SilverWook said:

Rick Baker got screwed over for King Kong in the 70's, as Dino DeLaurentis somehow managed to make the academy believe Carlo Rambaldi's life sized animatronic Kong was used for most of the movie.

Weird, didn't know about that.

walking_carpet, don't worry about getting off topic, this thread is kinda off topic anyway. ;)

It was in fact only Brian Johnson, Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren and Bruce Nicholson who received the statuettes, so only the visual effects got awarded, not Stuart Freeborn or Frank Oz or anyone of the other people involved bringing Yoda to life. Had make-up effects had its own category that year, ESB would certainly have gotten the statuette.

Both works were equally amazing in their own category, but they could perhaps have given the visual effects an award like they did in '78, and an special achievement award for the special make-up effects, I have no idea, I don't know how these things worked back then, the decisions of the Academy doesn't make much sense some years.