In terms of this year's Best Visual Effects Oscar race, there are two certainties most people can agree on: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest will score a nomination, as will Superman Returns. But this leaves an empty slot and, IMO, there's no easy choice as to which film will fill it. X-Men: The Last Stand came to mind. Superhero films have had success in this category in the past and it was a significant box office success, which always helps. Then again, this is the third film in a franchise, people are familiar with most of the mutant effects (though the Golden Gate Bridge sequence stood out), and, unless I'm forgetting, I don't believe X-Men or X2: X-Men United was nominated for Best Visual Effects.

Then there's Flags of our Fathers. Adult-aimed serious films can be nominated in this category (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World comes to mind) and Clint Eastwood and his team's re-creation of Iwo Jima does seem spectacular. And there a handful of others which have a shot (however slight) too, including Apocalypto, Charlotte's Web, Eragon, The Fountain, and V for Vendetta.

Ultimately, however, I believe the nomination will go to Night at the Museum. With the T-Rex skeleton which chases Ben Stiller as its highlight, the film seems to offer a fun collection of special effects and the fact plot involves fantasy entering an environment many of us are familiar with will help.

What are your thoughts?

SUperman for Best visual effects??!?! AH!

its much harder to make a flying man believeable then it is a human-fish/octopus because you see men everyday so youll instantly know if its fake or not.

basically supermans were a much bigger challenge.

I agree, the two are pretty much locks at this point. POTC2 for obvious reasons and Superman because it is the only big, effects-heavy film of the year to get pretty good reviews overall.

The third? A Night at the Museum could be it. It'll be successful and with a lot of effects. Yeah, I go with that one.

Eragon certainly won't, unless Academy pulls a moronic decision again (like nominating Narnnia in the category last year).

x3 and poseidon both had fantastic effects...........as did MI3.

I don't think Poseidon will be nominated based on about 10 minutes of really, really fantastic special effects and 80 minutes of just walking around in water.

But then again, Narnia...

Hey! There was no walking around in water in Narnia! Just some floating on ice blocks and stuff.

YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!

You need to keep in mind that Narnia grossed $290 million, more than any other Visual Effects nominee last year.

Now I have no clue why they gave Narnia the edge and not the identically successful and much better-looking Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...

Flyboys was really well done and could maybe score something there.

It's deserving (the aerial sequences blew me away), but it'll be forgotten by most come Oscar time. Flags of our Fathers has a better shot, IMO.

Night at the Museum is my guess.

supermans more of a lock then pirates; they prefer effects of real shit as opposed to fantasy. everyoe knows that.

making a flying man look real is 10 times mor challengin thm aking an octopus man ause you have never seen an octopuc man beforte but you have seen a man before.

And yet ILM did so well on Davy Jones that it had people thinking it was Bill Nighy in prosthetics and not the 100% CGI that it was.

From the commercials I saw for SR, their graphics did not look remotely good enough for the huge budget that movie had.

Joy

Ummm... No

A $400+ million grosser is certainly more of a lock than a box-office disappointment unless that one was lauded by all critics out there (like King Kong)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is going to win, IMO. Massive box office, well-recieved by audiences and critics, and, most of all, special effects which were very, very impressive. I personally wasn't a huge fan of the sequel (I prefer Superman Returns by a wide margin), but even I can't deny ILM hit a home run with Dead Man's Chest.

More and more I'm convinced Night at the Museum will get the third nod. Many of the big summer films, such as The Da Vinci Code, M:i-III, and Miami Vice, didn't have the feel of special effects bonanzas. Three WB films, Lady in the Water, Poseidon, and V for Vendetta, featured many special effects (especially the second two), but, again, didn't have the epic special effects feel, which is often needed to secure a nomination. Night at the Museum will have a wide variety of fantasy-style special effects, has the potential to do very well at the box office, and will be fresh in memories come Oscar time. Barring a surprise from Eragon, The Fountain, or Flags of our Fathers, I expect to hear its name the morning of Oscar announcements.

I'm gonna say Eragon, just because of what happened with Narnia, and there's no other big time alternative. The dragon will obviously be a "spectacle", so yeah, I pick that.

casino royale will.

I honestly have no idea how anyone from watching the trailer for Museum can say it has the best chance at the 3rd spot. There is absolutley nothing that screams out great visual effects.

It seems all it has going for it is some T-Rex skeleton.

Flags
Fountain
Apocalypto
Children of Men
Eragon
X3
Casino Royale

Those should have a better chance.

And Children of Men looks like it has any top notch effects in the trailer at all?

They looked quite good and just like every other film on that list ( except maybe Last Stand and Casino Royale ) the Academy would happily hand a nomination to over some most likely shit film like Museum.

It might go to The Fountain...

Not sure....

Hmmm....they may just go with Eragon bc it has 2800 visual effect shots, 800 more then Revenge of the Sith.