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Totally predictable, totally wrong. Avatar spent hundreds of millions of dollars creating effects that look and feel like effects while District 9 wrung enormous amounts of emotion and believability out of a tiny fraction of the time and money spent. Blomkamp and company deserved this one.
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I agree with Todd... NOT !!!
Undoubtedly Blomkamp is an amazing talent and I loved the work he did in "District 9" (hell, I think he deserved an Oscar just for that old Citroen commercial...) and in many other years the award would rightfully have been his.
But not this year.
Against every shot in "Avatar" where the effects "look and feel like effects" there were tons that were perfect. Nor did I find the blue people emotionless, or unbelievable on a visual front.
It's easy to bash Cameron, since I believe there is a club for that somewhere on the interweb, but the fact is that for sheer volume and quality of VFX the film had to win.
Both ST and D9 were excellent FX films, one cannot ignore the truly immersive elements that 3D provided for a film that in 2D would not have made so much money.
Unlike other 3D offerings where the studios and directors could not resist the temptation to employ the gimmick of "throwing something at the audience" (such a 50's cliche!), Cameron chose to allow the 3D effect to draw the audience into the environment of Pandora, thus giving us a truly unique and entertaining experience.
That, to me, is what garnered the VFX Oscar for Avatar.