This may or may not be blasphemy to Lord of the Rings enthusiasts, but Austin Gilkeson wrote an opinion piece that declares Aragorn does not have a legitimate right to rule Gondor.  

Aragorn’s claim to Gondor’s throne rests entirely on his being descended — after 3,000 years — from Valandil and Isildur, who were kings of Arnor. The closest real-world parallel to this would be an Italian man claiming descent from Romulus showing up in Ankara and claiming to be King of Turkey, because Romulus was supposedly descended from Prince Aeneas of Troy. Imagine if you found out your ancestor, thirty-seven generations prior, was the brother of an Egyptian pharaoh. Do you know what that would make you, in terms of Egyptian political succession? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

He goes into detail about Aragorn’s ancestors and how they weren’t fit to rule anything. Then again, Aragorn did command the combined army that retook Gondor. During most of our real world history, that was enough to lay claim to rule. Not that successful warlords necessarily made good rulers, but neither does a bloodline. While I won’t argue the point past that, you might want to, along with hundreds of other commenters at The Toast.

(Image credit: J. Longo)

“I will finish what you started.” We were all aware of that pledge long before we saw The Force Awakens, because it was a central part of the movie trailer. But we jumped the gun a little in thinking we knew what he meant. This is the latest from Down the Upward Spiral by Corey Giacco.

Adam Driver played the villain Kylo Ren in the most recent Star Wars movie. While hosting Saturday Night Live last weekend, he starred in one of the show's most popular sketches ever: Kylo Ren goes undercover on his own base for a special episode of Undercover Boss.

Now, Matt the radar technician, who was Ren's alter ego, has his own action figure. Custom toymaker Jim Heston made this plastic Matt, complete with Ren's lightsaber and radar maintenance tools.

-via Nerd Approved

Joe Sill made a beautiful little Star Wars fan film. This is set on the beleagured planet Jakku, where a man and his daughter Kara are traveling to a desert community. But the skies are full of action.  

(vimeo link)

You start to wonder why it’s just a father and daughter; at the end we realize what happened to Kara’s mother. -via Boing Boing

You're looking at a photo of the bridge set from the original Star Trek, right?

Wrong. It's a playset that David Weiberg built for his 8-year old son. Everything is scaled perfectly with the original shapes and colors. Even the console controls are accurate.

It's an amazing build for a child who is fortunate enough to be raised in the classics. He's become a fan of the original series and enjoys using his playset--along with his father's original series action figures--for imaginative play. You can see more photos at Instructables.

-via Make

Ben Stiller created Derek Zoolander because he knew he was too good looking for Hollywood but didn't want to come off as a total d-bag by declaring himself gorgeous so he let Derek do the declaring for him.

Now we all know how striking Stiller looks when he's channeling Zoolander, and yet Ben hasn't spent nearly enough time in front of the camera to justify his top model status, so he called a devoted fan in to take his picture.

This rabid Zoolander fan is named Annie Leibovitz, maybe you've heard of her?

She's supposedly pretty famous in her own right, but her star power couldn't outshine Derek's as he began to strike striking poses and put his prettiest face forward.

Annie's photos of the fabulous Zoolander will be featured in the February 2016 issue of American Vogue, make sure you pick up a copy before the wicked Mugatu buys them all for his bonfire!

See more of Derek Zoolander by Annie Leibovitz here

Skateboards make really good weapons, because you can slash with a curb sharpened edge, swing the board like a bat or leave a dent in a forehead with cast metal trucks.

But Joerg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel didn't do much skating when he was younger, because he was too busy cutting stuff up and turning it into weapons in his workshop.

(YouTube Link)

In this episode Joerg cuts up a skateboard to create a mighty powerful, pulley based slingshot that can shoot a 60mm lead ball straight through particle board, thereby making it the ultimate way to carck heads open with a skateboard.

-Via LikeCool

Some stars can't get an Oscar nod to save their life, and no matter how many blockbuster movies they star in, or how brightly they shine in the hearts of their fans, the Academy Award eludes them.

And then there are actors like Anthony Hopkins, Ingrid Bergman and Judi Dench who don't need to be on screen for long to steal the show from their fellow stars, receiving Oscar nominations for less than 20 minutes of screen time.

Anthony Hopkins appeared in Silence Of The Lambs for less than 16 minutes and yet he took home a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Hannibal.

(YouTube Link)

Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for her performance in Murder On The Orient Express, a film in which she played a pivotal role despite only being on camera for just over fourteen minutes.

But the award for briefest appearance goes to Judi Dench, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare In Love, which amounted to a whopping 8 minutes of screen time.

Here she is in 1999 accepting the award, which was presented by Robin Williams:

(YouTube Link)

Read 12 Actors Who Earned Oscar Nods For Less Than 20 Minutes Of Screen Time here

Slipping and sliding while shoveling snow is something many people can relate to right about now, and something that will become even more relatable in the coming months.

But the person falling down doesn't generally see the trip as a laughing matter, so they have to laugh at the guy doing the snow shovel dance in this video instead.

(YouTube Link)

His slick snow shoveling moves are so hot they melt the ice, so video remixers took him to all sorts of stellar places, including an intense battle with that shufflin' Sith Darth Maul.

(Video barely NSFW due to language at end of video)

(YouTube Link)

-Via Cheezburger

The Force is strong with this family. Emily Rose is an artist. Her seven-year-old daughter is an avid Star Wars fan, and has been all her life. The child is so into the new movie The Force Awakens that her mother surprised her yesterday with a new wall mural featuring Rey and BB-8! She loved it! And it wasn’t long before she was reading Star Wars stories to her new friend Rey on the wall. See more pictures at Buzzfeed.

(Image credit: Exorcising Emily

(Video Link)

The Harry Potter film series had some of the best actors in Britain -including David Tennant just before he was cast as The Doctor. While it's always fun to imagine actors playing their most famous roles in their other films, it's particularly easy with David Tennant, since the Tenth Doctor once wiped his memory so he thought he was human just to hide out from a particularly evil family of aliens.

This mashup with Harry Potter is perfect for those who love imagining that Bartleby Couch Jr. is just a strange and confused Doctor in hiding. 

There has been a dark cloud hanging over the city of Paris since the attacks of November, 2015, but the city of Light has proven time and again that nobody can put out its fire.

However, many people who visit Paris only see the epic sights, such as the Eiffel Tower or the Arc De Triomphe , and to them Paris could be seen as a massive theme park or movie set.

(Vimeo Link)

Apparences was created by French filmmaking duo Claire & Max as a visual examination of these thoughts:

What if everything around us was false? And if our environment was ultimately a single movie set? Would we really be real in this setting? “. Many issues that fuel both an imaginary but also pose those appearances and appearance. We therefore offer 4 minutes immersion in a Paris where the facades have been reworked in order to better immerse themselves in this world so strange.

-Via Laughing Squid

Now that Quentin Tarantino is considered part of the Hollywood elite it's hard to imagine him using his movie directing skills to create content for television.

But surprisingly Tarantino directed an episode of ER in 1995, two months after winning the Best Screenplay Oscar for Pulp Fiction, episode 24 of season one entitled "Motherhood".

(YouTube Link)

Quentin was brought into the Emergency Room by George Clooney, who was set to star in the Tarantino/Rodriguez film From Dusk Til Dawn, and a particularly violent script by Lydia Woodward was chosen to keep the episode nice and Tarantino-y.

(YouTube Link)

Tarantino was paid $30,000 for the episode, and he was hoping to come back as a recurring episode, but alas Quentin would steer clear of television for ten years until returning in 2005 to direct an episode of CSI.

Read more about When Quentin Tarantino Directed An Episode Of ER at mental_floss

Do you see anything wrong with this photo recently posted on Imgur?

(Image Link)

I didn't really see anything but a photo of a bald guy nuzzling an infant child, but many people online are claiming they don't see a bald guy at all- they see a hairy butt hanging above the baby's head.

This optical illusion is caused by a combination of heavy body hair, baldness and the father's posture, and Internetters from all over the world have shared, and shared a laugh about, this funny optical illusion photo.

-Via Daily Mail

Watch a demonstration of the visual effects work in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but only if you’ve seen the movie, since there are plot points revealed here. I would suggest watching it in full-screen mode, since it's shown mostly in split screen.

(Daily Motion link)

The Force Awakens has been nominated for five Academy Awards, all in technical categories. The lack of pre-release viewing for critics may have contributed to the film receiving no major nominations for acting or directing, but it's up for Oscars in Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, and Original Score. And deservedly so. Still, there's no guarantee of winning. Mad Max: Fury Road received ten nominations, in many of the same categories (plus Best Picture and Best Director), and the technical aspects of that movie were quite stunning. -via io9