‘Whether or not Han Solo shot first’ is one of the biggest debates ever. It’s somewhere akin to the health care issue in the United States or whether global warming exists or not. You have Star Wars geeks of all creeds and color going at it back and forth about whether or not Han was a hero by not shooting first, or if he was a cold blooded killer for being shooter numero uno.
Personally, I always felt that Han definitely shot first when I was a youngling, and justifiably so. I think it qualifies as self defense when some scumbag Rodian has a gun pointed right at you and is gloating about taking away your starship and/or turning you over to a disgusting, oversized slug gangster. To tell you the truth I never actually thought twice about the whole situation.
Then came the special edition releases of the Star Wars trilogy and the modified scene where Han looks like he had a slight seizure to dodge a blaster bolt that harmlessly hits against the wall. I remember being in middle school and thinking not much of it, but after watching the movie about 80 more times it sort of started to bug me about why they did that, and why it looked so terrible. It was something that many fans including myself had hoped would disappear once all six Star Wars movies were released on Blu-Ray, but it was to no avail. George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars franchise claimed time and again that he added the scene because he didn’t want Han to look like some cold blooded killer. But if that was the case then why have the scene be so shoddy in the first place? Why not just fix this shit in the 70’s so we don’t have to waste our geek time debating it now?
Since then, there has been a recent development. This one is coming straight from the source. The Maker and flannel bearer himself George Lucas has recently had this say to the whole Han-Greedo debacle (IGN):
[quote]In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter (via /Film), Lucas said, “The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.” [/quote]
Oh yes George. We, the violent masses want nothing more than for our beloved Han Solo to be a murdering psychopath who just guns down every Rodian he sees. Really? I don’t think that anyone was upset due to the fact that Lucas’ terrible wide shot proved that Greedo shot first, I think they’re mad because you did such a crap job about it in the special editions. Lucas should have either left the whole thing up to interpretation or done a better job way back when. And yeah, I guess Han should be looking at keeping his image clean without any bar room murder, despite the fact that he’s already a f–kin’ smuggler and self-proclaimed scoundrel. (He did like the sound of that.) Either way I guess it doesn’t matter because Lucas will leave things that way that he wants. So that means all of the Star Wars geeks will remain looking like idiots as they argue over which guy shot first. Seriously say those last four words again, it doesn’t sound good at all.
Grizzly Bomb 