Han Shot Greedo First!

Today, the original "Star Wars" trilogy is being released to DVD, to great fanfare.

Hmph. Not from me.

Sure, I ran to the theatre and spent my geekboy dollars like everyone else when Lucas "remastered" the original films, adding in millions of dollars of Jar-Jaresque CGI to "fill out" the films to the "way he wanted to do them originally."

Which is all fine and good. I mean, they are his movies, after all.

I didn't mind all the "extras" added in to the Mos Eisley scene - I thought they were kind of fun (even if the Jawas getting swung around by the big elephant thingy was a bit evocative of the (shudder) Ewok cutesy thing). Adding back in the "lost" scene with Han and Jabba was cool, and added to the overall flow of the whole series (and having Boba Fett mad dog the camera before he walked offscreen was so very choice).

But.

I take exception to one scene, and one scene only.

In the original scene, when Han is confronted by Greedo, he slowly unlatches the safety on his laser pistol, and waits for the proper moment:

Cue Han Solo: "Yeah, I'll bet you have."
ZZZZAP!!!!!
Cue Greedo falling over, crispy-fired.

In the New! And! Improved! version, it goes more like this:

Cue Han Solo: "Yeah, I'll bet you have."
Cue CGI to A) fire a laser beam from the direction of Greedo towards Han and B) to FREAKING LAMELY MOVE HAN'S HEAD THREE INCHES TO THE LEFT to avoid Greedo's new "first blood" attempt.
ZZZZAP!!!!!
Cue Greedo falling over, crispy-fired.
Note to digital editors: make sure to include the smoking carbonized mark on the wall of the booth behind Han's head, just in case we missed the fact that that no-good Rodian FIRED FIRST.


"I grow tired of asking this, so it will be for the last time: when will George release the ORIGINAL cuts of the films to DVD?"

Well, friends n' neighbors, those of us who saw the original edition of the movie (mid-June 1977, with my brother Bob), we know the truth.

Han shot Greedo first.

I mean, the dude's a friggin' *pirate*, for cryin' out loud. Are we to think he's never taken the first shot? It kind of waters down the whole swashbuckling, self-serving, eyes-in-the-back-of-his-head character that Han was when we first met him.

What's next, taking the guns out of the hands of the policemen chasing Elliot and his friends in "E.T."?

As I said before, ol' George has the prerogative to change whatever he wants to about his movies.

But I'm just worried that this was some sort of politically-correct whitewashing of one of filmdom's great space privateers.

Besides, it would've been cool (and I'm sure wouldn't have cost that much) to include the original cuts of the films in the DVD package. A lot of studios do similar things - "Lilo and Stitch" came with the widescreen on one side of the disc and the standard screen on the other, for example.

Just my two Galactic credits worth.