I'm not going to belabor the point here. The BFCA runs the Critics' Choice Awards and tries to present itself as a professional, yet hip and relevant, awards group. They added Star Wars: The Force Awakens to their best picture sleight after the vetted balloting system using a yes/no poll among members. There are a number of reasons why the Broadcast Film Critics Association's decision to edit their Best Picture last after publication for extraneous reasons is bad. First, the reason why Star Wars: The Force Awakens did not originally make the BFCA Best Picture ballot is accessibility. In an attempt to prevent piracy, Disney did not make screeners available for the newest Star Wars films. If the critics can't see the film, they can't rank it among their viewings for 2015. The quality of the film doesn't matter; films that are not made available before the ballot cut off dates for an awards body should not be eligible.
Second, this sets a precedent. A lot of big ticket Oscar-craving films release in the last few weeks of the year to stay fresh on the voters' minds. Are we to arbitrarily decide which films are worthy enough to break the eligibility rules by some nebulous combination of regret and public appreciation? No. Even on my own best of lists at Sketchy Details, if I don't screen the film by the time I publish the list, I don't include it. Bowing to populist or studio interests (or some combination of both) is a disservice to the credibility of an awards body.
Third, the way they made this Star Wars as Best Picture decision is disastrous. Where every other film had to go through a preferential ballot system to receive a nomination, Star Wars got in on a yea or nay vote. The BFCA e-mailed a quick survey to all of its members asking them if they would have included Star Wars on their ballot if they had seen it in time. The result is an extra nomination not vetted by the established rules of the BFCA awards. It screams ratings grab and nothing more.
Does it matter if Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens is a great film? No. It's a matter of rules and integrity. If you bend the rules for one film, you open the floodgates for every other film to be vetted the same way. If you don't make that exception available to all the films that didn't screen in time for nominations from now on, then you're blatantly showing preferential treatment for a beloved, now Disney-owned franchise. That spells disaster for any critical group.
Why am I so disappointed in this decision? The BFCA is one of the few recognized and respected awards bodies that actually makes an effort to recognize genre films. They have a Best Sci-Fi/Horror category, as well as an entire sleight of awards for Action. That doesn't happen very often.
Some members of the BFCA are resigning in protest of this decision. I do not blame them at all. I've backed out of judging regional and national academic contests in the past due to similar arbitrary and damaging rules changes. It's a matter of integrity. I do not cast judgment on the members who choose to stay in the group, as they might be able to protest the decision loud enough to prevent future wibbly-wobbly rules changes.
