Lord of the Rings and its Oscars

Lord of the Rings: 11 Oscars and counting

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was the first film in the Lord of the Rings franchise, and the first movie to win Best Visual Effects. The first two films won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, as well as the Best Movie Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Song, and Best Makeup. Overall, The Lord of the Rings has 11 Academy Awards, leading all fantasy movies. The next best fantasy film is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which has one of the Best Visual Effects. The Hobbit sequel, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies each have zero Academy Awards.

The Lord of the Rings (2003) - Battle for Minas Tirith Beggins - Part 1 [4K]

Sci-Fi is a safe bet for the Oscars

The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy film, but it’s not what we think of when we think of fantasy films. Fantasy films tend to be based on novels with a more European style of storytelling, and be more creative and whimsical. The Lord of the Rings is more of a mythic story, set in a world that is almost entirely original, with a few familiar elements sprinkled in. In contrast, Sci-Fi films are set in our modern world, with a few changes. These changes can be as small as someone’s name is different, or as large as a human-alien war. They can be fantastical or realistic. Most Sci-Fi films also take place in the future, or on another planet.

Fantasy is a safer bet than Sci-fi

The Lord of the Rings is set in a world that is relatively familiar to the audience, with a few new species of animal and magical relics. In contrast, the Star Wars universe is completely new to most people, and the story has to explain everything. Fantasy films have a much lower bar for explaining the story, characters, and world than Sci-Fi films do. The bar for creating a fantasy world that seems real is so low that many people get confused and assume that any fictional world is fantasy. Fantasy stories are often more creative, with more room for characters to be heroic without being silly. Fantasy films also don’t need to explain the reason why people in the future can fly spaceships, or why people in the past can see aliens.

Sci-Fi and Fantasy are synonyms, but they’re also genre labels

In everyday conversation, Sci-Fi and Fantasy are often used interchangeably, with Sci-Fi being the broader term. But in the film industry, the two terms have distinct meanings. All films that are set in the future are Sci-fi, but not all Sci-fi films are set in the future. Like Fantasy, Sci-fi can be used as a genre label for certain types of films. For example, The Matrix is Sci-fi, as are most films that are set in the future, with a few exceptions.

The takeaway

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the most successful franchises in history, with 17 Academy Awards among the three films. While the franchise has been called the “greatest movie trilogy ever”, it is also the most Oscar-winning franchise in history. But it’s not the only fantasy franchise with an edge in the Best Visual Effects category. The Star Wars franchise has 10 Oscars, but most of those came when the franchise was less popular and more experimental. Another science-fiction franchise, The Matrix, has 9 Oscars, but many of those came in the early 2000s. The closest any fantasy franchise comes to the number of Oscars won by the Lord of the Rings films is The Hobbit films. While the films are successful and beloved, they are still relatively new, and the Academy Awards have a history of favoring bold films over rehashes.

Conclusion

The Lord of the Rings is the most Oscar-winning franchise in history. But it’s not the only fantasy franchise that has a history of winning the Best Visual Effects Academy Award. The Star Wars franchise also has a history of winning in this category. The Lord of the Rings is also unique because it is the only fantasy franchise from the last 20 years to win in this category. Fantasy films are often less mature than Sci-fi films and are sometimes dismissed as child-friendly. Hopefully, the success of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit will open the door for other fantasy franchises to break into the Best Visual Effects category. But even if they don’t, fantasy is likely to continue to dominate the Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects.