Tuesday, February 26, 2013

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!!!

36 comments:

  1. love the green screen pics! And, once again, Walnut is too much :) :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I got really excited when I saw the green screen, and it did not disappoint!

      Delete
  2. Wow! You and Elaine looked fabulous! Love her purple hair. Looks like it was a super neat event and you guys had a lot of fun. Bilbo scared the dickens out of me too when I first saw that, glad Walnut is slightly less scary even if he does look pretty ferocious in some of these pics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Elaine's hair is indeed awesome, even if it's not very elven ;) And yes, I much prefer yawning Walnut to scary Bilbo!

      Delete
  3. oh my gosh, you are so cool. Those green screen pictures are awesome!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think what makes them even better is that they had appropriate props to bring in too!

      Delete
  4. Wow, that sounds insanely fun. Go you! You're going to make me wish I lived in California...

    ReplyDelete
  5. i'm stunned. the cat. the arena. the winnings. i just. really.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, I'm sure you go to bashes like this all the time, fantastic actress lady!

      Delete
  6. I love that the picture of us in costume, with swords and shields, and in front of a cliff (or something) counts as normal! In any event, I'm so glad that we got to go! Best night, and best friend to spend it with!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seriously, I don't think I would've had as much fun with anyone else. Husbands are great and all that, but best friends are required for things like this! Also, your comment made me think of the cliff game. Possibly Saruman is shaking his staff at us because we selected him for the least desirable of the three options?

      Delete
  7. looks like you had a great time, what amazing fun!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Looks like it was amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  9. love it. your dress looks fantastic and well done on winning!

    ReplyDelete
  10. That sounds like an amazing party, and congrats on winning the raffle! Your cat pics make me laugh--my parents' cat used to do funny poses and I've always called her "balrog kitty". I'm also somewhat jealous that you got to be that close to Dominic Monaghan. And see that One Man LotR show-- I recently heard about it on a Tolkien podcast that I listen to, and it sounds like a lot of fun to watch!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you can possibly see it, you totally should try! One Man LOTR was the most I've laughed in a long time, and we only got to see a snippet of his show! Once I got home, I couldn't quite believe how close I'd been to Dom, either!

      Delete
  11. So many great photos! Looks like a wonderful party and congratulations on your winnings! I love yawning pet pics - always funny!

    I think that they are saving the Hobbit Oscars for number 2 or 3 - can't award them too early for anything because there are still more to come (and they always try to make them bigger more impressive as a series goes on). I predict that they will get one or two random awards for #2 and then #3 will sweep everything.

    ~ Brooke

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree re:Hobbit#3 and the Oscars, although I don't think it will be quite the sweep that ROTK was. Still, I do feel like the makeup and hair on the Hobbit was more impressive than Les Mis!

      Delete
  12. Looks like a brilliant night!! Yey to winning the dvds, and I love your photobooth photos. And the photos of Walnut are fab!! I hope you got lots of lovely comments about your dress.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did get lots of comments! There were many other more fantastic/detailed outfits there, though, so I did my fair share of swooning myself!

      Delete
  13. i love that you went full-on into it and had such an awesome time. and walnut CRACKS. ME. UP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I kind of can't believe that he yawned so conveniently for pictures...

      Delete
  14. So much awesome I am out of words.... WOW!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's how I felt for the next day...I couldn't even find the words to blog about how awesome the experience was!

      Delete
  15. Wow- Looks amazing, and well done for winning the raffle - result! And I love Walnut, he's such a star, he could be the double of first cat, the original Tara Cat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aww, I'm glad Walnut can remind you of such a worthy cat!

      Delete
  16. OH MY GOD! I can't believe you were that close to Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd! That is awesome. And you look so beautiful in your dress!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! And it was definitely a heady experience when he walked over to the edge of the stage and started coming down the steps!

      Delete
  17. So freakin awesome!! Btw love the mid yawn photos of walnut!! Perfectly captured!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I might have been equally excited by his perfect yawn photos as I was over being so close to Merry and Pippin!

      Delete
  18. That looks like the most incredible night, so happy for you that yu got to go and enjoy it. And, of course, you look incredible!

    ReplyDelete
  19. EPIC AND AWESOME. Seriously - what an amazing night!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to tell me your thoughts! I appreciate reading them and I try to reply to most, if not all, comments, especially when they are questions. I ask that you keep your comments polite, and if you're a spammer, don't bother because your comment will just be deleted! Also, if you're commenting on a post that's more than two weeks old, it will be moderated.