The One Expected Party

Look, it's Elaine and I in the very front, about to see Merry and Pippin come onstage to serenade us all! [source]

I've been wandering around in a haze the last couple of days, still in disbelief that I got to attend the Hobbit Oscar party. In a year of magical doings, this is definitely raising the bar for fun events -- I mean, I was two feet away from Dominic Monaghan! But let me back up and start at the beginning (apologies for yet another picture-heavy post):

Elaine and I got dressed after a hasty lunch, and then Mr. Cation took some picture of us in our costumes in front the now all too familiar Door of Moria. Here we are showing off our fabulous sleeves. 

The party was held at the American Legion in Hollywood, an appropriately Rohirric-looking building. There was a huge dragon tail hung outside, as well as an inflatable pub. 

As we went in, an elven guard welcomed us to The One Expected Party.

The lobby had a huge statue of Gollum with his fish!

Wandering around the hallways was not unlike wandering the goblin caves, what with the random spiderwebs and piles of treasure and bones. 

The main Oscar broadcast hall featured a huge cave troll peering over the sound booth! 

A shieldmaiden in her natural habitat: I told you the building was appropriately Rohirric!

It's really too bad that the Hobbit nominees didn't win in any of their categories. I didn't actually see Life of Pi, so I can't speak to whether they deserved the VFX award, but I did see Les Mis and The Hobbit definitely deserved the Makeup and Hair award more! I mean, hand-punched eyebrows and beards, all the prosthetics for the dwarves, those orcs...so much more incredible than dirty Frenchmen. But then, I might also be a bit biased. Fortunately, immediately after the disappointing Oscars, we were entertained by One Man LOTR and Beecake, among other things. 

Before Beecake actually performed, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd entertained us with their ridiculousness (and some singing, too). 

At one point, Billy actually sang Pippin's song from ROTK; unfortunately, I only caught part of it on my phone. 

To help us remember our epic night, we got to take photos at the photobooth, which had a green screen and assorted props. I was inordinately excited to find a Rohirric-looking shield and sword. 

We seem to be trying to kill Gwaihir here, for some unknown reason. 

We took a more normal picture, too. 

Anyway, I'm so incredibly grateful for having had the opportunity to do this. It's definitely a once in a lifetime experience, and Mr. Cation was very gracious about my spending all the money for the ticket, the time making my costume and Elaine's, and the added bulk of three large boxes that we'll need to move up to SF. Oh wait, what's that about the three boxes? Well, guess what: I never win anything and yet I somehow managed to win the raffle and get these three special edition boxed sets of the LOTR trilogy! I've lusted after these since college, when I was too poor to afford them, and now they're finally miiiiiine, all mine, my precious.

So exciting! This more than makes up for all the years of never winning anything. 

So bright...so beautiful...

Walnut does his best scary-Bilbo impression. He wants the boxed sets for himself!

Seriously, this was the most horrifying thing ever. Especially when I saw it for the first time in theaters. 

Besides having the extended edition DVDs with all the extra features, each set comes with a bonus figurine -- the Argonath bookends in the FOTR, a Gollum statuette in TTT, and a Minas Tirith jewelry box in ROTK. Walnut was intrigued by the tiny city and did his best fell beast impression. Imagine a Nazgul scream to go with that face. 

Actually, those pictures were just because Walnut was conveniently yawning when I took the picture.

I love that in this picture, it looks like Gollum is scared that Walnut will take his fish away. 

Many thanks, too, to TheOneRing.net for putting on such a fabulous party! I'm so excited for the next movie to come out in December...especially because we'll get to see Smaug!

Once night fell, they projected a giant blinking eye of Smaug onto the wall outside. Can't wait!!!