Star Trek Recieves Four Oscar Nominations

This morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its official list of nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards. The goal - to win the coveted Oscar, which indicates the winners produced the best work in their field for 2009 and of course get to add that line "Oscar winning..." to their resumes from now on. The Academy gives out a lot of awards with only the prime categories being award live on ABC Sunday, March 7th, 2010.

Overall, Star Trek had a good showing. It did not get a nod for Best Picture which was a long shot bet anyway but it did get a nod for Makeup, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects. Below is the major categories Star Trek is nominated for. Click here for the full list of nominees in the various categories.

Sound Mixing
“Star Trek” Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
“Avatar” Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
“The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
“Inglourious Basterds” Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson

Visual Effects
“Star Trek” Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton
“Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
“District 9” Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken

Sound Editing
“Star Trek” Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
“Avatar” Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
“The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottosson
“Inglourious Basterds” Wylie Stateman
“Up” Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Makeup
“Star Trek” Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
“Il Divo” Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
“The Young Victoria” Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

Sadly I think Star Trek may have to live with just the nominations. About the only category the movie stand a chance of winning is for Makeup and that is a long shot because of period pieces like Young Victoria tend to do well in this category. The sound categories are not understood by most Academy voters so they tend to award their second favorite movie. I am thinking with The Hurt Locker likely a lock for Best Picture, both sound categories will go to Avatar. Visual effects is also an easy lock for Avatar.

Congratulations to the cast and crew of Star Trek!

Update: From question in the comments, the four nominations ties the Star Trek record of four for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It is also the fifth film nominated with The Motion Picture (3 noms), Undiscovered Country (2 noms), and First Contact (1 nom). Sadly, despite 14 nominations, the franchise has zero wins.