Han Shot First

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Image of Han and Greedo's pre-shooting conversation found here.

I don't know what made me think of this. But here it is: Han shot first. Star Wars fans probably already know about this whole controversy. For those of you who don't, here it is in the nutshell: In the original theatrical release of Star Wars: A New Hope, Han blows Greedo away before Greedo shoots at him. In the 1990's, when the special editions came out, an addle-brained Lucas decided that this made Han look cold-blooded. So Lucas re-edited the scene to have Greedo shoot Han and miss (from across a table!) and then Han shoots him.

It is so much better with Han shooting first. Han isn't a nice guy, at least not at the beginning of A New Hope. That's the whole point of his character: he's a foil to all the moralizing do-gooders in the Rebel Alliance. (I find a Han's cynical, mercenary perspective is sorely missed in episodes 1-3.) He's one of Luke's fist contacts with the rough-and-tumble larger universe. And it's demeaning to Greedo (and Rodians in general) to have him miss at point blank range. Rodians are supposed to be a race of hunters, after all. Of course, Star Wars is notorious for entities whose marksmanship does not live up to its hype.

Star Wars fans have expressed strong feelings about this, as fan-made graphics like this one attest:
Apparently, Lucas has a sense of humor about this, as according to the Wikipedia entry linked above he was seen in 1997 wearing a "Han Shot First" t-shirt.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm sure you're tired of me pointing this out, but what really bugs me is that it would have been so easy to address Lucas' concerns without ruining the scene: just add something, say a close-up of Greedo's finger tightening around the trigger, to make it obvious that Greedo is about to shoot. Such a solution doesn't fully satisfy your problems with Lucas' tampering, but it does seem parsecs better.
7:48 PM, August 09, 2007
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