Gone Hollywood

After getting a bunch of Lego sets for his birthday, my son came up with the idea of using his new figures to make a stop-motion film. Seems like a grand vision, but he's been watching thing like this on YouTube for years:

If others can do it, then certainly so could he. He took his phone (it used to be my phone several years ago. It can't make calls or text, he can only use it to play games or take pictures) and my tripod, and went up to his room to take pictures for the story he'd imagined about stormtroopers.

He was up there, quiet long enough that my wife started wondering what was going on. He didn't leave her alone for that long unless he was watching a TV show or playing Minecraft, but she didn't see him doing either of those things. 

At last, he came back down and said, "making a movie is harder than I thought." I guess he'd grown frustrated with all the problems that are inherent in making a stop-motion film. He'd had enough, and quit.

I thought that it had ended there, but it hadn't. Later, he was asking my wife for a stamp. He had a letter he wanted to send. I found the stamps, and gave him one, but we didn't know what exactly was going on. He went out and mailed the letter himself.

Truthfully, I was only vaguely aware that he'd done that at all. Here and there he asks for stamps, and it's almost always because he wants to send a letter to my oldest son who moved away. This one was different. This letter was for someone else.

After about a week, the nine-year-old started asking if a letter had come in the mail addressed to him. He was sad but undaunted each time we told him no. When I asked my wife just what exactly this letter thing was all about, she said that all she knew was that he sent a letter to Disney.

At last, just today, Little opened the mailbox, and a letter was there. Unfortunately, it was his letter marked return to sender. The sticker on the envelope said the letter could not be delivered to the address on the envelope. It's not really surprising when you look at the envelope:

My son says he found the address online, but the fact that he wrote NT instead of NY for the state abbreviation might be one of the reasons why the letter came back. The lack of an addressee could be an issue too. More likely than any of those, though, is that the address he found online is not a mailing address, and letters don't get delivered there. That's my guess, anyway.

I opened the letter, just to see what exactly my son had written in there. The letter was to Bob Iger, the executive chairman of Disney. Here's what it said:

Having trouble reading it? You can click on the picture to enlarge it, or you can just read my transcription below:

Hello Bob Iger,

So I thought I could make a Star Wars movie, but I am only eight years old, so if you could make it and I send the script that would be great. But the movie is about 3 kinds of storm trooper.

It continued a little on the other side:

Again, click on the picture to enlarge if you need to, or just read my transcription:

The only thing is that I...never mind.

Sincerely,

Little Anklevich

So, he tried to make a Lego Star Wars stop-motion movie, but found it to be difficult. However, rather than give up altogether, he went straight to the top. He wrote a letter to the executive chairman of Disney, Bob Iger, and asked Disney to make the movie for him. 

I don't know if he had the best sales pitch for the story, especially that bit on the back side of the page, but I suppose I've got to respect the willingness to try.

He wanted to put it right back in the mail after correcting NT to NY on the address, but I distracted him, and put the letter into his memory box after he went to school. No need to waste another stamp. I think the letter will serve better as something humorous to look back on ten or twenty years from now.