Always Reblog the Fabulous Thranduil

So someone on Tumblr saw that gif of Thranduil being fabulous. You know the one. Yes, you do - don't bother to deny it.

And this happened:

In which Thranduil is actually Emperor Kuzco. Bonus points for Fili's wide-eyed look of horror, Kili's look of, "Seriously? This is what Elves are like?" (he also appears to be covering Bilbo's eyes for him!! Aw, that's so thoughtful of you, Kili!), and then... just... Thorin's facepalm.

That facepalm. It just screams years of Thorin having to endure Thranduil's fabulousness with every diplomatic visit. It says, "Here we go again." I can't get enough of it.

And can we talk about how Legolas just gets Thranduil's cloak thrown on him and doesn't move? It's like he's used to it by now. The poor guy. No wonder Legolas getting embarrassed by his dad has become memetic in the Tolkien fandom.

I love this fandom so much, y'all.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Kings Under the Mountain

Fili Is A Lion - It Was Bound to Happen

I totally read that in Mufasa's voice. And now I'm going to go cry buckets of ugly tears over the feels this photoset has given me...

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Relatively Non-Spoilery DoS Impressions

1. Bombur is all sorts of awesome, even if he never says a word. The barrel sequence should put that beyond all doubt. Also, he proves Gimli correct when he says in The Two Towers: "We Dwarves are natural sprinters... very dangerous over short distances."

2. I am officially in love with Erebor's technology. What we see of it can't be in prime condition but it's still capable of working. Take that, Smaug.

3. Smaug is the best cinematic dragon of all time, hands down. THAT VOICE. And a good percentage of it isn't even effects - it's just what Benedict Cumberbatch was able to do with a microphone. He poured everything he had into bringing this dragon to life, and it shows. Let's give him all the credit not just for the voice acting but for the motion-capture as well.

4. Martin Freeman is Bilbo. 100% of the time I forget that it's acting. He's just that believable as Mr. Baggins. It's amazing to watch him play Bilbo as the Ring begins to affect him and Smaug toys with his mind. Utterly amazing.

5. The same thing goes for Richard Armitage as Thorin. Watching Thorin begin to be affected by the gold fever/dragon sickness is heart-breakingly painful. There And Back Again is only going to be worse in this regard. Gah.

6. If you don't love Bard and his family to bits, I'm not sure what's wrong with you. For a character who gets introduced at the last minute in the book and gets very little characterization, they've done excellently with him. He rungs rings around the Master of Laketown's spy network and helps the Dwarves even after he's argued with Thorin (and made some pretty valid points, at that).

7. Legolas was awesome. He's also strangely hilarious. The absurd look of mixed jealousy and big brother overprotectiveness as he watches Tauriel speak to Kili in the dungeons sealed it. Also, his fight with Bolg. For the first time in five movies, Legolas is injured. It's just a bit of dizziness and a nosebleed, but it's still the first time he's been injured. All he ever got in LOTR was a bit of dirt on his face. And his reaction was priceless, too: he stared at his own blood and you could just see that everything became personal for him with Bolg, like, "You do NOT make me bleed my own blood."

8. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked Tauriel. She was very much what I would picture a Sylvan Elf to be like. In fact, if they had cut out Thranduil's suggestion that Legolas likes her, made the healing scene with Kili a bit shorter, and possibly removed Kili's feverish, "Would she ever love me?" I would have absolutely no problem with her and probably would praise her despite her non-canonical status.

If you're gonna give us girls a role model character, at least don't bog her down with romantic subplots. Sheesh.

Even so, the threatened Kili-Tauriel love story wasn't really what we all feared it to be. It was actually really sweet and platonic. They expressed curiosity in each other and each other's races. She sympathized with his promise to return home safely to his mother because she has lost her own parents (not stated directly in the movie, but mentioned in various interviews).

9. NEEDS MORE FILI. I've been saying that since AUJ and I'll continue to say it. Must Kili forever overshadow his awesome older brother. (C'mon, Kili, quit hogging the spotlight...) However, Fili's endless arsenal of knives was hilarious to watch. The Elves couldn't find them all, hahaha.

And Fili finally did it. When Thorin tells the injured Kili to remain behind in Laketown, Fili protests, arguing that he'd carry Kili up the mountain himself if he had to, but that they wanted to see the halls of their fathers. Thorin tells Fili, "When you are king, then you will understand," and Fili is just like, "No, sorry, uncle. My place is with my brother," and says behind in Laketown with Kili.

*cries pathetically over Durin family feels*

Also, Bofur waking up after being drunk under the table at about that point was hilarious. XD Gotta love Bofur. Hope we get to see one of Jimmy Nesbitt's daughters splash water on him in the Extended Edition...

10. I don't have any pictures of Beorn, but he was a real One-Scene Wonder. His roar is enough to scare off Azog and his hunters. Some serious awesomeness going on there.

Also, the Necromancer vs. Gandalf. That and Smaug are worth the price of admission alone.

Gah, I wanna go see it again so badly!!!

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Royalty of Middle-Earth

The gif set I found contained only those gifs. Now, while it contains very beautiful gifs, I have a few issues with it. Firstly, why did they pick *that* gif of Thorin? I would have picked something more like this:

Also, they left out Eomer.

THEY LEFT OUT EOMER.

*wails and flails with incoherent rage*

All right, I get it that he was not born a prince. He's only the son of Théoden's favorite younger sister and her husband. Theodred is the prince of Rohan. HOWEVER, when Theodred is killed at the Fords of Isen and Théoden falls in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Eomer becomes the King of Rohan. So he definitely qualifies as a king here, people!

Eomer has noticed your insult to his awesomeness. He is not pleased.

Eomer is judging you for your discrimination. I am judging you for your discrimination. To atone for your discrimination, I shall post all of my Eomer gifs. I shall also post my Eowyn gifs, as she becomes the sister of a king and marries Faramir, who becomes the Prince of Ithilien once Aragorn takes the throne of Gondor (and Arnor, which is completely glossed over in the movie, by the way). So she also definitely counts.

Rohan for the win!

One of these days, I am going to have to follow through on my threat and count the number of times Théoden shares a scene with Eomer, talks to him, or even mentions him, compared to the number of times he is seen with Eowyn, talks to her, or mentions her, in both TTT and ROTK. I'm sure it will be illuminating. Grr. My theory is that Théoden developed Eomer-amnesia in the movies.

I mean, I'm all for meaningful uncle-niece interaction. He practically raised her, after all. But I just want to shake Théoden and go, "YOU HAVE A NEPHEW, TOO, YOU KNOW!" I mean, Eomer did his best to save Theodred and brought him back to Edoras (at least in the movie) and you never even thanked him for the chance to say goodbye to your son! You never thanked him for saving your sorry hide at the Hornburg! You never even apologized for (unknowingly) banishing him!

You could at least say you're sorry, dude.

*storms off in a huff*

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Hobbit Group Shots!

First up, the Durins smiling (yep, all three of 'em!):

And now for some others:

Okay, oops, more Durins.

Can we take a moment to appreciate just how much Fili looks like Thorin here?

And everyone is happy. :)

Thanks for posting it, Luke Evans (Bard). I just love how messy Martin and Benedict both look.

I've run out of group shots, but here's an awesome gif of Thranduil cutting down orcs:

He uses double swords like his son uses double daggers. I seriously love whoever came up with that idea.

And, as a parting note, here is a gif of Thorin laughing:

I can't even bring myself to commentate on this one.

*flees*

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Kili Gifs, Anyone?

I really need to get a copy of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition soon. The pictures and gifs other people are posting of the behind-the-scenes material is just so tantalizing. However, from what I've heard and read on TORn, most stores are having difficulties getting the EE in stock.

Yeah, weird. I don't know why. It's not as if there's not legions of LOTR fans out there to buy them. O.o. So I may just wait and see until the fuss dies down. Then again, I really want to wait for the Special Extended Editions (because you know they're coming). Also, I wouldn't mind getting them on Blu-Ray. If nothing else, my laptop should be able to play them, and superior visual quality would be a nice thing.

But enough of the chit-chat. On to the gifs!

Why is it that all the gifs from the early camera tests are so adorable? Believe me, because I also have a gif of Bofur winking at the camera, and then one of Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur standing together and being a happy family. Somewhere there is also a gif of Bifur throwing punches at the camera, but I haven't saved that one.

I have no idea what Aidan is doing here. (Oh, and, look, it's when he still had his 'Irish Jesus' beard, too.) However, the first thing that comes to mind is, "You do the Hokey-Pokey and you turn yourself around/ And that's what it's all about."

I am fairly sure, however, that that is not what he's actually doing there.

 

Just your standard Kili adorableness here.

 



 Bonus Kili AND Fili here (oh, and Sir PJ, too):

Just... d'awwwww. I think I'm a gonna save this one.

And now for another member of the Durin line showing off his mad invisible spider slaying skills:

Pay attention, fanfic writers! Kili can use a sword like nobody's business! In fact, he uses the mad invisible spider slaying skills that have been passed down the line of Durin for generations!

Ahaha. Sorry, that Fullmetal Alchemist joke will never get old. Never.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Our Loveable Dorks

The good thing about the AUJ EE, even if I do not get a physical copy of it until 2015 or whenever in the SEE, is that it has a lot of bonus material. And people take screencaps and make gifs of this bonus material. And I can find their gifs and screencaps and blog them.

Today: Aidan and Dean being their usual loveable, adorkable selves. For some reason, I have gifs of Dean and pictures of Aidan. Go figure.

Do they ever think before they make these facial expressions? Because you have to wonder sometimes...

I really want to know now what he's saying here, because that grin and nod just has mischief written all over. I still cling firmly to the belief that Fili instigates a lot of the trouble that Kili gets in trouble for. Hey, canonically, in The Unfinished Tales' "Quest for Erebor" Fili is the one to make fun of Bilbo's name when Gandalf tells the Dwarves he's found them a burglar. And so my idea is that Fili told Kili the hobbit's name was, "Mr. Boggins."

Headcanons. I've got a lot of 'em.

I'm... not real sure what they're doing here. Aidan's walking along like, "I'm cool," or, "Just chillin'," or, "Peace," or I'm not sure what. And behind him Dean's just walking along like he owns the place. I'm sure that Graham is not impressed with their antics. He does 'Grumpy Uncle Dwalin' very well, in my opinion. XD You know he had to have had a hand in training them and is actually quite fond of them underneath his gruff exterior.

I mean, just look at the way he groans, "Oh, you great galumphing git," when Fili walks across Bilbo's table. Dwarf families. Gotta love 'em.

I have a similar screencap, but this one's funnier, since his eyes are closed in it. XD Randomly pausing a DVD is always good for a few laughs.

The barrettes make me laugh every time. XD Reblog all the barrettes!

Bad hair day for Aidan, although he doesn't seem bothered by it. Happy Kili is happy. :)

On the other hand, adorable Fili is adorable. Can I just keep this gif on repeat at all times on my computer? Because reasons of Fili. Blond guys for the win.

Aidan, what are you doing? Kili and Fili are obviously having too much fun flying on a giant green-screen eagle... which is what they were doing in this screencap. Huh. What gave Fili those scratches? I suppose something must have nicked him when he, Kili, and Dwalin came to Thorin's defense there at the end. Wish I had been able to see it, though.

DESOLATION OF SMAUG NEEDS MORE FILI. You hear me, PJ? IT NEEDS MORE FILI!

In Pace Christi,

Elyse