Prince of Persia Fans @DW.org

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the final 15 contenders for the 2010 Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

This is only the first cut, though. Next, members of the Academy’s visual effects branch executive committee will select seven of the final 15. At that point, all the members of the visual effects branch watch 15 minute clip reels from those seven films and then select the five nominees. Eventually, one film will be given the Oscar on February 27 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. After the jump, look at the full list and join along in guessing which films will make the cut and which won’t.

Here are the fifteen films that are still in the running for a nomination, which will be handed out on January 25.

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Why do films based on games always, well, suck? Game narrative might not be on the Tolstoy level, but even when they've clearly been tacked on in the final few months of development, the potential for great cinematic moments is there. So what's Hollywood's problem?

Scriptwriter Jordan Mechner was responsible for the first complete script of the recent (and, arguably, god awful) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time film, and he's throwing it out there for your judgment. In a blog post on his website, Mechner is coolly neutral about his decision to post the 2005 script, stating simply that he is often asked how closely the film follows his original work.

Unlike Mechner, we don't have to work with Hollywood, and can enter into wild speculation as to how this promising film ended up with a Metacritic score of 50, despite nominally being based on one of the most intriguing game stories of the last decade. But we'll leave it to you; grab the .pdf here and have a virtual flick through. Some of the changes may surprise you, while others may leave you cynically vindicated.

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