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Interesting tidbit about who shot first — Page 2

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Originally posted by: Tiptup
Seriously? You have no tension when you watch that scene? Han pulling his blaster out of its holster and aiming it at Greedo the under the table? Greedo saying that Han was going to soon be dead and that he was looking forward to "this" for a long time? Then a big white explosion obscurring who was able to fire his blaster first?

Plenty of tension for me.

Though I will admit that the SE kind of removes all of the fun from that scene somehow . . . like an annoying headache.
There's certainly something going on in the scene when we cut to Han, but in terms of Greedo, there's nothing happening. Sure, his dialogue mentions he's about to do something to Han, but not for a moment does it actually look like he's gonna pull the trigger. He's just waving a blaster around like an idiot, talking big, and looking like he's got no intention to use the thing. Then Han kills him.

Personally, I have no problem with the way the scene played out in the original version. According to Lucas though, he only added Greedo shooting because he assessed the scene the same way I did. Greedo had no clue what was going on. The dialogue indicates that he does, but that could've been dubbed in or rewritten later. He's just a sitting duck. If Han shoots him, fine. My point was that if Lucas really did want to show that Greedo knew what was happening, he could've saved the trouble of adding silly laser effects and digitally shifting Harrison Ford by cutting in a quick shot of Greedo about to pull the trigger.

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Go-Mer ... which is correct? A) Copyrights that expire in 5 years, with art then belonging to the public domain ... or B) Copyrights that survive for the life of the copyright holder PLUS 75 years, and only then revert to the public domain?

One is copyright law in the 1920s and the other is copyright law today. Is one right and the other wrong? Or are each potentially just, but one coming after corporations have usurped a great amount of power and authority that used to belong to the American people in a republic created by the people, of the people and for the people?



Personally, I come down somewhere in the middle. I think the creator of art should make all the money that can be made from sale of his art in a reasonable amount of time (say, 20 years). But art is unique in that it is put "out there" and, at some point, becomes indelibly part of the culture at large and thus legally public domain. I think that happens long before the artist grows old and dies, much less 75 years later.


In my morality, which would be exceedingly generous to copyright holders a mere 80 years ago, Star Wars would have long become part of the public domain. Whatever your particular take on copyright law might be, will you deny that Star Wars has become an indelible part of the culture at large???
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Go-Mer, I believe you weren't around in the beginning to witness it, but what I think is interesting is that this was never even an issue prior to the SEs coming out in 1997. I never once heard anyone doubt who shot and who didn't, or whether or not Han was a "cold-blooded killer". It made sense back then. Only after 1997 was the controversy created.

--SKot

Projects:
Return Of The Ewok and Other Short Films (with OCPmovie) [COMPLETED]
Preserving the…cringe…Star Wars Holiday Special [COMPLETED]
The Star Wars TV Commercials Project [DORMANT]
Felix the Cat 1919-1930 early film shorts preservation [ONGOING]
Lights Out! (lost TV anthology shows) [ONGOING]
Iznogoud (1995 animated series) English audio preservation [ONGOING]

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Okay, and when the controversy started, wasn't it about how this alteration "changed Han Solo's character"?

I don't think anyone had any doubt that Han shot Greedo in the original version without Greedo getting a shot off at all. I'm not saying Greedo originaly shot first and not everyone noticed, I'm saying it's entirely possible that Lucas originally wanted Greedo to shoot first, but didn't get the right shot for the original version of the movie and then just made sure it was clear that the plan was to kill Han so it would still be a clear case of self-defense, as he says is the case.

I don't think everyone realized that Han was going to be killed if he hadn't shot Greedo. Not everyone pays attention to subtitles in a movie like this.

By the way I'm 35.

As far as copyright and when things should become "public domain" I don't see why the original creator of said art shouldnt' be able to claim ownership until the end of his days, and I don't see a big problem with them being able to set it up so that their decendants can claim ownership beyond their years. It's something they created, and should have every right to make money off of that indefinately. So the rest of us have to pay to enjoy that art. I think that's fair.
Your focus determines your reality.
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That's all well and good Go-Mer, and you are entitled to that opinion. I was simply trying to point out that it's not cut-and-dried, and that there has been quite a shift in copyright ownership rights over the last century, while art itself has existed for millennia.


So, if an artist's heirs have rights to ownership in your view, do you believe in the public domain at all?
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If nobody exists to own said art anymore then I could see it becoming public domain.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Go-Mer, watch the scene from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" where Tuco says the line: "When you have to shoot, shoot! Don't talk."
And Gary Kurtz didn't just say Lucas never intended to have Greedo shoot, he said it would have been very easy to do that if Lucas wanted to. People who worked on that scene have even said Lucas never attempted to make Greedo fire. Painting in a laserbolt was not beyond 1970's technology.
And I think copyright and patent laws may actually protect people from corporations. You make this great new invention. It takes a lot of your work and resources and it will be very slow going for you as an individual to duplicate, market and sell it to many people. A corporation sees your design, likes it a lot and with their superior resouces, money and equipment are selling hundreds that they make a huge profit on without compensating you for it.

Take back the trilogy. Execute Order '77

http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

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I know what Kurtz said, but it still comes down to 2 guys who have 2 different stories, and when it comes to "Lucas' intentions", I give the edge to Lucas' statements over Kurtz's speculation.

Maybe Lucas didn't keep Kurtz abreast of everything that he was thinking about. Lucas is known for his quiet, reserved demanor. For most people all they ever got out of him was "faster" or "more intense".

Lucas says he ran out of time and money and chose to live with the way his shots turned out rather than try and do more shots. Kurtz says he doesn't understand why Lucas would say they couldn't have done more, but then again, Lucas said his biggest problem with Kurtz was that he never said no to anything. As I understand it, the reason they stopped working together was because of the fact they went so far over budget with Kurtz as producer.

I don't think anyone disputes the solid wall of time and money they were up against while making ANH. At the very end they had to split into 3 film units to wrap everything up because the Studio was about to pull the plug if they didn't finish ASAP.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic

As far as not understanding the simple elegance of the way the Han/Greedo sequence played out before, I do understand that. I didn't mind it the way it was, but at the same time I can see why Lucas wanted to change it and in the end it's not that big of a deal to me.


It's a big deal to me! We're supposed to believe that Greedo, probably well accustomed to aiming his blaster, was holding it two feet or less away from Han and missed, shooting at the wall?! That's very hard to believe. If anything, Lucas' alteration makes me wonder if Greedo was even trying to shoot Han at all.

Uhg, and that horrible cgi head of Han's! It makes a very unnaturtal twitch in an effort to dodge the gun blast that wouldn't have even hit his head whether it twitched or not! It was so much better before.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
Okay, and when the controversy started, wasn't it about how this alteration "changed Han Solo's character"? I don't speak for anyone else, but my main complaint when I saw this change in the SE was that it looked absolutely stupid and unconvincing.

I don't think anyone had any doubt that Han shot Greedo in the original version without Greedo getting a shot off at all. I'm not saying Greedo originaly shot first and not everyone noticed, I'm saying it's entirely possible that Lucas originally wanted Greedo to shoot first, but didn't get the right shot for the original version of the movie and then just made sure it was clear that the plan was to kill Han so it would still be a clear case of self-defense, as he says is the case. I understand, but I don't buy it. Nor do I buy what Lucas says about it now, because it has been made abundantly clear that he changes his version of history constantly (both in his films and in real life, in fact). I still love the guy, but damn... I wish he wasn't so obsessed with "improving" the past.

I don't think everyone realized that Han was going to be killed if he hadn't shot Greedo. Not everyone pays attention to subtitles in a movie like this.
It's hard for me to picture anyone not realizing this. I had zero doubt from the very beginning that Han's life was in grave danger.

By the way I'm 35.
I stand corrected then. I thought I'd seen you say that you were too young to have seen the films when they came out, but it must have been someone else.

--SKot

Projects:
Return Of The Ewok and Other Short Films (with OCPmovie) [COMPLETED]
Preserving the…cringe…Star Wars Holiday Special [COMPLETED]
The Star Wars TV Commercials Project [DORMANT]
Felix the Cat 1919-1930 early film shorts preservation [ONGOING]
Lights Out! (lost TV anthology shows) [ONGOING]
Iznogoud (1995 animated series) English audio preservation [ONGOING]

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Originally posted by: Tiptup
Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
As far as not understanding the simple elegance of the way the Han/Greedo sequence played out before, I do understand that. I didn't mind it the way it was, but at the same time I can see why Lucas wanted to change it and in the end it's not that big of a deal to me. It's a big deal to me! We're supposed to believe that Greedo, probably well accustomed to aiming his blaster, was holding it two feet or less away from Han and missed, shooting at the wall?! That's very hard to believe. If anything, Lucas' alteration makes me wonder if Greedo was even trying to shoot Han at all.
The way I roll along with this is blasters are just "clumsey and random". At first I thought there was a huge contradiction between Ben's "And these blast points too accurate for sand people.", and the way Han Luke Leia and co. just keep running all over the Death Star with nothing hitting them the whole time. Then I explained it with the idea that they were just letting them escape which was the case, but it never sat well with me that they never seem to get better in the rest of the saga. Now the way I see it is that blasters are just really hard to aim because the energy bolts themselves have a bit of randomness to them. And Ben's statement about the "blast points" were really reffering to the locations they chose to take out on the Sandcrawler. They knew exactly where to hit it, not that their aim was "so precise". Now I'm all good with all of it.Originally posted by: Tiptup
Uhg, and that horrible cgi head of Han's! It makes a very unnaturtal twitch in an effort to dodge the gun blast that wouldn't have even hit his head whether it twitched or not! It was so much better before.
I really thought the 97 SE was fairly jarring, but find the 2004 version to be a bit more smoothed out. To tell you the truth, the way they cut to the "exploding Greedo" shot was always pretty jarring to begin with even in the original version of the sequence.

I do think it works just fine the way it was originally, it's just that it also works for me the way it is now too.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
The way I roll along with this is blasters are just "clumsey and random". At first I thought there was a huge contradiction between Ben's "And these blast points too accurate for sand people.", and the way Han Luke Leia and co. just keep running all over the Death Star with nothing hitting them the whole time. Then I explained it with the idea that they were just letting them escape which was the case, but it never sat well with me that they never seem to get better in the rest of the saga. Now the way I see it is that blasters are just really hard to aim because the energy bolts themselves have a bit of randomness to them. And Ben's statement about the "blast points" were really reffering to the locations they chose to take out on the Sandcrawler. They knew exactly where to hit it, not that their aim was "so precise". Now I'm all good with all of it.


That may have very well been one of the most TFNish lines of reasoning I have ever read on these boards. There is no reason to over analyis such details in movies, just enjoy them for what they are (movies) and enjoy the story. Lazers in their very nature accurate. Why would they used lazer if they are impossible to aim with, instead of some soilid object? Also Han seems to be able to hit some pretty small objects in just one hit at times (cameras or auto guns or whatever they are before entering the detention block). Also if we were trying to convert Star Wars to reality, the imperial storm troopers would probably be much better shots than they are. The whole point is not to kill off the main characters, while still having them in what appears to be in an extremely dangerous situation, it is pretty typical in movies. Ever seen a Bond flick? Anybody who is shooting at James Bond suddenly becomes an extremely lousy shot. Sometimes it is just easier to look at things from a real world point of view than trying to take things so seriously. If they would have shown storm troopers being good shots then Luke, Leia, Han and/or Chewie would be dead.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I agree you don't have to think about any of this stuff, you can just enjoy it on an entertainment level. But if I can find a way to allow it to make perfect sense, then all the better.

The guns in Star Wars don't shoot lasers they shoot blaster bolts. The only lasers we really see in the Star Wars movies are the Death Star's main gun and some of the weapons in the Clone Wars like the slow walking laser tanks that bring down one of the Separatist globe thingies as it's trying to take off from Geonosis, and the front cannons on the Republic gun ships. Notice when they fire, you see one continuous beam that connects from the source to the target, which is sustained until the laser is turned off. With the blasters, you see a streak of energy going across the screen. It leaves the source and then impacts the target once it reaches it moments later. The reason they don't use laser guns is because weapon grade lasers take a much larger power supply than can be easily carried around, and the blaster bolt technology is cheaper and the ammo is much more compact. They make up for the lack of accuracy with volume. Also Han is a pretty lucky shot a lot of the time. Chewie has a bow caster which has those magnets on either side of the end of the barrel to help make its shots as accurate as possible, but even then it's not all that precise.

And don't tell me about enjoying the story, I enjoy it just fine thank you very much.
Your focus determines your reality.