2010 Ursa Major Awards voting underway

Hummm, I certainly can see where you're coming from.

I suppose really it's always going to be murky waters when trying to pot hole whether something belongs or doesn't belong to a category. If we stick against the idea that an anthro is a an animal or object given human qualities, than yeah it certainly provides no guidelines on if it's a fictitious imagination, even though the dragon's origins come from a mix of reptiles, most still behave in a feral like manner.

If by default the majority of dragons are thought of as creatures without the human quality of self-awareness and whatever else that makes humans humans, in that case a dragon could only be by definition anthro if in the media in which it is portrayed it processes some human quality not associated with the default wild feral state.

Course once we go along those lines it can lead to all sorts of discussions like if a fictional creature can have a default setting and such.

Going back to the original point, I haven't watched HTTYD, but does the dragon ever show signs of a human like intelligence? I suppose we might need to look on previous examples to see what and what doesn't count as anthro. Homeward Bound for instance is to me anthro because we can see the dogs have been attributed human thought, emotion and speech, same with Babe. What about things like Beethoven, Free Willy and Black Beauty? My initial thoughts is that they aren't anthro since the animals in question don't seem to exhibit any special human attribute qualities, but then I have doubt as for a film like Beethoven the dog seems to understand humans more than you'd expect a dog to normal understand. Is that of anthro quality? There's an awful lot of grey.

The same could be argued in most cases of the anthropomorphisation of just about any animal though: that they are fictional creatures thus any traits are natural/default. E.g. is a werewolf a wolf that has been given human traits, or its own creature that has not been made more human-like?

You're repeating yourself.

If you recall (but evidently not) I agreed with you on the disappointment of seeing Avatar win the category last year.

It seems you have strong formulated ideas on what qualities a film ought to have for this competition in an ideal world which is fair enough. What some of us (more precisely myself) would be interested in knowing are your thoughts on Alpha and Omega and The Owls of Ga'Hoole in terms of this quota system. I'm very curious by how you said Alpha & Omega was the closest, which seems to imply The Owls of Ga'Hoole was further away from being a truly furry movie than the former.

Even if people agreed exactly with your definition of furry and anthropomorphism, there is still a lot of room for interpretation. Is a movie supposed to win because it has the highest "furry quotient" or if not, then how much do you weight how furry it is vs. what you think of the quality? Is a good, but sort of furry movie supposed to beat a very furry movie that is disliked? What about when it starts getting closer: with a slight better, but slightly less furry movie vs. a slightly more furry but slightly worse movie? And even if people agreed exactly on how furry every entry is, there will be difference in opinion on what the cutoff for not furry enough. And that is all when assuming people agree on how furry things are, when obviously there are some huge differences in opinion about.

"

And I have a hate-on for Pixar. Long story.'

Most people who have a hate-on for Pixar dislike them because they killed the traditional art style of animation by making the demand for computer generation overcome the more craftful art of older disney films.

Not really a long story at all, and one I quite agree with, why I think the Princess and the Frog was probably the last stand for traditional animation, and sadly, it probably didn't make the grade in the theaters. The crappy advertising that made the story seem bland did not help, I found the actual movie great, the trailers made it seem really flat though.

Though in noticing you at the start off your comment carefully separating that there is a difference between "Anthropomorphic" and "Furry", it is ironic that you say that something doesn't have the right to win a award titled "Annual Anthropomorphic Literature & Arts Awards" because it "isn't furry enough."

So in this I have to ask you, is there a difference? Is furry a subset of anthropomorphic media in your mind, or are they equivalent. Because you comment starts saying the former, and later then claims the later, it certainly can't be both, that doesn't make sense.

Sorry for keeping you in suspense. Out of town last week.

I'll probably be repeating that one for a while. I wasn't disappointed. I was pissed off. Still am. I mean, Avatar was not only not the best furry movie in 2009, it wasn't even the best movie in which a human turns into an alien in 2009. And, like I said, there's really no opportunity to make it up this year. So, I'll probably be ranting and whinging about this for a while. But Avatar versus Fantastic Mr. Fox is a better illustration of my, uh, rubrik than any two movies this year.

I thought I was clear on Alpha and Omega and The Owls of Ga'Hoole; both are mid-level. Ranking this year's five, those two are mid-level (and I probably only gave Alpha and Omega the edge because of an admitted bias for mammalian characters. I'll cop to that.), the Narnia movie is also mid-level, but not quite as high, with How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 marginal. Of those two, I'd give How to Train Your Dragon the edge as "furrier," because I am more biased to the "animal," rather than the "anthropomorphic" part of the definition.

Which brings me to the next post (I'm just going to do a three in one, so work with me here), which is to ask what is so wrong with the definition of furry fandom as "a fandom of anthropomorphic animals?" That, as far as I know, is the working definition. It was what I was sold on. I didn't know there was any real discussion on this. If it's changed, why didn't I get the memo? I usually check my spam box before I delete it, just in case ...

As far as "slightly less furry" versus "slightly more furry," if that was the case, I'd be ecstatic. But it wasn't last year. And it won't be that way for quite a while. Because there's just not furry movies. When only three studio movies with a majority of the cast consisting of fully anthropomorphic characters came out last decade, we can not afford to give our awards to Avatar. If Fantastic Mr. Fox sucked balls, that would be different. But nobody's argued that. And I doubt anybody will.

I guess I get your point, though. We can't let appearances get in the way of quality, can we? So, I suppose it was a good thing the furry fandom was able to put issues of furriness aside and vote for the "better movie." Yes, Fantastic Mr. Fox was such a freaking juggernaut, Avatar didn't really have a chance. It was David versus Goliath. Avatar pulling out the victory was such an enormous victory for the little guy.

Really.

I am not being sarcastic at all.

Okay, third post. Speaking of juggernauts, I just keep going, don't I?

Anyway, that's not actually why I hate Pixar. (I mean, it didn't help.) Year after year, Pixar wins the title of "best reviewed" movie. What was the movie that started that trend? Not Cars, which didn't win the best animated movie Oscar against Happy Feet. It was the next movie that really did it for Pixar. What was that? Ratatouille. You know, the movie that ends with a monologue praising media critics.

Short of bribing critcs, that is the most obvious way to get good reviews (and therefore plenty of Oscars) ever tried. No more losing to penguin movies for Pixar. Ratatouille is a bad movie. In the moral sense. The worst part is that, of course, it freaking worked without anyone actually apparently noticing it.

"Annual Anthropomorphic Literature & Arts Awards" is just a pretensious title. If the awards were really about the best "anthropomorphic literature," do you think Kyell Gold would really have that many of them? The answer is no; the awards would go to some posthumanism/transhumanism science fiction, not gay tiger football, the novel.

Its the furry awards.

Probably the confusion comes here from me using the words "anthropomorphic" synonomously with "furry," which, in retrospect, is stupid. Personally, I'm more into the "animal" ... I already said that. I think "anthropomorphic" media is way too vague to deserve an award. Its just pretension, is all it is (personal hypocrisy noted).