The Academy will do the same thing they did last year-nominate TTT for many awards (including best picture), but just give it technical awards.

I'm still upset over last year. In twenty years from now, will people remember A BEAUTIFUL MIND as best picture of 2001? I think not!

Instead they will revere TTT & FOTR the year before it as cinema classics of all time! The Academy will do some major back-pedaling!

I do not think TTT will be nominated for Best Picture. While in its way it is as good as TFOTR it does not seem to be quite as well constructed. To me that only means it was a more difficult film to bring in under three hours and thus some parts (particularly in the first half) feel rushed; at least they do to me. TTT is more in need of an Extended Edition than TFOTR (as many have pointed out). I truly expect the EE to be stunning and expect it to be better than the EE of TFOTR.

I think it's really too bad the films are not being judged for the Academy Awards based on their EEs because that's where they get the treatment they need to be as good as they can be. But that's the way it is.

Another factor is the sequel factor. With very few notable exceptions, sequels to Academy Award nominated films are not treated with the same respect as an original. Granted, sequels are rarely as good but even when they are it's hard to get respect. Almost everyone agrees that The Empire Strikes Back is quite a bit better than Star Wars (A New Hope) but that didn't get TESB a Best Picture nomination.

A final factor is that 2002 was a much better year for films than 2001. There is so much more competition for the five spots. We are going to hear much more about "snubs" this year than usual because many fine films will not be nominated (same for performances - BTW, I don't think TTT will get any acting nominations either although I'd like to see Andy Serkis get one).

On a positive note I do think TROTK may get a real shot next year, especially if the rumors are right about a longer than three hour film (the EE being the theatrical version - with an intermission - would be great). Is there really any reason not to do this given the 1½ billion plus (minus about three hundred million production and promotion costs) that will already be in the bank from the first two (and that's not counting DVD sales and rentals, money from TV rights etc.)? It's not as if there is any financial risk. I think it is at least possible that the Academy voters could recognize the greatness of the last film (assuming it is, and given what we have seen up to now I don't think that is an unreasonable assumption) and also finally be ready to reward Peter Jackson et al. for their monumental achievement of the entire trilogy. Of course, what the competition is will matter, but unless there is a Schindler's List type movie that can't be denied, I think TROTK will have a leg (or two) up on the competition.

I don't think Two Towers deserves any awards other than technical awards and possibly screenplay, cinematography or score. I think Fellowship had its chance to win awards last year, and it could have won some good awards if it was judged based on the EE. Hopefully the EE of ROTK will be the theatrical release and the trilogy will recieve its due credit from oscar.

I think another reason for this is that unlike the first two, the third film being released as an extended edition later won't have a film to "promote interest" for like the first two extended editions will. Have to admit that when I got my extended edition of FOTR and we showed it in our big screen in our conference room a couple of weeks before TTT was released it got a lot of people psyched to get out there and see TTT a couple of times. Holding off on the extended edition later won't help generate interest in a subsequent film, unless they can rush "The Hobbit" to the screen this coming year, which you know they won't (and I hope they wouldn't).

The big challenge with releasing the longer film initially at the theater is being able to get enough numbers of people wanting to sit through a movie longer than 3 hours, especially to get good opening day numbers. For TTT, they had midnight, 7:30 AM, and 9:30 AM showings to help with getting numbers. They'll have to be even more creative to reach those with TROTK.

You can put it in many different theaters in the big cineplexes (though not everyone lives next to big cineplexes around the country) so that you can jog starting times quite a bit, but then in some cases you'll have to put people in smaller theaters, and this sort of movie is really something people want to see on the big screen the first time.

It will be interesting to see what sort of other theatrical releases will be coming out within the same period this coming year that would compete with TROTK. My bet is that even moreso than last two years, the studios will try avoiding too many movies to come out on competing weeks so that at least the first week, TROTK can have a maximum amount of theaters to have showings in. They will of course release quite a few of their big films for the final week of the season to qualify for Oscars, but that will be interesting too as I'm sure they want to get good opening numbers too.

Star Wars' Best Picture nomination might not be too apt a comparison anymore. Back in the days before the "mega-blockbuster" it was not uncommon to nominate the highest grossing film of the year as Best Picture.

I doubt that. Scorsese has been notably snubbed in the past, including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull & Goodfellas. While I feel GONY may very well be the best film I've seen of 2002, it seems the Academy has something against him.

Yes, the academy definately has favorites and non-favorites. This definately has been a great year for films, though the two that will probably duke it out are GONY and About Schmidt come Oscar time.