Lucas Admits it...Finally

[Hobbit]

At the link below is a picture of George Lucas wearing the proverbial white flag, a "Han Shot First" t-shirt.

http://www.hellblazer.net/2007/07/23/recursion-shot-first/

Take that, Special Edition!

[googergieger]

star trek>

[Sharktopus]

It's almost as if George's sense of humor didn't completely wither and die sometime in the early '90s. One of his kids must've given it to him.

I like this version better:

[gbeenie]

I was gonna post this, but I see you beat me to it; notice in the second photo that he's standing near Harrison Ford.

[Chaos]

The fact that I don't get the relevance gives me hope for my nerd soul.

[BEERxTaco]

Ya I don't get it either, but that's cool...

I'm not really a geek, I just play one on TV...

[YoohooRiffer]

I just looked it up....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first

[mrbasehart]

*sigh*  I know this because friends of mine are Star Wars nerds.

When George released the updated Special Editions for their anniversay, one of the most contentious changes was the exchange between Greedo and Han in the Tatooine Cantina.  In the original Greedo and Han have an arguement about something and Han shoots him under the table.  In the updated version, Lucas added some graphics to show that Greedo had shot first, and Han was just killing him out of self-defence.  Fans were angry.  Hence the t-shirts.

[BEERxTaco]

Ohhhhh, so it was important... 

Thanks for the background Richard  It makes somewhat more sense now lol

*sigh*  I know this because friends of mine are Star Wars nerds.

Yeah, right. Nice try 

[mrbasehart]

Well, the fans' arguement is that the change of the scene fundamentally changes the character of Han Solo.  In the original, he shoots first because he's a little cold-blooded, and unwilling to give the dangerous Greedo a chance to kill him (kinda like John Wayne's character in Rio Bravo) in the revamp, he's like any other action hero.  I, personally, could care less. 

[BEERxTaco]

  I, personally, could care less. 

And for this, I cheerfully label you "normal". Next pint's on me 

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Ohhhhh, so it was important... 

Let me put it this way....

If you were a huge Godfather fan....and someone (Coppolla) decided that they wanted Michael to look like less of a "bad guy" and had either Sollozzo or McCluskey shoot at him first. in the restaurant...

Only they don't have them shoot at Michael as a trained police marksman or a successful button man would at that short range.....they fire the gun wildly up at the ceiling!  Therefore (supposedly) making Michael killing them appear to be self-defense when there was no real danger to the character - and all because of some cock-eyed PC crap about violence in movies.

That's basically what Lucas did with that scene with Greedo in the "Special Edition" of Star Wars.

But I still consider replacing the actor who originally played Anakin in RotJ with Hayden Christensen as big or bigger a crime on Lucas' part.  Seeing him standing next to Yoda in the afterlife turns my stomach.  Padme deserves to be there more than he does...and she was a Sith enabler.

Thing is, in the pic....most likely Lucas is wearing it as a joke.  Laughing at the fans again.

But then, making this new Indy movie might be the same thing.

[kodiakthejuggler]

Essentially, Lucas changed Han Solo from a complete Badass to just some bendy-necked dude who was defending himself.

Totally changed the impact of the scene. Like Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck says, it would be like changing the end of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; to have Clint Eastwood's character just rig both bad guys' guns to not fire, and have him go and slap them on the face, instead of dropping that jerk on the spot and leaving Tucco to swelter in the hot Western sun.

Get the idea?   

[Chaos]

At last, I have seen the light.

See, I never bothered to see the "special edition" of Star Wars, because I was quite confident that it would be total shite. Graphics can never be more important than story - and intentionally substituting graphics for story is a death knell for any movie of potential quality.

But in any case - thanks for the explanation, for those of us who had no idea what the point of the picture was.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

At last, I have seen the light.

See, I never bothered to see the "special edition" of Star Wars, because I was quite confident that it would be total shite. Graphics can never be more important than story - and intentionally substituting graphics for story is a death knell for any movie of potential quality.

But in any case - thanks for the explanation, for those of us who had no idea what the point of the picture was.

I will admit that there are a few little bits of extra (unused) footage that were nice to see.  For instance, seeing Luke shake hands and hugging Wedge at the end of RotJ.   And they cleaned up goof ups like the "H" shaped matt space where a TIE fighter should have been on the bottom of the Falcon during the space battle at the end...and the repairs to the shadow of the Emperor's hood on his face aren't so obvious anymore.

But things like the Greedo shooting, the scene with Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars with the human actor covered by a CGI Jabba and Boba Fett just walking through scenes were he wasn't before when I still don't get the point of him past Attack of the Clones (and even then).....

Too much fiddling for the sake of it.