THE WASHINGTON POST – George Lucas: To feel the true force of ‘Star Wars,’ he had to learn to let it go

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/george-lucas-to-feel-the-true-force-of-star-wars-he-had-to-learn-to-let-it-go/2015/11/27/d752067a-8b1f-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html

There are a number of interesting tidbits in this article (some have been covered over the years) but I do find it interesting that George continues to defend the Han/Greedo switcheroo.

His first step was to digitally revise the older “Star Wars” films and rerelease them in theaters in 1997. > He’s a passionate defender of an artist’s right to go back and tweak his work, which is why Lucasfilm
cleaned up the matte lines visible on the original trilogy’s space battles and added more creatures and
humanoids to crowd scenes. It was like taking a refurbished car out for a spin.

Piggybacking off his own analogy, the changes are like bolting a spoiler onto an already beautiful car where there was no spoiler option. What’s the point? If you are just shining it up and making it look as good as you can – great. But that’s not what this was.

He also went back to some scenes that had always bothered him, particularly in the 1977 film: When Han
Solo (Harrison Ford) is threatened by Greedo, a bounty hunter working for the sluglike gangster Jabba the > Hutt, Han reaches for his blaster and shoots Greedo by surprise underneath a cantina table.

In the new version, it is Greedo who shoots first, by a split second. Deeply offended fans saw it as
sacrilege; Lucas will probably go to his grave defending it. When Han shot first, he says, it ran counter > to “Star Wars’ ” principles.

“Han Solo was going to marry Leia, and you look back and say, ‘Should he be a cold-blooded killer?’ ”
Lucas asks. “Because I was thinking mythologically — should he be a cowboy, should he be John Wayne? And I > said, ‘Yeah, he should be John Wayne.’ And when you’re John Wayne, you don’t shoot people [first] — you
let them have the first shot. It’s a mythological reality that we hope our society pays attention to.”

Kill me.

Also of interest is this On Topic EW article: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/30/george-lucas-han-shoot-first. There’s a clip of someone from Sirius XM asking JJ Abrams if Han shot first. His answer should not surprise you.

Hell Yes.

Preach.

Han was never a “cold-blooded killer”. Greedo was gonna kill Han no matter what. He had just said so!

Han- Over my dead body.
Greedo- That’s the idea…

Han’s actions were perfectly justified. If I ever find myself in a it’s-him-or-me situation, you can bet your ass it’ll be him. And he won’t get to shoot first and miss wildly at point blank range.

ray_afraid said:

Han was never a “cold-blooded killer”. Greedo was gonna kill Han no matter what. He had just said so!

Han- Over my dead body.
Greedo- That’s the idea…

Han’s actions were perfectly justified. If I ever find myself in a it’s-him-or-me situation, you can bet your ass it’ll be him. And he won’t get to shoot first and miss wildly at point blank range.

Exactly, anyone would. His life was threatened and he was at the wrong end of a bounty hunters weapon. In that moment it is kill or be killed.

I don’t understand how George can be that far removed from reality but…whatever.

GlastoEls said:

Also of interest is this On Topic EW article: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/30/george-lucas-han-shoot-first. There’s a clip of someone from Sirius XM asking JJ Abrams if Han shot first. His answer should not surprise you.

Hell Yes.

And this is how it should get done.

The newer generation - Abrams, Johnson, Edwards - letting Kennedy know…

No doubt. I’m pleased that the Sequel Trilogy will be made by members of Gen X (my generation) who grew up on the originals. I’m certain that any future Saga trilogies will be made by other generations and take a different tone, perhaps.

There was an interesting article about this very topic in The Atlantic (I think!?) about 2 months ago.

Surely, there must be an old Western where The Duke shoots first? 😉

Making Han a nice fellow who lets the bad guy get off the first shot, doesn’t change the fact he was smuggling drugs for Jabba. 😉

And he hasn’t used the internet in 15 years because “fans are mean”. Wait - What - SRSLY?

Lucas can make all the changes he wants, but should also give more respect to the originals, the ones which made Star Wars what is today. I’ll never understand why he can’t do like Scott and release both versions, is he THAT ashamed of his early works?
In any case, I understand his take on Han, but his “Greedo shot first”'s edit looks terrible and awkward, not the way to go.