Let's talk about The Lego Movie and the Oscars.

Film

Don't read this if you haven't seen it yet.

Seriously, don't.

Here's what the Oscars says in relation to the eligibility of an animated film:

"An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of more than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time."

The running time of the film is 83 minutes.

 My guess is the live action elements towards the end rendered it ineligible for a nomination (we could time those minutes I suppose and see) or failing that Oscar voters assumed it was ineligible and simply didn't vote for it.

Or decided that it was simply an eighty minute long toy commercial and didn't vote for it on that basis.

Simple as that.

Still, it was exciting for the three minutes when we thought it might be up for Best Picture.  I'll post the nominations in a minute or two.