Oscars in Review-1995 Braveheart vs. Apollo 13

Oscars in Review-1995 Braveheart vs. Apollo 13

In 1995, Braveheart beat Apollo 13 on Oscars night. In this post I will review the academy's Best Picture Oscar winner, and Apollo 13. This will be an attempt to shed some light on why Braveheart might have won over what I consider to be the superior film. The Basic plot and themes will be listed below.

Braveheart

Braveheart is a 3 hour long historical epic that deals with the Scottish War for Independence led by William Wallace. It is the rise and fall of William Wallace in which this movie focuses on, it follows him from being a simple farmer to the leader of a massive army chasing independence from England. Through battles both among leaders around tables and in meetings to battles on the field braveheart covers it. 

Themes of the film:

• Freedom
• Heroes

Apollo 13

Apollo 13 follows the events of the actual mission of Apollo 13 in which while in route to the moon, an  oxygen tank blew up and the landing on the moon was aborted, and the trip back to earth. This movie is also a true story and shows the amazing amount of work and on the go thinking and creating went into bringing the pilots back to earth safely. 

Themes of the film:

• Human intelligence
• Will to survive

In 1995 the Oscars announced Braveheart as the winner of Best Picture instead of Apollo 13. This is one of the oddest things in Oscar history in my opinion. Why would they choose Braveheart over Apollo 13? Was there a reason the academy, who don't in general have the same movie viewing tastes as us normal people choose Braveheart. One of my friends says that he thinks the academy likes bio pics or biographies. Where I can see where this could be true, I do not necessarily agree with it. If this was the case I would think we would see films like Raging Bull winning the Best Picture more often. Where this could possibly be the case, and Raging Bull was just an outlier, I do not agree with this.

In my eyes, I see the the academy as being suckers for historical epics, specifically historical war epics. I see often that they like to watch these films and in general prefer them over basically anything else. Some good examples are Dances with Wolves (1990), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Deer Hunter (1978), Platoon (1986), and Schindler's List (1993). More often you see these historical war epics winning over lots of other films. Now of course this hasn't always been true, in 1998 both Saving Private Ryan, and The Thin Red Line both lost to Shakespeare in Love, and you'd say well that disproves your theory, but it is still a historical drama, which is probably why that won. Then the next logical thing to say is, well Apollo 13 is a historical drama which disproves that the last argument. But, it is also a disaster film. Which in general you see the academy not liking, exception for Titanic (which probably won because of the love story). Throughout the history of the Oscars it is common to see almost no disaster films nominated for anything other than visual effects or sound effects. The academy just isn't looking or doesn't like disaster films. Look even at the Oscars earlier this year, Gravity (a space disaster film) lost to a historical (kinda war, kinda not) drama that deals with the themes of slavery and freedom.

That is another thing the academy likes to watch, movies with themes of freedom which usually goes hand in hand with movies with themes of slavery. Which are both, or at least freedom, are very visible in Braveheart. I think having a combination of themes relating to freedom, and being a historical war epic gives a film the edge. I believe this is the primary reason that the academy gave the Best Picture to Braveheart instead of what I consider to be a superior film, Apollo 13. Apparently the academy doesn't really care about historical inaccuracies either, which is something I care about. Which may be one reason why I think Apollo 13 is better, because it is more accurate to what actually happened than Braveheart. Once again, this is, in my opinion, why Braveheart won over Apollo 13 for Best Picture.

Also, the reason why the other best picture nominees were not talked about was because in my mind they really had no chance versus these two. Not that they weren't good films, just that they couldn't compete on the same level as the two talked about here. I hope you enjoyed the post, if you think I am wrong or missed something for either of the films, leave a comment and let me know.