Just got off shift and decided that I better knock out this write-up ASAP before something else distracts me away from it (which is more and more likely nowadays).

Penny and I had a whirlwind weekend. We flew into L.A. on Oscar Sunday and headed to the Hollywood Holiday Inn, located about two blocks from the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Turns out that navigating that part of town right before the Academy Awards was not very easy. Everything was blocked off. 

But we eventually got to the hotel, changed, and for the second year in a row, headed out to TORNs "Return of the One Party". We'd had such a blast last year that it was a foregone conclusion we were going this year. But really fate had a large role to play as well. When TORN put the tickets on sale, Penny and I were camping out in an Internet cafe in Auckland, NZ and were able to watch in real-time as thousands of Ringers tried to get party tickets at the same time and crashed the Paypal server. Lots of folks were disappointed as tickets sold out in roughly 8 minutes. Somehow my packets navigated the crowded internet lanes and made it through the cacophony bombarding TORN's and Paypal's server. We were one of the lucky ones.

Anyway, we made it to the party around 3 and hung out for about a half hour in line. Just like last year the attending crowd was mostly female and decked out in the best finery. I think there were more men here this year than last year and we were almost all in Tuxes, with a few exceptions, an excellent looking Orc. And Phil, looking regal in his Theoden outfit.

We got into the party pretty quickly and KUDOS should go out to all the TORN staff for how smoothly everything went. And that goes for more than just navigating security and registering. Everything ran without a noticeable hitch the entire night!

We quickly ran into Maria (Gondor 1 member from the NZ tour) and she told us Vicki (another Gondor member) had gone MIA and wasn't at the party yet. (Turns out she was next to the red carpet getting interviewed by a NZ paper, and she got to the party safe and sound later). We headed down to Mordor, navigating through a hallway decorated as Shelob's lair (complete with requisite sticky spider webbing). The food was already laid out and was excellent with easy access and minimal wait time. Penny and I wandered about a bit after getting some food and went to go check out the auctions and raffle prizes. The star of the auction room was Sideshow-Weta's solid bronze Gandalf statue. This thing is simply magnificent. There was only a limited run of 36 or so made and I guess they are down to the last 10 or so. But at approx. $7000 a piece, they aren't exactly flying off the shelves. Penny and I placed a couple of bids and then headed into the main room.

Just as we were walking in, the New Line Cinema emblem was going up. I had no idea how blown-away I was about to be. We got to watch the world-premiere of a trailer made for the new EA "Battle for Middle-Earth" RTS game. (the trailer can be seen at EA's Website here) Holy Cow! Forget about Doom3...this is the game that will force people to upgrade.   This game has me salivating more than "Rome: Total War" and that is saying a bit!  The trailer was simply magnificent! But offered no hint of the game's release date other than an ominous "2004". EA is going to knock everyone out of the park with this gem. So far it truly looks to live up to the LOTR franchise, a chance for EA to 'show their quality'. I'm already owning and playing this game mentally...actually owning and playing it are a mere technicality after watching that trailer.

Afterwards, the main room was a bit too crowded for my tastes so Penny and I retreated down to Mordor again to watch the Oscar Telecast. That's when we discovered a microbrew called "Hobgoblin" which was excellent...but then the 'goblin' part of the name reared its ugly head about the 4th bottle for me and I switched to the milder amber, "Fiddler's Elbow" which was also good. (Both made me wish I'd never heard of them come Monday morning...great beer...bad hangover...and yes, despite my appearance I'm a lightweight...ugh).

Anyway, the telecast got underway and Billy Crystal did a fantastic job as host (as always). It was simply fantastic sharing the experience with a thousand or so other die-hard fans! I couldn't believe the Academy kept rewarding LOTR. I was sure it was just a set up to deny LOTR best picture. I was very skeptical that the Academy would reverse their 76-year tradition of shunning fantasy and sci-fi genre films. But Lo! ROTK took Best Picture too! I couldn't believe it! Everyone in the whole place went berserk! In that single moment, it seemed that the fantasy genre had at last come into its own and been formally legitimized, proving once and for all that GOOD fantasy does not have to be the stuff of drugstore shelves and relegated to the lonely time-passers of tabletop gamers. In fact, Quickbeam, who was again doing a more than able job as the party's MC, brought up something to that effect, saying something like, "remember back in the 80's when it wasn't fashionable to read fantasy, when people would ask what you were reading and react with disdain by saying 'oh...Dragonlance'." Well our time has finally come. 11 Academy Awards and I dare say if there was an ensemble cast category it would have been 12!

After the ceremony things really got kicking. They posted the numbers to the raffles (which we didn't win) and held the drawing for the bronze Gandalf (which as far as I know was still unclaimed at the end of the party). Emerald Rose took the stage and were excellent as always.

Then the celebrities started showing up. First with the inimitable John Rhys-Davies making his appearance and saying some kind words. He was shortly followed by Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan. Elijah had brought some friends along in a hard rock band which I think was called "World without Sundays". They were quite good. Dom went out and sang on one of their songs to everyone's delight.

Then came the moment everyone was waiting for. The Oscar winners arrived. P.J., Phillipa, Fran, Barry Osbourne, Jim Rygiel, Richard Taylor, all the unsung heroic backshop guys, even the poor guy who made all the wigs for the movie!  All showed up to share their victory with us fans! Wow! I really felt that it was not just their victory but our victory, and the fact that they had not only the fan's approval but the Academy's as well made that victory all the sweeter! 

The moment was bitter-sweet however, as I realized that there would be no such event next year. And after the ROTK EE DVD there would be nothing to look forward to. But then P.J. Mentioned wanting to put the films out on Hi-def DVD with even more extras! Oh yeah! Bring it on P.J.!   He even hinted that we should start a write-in campaign to get New Line and United Artists to settle their differences over the rights to "The Hobbit".  Here is a filmmaker who truly understands his fans. Everyone had kind words to say and we even managed to coax Fran out to say a few words! All too soon, they had to depart (probably to head to the New Line party no doubt) and we were left wondering who else would show up.

Click here for a quicktime movie showing the whole stage (about 4 megs).

 Well, Billy Boyd arrived a tad bit late but his appearance was welcomed none-the-less! The crowd started chanting "Sing! Sing!" and snatching up one of Emerald Rose's guitars, Billy belted out a very catchy bawdy song about "getting lucky with you" which the mostly female audience simply ate up. I must admit I'm whistling the little ditty as I write this, it was very very catchy.

Somewhere around here Royd (sp?) Tolkien showed up and really seemed to be having a grand time.  I'm glad a member of the Tolkien family could be there with all of us and share the joy!

Emerald Rose took the stage again to entertain us once more with some great Celtic music. (Look forward to catching them again at the Mythic Journeys conference). Towards the end of their set, Sala Baker took the stage and started egging the crowd on. He is a pretty big guy. Lawrence Makoare joined him and together the two make a fairly imposing Maori pair. Bruce Hopkins showed up about then too. But then Quickbeam had the unenviable task of telling everyone that the party had to shut down due to California law (I wonder if the Vanity Fair gala was forced to close down?) and the Kiwi actors decided to do something I find cool each and every time I see it. They did a Maori war haka (I think it might have been the national haka of New Zealand) and man it gets me every single time I see it. It is completely awesome!  I'm going to have to learn one

We stumbled around and ran into more Gondorians, Nicole the evil Balrog, the other Nicole from G.B. Who looks like a Drow elf...(come on...tell me looking at the picture that she doesn't!) Jane, Larry and his wife, Phil and Kathe (whose incredible Arwen outfit my pictures cannot do justice...seriously it was a completely amazing outfit and the elf-look suits her well), Maria and Vicky, of course, and some others I'm probably forgetting to mention because the haze of alcohol was sitting quite heavily at this point.

This is actually my favorite picture I took the whole night, because I think it is kind of artsy...how 'Viggo' of me. :)

We ambled out and got our goody bags, which were as heavily stocked as last year. We wound up with several Argonath statues, an Art of ROTK book, a nice bunch of prints, a great Emerald Rose CD, and a DVD of the awesome trailer for Battle for Middle-Earth.

Penny and I retreated to our hotel room to crash hard. In the morning we caught a limo to LAX and were on our way back to Colorador.

Next stop....Mythic Journeys and the Howard Shore concert in Atlanta!

Back to the Main Page.