The Academy Awards get a bad wrap. Sure, the voting population is mostly comprised of aging Hollywood players with a limited taste and the winners are usually stuffy period pieces or feel-good dramas that no one really saw. But if you don't think that some of the year's biggest films make the cut, blockbuster behemoths that wowed audiences over the summer months, it's time for you to scroll further down the list of this year's nominees. There's a wake up call in store for you.

Take the bombastic, melt-your-retinas, pop art exercise Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third installment of director Michael Bay's based-on-a-toy franchise. Not exactly Oscar fodder…except, that it is. And it's primed and ready to take home three Oscar statues.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon squeezed its way thanks to its technical prowess, landing coveted spots in the Sound Editing (which awards the creation of the actual sounds), Sound Mixing (the layering of those sounds) and Visual Effects (the spiffy CG) categories. If you've seen the movie, you know it deserves the placement; the grand finale, in which Chicago takes the beating of a lifetime thanks to some pissy space invaders, weaves more crushing metal sound effects and computer-generated robot warriors then most human brains are even capable of discerning. The computer wizardry on display in the movie is stunning (and borderline psychedelic) and should sufficiently wow Oscar voters. Frankly, after the images and sounds of Transformers burned directly into audiences memory banks, the folks choosing this year's winners may not even remember the competition.

Since the first entry exploded into theaters in 2007, the Transformers franchise has continually pushed the envelope in visual effects and sound work, garnering the nominations to prove it—but they've always gone home empty handed. Like Dark of the Moon, the original took three technical categories, while the much-maligned sequel, Revenge of the Fallen nabbed a Sound Mixing nod. Each movie has made the smart move to amp up the budget and the effects, turning Dark of the Moon into the biggest circus of them all. Will the third movie's polygonal artwork and cacophonous sound mosaic finally win Bay, the king of popcorn cinema, and his creative team the coveted Oscar?

Transformers has some serious competition in the form of 2011's most lauded prestige pictures: Hugo, Moneyball, Spielberg's War Horse, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 and the Visual Effects frontrunner Rise of the Planet of the Apes, to name a few. The only trepidation in herding gold over to Dark of the Moon? Word of a fourth movie. If this isn't actually the grand finale, the Academy may not be ready to cast the legacy vote. But the crescendo of the trilogy-ender may be too much for the Academy to ignore. Orchestrating that kind of madness, all while making it more real than even your human leads (sorry Shia LaBeouf and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley—we're here for the Decepticons) is the definition of an achievement. Yes, the robots in disguise could finally be Oscar-winners in 2012—as long as those aging Hollywood players don't feel bashful about rewarding their old toys.

You can contact Matt Patches directly on Twitter @misterpatches and remember to follow @Hollywood_com!