The twenty finalists for Best Visual Effects at the 2024 Oscars were made official yesterday. Shockingly, Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' didn't make it to the nominations. As IndieWire put it, the Nolan directorial had a "dazzling display of practical in-camera effects, digital compositing for the Trinity explosion, and particle simulations for the subatomic world shot in cloud tanks."
Why then didn't 'Oppenheimer' make it to the final list? As per the report, the entire film included "only around 200 invisible VFX shots". And Nolan himself had said that there was no CGI in the movie.
Yet, fans are disappointed. "Can't think of better proof of how weirdly agenda-driven the VFX branch must be to leave off some of the most technically innovative movies of the year ('Oppenheimer' and 'THE KILLER') while nominating lesser works. Nolan's film was always going to be an uphill battle for the longlist, especially with all the slanted 'Nolan hates VFX' headlines, but its exclusion is even more egregious in light of what made it in," wrote Brendan Hodges.
"Sorry Oppenheimer VFX people. Guess you should have used deepfake technology to bring the real Albert Einstein back to life," wrote Paul Meredith in a sarcastic tone.
