George Lucas Says Greedo Always Shot First

[targren]

As you're not a fan, this may well not affect you as you say, but then your much vaunted "Common Sense" should have had you staying out of it if you don't have a horse in the race. Instead, you came in anyway, proved you had little idea what you're talking about, and added nothing to the discussion.

Not a fan? I love Star Wars. Grew up with 1, 2 and 3, KOTOR, the Jedi Knight games, and so on.

I just never really enjoyed episode 4, 5 and 6.

But then I remembered something. I'm trying to argue with Original Trilogy fans. The most annoying group of fans I have ever seen in my life. I should have realized that they will go away once people stop paying attention to them.

I didn't say you weren't a fan of any of it. You said yourself that you're not a fan of the actual subject being discussed, which is Episode IV. And now you're just trolling and flamebaiting.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

anc[is]Doesn't matter who shot first. At the end of the day Han is just as good a character as the rest of the humans in the Star Wars movies. Terrible and completely unlikable.

*thumbs up*

 

[cyrad]

George, do you even know what a cold-blooded killer is?

Greedo pretty much says "I'm going to murder you and steal your ship." Exactly how does killing his would-be murderer paint Han Solo as a cold-blooded killer?

A better and cheaper alternative would be just changing Greedo's dialogue so his intentions are more clear. Since Greedo's dialogue is all subtitles, it would be a lot easier to do than using digital manipulation to add special effects and move someone's head.

Did you even consider the scenes surrounding this? Just two scenes ago, Obi Wan chops a dude's arm off for shoving Luke against a table. Even when I was a kid, I thought that was more cold-blooded than Han shooting Greedo.


Oh pleases, don't get any ideas.

 

[BrownGaijin]

Even though Lucas is right, he's wrong.

I fully believe that what he says is correct, that he originally filmed it with Greedo shooting first as we see in the special edition.

I also believe that one of the editors, likely Marcia Lucas looking at the other films she's edited, was smart enough to chop that bit out and so give us a Han Solo who isn't simply a caricature and has a bit of depth/edge to him.

So he's right. It was always his original intention, but it's wrong in that it's the movie we got, or that it was a worse one for not being clear about his intention.

No Jek Porkins knocked Greedo making him miss lmao.

Snip. (Very long and passionate testimony made by George Lucas to Congress about altering old movies.)

I was going to say something witty about the whole thing, but I just wanted to say that among all the posts these are the best arguments. Well the first and the last; I quoted Tiger Sora's because it was funny as hell.

Anyways please feel free to take a bow.

 

[MB202]

Wow... Lucas is REALLY persistent about this, isn't he?

 

[AnotherAvatar]

George Lucas = Maximum Trolling.

 

[Swyftstar]

The thing that I don't get is why does Han shooting first make him a bad guy to Lucas. He was face to face with a bounty hunter who wanted to take him to what was most likely his death. Whether he shot first, second or third after some jittery guy in the bar shot becaus he heard a shot makes no difference, Greedo was shot in self defense.

 

[floppylobster]

So if Greedo shoots first then what was the point of the scene?

Without it the character development is taken out. The surprise is taken out, and it changes from a nicely structured scene where we suddenly think Luke might be in over his head joining up with this guy, to a predictable confrontation between Han and Greedo. It just becomes a long scene in which we discover (within a few seconds - no need for a whole scene) that Han is wanted by bounty hunters. At no point do we expect a newly introduced character is going to be shot and killed by a side character, then lo and behold, he doesn't. What a waste of a time and a scene.

Obviously George is lying just to fuck with the fans. That, or this is the proof that he's never seen the original films himself.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Those of you crying insanity and ruined forever are getting trolled pretty damn hard, I would suppose; he's gone out of the major movie industry because of the fans' unpleasable nature, for crying out loud. At this point is seems he's just getting you people worked up for fun, and honestly, I can't blame him anymore.

 

[Alexias_Sandar]

Not to mention never read the book he himself supposedly helped write... There's such a thing as failure, and such a thing as simply not doing your job. If he wanted to have Greedo shoot first, he had his opportunity to clarify things there quite well. He didn't. If a book he supposedly co-authored says Han Shot First? I'd say Han Shot First.

 

[ckam]

Yeah, I think we should just stop paying attention to this guy. This is just another thing that will be gone in the wind a few weeks from now.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

It's not whether or not Han shot first that people care about. It's that he altered the scene and in the process made it much more awkward and weird looking than it was originally.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

OK, now he's just fucking trolling. Does George Lucas WANT to be hated by the fanboys?

 

[Sejs Cube]

Man, George Lucas really has retreated into his own little world as the years have gone by. I even have a hard time being outraged by this shit anymore on account of how on some level it's all really just kind of sad.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

Pssha. Ol' Georgy was deemed insane by his fanbase years ago.

 

[zehydra]

This just in, George Lucas has NO RESPECT for the intelligence of his fans.

Guess what George: we just lost all respect for you, too. Go away now.

What are you talking about? I've ALWAYS thought Greedo shot first, even on my VHS collectors edition back when I was 7.

 

[Masterdebator]

Senile would be a good word to describe Lucas at this point.

 

[Therumancer]

This just utterly amazes me.

Let me be blunt, even if George Lucas was technically right here, people thinking Han shot first is one of the defining moments of the movie and one of the big things that sold it, and helped turn Han Solo into one of the defining characters in modern Space-Fantasy. George can't be oblivious to that fact and even if he is right is pretty thick for wanting to
change things.

In short, there is no good way for him to spin this, he should never have messed with it. If there was a mistake, the movie benefitted from it.

Of course then again, what do you expect from the guy who is famous for having been one of the first people to take space fantasy seriously, and has been gradually kiddifying it ever since. From where I'm sitting his motives are understandable, a stone cold killer doesn't work in a world populated by cutesy muppets and adorable droids everywhere. In trying to make things more child-friendly he misses the entire point.

 

[Mike Fang]

Yeah, it sounds like Lucas is desperately trying to justify his revisions, which is really dumb. I'm not a complete Star Wars nerd, but I have enjoyed the original trilogy and -parts- of the prequel trilogy. I've played a few of the games, but not all of them. So, coming from a casual Star Wars fan, it's always been my opinion that a) Han did in fact, shoot first and b) it was STILL self defense. Why? Well just watch the original scene. Greedo had a blaster pointed at Han. Han tried to reason with him, but Greedo wouldn't hear it. He then sounded like he was getting ready to pull the trigger, so Han, rather than waiting for the blaster pointed at his chest by the guy who hates him to actually go off at point blank range, shoots him. I doubt there are many courts that would convict Han on that sort of evidence.