Hugo Awards Nominations

REMINDER: The cut-off date for registering to vote (meaning – purchasing a membership in this year’s WorldCon) is fast approaching. Signing up after this date preserves your right to vote on the final ballot (provided you register for that in time) but you’ll have no say in who/what will be ON the final ballot.

For more information about the premiere (and IMHO the most important) SF award – please visit The HUGO Awards and/or the 68th Worldcon AussieCon, WSFS and/or SF Awards Watch.

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Two categories of Hugo Award are fairly easy to vote for these days because the content under consideration is usually available widely and can be obtained at little or no cost.

I refer to film and television shows (long and short forms of Dramatic Presentation, though – sowing confusion – both television and film could qualify for either category – check out the Hugo site for ’splanation.)

Most films released in 2009 that fall under the heading of SF (or fantasy, or horror, or super hero or mixed genres) are out there, online, in one form or another – be it Netflix, Amazon, DVD or pirated.

There’s plenty of time between now and the deadline in March to check them all out. If you visit the IMDB website you can “search by genre” and then sort by year (2009 starts around film # 490). Click through a few pages (stop to check out the up-coming flicks that are YET MORE REMAKES OF BAD SF FILMS FROM THE PAST) and eventually you’ll get to 2009, the eligible year.

Stand outs (I should qualify that: films that were shamelessly over-hyped, over-budgeted and over-blown) for 2009 are:

Terminator: Salvation
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Star Trek
Moon
Avatar
District 9
9
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2012
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Monsters VS Aliens
Astro Boy
Surrogates
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Land of the Lost
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Watchmen
Gamer

(2009 film list ends around #789)

Now, if you look at that whole list and realize how many hundreds of millions of dollars were spent making and watching that fare, you can really only come to one conclusion: Ted Sturgeon was WAY, WAY, WAY OVERLY OPTIMISTIC!

My nominees from the above are (so far) going to consist of District 9, Moon and Watchmen – even though I may very well drop Watchmen if, as I review other, less hyped films, I find myself with three other picks.

The rest of the above? MOSTLY DREK. Honestly. Sorry Trekkers, but I was and probably always will be a Trekkie and for that reboot – I needed hip waders over a steel jockstrap. Terminator – NOW the franchise is dead. Transformers – cool robots, no substance.

I won’t even mention the folly of endorsing Avatar with a nomination, much less the (probable) win it will receive. (Like Star Wars win in 1977, we will collectively be blinded by the light long enough to forget about the future consequences of enshrining rip-offs.)

I won’t keep you any longer – there’s a lot of homework to do.