The Oscars are just around the corner, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has already been nominated for two Academy Award categories.
With Oscar season just around the corner, Rogue One is already geared up to take home two Academy Awards.
Unsurprisingly, Rogue One‘s Academy Award nominations include Best Sound Mixing and Best Special Effects. (Sound and special effects have always been Lucasfilm’s areas of expertise.) If Rogue One had shown off its aliens a little more, it might have nabbed a Best Costume Design nom as well. As for acting and screenplay awards, the Star Wars standalone film’s story probably isn’t poignant or universal enough to garner mention at the Oscars.
Image Credit: Lucasfilm
Star Wars only swept the Oscars once. That was back in 1978 when A New Hope nabbed seven wins. In addition to the seven wins, the Academy nominated Star Wars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Alec Guinness), and Best Original Screenplay. Following these successes, the only other Star Wars movie to receive an Oscar were The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The other films were all nominated but lost. This includes last year’s The Force Awakens. The franchise “reboot” was nominated for five Oscars, many of which it forfeited to Mad Max: Fury Road.
It is difficult to recreate the monumental success that was the first Star Wars movie. The main challenge Disney and Lucasfilm face is that there can never be another “first.” It is harder to receive nominations for music and stories built on the original project and not wholly original themselves.
Fortunately, when it comes to the technical areas like sound and visual effects, the bounds of possibility are constantly expanding. In these areas, Star Wars will always be appreciated for its innovation, no matter how many films Disney makes out it.
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The 89th Academy Awards airs on ABC February 26th, 2017.