Edison the Hutt

A while back, I wrote about Hope’s love of storytelling.

If anything, she’s gotten more into stories. She makes conversations out of them and often I’ll find myself starting one story and finishing another. Hope will ask question after question and try to relate the ongoing story with something she knows about.

Last week, Hope watched part of the movie Hop. The next day, she asked The Civee and I to re-tell her the story of the movie (which we weren’t paying much attention to). So we mentioned the few facts we knew, starting with the Easter Bunny’s son going to Hollywood.

Hope: Where’s Hollywood?

Me: In California.

Hope: Why did he go to Hollywood?

Me: Because that’s where a lot of famous people live.

Hope: Why do they live there?

Me: Because they make a lot of television and movies out in Hollywood.

Hope: Why?

And at this point I saw my chance to get away from talking about Hop to talking about something I knew  about (thanks to my film classes in college). I told her the simplified, kid-friendly story of how in response to Thomas Edison’s attempts to control American filmmaking in the early 1900s, a number of producers went to California and started making movies in Hollywood.

She actually understood all of this. And then came up with an analogy which surprised me.

Hope: So Thomas Edison was like Jabba the Hutt.

(A few months ago, the music from the final scene of Empire came on and she asked about it, so I told her the Rebels were trying to save their friend Han Solo from Jabba, a greedy gangster).

Yes, Hope. Thomas Edison was exactly like Jabba the Hutt.

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