Return of the King Oscar Predictions (and post-Oscar Comments)

[Child of the 7th Age]

The BAFTAs have now come in.....

LotR was nominated for twelve awards which I've listed below, along with the actual winner.....

Picture - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Director - Peter Weir, Master and Commander
Supporting Actor - Bill Nighy, Love Actually (Ian McKellan had been nominated for this)
Adapted Screenplay - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Music - Cold Mountain
Cinematography - ROTK
Editing - Lost in Translation
Production Design - Master and Commander
Costume - Master and Commander
Sound - Master and Commander
Visual Effects - ROTK
Makeup - Pirates of the Carribean

Four out of twelve for RotK -- not a runaway by any means. They did snag best picture, adapted screenplay, cinematography, and visual.

A lot of the kudos went to Master and Commander. PJ lost out to Peter Weir as director in Master and Commander, a movie that also snagged four awards. I believe Master and Commmander was a British Film? Is that correct? In any case, it was a fine movie so I do not feel too badly with the results, especially since PJ had already won the Director's Guild award. And I honestly can't see Master and Commander as the spoiler on Oscar night. I think there's a greater 'threat' from Lost in Translation.


Roger Ebert has come out with his predictions. Although he personally prefers other movies, he says the best picture award is a lock-in for RotK:

The best picture victory is a gimme, I think. There are some better pictures in the running ("Lost in Translation," "Mystic River" and "Master and Commander" for example), but I sense an air of inevitability about "LOTR: ROTK." It's the kind of bold enterprise that Hollywood envies, because it so rarely undertakes it. The trilogy has grossed, what? A billion dollars, with the DVD cash registers still ringing? It's exciting moviemaking, even if this year's film seemed to end, and end, and end. And Jackson has pulled it off: His trilogy delivered all the way through, and looks better as a whole than as the sum of its parts.

For the full article, click here.