In what might be the single most boring outcome possible for a battle royale between bears, dinosaurs, and spaceman with laser swords, the Visual Effects Society handed out its awards today, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Game Of Thrones won the day. The two pop-culture giants pulled down four statues apiece, including “Outstanding Visual Effects” for their respective mediums, as well as awards for creating visually arresting virtual environments—the ship graveyard the Millennium Falcon darts through on Jakku in Star Wars, and the city of Volantis in Game Of Thrones. (Adorable sphere fans will be happy to know that BB-8 also snagged his own award, for “Outstanding Model.”)
Other awardees at this year’s ceremony—hosted by Patton Oswalt—include Star Wars’ late-year box office rival, The Revenant, which earned three awards, including one for its in-no-way-sexual bear attack. Over in animation, meanwhile, Pixar battled against itself, with The Good Dinosaur beating out Inside Out—a sentence we didn’t expect to write, and you probably didn’t expect to read—with three awards to the critically lauded emotional dramedy’s one. (Joy and her crew brought home “Outstanding Animated Performance In An Animated Feature,” while the lush but simple Dinosaur earned “Outstanding Visual Effects,” among others.)
Finally, Ridley Scott continued the award-heavy trend of what’s turning out to be a pretty amazing year for the 78-year-old director, receiving the society’s Lifetime Achievement for his contributions to films like Alien, Legend, and the recent The Martian. His old Blade Runner collaborator, Syd Mead, was also granted a Visionary Award, for his work as a “visual futurist” on pioneering films like Aliens and Tron.