Wow. This is so sad. Toy Story 3 shall reign. I did feel Fantastic Mr. Fox was a better film than Up last year, but meh.

Toy Story 3, How To Train Your Dragon, and The Owl Movie as the nominees, I guess.

Cats & Dogs and Legends of the Guardian are NOT animated films; just CGI-heavy films and do not belong in this category. Again, the Academy screwing stuff up…

Can we just give it to the Illusionist and stop wasting my time.

Last year there were definitely enough great animated movies to justify 5 slots. This year, not so much (apart from Toy Story 3 and HTTYD, they're all good at best), so I think that 3 slots is fine.

Spidey, I don't know how you can say that Legends of the Guardians isn't an animated movie. It's TOTALLY ANIMATED. Happy Feet was less animated than Legends. Cats and Dogs, i agree, should not be on this list. Every Pixar movie is computer-generated. 99% of all animated films are computer generated, thus CGI-heavy.

Wait… so the owls weren't real?

Toy Story 3 will take it, despite The Illusionist and My Dog Tulip both being stunning from what I've heard. "Best Animation" is code for "Best Family-Oriented Cartoon," so stuff that's not marketed to kids doesn't really stand a chance for a win. Maybe one of the smaller movies will at least get a nomination. I think Pixar and Dreamworks (How to Train Your Dragon) will grab two of the nomination spots, though.

Spidey Rules, the Academy rules state a certain percentage of the film must be animated or contain animation, it doesn't have to be totally animated. I believe Phantom Menace would have been eligible had the category been around in 1999 (and had they chosen to submit it for it).

I am confused, Pajiba.com listen the Oscar noms the other day and the article had no sarcasm in it whatsoever, so was it fake? The list/their list seemed right.

Mr. Dickson, then shouldn't Avatar have been included last year in 'Best Animated'?

Bah, this is the usual meaningless. They put up every damn animated flick they make and pick the 3 top earners and then they give it to Pixar. No surprises, no meaning. I can't imagine why people give a shit about the Oscars but this has got to be one of the dumbest categories. With 10 possible "Best" films, you'd think maybe animated would be considered a film but whatever. Personally, I like going to the movies on Oscar night.

Toy Story 3 is gonna win. Personally, I'm rooting for How To Train Your Dragon. While Toy Story 3 was great, everyone knew it was going to be great. No one expected HTTYD to be great

I understand the "there must be X number of films released in this category to have X number of nominees" thing in the Animated category, but why are there only ever 3 films nominated for special effects and sound design/editing? Doesn't EVERY movie have some sort of sound editing?

@#13: You're talking about the "Wow, how did that not suck!?" Oscar. I liked the movie, but it's nowhere near TS3 quality. @#11: "Had they chosen" = It's a choice of the filmmakers/studios to decide which award they go after during the submission process.

Stunned that TinkerBell is in that list. Having watched HTTYD about a billion times in the last month I genuinely think it's fekkin' mint. Some of the shots in it are absolutely stunning (the final battle as the dragon takes to the air and they fight it out in the clouds and Hiccups Dad walking through the ash spring immediately to mind) and the fact that theydid what they did to Hiccup at the end. Actually gets better the more I see it (which is just as well since the oldest daughter watches it at least once a day). Oh and Craig Ferguson is funny as fuck in it.

Tinkerbelle?!

Pixar deserves it. HTTYD was good but no one is as good as Pixar when it comes to animated films this year. TS3 was perfect and looked better than everything else.

THE OWL MOVIE won't win, but I found it really entertaining and beautifully-animated. It's not as good as TOY STORY or HTTYD, but I'm sad that it got such a bad rep, mostly because of the overlong title.

The only reason TINKERBELL qualified is because Disney plopped it into it's theater in L.A. for a week. It's DTV dreck.