Regarding this whole "Greedo shoots first" nonsense...

Okay, bear with me for a moment, because I'm about to dork the hell out on you.

Our very own Justin Patterson sent me this comic, which makes light of the whole "Greedo shoots first" bit from STAR WARS. Now, while it's pretty funny stuff, it got me to thinking. You see, ever since the first time I saw the Special Edition of STAR WARS in theaters seven and a half years ago, this change has been one of the ones that bugged me the most. When I wrote my article on why the Special Editions suck earlier this year, I briefly covered this point. Here is what I wrote at that time:

Okay, you're George Lucas. You've created the most popular trilogy of movies in history. Part of the reason for that popularity is the cool characters. In particular, you've got the rugged and heroic space pirate Han Solo. Now, let's say you have a scene between said character and a Bounty Hunter who aims to kill him. Would you say that it makes the spiffy pirate guy seem cooler if, say, he outsmarted the creepy Bounty Hunter and blew his head off first, or rather if the Bounty Hunter shot first, missed, and then the pirate fires back in self-defense. Yeah, I thought so. In the original edition, Han Solo shoots first. It rules. It got cheers from crowds. So Lucas "fixes" this by having him be a trembling coward who only fires as a last resort. My theater actually booed the scene. Lucas says that the new version better represents his "vision of the scene". If that's the case, then I'm wondering if Lucas also originally indicated for Darth Vader to have a puppy. Would have been about the same for dismantling the coolness of a character.

Now, I covered the basics there. But, you see, there's even more reason to be outraged.

One of these other reasons this scene is stupid is because Greedo is sitting like three feet away from Han. This is lampooned in the comic I posted, but it's something that was bugging me to begin with. If Greedo's such a lousy shot, how does he get work as a bounty hunter?

Second, and this is most important, is the fact that Greedo even shoots at all. He's a bounty hunter, sure. But as we know from Boba Fett by watching THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, "he's no good to me dead."

You see, Han owes Jabba money. He can't very well pay Jabba back if he's got a gaping laser wound in his head, can he? If you need further proof of this, in the very next scene in the Special Edition, Han runs in to Jabba in the hangar. Jabba has every opportunity in the world to blow Han away here, but he doesn't. He gives the guy one last shot to get his money, which leads us to his eventual capture by Boba Fett.

So, in other words, this scene sucks on multiple levels. And don't give me that bullshit about how Lucas changed it again and now they fire at the same time. It doesn't matter. Greedo still should have never fired his blaster.

- posted by Noel @ 1:53 PM

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