By Brent McKnight | 6 years ago

Sci-fi may not fare well at the Oscars, outside of a few technical awards now and again, but at this point, do any of us really put much stock in what the Academy thinks? Almost none of my favorite films from 2014 were nominated for much of anything in any of the usual glut of self-congratulatory awards shows, but one that is always more in line with our general aesthetic are the Saturn Awards, and now the nominees for this year have been released.

As the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy, and Horror Films chooses the nominees and winners, you can imagine they’re a wee bit different than the more mainstream celebrations, and the list for the 41st Annual Saturn Awards is no different. You’ve got big blockbuster comic book movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: The Winter Soldier right up there along with independent horror, like The Babadook and The Guest. We’re talking about awards that honor movies like Lucy and Snowpiercer and Paddington, you know it’s a different sort of animal.

The Winter Soldier and Christopher Nolan’s ambitious Interstellar lead the way this year with eleven and ten nominations, respectively, while Guardians has 9. Just in case you need another reminder, Marvel had a pretty solid year in 2014.

As with every award, you can find fault with some of the inclusions or oversights. Seriously, how is John Wick, the best straight up American action movie in maybe the last decade not get nominated in the Action/Adventure category? Then again, the fact that they even have and Action/Adventure category is pretty damn incredible, even if they did nominate Exodus: Gods and Kings, which is a flaming turd.

We could argue about this all day if we wanted to, but none of that really matters, because where else are The Equalizer and Edge of Tomorrow going to get nominated for anything? That’s my kind of award show.

The winners will be announced in June. Check out the full list of nominees below and let us know if you think there are any egregious errors or omissions.