By Rachel Lutz, Columnist

It’s definitely an accomplishment for an animated feature film to be nominated for “Best Picture,” like Disney Pixar’s Up was at the Oscars. The only other animated film to accomplish this feat was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, back in 1992. Of Up’s five nominations, it took home the  two key ones: Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Score.

John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, said of the honor, “This is a great moment for all of us in the animation community, and we’re all so incredibly excited that ‘Up’ has been nominated by the Academy in two key categories, especially the ‘Best Picture’ category… Receiving a ‘Best Screenplay’ nomination is enormously gratifying, and underscores why the film has been so universally entertaining and appealing. And we’re thrilled that Michael Giacchino’s score for ‘UP’ has been recognized by his colleagues for adding so much to the emotion and excitement.” Lasseter and his colleagues were incredibly proud of “Up”, as well as their other acknowledgements for their most recently released hand-drawn animation, The Princess and the Frog.

I’m going to be honest, I never got around to seeing Avatar or The Hurt Locker, but in my mind, Up was definitely the best film in the race. It was family-friendly, a positive story and didn’t have any underlying messages like some of the other movies did. Not many people realize this, but Avatar was not the only film in the category that was released in 3D. Up was done this way as well—right before 3D animation truly took off.

Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera, the Director and Producer, respectively, said, “We are humbled and grateful to the Academy… To be honored as one of the best pictures of the year is just mind-blowing. It’s truly been a long, wonderful ride getting here, and with all sincerity, it really does feel like we’re floating on air.” I think the metaphor might have been pushing it a little too far there, but it was cute that they compared their thankfulness to Carl Fredricksen’s soaring adventure.

I was thrilled to see that Up won the awards that it did, but it’s not greedy to have wanted it to win Best Picture. It would have been a milestone for animation films everywhere. Maybe in the future, it will happen. Maybe one day, it won’t be an oddity that an animated film was nominated.