stanton film deserved a Best Picture nomination at this year's Oscars.

It's likely that, due to this year, the Annies' record will fall again. WALL-E will still win the Best Animated Feature Film award at the Oscar ceremony, and possibly even the Best Original Screenplay.

Consider it AMPAS' tacit apology to Disney for not giving the best-reviewed film of 2008 a Best Picture nomination.

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