One dark horse not listed may be Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. I was quite impressed with the first film. Of course I love the mythology though, so I'm a bit biased.

Even if it has decent, cool FX, it won't be nominated with so much heavyweight-champion-of-the-world caliber competition. One might as well say After Earth and White House Down are dark horses.

I suppose. I can wish for it though.

This is such a hugely compettiive category this year....

My updated predictions:

Star Trek into Darkness
Iron Man 3
Gravity (seems like the obvious winner at this point)
Oz The Great and Powerful
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I think Man of Steel might just miss out.

Might The Secret Life of Walter Mitty be a contender? For a nomination, not a win.

You are all forgetting Grudge Match, with its use of the best CGI ever known to mankind.

No spelling mistakes in this post. Much improved.

Can't say the same about your post in the trailer section for the Grace movie.

You'll be using that one for years.

Quiet, girls.

At what point is this award meaningless? Nowawdays I expect all big budget films to look good and rarely notice except when they are done poorly. It is like the steroid era in baseball: everyone can hit a 420ft homerun.

Can anyone really say that Star Trek or Iron Man or Elysium or Gravity (will admit high hopes on that one) look better than any other? Not sure I have been in awe of a special effect since maybe The Matrix. That includes Avatar, which I hated, but which looked good.

I would rather they award something to best practical effects for certain scenes, since pretty much all films incorporate cgi and even this would be hard to measure. Like some of the stuff in The Dark Knight.

Just not sure I care anymore about which piece of clanging metal looks better while clanging.

Funny that you mention it now. Because I have seen Gravity today and the first 20 minutes are so mind-blowingly good effects-wise (and everyting else too), that it is leaps and bounds ahead of everything else this year so far. There is just no comparison. My jaw dropped to the floor and remained there for a long time.

So, yes, I can ay that Gravity looks better than the other three.

Also, the effects are still evolving. Look at last year's Life of Pi. That tiger effect simply wouldn't have been possible five yars earlier.

The crux of this category definitely seems to now be, "Which movie best utilizes digital FX to tell a fairly prestigious and/or serious story?"

Not sure that it is just "now". It has been like this for a very very long time. A BP nominee that is also nominatd for its effects is usually a near-lock to win. See Gladiator (Hollow Man was snubbed!)

That said, Gravity, which might also be nominated for BP, does have the year's best effects.

I would say straight-up lock. The only time since the 1960s that a Picture nominee lost to a non-Picture nominee was Patton losing to Tora Tora Tora in 1970.

I believe The Great Gatsby should be in contention for a nomination here. A lot of amazing, often visible use of computer-generated imagery, turning a piece of road laid in a sound-stage into a busy highway leading into 1920s NYC and such.

The ten finalists:

Elysium
Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Iron Man 3
The Lone Ranger
Oblivion
Star Trek Into Darkness
Thor: The Dark World
Pacific Rim
World War Z

No Man of Steel! LOL!!!

How many nominees will there be? 5?

I definitely think Gravity, Hobbit, and Pacific Rim should be nominated. I don't think Lone Ranger, World War Z, or Elysium will be nominated, leaving the final two spots to Iron Man 3, Oblivion, Star Trek, and Thor. It's really a toss up for the final two spots out of those 4.

Not that it really matters, because I have no doubt the Academy will award the trophy to Gravity. It's too bad, because I love the effects in Pacific Rim.

While I appreciate the effort put forth in Gravity, it just didn't captivate me as much as it seems to have for others.

Yup, five.

I think Pacific Rim might be snubbed. I am thinking Iron Man 3, The Hobbit, Elysium, Gravity and SAtar Trek into Darkness.

Pacific Rim would be a horrible snub. There's some shoddy dialogue, but the effects are top notch.

Considering the Academy snubbed Transformers in favor of The Golden Fucking Compass for the FX win and snubbed Transformers 2 for a nomination, I'd say they don't like giant robots.

At least Transformers, Transformers 3, King Kong, and Reel Steel have all gotten Oscar nominations, even though just Kong won.

Also, Transformers 2 sucked, and the 3 movies nominated that year for visual effects were Avatar, District 9, and Star Trek. All deserving over TF2 in my opinion.

And yes, the Golden Compass win was baffling, though the effects were the only good part of the movie.

A shame The Great Gatsby is already out of contention.

I have only seen three of the selected movies so far and also Gatsby. Iron Man 3 I found more of the same and not particularly impressive, but the other two, Oblivion and STID, have better effects than Gatsby.