George Lucas, Revisionist: Actually, Han Never Shot First; This Was All Your Misunderstanding And Imagination From The Start

Right. And Jabba the Hutt was always supposed to be a gigantic space slug despite the fact they filmed him in the first movie (deleted scene) and he was just a fat dude in barbarian furs.

And Lucas always had nine chapters planned from the beginning. Don't believe nine? Okay, how about six?

Lucas just keeps making stuff up.

In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter (via /Film), Lucas said, "The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn't. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down."

My, you have to be sitz-tinkler to get all worried about the message you're sending by having Han "gun Greedo down" like a "cold-blooded murderer."

For one thing, you know, Greedo had a gun on him, and announced, clearly, that he intended to kill Han in the next few seconds.

This seems "bad ass" only because of silly movies in the fifties and stuff when singing cowboys always let the bad guy have the first shot. That continued for decades.

It became accepted that Good Guys Always Let the Bad Guys Shoot First. So that in a movie like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, it seemed cold-blooded that Clint Eastwood would whistle for some Bad Guy's attention, then kill them before they had time to reach for their guns.

But it was never really "cold-blooded." Given the context of the fictional scenarios this was occurring in -- these guys were trying to kill the main characters. It wasn't murder. It was just the good guys deciding they're not going to be Total Saps and give away a crucial advantage in a gunfight.

Anyway, this seems more "cold-blooded" than it is. To the extent these films have anything remotely to do with "realism," it's more realistic that you'd just shoot a guy who's aiming to kill you. Without granting him the advantage of getting to shoot first.

Raiders of the Lost Ark? Shocking only because of the movie convention. In real life, if some Swarthy Foreign Heavy with an enormous Ali Baba sword challenged you to a swordfight-- despite your not having a, you know, sword -- what would you do? Engage him in fisticuffs?

Or shoot him? A sword is a deadly weapon, right? It's not like he was only threatening to use harsh language.

None of this would have seemed surprising had it not been established as a movie convention -- and only a convention in the movies -- that good guys are morons who are willing to risk a bullet to the head in the interests of Being Good Sports About This Whole Trying To Murder Each Other Thing.

George Lucas is just really, really silly, and lives in a world of Yes-Men who never call him on his nonsense.

Thanks to @slublog.

Lucas' Real Conception of Han Solo: "Bye everybody!"

posted by Ace at 08:24 PM

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